pillar: External Engagement

The Nicholas Institute launched the Heat Policy Innovation Hub in June 2023 to collaborate with communities to develop and deploy policies addressing extreme heat’s impact on health and well-being. In its first year, the hub established Duke as a leader in heat and health, convening a summit over three days in June 2024 with over 100 U.S. leaders to launch the HeatWise Policy Partnership.

The hub also partnered with three state agencies to create a Heat Action Plan Toolkit for North Carolina, offering resources to help communities address extreme heat. The toolkit includes a customizable heat action plan template and public outreach resources, as well as recommended actions for healthcare staff and local leaders when extreme heat is in the forecast. Additionally, a national policy brief was released to guide high school athletics associations on protecting student-athletes competing and training in high temperatures.

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) manages more than 480 million acres of federal lands, plus tribal lands, marine national monuments, and the Outer Continental Shelf. Leveraging nature-based solutions can help the department ensure its vast land management portfolio provides the most value to people while also improving ecosystem health.

The DOI Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap supports efforts by the largest manager of public lands in the United States to protect, sustainably manage, and restore these lands in ways that benefit both people and nature. The Nicholas Institute partnered with DOI on the roadmap to provide its staff with consistent and credible information about nature-based solutions. The roadmap is a living document that will be periodically updated to include new information and resources. DOI leadership introduced the project in December 2023 at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Duke’s new Climate Leaders in Residence program, managed by the Nicholas Institute, brings top thought leaders on climate change to campus to enrich student learning and help advance bold, pragmatic climate research and initiatives. Insurance executive Francis Bouchard became the inaugural resident in early 2024. His work focuses on the insurance sector’s role in advancing climate solutions. Bouchard has engaged in deep commitments to RESILE, a new university-wide initiative to advance research related to climate risk based in Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, and CIRCAD, an NSF-seeded partnership between Duke and the University of Georgia that uses data science, risk assessment, and economic and policy analysis to develop innovative solutions to society’s climate challenges.

Bouchard has also been involved in existing Nicholas Institute program areas. Alongside Duke scholars and nonprofit and faith-based institutions, the “Cooling Communities” project will assess the feasibility of a parametric insurance model triggered by high temperatures and explore community-based strategies to mitigate heat exposure. Bouchard has also helped lead a Climate+ team of students to understand and model risks in flood-prone areas of North Carolina.

Launched in February 2024, the Duke Climate Collaboration Symposia program harnesses the university’s interdisciplinary expertise and convening power to address critical climate issues. Each symposium includes a public program featuring diverse perspectives, followed by private workshops for Duke researchers and invited guests to explore potential partnerships. Proposed and led by Duke experts, each event receives organizational and promotional support from the Nicholas Institute of Energy, Environment, & Sustainability and is funded by The Duke Endowment.

The first symposium focused on how the U.S. insurance and finance sectors must adapt to support communities facing catastrophic weather and chronic threats like coastal erosion and extreme heat. In March 2024, a second symposium addressed future-proofing infrastructure systems with sustainability and resilience principles, and featured public panels in Washington, D.C., and Durham.

Both the New York Climate Exchange and the Heat Policy Innovation Hub gained attention at 2023 Climate Week NYC, held September 17-24, when climate leaders from around the globe gathered to discuss needs and next steps for bold climate action. Duke hosted “Beating Extreme Heat: Designing and Investing in Resilience,” a panel discussion moderated by Ashley Ward that focused on funding and financing for solutions that address extreme heat and its impacts on human health. Christopher Monroe, director of the Duke Quantum Center, was featured on a panel discussion presented by the New York Climate Exchange focusing on deep-tech innovation and how best to foster start-ups in climate technology research and commercialization.

At the start of summer 2023, the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability launched a first-of-its-kind program in the United States to address the effects of extreme heat on human health and well-being. The Heat Policy Innovation Hub brings together Duke scholars, government agencies, communities and other stakeholders to develop and deploy heat policy solutions that could ultimately save lives.

Early projects of the hub include the following:

• An April report that offered recommendations to state emergency managers across the US for adequately evaluating the threat of extreme heat in federally mandated hazard mitigation plans;
• Ongoing collaboration with state and local agencies in North Carolina to create a template for county-level comprehensive heat action plans;
• A July policy brief that outlined a comprehensive strategy for state high school athletics associations to ensure the health and well-being of student-athletes as they train and compete in high temperatures; and
• Educational resources, such as an infographic on cooling strategies (available in English and Spanish) and a wet bulb globe temperature explainer, to help people stay safe.

Throughout a record-breaking hot summer, insights from Ashley Ward (the hub’s director) and Jordan Clark (a postdoctoral associate) on the dangers of extreme heat and policy responses were featured in hundreds of media outlets around the world. Among the most notable were the following: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, National Public Radio, the Associated Press, NBC News, FOX Weather, The Guardian, and BBC News. Ward has also authored op-eds on the necessity of air conditioning for vulnerable populations, effective heat mitigation strategies when A/C is unavailable, and the difficulties of counting heat-related deaths.

On April 24, 2023, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the Trust for Governors Island, and State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook unveiled plans for the New York Climate Exchange, a first-of-its-kind regional center for climate education, research, and outreach, housed on Governors Island in New York Harbor. Partner institutions in the Exchange, including Duke, aim to tackle urgent climate challenges through collaborative efforts, particularly for challenges with environmental justice implications, and work to develop interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary solutions for urban climate change.

Duke will play an integral role in developing and implementing the vision for the Exchange, which is slated to begin construction — including retrofitting some existing buildings on Governors Island — in 2025 and be open to the public in 2028. Although the Exchange is currently still in its nascency, anticipated plans for the Exchange campus include learning spaces, labs and classrooms, where Duke students will be able to participate in domestic study-abroad opportunities, with the potential for additional co-curricular activities, such as future Bass Connections and Climate+ teams, to be hosted on-site at the Exchange campus. Duke faculty and researchers will have opportunities to collaborate with other members of the Exchange on research and translation projects aimed at promoting equitable solutions to urban climate challenges. Additionally, the Exchange will host workforce development opportunities for those in the New York City area to facilitate sustainable transitions away from carbon-intensive operations and lifestyles.

More information about the Exchange will be available as plans are developed. Duke leaders involved in the Exchange anticipate hosting a special Duke community forum, to be held later in the 2023-24 academic year (date TBD) for Duke community members to bring questions about the Exchange and Duke’s participation within it.

A March 2023 symposium at Duke organized by the NIIES, NSOE and Fuqua’s EDGE Center focused on emergent opportunities and challenges associated with offshore wind power generation on the US Atlantic Coast. More than 300 participants—including wind developers, state and federal government officials, NGO representatives, other business leaders, and Duke students—joined the “Winds of Change” event on campus and virtually. Following introductory remarks by Duke University President Vincent Price, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper delivered a keynote address on the urgency of offshore wind energy development on the East Coast, emphasizing North Carolina’s potential to lead the way.

Building on momentum from recent federal legislation, Energy Pathways USA is a group convened by the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability and Fuqua Energy, Development and the Global Environment (EDGE) Center that brings together private-sector partners across multiple industries and thought partners to accelerate progress toward net-zero carbon emissions in the US by mid-century. Initial collaborators include ADM, AVANGRID, Bank of America, bp, Duke Energy, FedEx, GE, General Motors, Modern Energy, National Grid, Ørsted, RMI, Shell, Volvo Group, and the World Resources Institute.

Energy Pathways USA publicly launched during the November 2022 UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt with a report examining trend lines, challenges, and opportunities for meeting net-zero goals and a panel discussion making a business case for private-sector leadership in the energy transition. Since then, led by the Nicholas Institute’s Jackson Ewing, Energy Pathways USA stakeholders have continued to engage in cross-sectoral dialogue based on robust policy, technology, and modeling analyses. In summer 2023, Energy Pathways USA published “Strengthening Supply Chains for Decarbonization,” the first in a series of policy briefs outlining recommendations for advancing the US energy transition. Energy Pathways USA also works in collaboration with the Energy Transitions Commission as an autonomous regional initiative of that global effort.