Michael Donatti – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Presenting at the Oxford Symposium on Population, Migration, and the Environment

Posted on January 23, 2018April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

In my last blog post, I mentioned that the Cabot Institute would be sponsoring me to present my master’s dissertation at the Oxford Symposium on Population, Migration, and the Environment. The Symposium took place on 7 – 8 December 2017 at St. Hugh’s College.

My dissertation (which I also summarised in the last post), focusses on compensation for individuals or entities who bear the uneven costs of environmental policies. A well-designed environmental policy creates benefits, such as cleaner air and water, mitigated greenhouse gas emissions, or protection of a limited resource or species. These benefits are vital, and I opine that the world needs more and better-designed environmental policies, not fewer. However, my dissertation recognises the uneven distribution of costs in environmental policies—the companies that must purchase abatement technologies, the low-income homes that must pay more for electricity and heat, or the resource-dependent livelihoods that may struggle to make ends meet—and recommends how to compensate those who bear higher costs.

At Oxford, I presented my premise, methodology, findings, and ultimate recommendations for designing compensation for environmental policies. The listeners gave positive feedback. They had all encountered the concept of compensating environmental policies’ victims, but seeing an in-depth study of the concept was novel. After my twenty-five-minute talk, I had five minutes for a formal Q&A.

In my presentation, I mention that one potential uneven cost is the creation of stranded assets. Companies might be left with technologies or whole plants they can no longer use given new, more stringent environmental regulations.

One university professor from the USA commented that companies in Appalachia have left behind old plants of their own accord, leaving an infrastructural scar and economic stagnation. While we consider compensating companies left with stranded assets by policy, we should also hold companies responsible for decommissioning the assets they abandon as a strategic choice.

Another researcher from Poland detailed the difficulty in compensating poor families pushed by policy to buy more efficient heating stoves that they cannot afford. Government could subsidise the purchases if it has sufficient funding, but often these stoves have higher lifetime operating costs as well. Should government permanently subsidise the energy costs of poor families who upgrade their stoves?

These questions challenged me and further emphasised the complexity of designing well-meaning environmental policies and compensation. The symposium was well-planned for these kinds of conversations. Presentations began as experts detailing their work, but finished in a seminar-style unpacking of how the work should evolve and improve. The list of attendees was small, in the 30s range, so the room felt warm and open for discussions. Although small, the symposium was quite international. Presenters came from the UK, the USA, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Italy, India, South Africa, Japan, and elsewhere.

I gained not only from presenting my own work, but also from listening to the presentations of others. The topics varied, all loosely-related to the symposium’s title topics of population, migration, and environment. I am very grateful to the Cabot Institute for making my participation possible. I plan to submit my full manuscript to the symposium, which will publish selected ones a few months into the New Year. The Journal for Science Policy and Governance has already accepted a version of my dissertation for publication, so I am excited to work with its editors to further disseminate my work.

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This blog is written by Michael Donatti in October 2017. Michael is a Cabot Institute Masters Research Fellow.

Michael Donatti

More blogs by Michael Donatti:
Finishing my year as a Cabot Institute Masters Research Fellow

Reflections on sustainability in my first few months in the UK

Finishing my year as a Cabot Institute Masters Research Fellow

Posted on January 11, 2018April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

In January 2017, I posted my early reflections on sustainability in the UK. Now, 10 months later, I have been living in England for over a year. I submitted my thesis for the MSc Environmental Policy and Management program last month, and I am working for the Environmental Defense Fund in London. This post will have a few parts to it: a recap of my thesis topic, a reflection on my time in Bristol, and a discussion of what I’m doing now and planning for the future.

I titled my thesis “Compensating Environmental Policies’ Victims: Typologies and Recommendations for Success.” By compensation, I mean of those individuals or demographics, companies or industries that environmental protection policy actually hurts. Think coal miners as policy accelerates the transition to clean energy, or low-income households as a carbon tax raises the price of petrol.

Strong environmental policies are wildly important, but often they impart uneven costs, and few (if any) studies discuss compensation for these costs. Reviewing compensation in theory and across ten cases, I developed a typology by which environmental policies’ uneven costs can be classified. I then presented recommendations for compensation, in general and specific to certain typological classifications. Among my general conclusions, I found that fewer, targeted compensatory mechanisms prove more cost-effective and visible than more, broad ones; exemptions dampen policy incentives, hurting environmental performance; and targeted payments or flexible subsidies, financed with related policy revenue, work well. I developed the following chart, which allows a policymaker to trace through certain characteristics of a policy and find a recommended compensatory package.

I won’t drag on through my thesis in this post, but I am happy to share it with anyone wishing to follow up. I was selected to present it at the Oxford Symposium on Population, Migration, and the Environment in December. The Cabot Institute is generously sponsoring my participation, so expect a post from me about the conference soon.

On to my experience of Bristol: the city became a true second home to me. I returned just a few weekends ago for a visit, and the bittersweet wave of nostalgia washed over me. The city is so dynamic, so lively, and so walkable. I arrived on a Friday evening. The sun had set, and Bristol’s abounding student and young adult population pumped through the streets. As I walked up Park Street, two Bristolians struck up a conversation with me. For a few shared minutes fighting Park Street’s incline, we talked about ourselves, the city, our evening plans. Bristol is a city in its offerings—great food, art, culture, parks, but it is a small town in its accessibility. It is walkable, its people are friendly, and it gives you the impression that you can truly get to know it if you spend some time there. I like to think I know Bristol now, and I will continue to miss it immensely now that I’ve gone.

I’m in London in the short term, interning with the Environmental Defense Fund, a US NGO that expanded to the UK/Europe a couple years ago. I focus on methane emission reduction in the oil and gas sector, helping our organisation to develop a strategy that will work in Europe. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas behind carbon dioxide, and it is over 80-times more potent in warming the Earth than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timespan. By some estimates, it accounts for about a quarter of the warming we’ve felt since the pre-industrial age. The oil and gas sector accounts for at least a fifth of Europe’s methane emissions, not accounting for the embodied methane of the bloc’s imports. These emissions come from across the supply chain, from production of a well, storage, and the natural gas distribution networks in our towns. I advocate for stronger methane policy at the EU level, engage with companies to apply pressure, and work with scientific bodies that help to better count and record these emissions. I am learning a lot and making invaluable connections, and I have a fellow Cabot Masters Fellow, Mireille Meneses Campos, to thank. She connected me with the organisation when they were seeking someone for the role.

I will be in London for a couple more months, then I will return to Houston to work with the management consulting firm Oliver Wyman. The firm works in various industries; I will likely work mostly on projects related to energy and electricity, but as a general consultant my project placements may be broader. I am excited for the skills that consulting will help me build, and to be back in Texas for a time. Texas and US environmental protection can only benefit from more supportive voices, and I plan to be loud. I will have been away just a year and a half, but I return with more knowledge and experience to back my advocacy. The Cabot Institute has played a large part in my acquisition of this knowledge and experience, so I am incredibly grateful. I also wish to thank the US-UK Fulbright Program, which brought me to the UK in the first place.
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This blog is written by Michael Donatti in October 2017. Michael is a Cabot Institute Masters Research Fellow.

Michael Donatti

More blogs by Michael Donatti:

Reflections on sustainability in my first few months in the UK

Posted on January 11, 2017April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

I’m Michael Donatti, a Cabot Institute Masters Research Fellow for 2016-2017. I have come to the University of Bristol from Houston, Texas, to read for an MSc in Environmental Policy and Management. Alongside studying, I have had the chance to experience this new city and this new country from an outsider’s perspective, and here are some of my initial thoughts on environmental sustainability in Bristol and the UK.

To be quite honest, Bristol is an interesting choice for a European Green Capital city. It lacks the biking infrastructure of Amsterdam, the strict ambition to attain carbon neutrality of Copenhagen, and the abundance of green space of Ljubljana. According to the University of Bristol student newspaper, epigram, 60% of Bristol’s air contains illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide. While walking and running along the streets of Bristol, I have felt this pollution. Partly, the low air quality results from the differing priorities of American and British/European emissions regulations. According to David Herron, Europe focuses on carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide to increase efficiency, decrease dependency on Russian oil, and curb climate change; in contrast, the USA focus on nitrogen oxides and particulate matter to improve local air quality and reduce smog. Combined with Bristol’s traffic problem, it is no wonder the air quality is actually quite bad.

Before arriving here, I expected more farmers’ markets and small shops. Like much of England (purely from my personal experience), the city seems to suffer from an overabundance of chain stores, cafes, supermarkets, and the like. Coming from the capitalists’ land of strip malls and chain stores, this observation shocked me. Tesco and Sainsbury hold a position of power scarcely rivalled by any supermarket chains back home, and while prices tend to be good because of their power, sustainability is lacking. Fruits and vegetables come wrapped up in plastic cases and bags; differentiating between what is local or organic or seasonal and what is not often takes detailed inspection. At HEB, a supermarket chain in Texas where I do much of my shopping, produce is in bulk bins, not unnecessary plastic cases. They have marketing campaigns and price markdowns for what is in season and what is local (granted, “local” in America’s second largest state is a loaded term).

I have felt excited to find nice coffee shops and cute stores, only to shortly thereafter realise that even those are chains, like Friska on Bristol’s Queen’s Road (which has at least two other locations). In Oxford, I was disappointed to learn that even The Eagle and Child, the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien hung out, has been bought out by Nicholson’s, a chain of pubs across the UK. Not all chains inherently lack environmental sustainability, but they certainly lack character and promote the social inequalities that pervade modern capitalism.

Don’t get me wrong, Bristol and the UK are certainly much better in some areas of sustainability than Houston and the USA. As environmentalists, we can’t revel in our successes for too long without then setting higher goals and getting back to work. However, to paint a better picture of Bristol and the UK (because I have truly loved it here), I will include some of those successes. The British train network is far more extensive than any in the USA. Recycling is more ingrained in British cities; in Bristol, we even separate food waste, which is far from commonplace in Texas. Charging for plastic bags in stores and supermarkets appears more widespread here; while Austin, Texas, promotes using reusable bags, Houston has no restrictions on them. Bristol is far denser and more walkable than most American cities; Houston is the quintessential American automobile city. Not having a car is almost unheard of, partly because the greater Houston area is almost 40 times larger than the greater Bristol area and many families live in single-family homes.

Another aspect of Bristol that earned it its European Green Capital status is its social capital. I have only been here a few months, but I have tried to plug in to the city’s network of change makers. The city’s Green Capital Partnership has over 800 business partners that have pledged to improve their sustainability; the city has initiatives in resident health, happiness, and mobility; and it has set lofty goals for carbon emissions reductions. The challenge now is to make Bristol’s social capital accessible to all. I realised I could buy my food from the Real Economy Co-operative to waste less plastic, reduce transport emissions, and help local farmers, but how do we transfer opportunities like that into the mainstream? I am excited to keep learning more about Bristol’s initiatives in sustainability as I study here, and hopefully what I learn I can take back with me to Houston and Texas, which sorely need the help. I also hope Bristol will not become complacent with its Green Capital designation or too focused on nice-sounding rhetoric. Society needs real environmental improvements, and those improvements need to happen now.

References

“Bristol Green Capital Partnership.” Bristol Green Capital. Accessed November 16, 2016. http://bristolgreencapital.org/.
“European Green Capital.” Accessed November 16, 2016. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/winning-cities/2015-bristol/index.html.
Herron, David. “Differences in US and EU Emissions Standard Key Cause of Dieselgate.” The Long Tail Pipe, October 2, 2015. https://longtailpipe.com/2015/10/02/differences-in-us-and-eu-emissions-standard-key-cause-of-dieselgate/.