Environmental Markets Lab (emLab)

We kicked off the 22nd Occasional Workshop in Environmental and Resource Economics at UC Santa Barbara this week! Cohosted by emLab and UC Santa Barbara's Department of Economics, this "occasional" two-day conference brings together graduate students, faculty, and researchers to share and discuss new research in environmental and natural resource economics. 📸 Check out some highlights from the first day 🔽 🔸 Keynote speaker David Lobell joins Heather Lahr, Olivier Deschenes, Andrew Plantinga (2025 event organizers), and Christopher Costello (emLab Research Director) for a quick smile between sessions. 🔸 Exceptional students had the opportunity to present their research in a 5-minute egg-timer session at the end of day one. Pictured here is Shu-Chen Tsao presenting his job market paper, "Innovation and Adaptation to Expanding Biological Threats." 🔸 The Occasional makes room for relaxed interactions, giving ideas and questions the space to emerge and grow through conversation over breaks, lunch, and happy hours. 🔸 Prior to Thursday's welcome reception, Tamma Carleton led a two-hour masterclass for workshop attendees on how economists can better inform adaptation policy design and implementation. An exciting second day awaits! To learn more about the event, visit our website here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gGr2xawu

The International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) one-year delay in adopting the Net-Zero Framework (NZF) undermines momentum toward urgent global climate action. It also exposes the need for data transparency to understand and address the true scale of emissions from the shipping sector. Industrial shipping is a major, often overlooked, contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2023 alone, industrial vessels emitted an estimated 1.3 billion tons of CO₂ — roughly 3% of all global fossil fuel emissions. 🌊🚢 Global Fishing Watch, in collaboration with Environmental Markets Lab (emLab) and Climate TRACE, published a pilot study in March 2025 mapping emissions from all large industrial vessels operating at sea from 2016 to 2023 - including the “dark fleet” that traditional tracking systems miss. This has given us the first comprehensive picture of human activity and greenhouse gas emissions across the ocean. By bringing these emissions to light, Global Fishing Watch is making the invisible visible, driving the global conversation on real climate accountability as we work to map all human activity at sea by 2030. Read the full story: https://lnkd.in/dvRHzjPt:

How do you compare the carbon cost of a tuna steak with that of a plate of shrimp or a filet of salmon? 🦐 To answer that question, a group of graduate students from the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management - University of California, Santa Barbara set out to develop a first-of-its-kind global baseline for wild-caught seafood emissions. Working with Gavin McDonald at emLab, Nicole Pepper, Carmen Hoyt, Joshua Mull and Stephen Caroll combined a novel Global Fishing Watch dataset that estimates the greenhouse gas emissions of large industrial fishing vessels with seafood catch data from FAO. Preliminary insights are available to explore on their public #shinyapp dashboard: the Seamissions Explorer. Ultimately sustainability in wild-caught seafood depends on many interconnected factors, but their work illustrates that CO₂ reduction goals align strongly with important co-benefits, from supporting more efficient fleets to protecting ocean ecosystems and public health. Learn more in our new student-written blog here 👉 https://lnkd.in/geDANAwr #DataScience  #SustainableSeafood #OpenScience

Since returning from my first Climate Week in NYC, I’ve been reflecting on the many incredible conversations, connections, and insights I had last week. When talking about something like climate, I feel incredibly lucky to walk away feeling inspired. I was reminded that a lot can be done in a community of colleagues and friends who care a whole awful lot. It also reminded me that here at the Environmental Markets Lab (emLab), the research group at #UCSB I've been co-leading with Christopher Costello for the past seven years, we're doing something right. Collaboration, innovation, and sound science were central themes of Climate Week—the very values at the heart of emLab. From jogging meetings to coffee chats, I was able to reconnect with familiar faces and meet so many new, brilliant minds doing remarkable work despite challenging times - so good to see you Paul Woods, Alexis Rife, Caleb McClennen, Ph.D., Enric Sala, John Mimikakis, Tali Vardi, Ph.D., Robert Jones, Peter Bryant, Brian Sullivan, Lekha Sridhar, Katie Michel, Johnny Briggs among others. I am so grateful for the chance to meet with so many of our partners and collaborators to think big and discuss the many small achievable steps that lie ahead. Now back in Santa Barbara this week, I’m excited to translate these conversations into action and keep pushing forward, together, on these important challenges.

📬 Check your inbox! Our monthly newsletter came out this week 📰 As the seasons shift and students return to UC Santa Barbara's campus, we're reflecting on how urgency and long-term vision must work together to create lasting change. From carbon tariffs to fish spawning hotspots to new frameworks for conservation, this month’s spotlights showcase the diverse pathways toward solutions. Explore how we're incentivizing climate action in our latest newsletter here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gztz3-nF

Last week, emLab joined colleagues from around the world in Lithuania for the  ICES - International Council for the Exploration of the Sea Annual Science Conference (#ICESASC25) 🌊 Our team shared research from our Oceans & Fisheries portfolio, spanning offshore wind to marine spatial planning, and engaged in thoughtful discussions on how science can guide a sustainable and resilient ocean future. Congratulations, all! 👏 📸 emLab team pictured below (right to left): Pol C. (Data Scientist); Jennifer Bone (Project Manager and Scientist); Lennon Thomas (Senior Project Scientist); Danielle Ferraro (Project Scientist); Tracey Mangin (Senior Project Scientist); and Ellen Willis-Norton (previous Postdoctoral Researcher).

#ClimateWeekNYC is here! With experts and global leaders coming together to accelerate climate solutions, emLab is proud to be part of the conversation. If you're in New York, be sure to connect with our Executive Director, Michaela Clemence, to learn how our work is advancing research and informing policy at this critical moment. 📍 Learn more about what we're working on in this space here: https://lnkd.in/g7siayBP

📬 Registration is now open! Join us for the 22nd Occasional Workshop in Environmental and Resource Economics in beautiful Santa Barbara, October 24–25, 2025! This year’s keynote will be delivered by Dr. David Lobell, Benjamin M. Page Professor at Stanford University and Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. Dr. Lobell also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy and Research (SIEPR). We’re kicking things off with something new. Tamma Carleton, Assistant Professor of Agricultural & Resource Economics at UC Berkeley, will be leading a masterclass on the Economics of Climate Change Adaptation on Thursday, October 23 from 2-4 PM before the welcome reception. This workshop is open to all; simply indicate your interest when registering. 👉 Browse the full list of speakers here: https://lnkd.in/gJ96QXH5 👉 Register for the conference here: https://lnkd.in/gABFnaef

How do you make powerful machine learning with satellite imagery fast, easy, and accessible to non-experts? 🛰️ That’s the vision behind MOSAIKS, an open-source tool co-developed by emLab Research Associate Tamma Carleton that helps scientists and policymakers tackle global challenges and environmental changes. In collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Digital Transformation in Togo and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), our team is putting MOSAIKS into practice through the launch of the Togo Data Lab — embedding #DataScience tools like MOSAIKS directly into government decision-making. Earlier this year, partners gathered at Bren School of Environmental Science & Management - University of California, Santa Barbara for a MOSAIKS training (captured in the photo below), where Togolese data science leads learned how to use MOSAIKS to generate rapid, actionable insights. Now, we're developing open-source training materials for the Data Lab which can be adapted for broader use. Learn more about this project here: https://lnkd.in/dDM3Ch9B 📸 Photo credit: Leilanie Rubinstein

At the 2025 Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) Summer Conference, Andrew Plantinga was named an AERE Fellow — the highest honor in environmental and resource economics! 🎉 “Dr. Plantinga’s interdisciplinary work is a superb model for how to integrate rigorous #economics with rigorous natural and physical science, and to produce intuitive and policy-relevant results,” said AERE President Sheila Olmstead. “His research has not only advanced the academic frontier but also informed real-world policy across domains such as climate change mitigation and carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, agriculture and urbanization, wildfire management and water markets.” Congratulations, Andrew! We're so grateful to have you on our team! 👏 Learn more about this incredible achievement in UC Santa Barbara's feature here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gfvrwsc7