Workshop_series
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine assembled the ad hoc Committee on State-of-the-Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment to convene state-of-the-science workshops and develop a consensus report to advise the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on further developing the scientific foundation underlying the practice of cumulative impact assessment. This proceedings provides a summary of a workshop series that the committee convened as part of its information-gathering activities. The series included a community-engaged workshop in New Orleans, Louisiana; a virtual Town Hall with members of the community and Tribal liaison group from across the United States; and a Tribal engagement event in Aurora, Colorado. This proceedings has been prepared by the workshop rapporteurs as a summary of what occurred during the workshops.
76 pages
·
7 x 10
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-09923-4
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-09925-0
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29094
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. State of the Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
Decarbonization brings both risks and opportunities to the macroeconomy. Achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century may involve sweeping changes in technologies, policies, and systems, and the ways in which these changes are implemented may have profound impacts on communities, industries, economies, and nations. To elucidate multiple aspects of the ways in which decarbonization and the macroeconomy interact, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, under the auspices of the Roundtable on Macroeconomics and Climate-related Risks and Opportunities, convened a workshop on September 12-13, 2024. In panel discussions, an interactive breakout session, and a poster session, participants explored emerging insights on the macroeconomic and socioeconomic implications of decarbonization strategies and lessons learned from engagement with communities, industries, and governments around decarbonization pathways. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
92 pages
·
6 x 9
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-73466-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73467-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29050
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Macroeconomic Implications for Decarbonization Policies and Actions: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop_in_brief
Communities often face overlapping stressors like pollution, climate change, and social inequities that combine to create more significant health risks and environmental challenges than any single factor alone. Cumulative impact assessments can help scientists and communities understand the impacts of multiple environmental stressors by accounting for the totality of exposures and their cumulative effects over the life course, providing a scientific basis to help guide more equitable and effective decision-making to improve public health, well-being, and environmental resilience.
To understand best practices for cumulative impact assessments and inform future activities, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine assembled an ad hoc committee to convene state of the science workshops and develop a consensus report to advise the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on further developing the scientific foundation underlying the practice of cumulative impact assessment. The committee held its first public workshop, State of the Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment: Workshop 1, on October 15, 2024, to gather information for developing their eventual consensus report. The workshop brought together participants from academic and private research organizations, non-governmental organizations, and government agencies in an online forum to discuss fundamental concepts and methods pertinent to cumulative impact assessment. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
11 pages
·
8.5 x 11
·
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73497-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29058
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. State of the Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
Atypical weather events, such as extreme tropical cyclones, pose substantial threats to life, property and livelihoods in the U.S. and worldwide. Despite major advances in forecasting capabilities, communicating about extreme weather events with decision-makers and the public carries considerable challenges but also provides opportunities for innovation. Decisions surrounding extreme weather events often involve making tradeoffs between different degrees and varieties of risks. For example, deciding whether or when to issue an evacuation order ahead of a tropical cyclone entails tradeoffs between the risks to lives posed by the event and the risks to livelihoods posed by the financial costs of evacuations or relocations.
In early 2024, the National Academies held a workshop on risk communication around extreme tropical cyclones and other atypical climate events. Participants aimed to identify opportunities and challenges for risk communication as well as lessons about community engagement and communication concerning other climate events. Over the course of the workshop, participants addressed various facets of risk communication, including the importance and difficulty of clearly communicating uncertainty to the general public; the importance of understanding the needs of various audiences in the context of effective communication; preparedness as a critical component of an effective response; and the often-profound ways that strong partnerships and relationships across sectors and offices can impact and improve risk communication.
104 pages
·
7 x 10
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-72537-2
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72538-0
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27933
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Advancing Risk Communication with Decision-Makers for Extreme Tropical Cyclones and Other Atypical Climate Events: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Consensus
The National Climate Assessment (NCA) is a report produced periodically by the United States Global Change Research Program that takes a comprehensive look at global climate change. Before release, it undergoes intensive review for technical accuracy. What has not been studied in-depth are the users and uses of the NCA, and how the report has informed decision-making. To support evaluation of stakeholder use of the NCA, the National Academies prepared a strategy for creating and implementing an evaluation design that can inform ongoing and future NCAs and related products. This can support a process of continuous improvement.
The NCA serves a large number of audiences, and they vary in their needs and in access to climate information. An evaluation would benefit from understanding how the audiences for the NCA are interconnected through networks and how they use, modify, and transmit information from the report. The evaluation would also benefit by first creating a logic model to describe how the NCA is hypothesized to achieve its intended outcomes. The logic model can then be used to design a set of overarching evaluation questions, and to prioritize which audiences to target in the evaluation. Different research methods will be appropriate depending on the audience and the level of information available about the audience. Such an evaluation, taken in stages, can reveal the impact of federal climate science on decisions across the nation and help the USGCRP address any gaps and frailties in the NCA and related products and how they are communicated in the future.
138 pages
·
8.5 x 11
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-72500-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72501-1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27923
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Developing a Strategy to Evaluate the National Climate Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
Over the past two decades, wildfires in western North America have greatly increased in frequency, magnitude and severity. Scientists have documented three main causes - a century of suppression and inadequate forest management that has led to overly dense, fuel-rich forests; climate change, turning woodlands and grasslands into hot, dry tinder boxes; and the spread of urbanization, increasing the probability of man-made ignitions. Less well known are the environmental and social implications associated with the acceleration of these trends.
To explore these concerns and to identify possible policy responses, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Board on Environmental Change and Society, in partnership with the Royal Society of Canada, convened a workshop in June 2024, "The Social and Ecological Consequences of Future Wildfire in the West". Over two days, two dozen wildfire experts and a hybrid audience of over 200 participants explored the history, current state, and anticipated future of wildfire science and policy across the western United States and Canada. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshop.
146 pages
·
8.5 x 11
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-72679-4
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72680-8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27972
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Social-Ecological Consequences of Future Wildfires and Smoke in the West: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
Understanding the intricate relationship between climate dynamics and the macroeconomy is crucial for informed policy and long-term planning. However, there is a gap between climate modeling and the understanding of its full macroeconomic effects, partly due to challenges such as nonlinear climate dynamics, feedback loops, and model complexity. To address this, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, under the auspices of the Roundtable on Macroeconomics and Climate-Related Risks and Opportunities, convened a workshop on November 1-2, 2023, to consider the state of knowledge on cascading, compounding, and nonlinear physical climate risks and their implications for the macroeconomy. Through panels of invited speakers and interactive breakout discussions, the workshop focused on physical climate risks and explored how different disciplines assess and model impacts. Workshop discussions explored current and historical examples of shocks to the macroeconomy and how those have been modeled, and experts shared some of the lessons they have learned that may be relevant to policy makers today.
92 pages
·
6 x 9
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-72127-X
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72128-8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27811
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Research on the Dynamics of Climate and the Macroeconomy: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
Interest in decarbonizing various sectors of the U.S. economy has produced a rich body of scholarly research, policy studies, and practitioner reports on technology pathways and scenarios, with a particular focus on the power sector, vehicles, and buildings. The research on nontechnological issues associated with decarbonization is much sparser in general, and this is particularly true for the difficult-to-decarbonize industrial sector. In February 2024, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a public workshop designed to inform the development of ideas for a national interdisciplinary social sciences research agenda relating to an efficient and equitable clean energy transition in the U.S. industrial sector. The workshop planning committee solicited and commissioned several papers aimed at outlining key societal challenges and needs that require social science insights and tools to build a social compact for industrial decarbonization. At the workshop, an interdisciplinary group of social scientists, engineers, community groups, and experts from industry and government explored the social science research needs on these issues. This proceedings of the workshop describes the presentations and discussions.
127 pages
·
8.5 x 11
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-72140-7
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72141-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27815
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Developing and Assessing Ideas for Social and Behavioral Research to Speed Efficient and Equitable Industrial Decarbonization: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop_in_brief
The Board on Environmental Change and Society of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop in May 2024, devoted to the role of public infrastructure in effective climate mitigation and adaptation. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
11 pages
·
8.5 x 11
·
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72266-7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27866
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Public Infrastructure for Effective Climate Mitigation and Adaptation: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
Macroeconomic models, essential for decision making and federal budget planning, may not appropriately consider the wide breadth of climate-related impacts that potentially have large macroeconomic significance. Challenges integrating climate factors into macroeconomic analyses can stem from the complexity of macroeconomics, climate science, policy instruments, and their interactions. Although economists have made progress in developing tools to understand climate-related impacts on the macroeconomy, much of the climate and macroeconomic research has historically been conducted in disciplinary silos that can limit a holistic understanding of climate-related impacts on the macroeconomy.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, under the auspices of the Roundtable on Macroeconomics and Climate-Related Risks and Opportunities, convened a workshop on June 14-15, 2023, to consider current macroeconomic models and suggest opportunities that may improve the incorporation of climate-related factors into macroeconomic modeling. Through panels of invited speakers and an interactive breakout discussion, the workshop explored an array of macroeconomic models and potential pathways to integrate some of the physical and transition effects of climate change. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
92 pages
·
6 x 9
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-71467-2
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72116-4
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27447
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Incorporating Climate Change and Climate Policy into Macroeconomic Modeling: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Consensus
Between 1980 and mid-2023, 232 billion-dollar disasters occurred in the U.S. Gulf Coast region, with the number of disasters doubling annually since 2018. The variety and frequency of storms have exacerbated historic inequalities and led to cycles of displacement and chronic stress for communities across the region. While disaster displacement is not a new phenomenon, the rapid escalation of climate-related disasters in the Gulf increases the urgency to develop pre-disaster policies to mitigate displacement and decrease suffering. Yet, neither the region nor the nation has a consistent and inclusionary process to address risks, raise awareness, or explore options for relocating communities away from environmental risks while seeking out and honoring their values and priorities.
Community-Driven Relocation: Recommendations for the U.S. Gulf Coast Region and Beyond examines how people and infrastructure relocate and why community input should drive the planning process. This report provides recommendations to guide a path for federal, state, and local policies and programs to improve on and expand existing systems to better serve those most likely to be displaced by climate change.
590 pages
·
6 x 9
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-70872-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-70873-7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27213
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Community-Driven Relocation: Recommendations for the U.S. Gulf Coast Region and Beyond. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
To advance a systems understanding of climate-related security risks in the Central America region, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop titled Climate Security in Central America on May 3-4, 2023. The workshop was held under the auspices of the National Academies Climate Security Roundtable. Over two days, workshop participants considered some of the underlying environmental, social, economic, and political dynamics at play in Central America; they explored indicators and pathways for climate-related security risks in the region; and they considered the available tools for analyzing and forecasting these risks. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
84 pages
·
8.5 x 11
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-70817-6
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-70816-8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27203
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Climate Security in Central America: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
Responding to climate change will entail massive socio-emotional and behavioral changes. Translating policies, investments, or built infrastructure-reshaping mandates into real and sustained local impact that incorporates accountability and culture change will require hands-on work. Adaptive societal responses to climate change will succeed or fail based on the attitudes, behaviors, social cohesion and capital, organizational and emotional strengths, and collective impact and input of all stakeholders.
To consider how to integrate, align, and converge the broad mix of social, behavioral, and cognitive sciences to produce new insights and inform efforts for enhanced human responses to environmental change, Board on Environmental Change and Society of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine convened this 2023 workshop, entitled Committee on Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change: A Workshop. The workshop was intended to investigate ways to accelerate and deepen conversations within the social sciences and to focus on synthesis, especially for the purpose of increasing community capacity to understand and effectively respond to climate change-induced environmental changes - at scales ranging from the individual to the household to the community, and all the way up to the level of state and international governance. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
90 pages
·
8.5 x 11
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-70582-7
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-70583-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27129
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
While technologies are clearly instrumental in transitioning away from fossil fuel-based energy and toward a decarbonized economy, decisions about which technologies are prioritized, how they are implemented, and the policies that drive these changes will have profound effects on people and communities, with important implications for equity, jobs, environmental and energy justice, health, and more. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States: Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions was tasked with assessing the broad range of technological, policy, and societal dimensions of decarbonizing the U.S. economy. The committee produced a 2021 report that provides the U.S. government with a roadmap of equitable and robust decarbonization policies. The next report of the committee will address the broader range of policy actors who play a role in equitable energy transition.
To inform its deliberations, the committee hosted a 1-day workshop on July 26, 2022 to discuss critical issues of equity and justice during the energy transition. The goal of the workshop, titled Pathways to an Equitable and Just Transition: Principles, Best Practices, and Inclusive Stakeholder Engagement, was to move beyond energy technologies and elicit ideas and insights to inform the development of principles, best practices, and actionable recommendations for a broad range of policy actors and stakeholders in order to fully operationalize equity, justice, and inclusion. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
56 pages
·
6 x 9
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-70176-7
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-70177-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/26935
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Pathways to an Equitable and Just Energy Transition: Principles, Best Practices, and Inclusive Stakeholder Engagement: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Consensus
Over the last three decades, there have been fundamental shifts in the electricity system, including the growing adoption of clean distributed generation energy technologies such as rooftop solar. Net metering, which compensates customers for excess energy they contribute to the grid, has been instrumental in supporting the integration of these systems into the grid, but these policies may need to change to better address future needs.
The Role of Net Metering in the Evolving Electricity System explores the medium-to-long term impacts of net metering on the electricity grid and customers. This report evaluates how net metering guidelines should evolve to support a decarbonized, equitable, and resilient electricity system.
254 pages
·
7 x 10
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-69331-4
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-69332-2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/26704
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. The Role of Net Metering in the Evolving Electricity System. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Consensus
Roughly every four years, the U.S. Global Change Research Program produces a congressionally mandated assessment of global change science and the impacts, adaptation, and mitigation of climate change in the United States. The draft Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), released publicly in November 2022, covers a wide range of U.S. impacts, from human health and community well-being to the built environment, businesses and economies, and ecosystems and water resources. NCA5 had the largest scale of collaboration to date in the series, with input from hundreds of experts from all levels of governments, academia, non-government organizations, the private sector, and the public. The National Academies report provides an independent, comprehensive review and makes recommendations to strengthen the accuracy, credibility, and accessibility of the draft NCA5 report.
The National Academies' review of the draft NCA5 report finds that it successfully meets the requirements of the federal mandate, provides accurate information, and effectively communicates climate science to the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders. The review makes recommendations for ways the draft NCA5 report could be strengthened, including: adopting more clear and consistent structure for key messages and figures across the report; resolving inconsistencies between chapters in how terms and topics are discussed, for example the use of scenarios and projections; intentionally applying an equity and justice lens across chapters; and increasing emphasis on certain topical areas.
344 pages
·
8.5 x 11
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-69523-6
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-69524-4
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/26757
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Review of the Draft Fifth National Climate Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
In 2021, the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine sponsored a two-year consensus study, Managed Retreat in the U.S. Gulf Coast Region, to examine and make findings and recommendations regarding the unique challenges associated with managed retreat among vulnerable coastal communities in the region.
To gather information for the consensus report, the authoring committee convened a series of three public workshops in the Gulf Coast region. The workshops, held in June and July of 2022, focused on policy and practice considerations, research and data needs, and community engagement strategies. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshops.
102 pages
·
6 x 9
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-69579-1
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-69580-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/26774
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Assisted Resettlement and Community Viability on Louisiana's Gulf Coast: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to:
Workshop
Strategically moving communities and infrastructure—including homes and businesses—away from environmentally high-risk areas, such as vulnerable coastal regions, has been referred to as "managed retreat." Of all the ways humans respond to climate-related disasters, managed retreat has been one of the most controversial due to the difficulty inherent in identifying when, to where, by whom, and the processes by which such movement should take place. In 2021, the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine sponsored a two-year consensus study, Managed Retreat in the U.S. Gulf Coast Region, to learn about and respond to the unique challenges associated with managed retreat. As part of this study, the committee convened a series of three public workshops in 2022 in the Gulf Coast region to gather information for the consensus report. Each workshop focused on policy and practice considerations, research and data needs, and community engagement strategies. This proceedings recounts the first workshop in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas.
74 pages
·
6 x 9
·
paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-69317-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-69318-7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/26701
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Environmental Challenges and Prospects for Community Relocation in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Import this citation to: