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The
Columbia Earth Institute
The
Program of Information and Resources (PIR) is part of the Columbia
Earth Institute - a bold new initiative to promote collaborative,
long-term planning that balances the needs of people, the environment
and the economy.Recognizing that the problems and opportunities
we face are too complex to be addressed by any single research
field, The Earth Institute brings together earth scientists from
all parts of the University - biologists, social scientists, economists,
public policymakers, engineers, and other scholars. Their goal
is to find innovative strategies and technologies that will ensure
our planet's health while continuing to advance our economic and
technological development. The Earth Institute's guiding principles
are to preserve the Earth and improve the quality of life on it
- to avert catastrophic changes and to bring beneficial ones,
as well.
Blending Finance and the Environment
PIR's
mission is to develop new economic strategies that increase productivity
in industrial and developing countries and simultaneously promote
wise stewardship of the world's ecological resources. Using the
tools of mathematics, economic theory and data analysis, PIR researches
assess the economic value of the ecological infrastructure that
supports human societies. They analyze interactions between the
economy and the environment, and design new financial and social
institutions to manage the sustainable use of the biosphere. Working
with the support of the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and with a strong network of
international partners and a multidisciplinary group of researchers,
PIR is rethinking the economic foundations of environmental desicion-making.
A New Era for the World's Economy and Ecology
Founded in 1994, PIR seeks to merge the two most important trends
of our time - The Knowledge Revolution™ and the management
of the planet's biosphere. The program has a unique perspective
that percieves the intimate connection between the Knowledge Revolution™
and the use of resources on a global scale, and that understands
the crucial role financial markets can play in transforming environmental
problems into profits.
Earth Management in the Era of The Knowledge
Revolution™
A
primary focus of PIR's research and education is the rapid innovation
in information technology - which is changing patterns of production,
employment and consumption and revolutionizing the world economy.
The rise of the computer, software, biotechnology, entertainment,
financial, health, medical and other "knowledge-intensive"
industries has created new opportunities - in which the creation,
management and distribution of ideas and knowledge will replace
land and oil as a natural resource for economic development. The
Knowledge Revolution™ holds great promise for continuing
economic progress while avoiding environmental crisis.
A PIR Research Sampler
An
International Bank for Environmental Settlments (IBES)
PIR recommended the creation of a new international bank for foster
institutions through which communities can realize the values
of their ecological resources while conserving them. PIR recommends
that the bank implement the trading of pollution rights as an
efficient way to encourage both industrialized and developing
countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The bank would assess
market values for the use of Earth's atmosphere and create a global
market to trade rights to emit gases generated by the burning
fossil fuels.
Catastrophe Bundles™
PIR researchers have designed a new financial instrument
to manage the economic risks of the reinsurance industry, which
has sustained unprecedented losses in recent years because of
unpredictable and highly destructive environmental events - hurricanes,
earthquakes, droughts and floods. Catastrophe Bundles™
combine a reinsurance packagewith securities such as environmental
risks.
Assessing Earth's Environmental Capital
In collaboration with UNESCOS's Man and Biosphere program, the
Smithstonian institutution, the Global Environment Facility, and
the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation at Columbia
University, PIR has launched an unprecedented effort to calculate
dollar values for the benefits humans derive from the Earth's
natural systems.
Applying mathematical models and economic theory, the study will
assess the economic value of fisheries for food, healthy soil
for agriculture, forests for clean air, rain forests for genetic
raw material, and watersheds for filtering drinking water in 371
critical natural systems around the world. The study will create
a new financial foundation to attract public and private investment
to protect and preserve essential ecosystems.
Dynamics of Economic and Environmental Systems
PIR researchers - in collaboration with the Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory of Columbia University, The NASA-Goddard Institute
for Space Studies, OECD and the United Nations - have developed
a global database and computermodels for simulating interactions
among economic, climate and ecological systems at the global level,
and for studying the effects of policies. They have addressed
such complex issues as the effect of social and economic diversity
on patterns of north-south trade; the ecological impact of economic
institutions; and the relationships among social, economic andbiological
diversity.
About
the Director
Graciela Chichilnisky, the director of the Program on Infomation
and Resources, in UNESCO Professor of Economics and Mathematics
at Columbia University. She has taught at Harvard, Essex and Standford
universities and from 1989 was chair and chief executive officer
of FITEL, an international financial telecommunications corporation.
SHe has been adviser to the Organization of Economic Cooperation
and Development, the United Nations, and the Organization of Petroleum,
Exporting Countries in international economics and environmental
policiy. She was a member of the Presidential Cabinet of the Central
Bank of Argentina, and she holds doctorates in mathematics and
economics form the University of California at Berkeley. The author
of five books and numerous articles, Professor Chichilnisky was
the originator of the concept of the economic development targeted
at the satisfaction of basic needs, which was adopted by 150 countries
in the UN Agenda 21 as the central element of their strategies
for sustainable development. She is an internationally acknowledges
leader in many fields, combining innovative mathematical theory
and topical policy analysis.
For
further information, please contact:
Program
on Information Resources
Columbia Earth
Institute
Columbia University
475 Riverside Drive, Suite 248
9
th floor
mailbox#7749
New York, N.Y. 10027
(212)
854-1689
(212) 678 1148
cg9@columbia.edu
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