CARE Program Summer 2025 Internships – Apply by Dec 27

Current efforts to reduce emissions fall far short of what is required to keep global warming well below 2 degrees as established in the Paris Agreement, Greenhouse gas emissions need to reach net-zero by mid-century and achieving this will require rapid learning from evidence on which policy instruments work in what contexts. Several mitigation policy instruments have been implemented by national governments over the last decades, and since adoption of the Paris Agreement that could reduce GHG emissions. There is also substantial scientific literature on ex-post evaluations of instruments these policies. However, efforts to systematically learn from this literature have remained limited. This is a challenge for science assessments such as those carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)3, which is tasked with providing comprehensive assessments of which policies work.

In cooperation with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), this project entails a systematic review and synthesis of the existing ex-post empirical literature that quantifies effects of climate change mitigation or mitigation-relevant policies on GHG emissions. These policies include market based economic instruments (e.g., carbon taxation), information­ based instruments (e.g., labelling for energy efficiency) and behavior-based policies (e.g., behavioral interventions and voluntary schemes). The review will provide comparable estimates of policies on emissions, allowing comparisons across a large set of countries and economic sectors, namely power and industry, transport, buildings and AFOLU.

Supervising Faculty: Tarun Khanna

Agriculture is responsible for generating approximately 30% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions (GHG's). At the same time, the 2023 IPCC report identified carbon sequestration in agricultural landscapes as a promising option for GHG mitigation, especially over longer time scales. In particular, planting perennials (e.g. to serve as windbreaks, hedgerows, riparian cover and woodlands, and as ground cover in field margins and between rows) holds great potential to increase long term carbon sequestration and storage in Canadian agricultural landscapes. In addition to their role as carbon sinks, perennial plantings offer a suite of important ecological and socio-economic co-benefits such as pollinator habitat creation, soil health improvements, and contributions to Indigenous food systems and reconciliation. Still, the costs, benefits, and support that would be required for individual farm operations to undertake such changes are poorly understood.

The PERCS Project (Perennial Plant Restoration for Carbon Sequestration in Canadian Agricultural Landscapes) is an interdisciplinary and collaborative research project funded through the NSERC­ SSHRC Sustainable Agriculture Initiative, to study the development and outcomes of efforts to increase national agricultural carbon sequestration and co-benefits through integrated networks of multi-farm perennial planting schemes. Our work will examine the ways that co-operation and co­ benefits within and among communities can accelerate the adoption of trees and other perennials on farms in order to transform the Canadian agricultural landscape for a more sustainable future.

The student intern would work with the social science team of PERCS researchers, led by Dr. Juliet Lu, who study the drivers (social, cultural, economic, management, and policy) and outcomes of perennial plant restoration for carbon sequestration in agriculture. They would research comparative cases in Europe or other regions, examining where and why farmers have chosen to plant perennials in their agricultural lands, which might offer lessons and strategies to the Canadian context.

Supervising Faculty: Juliet Lu

As climate change accelerates, electrical power systems are becoming more vulnerable to extreme weather events. Among the power sources of concern are nuclear reactors, because of their need for constant sources of water at low enough temperatures for adequate cooling. When the temperature of water in these sources of cooling water goes up, operators have to shut down nuclear plants. Other extreme weather events such as hurricanes have also resulted in reactors having to be shut down. One study estimates that nuclear plant interruptions due to climate- and weather-related factors have become seven times more frequent in the past decade.

France is among the countries most dependent on nuclear power for its electricity generation and the vulnerability of this technology to heat waves has been of concern ever since August 2003, when 10 to 15 GW of the 63 GW of nuclear power then installed in France had to be shut down. Later that year, Electricite de France, the utility, embarked on planning for dealing with such events known as Referentiel "Grands Chauds" (Great Heat Guidance). More recently, the French Transmission System Operator, RTE, commissioned a study in 2020 to assess the impact of weather on nuclear power production. The proposed project will examine a range of such studies to develop a comprehensive picture of the adaption measures being considered, identifying the remaining and possibly inescapable vulnerabilities, while also considering other changes in the system such as increasing demand for air conditioning and competition for water.

Supervising Faculty: M.V. Ramana