Ambitious Climate Action Research Articles

How is feasibility in local climate politics constructed? Balancing between appropriateness and consequence in advancing urban low-carbon plans

ABSTRACT How does ambitious climate action become politically feasible? The literature has tended to understand political feasibility through interactions between citizens and governing institutions, conditioned by the various costs and benefits for the actors involved. Instead, by considering the work of bureaucratic actors, this paper examines the practices of constructing feasibility in local climate planning. We draw on sociological institutionalism, focusing on the dynamics of fine-tuning between logics of appropriateness and consequence in achieving what is deemed ‘politically feasible.’ Taking climate politics in the City of Bergen (Norway) as a case study, this paper advances that what is deemed politically feasible is a product of calibrating (1) relevant policies with the city’s climate ambitions, (2) specific actions with open and inclusive processes, and (3) radical and ambitious solutions with the city’s current political climate. We discuss the implications of these results for the legitimization of climate planning locally.

The Russian War against Ukraine: a case study in climate, conflict, and green recovery

The Russian war against Ukraine, having brought monumental social, economic, and environmental devastation, serves as a compelling case study demonstrating the broader implications of climate crises, underscoring the complex interplay between fossil fuel dependency and geopolitical tensions, and illustrating that the fight for climate justice and the fight for peace are deeply interconnected. Meanwhile, Ukraine has the potential to leverage post-war reconstruction as an unprecedented opportunity for comprehensive decarbonisation and ecological recovery. Examining the limitations of the international climate change regime and exploring controversial aspects of fossil fuel production, this paper highlights the hidden climate costs of war, and investigates the concept of ‘climate change as a battle’ and how it can frame the global discourse on climate security and climate justice. It argues that addressing climate change is akin to fighting a war, requiring mobilisation of resources, political will, and international solidarity. In this context, Ukraine’s experience offers valuable lessons for the global community as it navigates the complex challenges of post-conflict recovery while simultaneously addressing the urgent need for climate action. With the right assistance, Ukraine could emerge as a front-runner in the global energy transition, inspiring other nations to pursue ambitious climate action even in the face of adversity.

Science and citizen deliberation – a promising coalition?

Many countries, including Germany have struggled to agree on ambitious climate action, in part because technocratic policy advice failed to adequately consider the social and political consequences. The combination of science and citizen deliberation could enable a new coalition to stimulate policy learning along different climate policy options. The Ariadne Project was a transdisciplinary research project about different policy options for the German Energy Transition. It facilitated an iterative social learning process between researchers and citizens during focus groups, citizen conferences and online deliberations. As such, this case sheds light on a new culture of science–society relations. To assess if and how learning occurred, we ask whether the involved citizens and researchers have changed their understanding of policy options and of each other. We found that citizens were very enthusiastic about the new learning opportunities, and their roles within them. While researchers appreciated the new experience, they also faced challenges. We argue that despite these challenges, there is inherent value in providing spaces for researchers and citizens to interact with and jointly inform policymakers.

Conservative Worldviews and the Climate Publics of New Zealand and Australia

Abstract Public opinion on climate change is complex, comprising aspects such as belief, support for policies, and issue salience. This multidimensional nature of climate opinion can be accounted for by identifying “publics,” each comprising people with similar climate attitudes. Climate opinion has also been found to relate strongly to political worldviews, with people holding conservative attitudes tending to have low levels of engagement with climate change. However, few studies have investigated how political worldviews relate to membership of climate publics. The current study therefore identifies climate publics in New Zealand and Australia and investigates how they relate to economic and social aspects of conservative worldviews. Using an original online survey, I find no clear link between economic conservatism and membership of climate publics. Social conservatives, however, are more likely to be members of publics with low levels of climate engagement and of “middle” publics, which accept the science of climate change but are “lukewarm” on climate action. Climate opinion appears to be more polarized in Australia than New Zealand. These results provide insight into the worldviews of people in the “mainstream” of climate opinion and suggest that only a minority of the public are demanding ambitious climate action.

Mapping the mitigation context for sectoral decarbonisation

ABSTRACT The accelerating climate crisis demands action by governments, sectors, organisations and individuals. This research aims to inform sectoral approaches, which catalyse decarbonisation within one particular part of the global economy, but whose success is shaped by country-specific contexts. To appraise each country’s enabling environment for climate change mitigation in the tourism sector, data are drawn from the World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Development Index for 2019 and 2021. Focusing on three central areas of tourism mitigation, namely public transport, green energy, and nature protection, a Mitigation Context Index is created by averaging normalised (1–7 scale) scores across six variables. The results reveal that some countries provide favourable conditions for tourism emissions reduction, whilst others might impede mitigation progress. Understanding the opportunities or constraints of tourism’s mitigation context can guide policy priorities, target setting and investment decisions. Where tourism is a significant part of the national economy, there is an important opportunity for sectoral leadership. Tourism could help unlock green investment and nudge the country towards more ambitious climate action. Whilst more work is required to fully capture tourism’s mitigation context, this note intends to trigger integrated thinking on how to optimise sectorial contributions within evolving climate governance arrangements.

The limited potential of soil and vegetation in urban greenspace for nature‐based offsetting of institutional carbon emissions

AbstractThe soil and vegetation of urban greenspace can potentially contribute to ambitious climate action plans declared by city institutions and councils. To assess how urban greenspace could make a contribution to institutional carbon management, we measured soil carbon at 42 sampling locations across three land‐covers and vegetation carbon of 490 trees (67 species), over the city campus of Newcastle University. Soil carbon varied with pH and land‐cover classes (lawned with some free‐standing trees, woodland park, sports fields), and tree cover significantly enhanced soil carbon storage. Soil carbon storage from 0 to 30 cm depth averaged 18.85 kg·m−2, more than double the tree carbon storage (average 7.66 kg·m−2) estimated using biomass empirical equations. According to our scenarios, even if all currently available urban greenspace were converted to woodland, this would offset only 1% of current annual greenhouse gas emissions of Newcastle University or, if implemented more widely, of Newcastle city overall. While urban woodland brings benefits beyond carbon storage, the limit to what can be achieved within cities emphasizes the need for urban–rural partnerships. In exchange for helping cities with carbon abatement, their surrounding rural regions could benefit from carbon offsetting payments to improve their infrastructure provision. Overall, a carbon‐friendly and nature‐based land management strategy should be developed with full consideration of collaborative partnerships between urban and surrounding rural areas, particularly placing a high value on soil and tree carbon.

Early engagement and co-benefits strengthen cities’ climate commitments

Cities can lead the way in tackling climate change through robust climate actions (that is, measures taken to limit climate change or its impacts). However, escalating crises due to pandemics, conflict and climate change pose challenges to ambitious and sustained city climate action. Here we use global data on 793 cities from the Carbon Disclosure Project 2021 platform to assess how the COVID-19 crisis has affected cities’ reported climate commitments and actions and the factors associated with these impacts. We find climate actions persist despite funding shortfalls; yet only 43% of cities have implemented green recovery interventions. Co-benefits of climate action (for example, health outcomes) and early engagement on sustainability issues (for example, via climate networks) are associated with sustained climate action and finance during COVID-19 and green recovery interventions. Cities should strengthen sustainability co-benefits and relationships with coalitions of actors to support durable climate commitments during crises.

The impacts of decarbonization pathways on Sustainable Development Goals in the European Union

Climate action to achieve the Paris Agreement should respect the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Here, we use an integrated assessment modelling framework comprising nine climate policy models and quantify the impacts of decarbonisation pathways on Sustainable Development Goals in the European Union at regional and national levels. We show that scenario-consistent assumptions of future socio-economic trends and current climate policies would improve energy- and carbon-related aspects of sustainability and reduce inequalities. Ambitious net-zero emissions pathways would further improve health and agricultural productivity. Furthermore, countries currently lagging in achieving sustainable development goals would see the greatest benefits from ambitious climate action. Negative socio-economic impacts from climate action on poverty, hunger, and economic growth will require specific corrective policies. While our analysis does not quantify the negative effects of less ambitious climate policy, it demonstrates where co-benefits and trade-offs of greenhouse gas mitigation and sustainable development agenda exist and can guide policy formulation.

Pension funds and fossil fuel phase-out: historical developments and limitations of pension climate strategies

Despite the decades of international climate negotiations and several landmark agreements, global efforts to date to restrict fossil fuel production in line with climate targets have been unsuccessful. As national and international policies continue to fall short of phasing out fossil fuels, increasing attention has been paid to non-state actors, like pension funds, as a potential source of more ambitious climate action. As major asset owners, large shareholders in fossil fuel companies, and historically activist investors, pension funds are theoretically well-placed to contribute to phasing out fossil fuels. Despite growing recognition of this potential role for pension funds and other major investors in climate change mitigation, there has been little attention to pension funds’ historical record on climate change, or to how their climate strategies have developed and changed over time. This paper examines how the climate strategies of the largest US and European pension funds have evolved in relation to key developments in international climate agreements and the extent to which these strategies contribute to restricting fossil fuel supply. Through an analysis of the annual, governance, and sustainability reports of 6 pension funds from 1997 to 2022, we examine the strategies pension funds have adopted to address both climate change and fossil fuels. Pension funds have demonstrated responsiveness to the signals of international climate agreements, adopting a range of strategies with respect to climate change (amongst others, integrating ESG principles, increasing their sustainable investments, and setting net zero goals). Their explicit attention to fossil fuels and contribution to supply-side interventions take the form of systematic shareholder engagement, (selective) divestment, and lobbying policymakers. While pension fund climate action is growing , the ambition of their strategies is not aligned with a rapid fossil fuel phaseout; their efforts are often focussed on improving disclosure and transparency and demonstrate complacency with minimal improvements from fossil fuel companies. If pension funds are to significantly contribute to phasing out fossil fuels, redefining pension fund responsibilities and the traditional shareholder role will likely be required.

Convergent Liberal Education in the Era of Climate Crisis : Using Climate Science, Earth System Science/Environmental Science, Climate History as Cornerstones

As Latour explicitly expressed it, climate acts across all of our modes of existence from the political to the moral. For this reason, the climate liberal education in our era of climate crisis should be a convergent liberal education based upon a pluralism of knowledge. Considering this special request of climate liberal education, this paper proposed to design a transdisciplinary course using climate science, earth system science/environmental science, and climate history as core modules. Each module can have a different weight, location, and relation depending on the character and interests of the instructors and students. First of all, climate science is taken as a fundamental knowledge, because understanding climate requires both a deep level of holistic thinking and at least a basic level of climate literacy. Secondly, earth system science and environmental science as an extensive knowledge is required in order to understand the current climate crisis in the more comprehensive context of the Anthropocene. Lastly, climate history is chosen as consilience knowledge in order to integrate climate science and earth system science/environmental science, and to encourage more ambitious climate action.

Assessing the Climate Performance Potential of Start-ups: Insights and Guidance on Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Young Ventures

The role of early-stage venture capital (VC) investment in financing for ambitious climate action is often overlooked. In the developing field of climate-tech investment, one of the biggest challenges is to identify the start-ups and business models that contribute to climate change mitigation. The potential of a start-ups business model to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is defined as the start-ups climate performance potential (CPP). The assessment of a start-up’s CPP could enable start-ups and VC investors to invest in a more informed way with greater precision, impact, and purpose. The objective of this paper can be expressed in two steps: First, to gain insights into and identify the potential for improvement in the environmental sustainability assessment practices of VC firms through an exploratory case study. Second, to provide life cycle-based guidance on environmental sustainability assessment of innovative products offered by start-ups to determine their CPP, by eliciting appropriate criteria and procedures for directionally sound assessment. For this, the assessment approach developed by the climate-tech VC firm World Fund was used for the exploratory case study. In a first step, the CPP assessment process was described, based on document review and observation. Next, the CPP carbon footprint method was compared with ISO standardizations of life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprint (CF) along eight criteria. Development potential was identified and discussed for seven of the eight criteria, including, for example, the use of scenarios, the complexity of meta-analyses, and the need to avoid misleading incentives.

Resituating Human Rights within Planetary Boundaries: A Promising Narrative for Peace and Climate Justice in the Post-Ukraine World

Ambitious climate action is crucial to achieve social justice and peaceful development in the next decades. However, the current geopolitical and geoeconomic context runs counter to meaningful climate action. In fact, in 2023, global emissions were higher than ever, and future reduction prospects look grim, as Green New Deal policies are facing significant political, economic, and geostrategic challenges on both sides of the Atlantic. Against this backdrop, it is more important than ever to think out of the box in order to build alliances among social movements for an immediate reduction of emissions. Thus, this paper aims to critically explore the role that human rights can play to achieve climate justice in this context, not only as only as legal instruments, but also as a promising narrative of change that includes planetary boundaries and the central imperative of global and national redistribution.

The Paris Agreement has the potential to facilitate ambitious climate action: a reply to ‘Why do climate change negotiations stall? Scientific evidence and solutions for some structural problems’ by Ulrich J. Frey and Jazmin Burgess

"The Paris Agreement has the potential to facilitate ambitious climate action: a reply to ‘Why do climate change negotiations stall? Scientific evidence and solutions for some structural problems’ by Ulrich J. Frey and Jazmin Burgess" published on 13 Oct 2022 by Bristol University Press.

Catalytic Climate Litigation: Rights and Statutes

Abstract Rights-based climate litigation has captured the global legal imagination in part because of its aspiration to achieve a certain function: catalysing political and policy processes into more ambitious climate action across the entire government apparatus. But many jurisdictions lack the legal opportunity structure that allows rights to perform this function. Instead, litigants might look to framework statutes as a way to trigger climate catalysis through litigation. Legal and mobilisation strategies drawing on both rights and framework statutes could prove an effective approach in future litigation.

The Pivotal Generation: Why We Have a Moral Responsibility to Slow Climate Change Right Now by Henry Shue

<i>The Pivotal Generation: Why We Have a Moral Responsibility to Slow Climate Change Right Now</i> by Henry Shue

It’s a Performance, Not an Orchestra! Rethinking Soft Coordination in Global Climate Governance

Abstract Global climate governance is in transition. As the focus shifts from negotiations to implementation, the quest for ways to effectively coordinate ambitious climate action has become a key concern. While existing studies frame this problem mostly in terms of institutional design (to “facilitate” state ambition) and strategic delegation of authority (to “orchestrate” nonstate action), this article builds on dramaturgical policy analysis to examine soft coordination in practice. Using ethnographic methods, we analyze public performances at the twenty-fifth Conference of the Parties (COP25) in Madrid. We find that these were shaped by preestablished governance scripts and social roles available to participants, but also by creative improvisations and interventions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat and COP Presidency intervened to configure the physical setting of the conference, mold its narrative arch, and shape available roles. We conclude that performances and dramaturgical interventions are important tools of soft coordination in global climate governance. Their analysis constitutes a productive entry point for grasping contemporary transformations in global politics.

Exploring Global Climate Policy Futures and Their Representation in Integrated Assessment Models

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, paved the way for a new hybrid global climate governance architecture with both bottom-up and top-down elements. While governments can choose individual climate goals and actions, a global stocktake and a ratcheting-up mechanism have been put in place with the overall aim to ensure that collective efforts will prevent increasing adverse impacts of climate change. Integrated assessment models show that current combined climate commitments and policies of national governments fall short of keeping global warming to 1.5 °C or 2 °C above preindustrial levels. Although major greenhouse gas emitters, such as China, the European Union, India, the United States under the Biden administration, and several other countries, have made new pledges to take more ambitious climate action, it is highly uncertain where global climate policy is heading. Scenarios in line with long-term temperature targets typically assume a simplistic and hardly realistic level of harmonization of climate policies across countries. Against this backdrop, this article develops four archetypes for the further evolution of the global climate governance architecture and matches them with existing sets of scenarios developed by integrated assessment models. By these means, the article identifies knowledge gaps in the current scenario literature and discusses possible research avenues to explore the pre-conditions for successful coordination of national policies towards achieving the long-term target stipulated in the Paris Agreement.

A Model United Nations Experiment on Climate Negotiations

Abstract Weitzman, M.L. (2014. Can negotiating a uniform carbon price help to internalize the global warming externality? J. Assoc. Environ. Resour. Econ. 1: 29–49) proposed that focusing international climate negotiations on a uniform common commitment (such as a uniform carbon price) is more effective than negotiations on individual commitments (as in the Paris agreement) in achieving ambitious climate action. We put this hypothesis to an experimental test by simulating international negotiations on climate change in collaboration with Model United Nations associations. This novel experimental format combines some of the advantages of lab and field experiments. Our results offer support for Weitzman’s hypothesis and indicate that negotiating a common commitment on a uniform carbon price may yield higher emission reductions in the long run and more participation than individual commitments à la Paris.

Walking the Talk: Why Cities Adopt Ambitious Climate Action Plans

Why do some municipalities adopt ambitious climate action plans and others do not? This study examines United States cities that have signed the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate &amp; Energy, to identify the factors that have led some of them (37 percent, 63 cities) to adopt ambitious (Net Zero) climate action plans. It finds that two factors make the most difference: (a) whether the city has a paid city employee (or department) dedicated to environmental/energy management and (b) whether the city has a university. Other factors, such as per capita income, city revenue, state funding, size, partisan orientation, and membership in international climate networks, did not significantly influence how ambitious a city's climate action plan was. This study combines a statistical analysis of the signatory cities with a qualitative study Middletown Connecticut to explain why city energy managers and universities can have such a positive effect on city climate action.

Platforming youth voices in planetary health leadership and advocacy: an untapped reservoir for changemaking

Although there was an effort to include diverse voices at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), many youths’ pleas for ambitious climate action were not met in the updated commitments, highlighting the reality that time at the podium does not necessarily influence the key policy and finance decisions that shape our climate-dependent future.