Urban Expert Karen Seto Explains How Cities Can Help Solve Climate Change

The world’s elephant population has declined by half since 1979, with just about 460,000 elephants remaining — down from ten million a century ago. In an effort to curtail the death of elephants caused by ivory poaching, about 300 tons of ivory has been destroyed since 1989. Kenya organized the first public burn of stockpiled ivory in 1989, to raise awareness and deter the trade of ivory and elephant poaching, but does destroying ivory helped or hurt efforts to protect elephants?

A study led by Emma Gjerdseth, a postdoctoral researcher at the Yale School of the Environment, examined the causal effects of ivory destruction on elephant poaching rates in Africa and Asian countries. The paper, published in the journal World Development, is the first to examine the impact of ivory destruction. It found that in African countries, ivory destruction increases poaching rates with large spillover effects across the continent. In Asia, there is no evidence that elephant poaching rates respond to ivory destruction.

“The destruction of ivory is not saving elephants in the wild,” Gjerdseth said. “While poaching incentives in the country with a destruction event are unchanged because the price effect is offset by enforcement and publicity, it leads to more elephant deaths across the continent. This can create perverse incentives for countries acting on their own to participate symbolically while other countries on the continent incur negative externalities from displaced poaching activity.”

The study found that a destruction event in Africa increases poaching rates  by 18% across sites.

 “This research suggests that proper management of confiscated illicit materials should not involve destruction,” Gjerdseth said. “It also highlights the importance of accounting for economic incentives in wildlife conservation strategies and policies.”

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Four Yale School of the Environment faculty members have been named to the world’s most influential researchers list by Clarivate Analytics, a company that compiles a list of scientists and social scientists whose papers rank in the top 1% of citations.

Included in this year’s list are Mark Bradford, E.H. Harriman Professor of Soils and Ecosystem Ecology; Anthony Leiserowitz,  JoshAni - TomKat Professor of Climate Communication who is also  director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication; Peter Raymond,  Oastler Professor of Biogeochemistry; and Karen Seto,  Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science. In total, 51 faculty members from Yale University made the list of 6,886 researchers worldwide who were cited by Clarivate.

Bradford’s research is centered on the health, biology, ecology and the carbon storage potential of forest and agricultural soils. More specifically, his work develops knowledge that helps predict how environmental change and management will affect the rates of carbon stabilization and decomposition processes, and how the size of soil organic carbon stores change in space and time. 

A pioneer in the field of climate change communication, Leiserowitz’s works focuses on the public perception of climate change and environmental beliefs, attitudes, and behavior at multiple scales. Under his direction, YPCCC regularly publishes a report, Climate Change in the American Mind, that investigates, tracks, and explains public climate change knowledge, risk perceptions, policy support, and behavior in the U.S.  YPCCC works with numerous partners and has researched and reported on public climate perceptions for several countries including Ireland and India. 

Raymond's research focuses on the chemistry and ecology of inland waters. More specifically, his work looks at the exchange of greenhouse gases between inland waters and the atmosphere, controls on the transport of terrestrial elements to inland and coastal waters, the metabolism of aquatic ecosystems, and how storms and droughts impact aquatic ecology.

Seto is one of the world's leading experts on urbanization and its aggregate impacts on the planet, including climate change, biodiversity, and food systems. As a geographer and urban scientist, she integrates remote sensing and field interviews to study urbanization and land change, forecast urban growth, and the environmental consequences of urban expansion. 

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A key initiative of the Biden-Harris Administration is to improve policymaking by increasing collaboration between the federal government and the research community. Since 2023, the administration has released an annual report identifying areas where research could benefit federal decision making. At a recent White House roundtable on the second annual report "Advancing the Frontiers of Benefit Cost Analysis: Federal Priorities and Directions for Future Research," Kenneth Gillingham, professor of environmental and energy economics, discussed ways to strengthen federal benefit-cost analysis. 

"What I love about this document is that it not only points out several areas that need further research to improve benefit-cost analysis but equally importantly, it provides clear guidance to the research community and a set of suggestions for how the federal government can build connections," Gillingham said.

Hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and Council of Economic Advisers, the roundtable brought together academic and research experts to discuss progress and consider actions to continue advancing the frontiers of BCA. 

"It provides useful guidance on how research enters into the regulatory agenda. It also provides guidance on where researchers can find out what the government needs to know," Gillingham said of the report.

All major regulations must undergo benefit-cost analysis; the U.S. executive branch is responsible for doing these analyses for programs and regulations. Gillingham and Eli Fenichel, Knobloch Family Professor of Natural Resource Economics, played vital roles in updating a White House Office of Management and Budget guide on how federal agencies calculate their regulations' benefits and costs to fully account for natural resources. 

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