Climate Change Commitments Research Articles

Multilevel reinforcing dynamics: Global climate governance and European renewable energy policy

AbstractThis article breaks new ground by revisiting the Multiple Streams Framework as central public policy theory and modifying it to take into account multilevel reinforcing dynamics. This is important as it allows policy change to be explained more accurately given the empirical interdependencies between policy‐making on the national, regional (e.g., European) and international levels, which so far have not been sufficiently taken into account by traditional public policy theories. It process‐traces how EU‐level policies motivated by energy security considerations and global climate leadership ambitions influenced international‐level agenda‐setting. Global climate change commitments in turn influenced European renewable energy and climate policy. Such multilevel reinforcing dynamics were central for the 2009 European Renewable Energy Directive, the 2030 Climate and Energy Framework and the 2050 European Green Deal proposal to emerge and subsequently facilitated the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which in turn motivated developed and developing countries to legislate and implement climate and renewable energy policies.

From health to harmony: Uncovering the range of heating needs in British households

Effective low carbon heating products, services and policies are critical if the UK is to meet its climate change commitments. However, these are normally developed for the hypothetical or ‘modelled’ household. The activities, behaviours and needs of ‘real’ households cannot be anticipated based on their income or makeup, nor do they remain static for any length of time. Drawing from a mixed methods approach, this paper discusses the range of needs which affect how households use the heating in their homes. These needs are grouped into 4 categories (wellbeing, resources, ease of use and relational dynamics), and 8 subcategories (health, comfort, cost, waste, control, convenience, harmony and hospitality). The paper discusses the individual and changing nature of these needs through a ‘continuum of priority’ and the factors affecting decision making. This categorisation aims to educate technologists and policy developers of the scale of flexibility required for impactful change. Low carbon policies, products and services will be more successful if they enable consumers to meet all of these needs. The challenge is to develop tools that enable designers and developers to recognise what needs each household has and how their needs change over time.

Balancing public health and private wealth: lessons on climate inaction from the COVID‐19 pandemic – a report from the International Society of Dermatology Climate Change Committee

Balancing public health and private wealth: lessons on climate inaction from the COVID‐19 pandemic – a report from the International Society of Dermatology Climate Change Committee

The impact of forestry as a land use on water quality outcomes: An integrated analysis

The adoption of the EU land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) regulation ensures that for the first time afforestation in Europe will contribute toward the achievement of European Union (EU) climate change commitments under the Paris Agreement. However, increased afforestation in Europe could have unintended environmental trade-offs that may hamper the achievement of EU Water Framework Directive targets. While much of the previous forestry research has focused on the potential negative impacts of afforestation and harvesting processes on water quality at a single point in time, this study applies an ordered probit model to investigate the impact of afforestation and forest cover (in a predominantly agricultural setting) on water quality over a 20-year period. In addition, we present an analysis of a simulated increase in afforestation and forest cover, and a corresponding decrease in agriculture area, on water quality. The results show an increase in water quality in 2.62% of cases. Both increased forest cover and the substitution of livestock have a positive impact on water quality outcomes. Despite the negative impacts associated with the process of afforestation, the long term positives associated with forest cover over the course of a forest rotation, make it a preferable land use option in terms of water quality relative to more seasonal agricultural land uses. Given the expected increase in afforestation in line with national policy, Ireland offers a unique opportunity to observe the outcomes of a large scale afforestation programme in a rural setting. The findings of this paper offer a deeper insight into the impacts of afforestation and forest cover over a meaningful time frame that is not available in site specific studies and studies focused on individual management interventions.

A review of resilient practice based upon flood vulnerability in New Taipei City, Taiwan

Resilient cities have received considerable attention in the public policy field in attempts to comply with global climate change commitments. In fact, resilient city is the key for the climate governance of the urban population of 6.3 billion people in 2050. The purpose of building resilient city is to decrease both the exposure and vulnerability. Due to the exposure might not be intervene artificially, this paper applies geographic information system (GIS) to explore the spatial distribution of vulnerability. This paper then collects the practice of building resilience in New Taipei City. Afterwards, the comparative analysis is conducted to further propose the improvements for New Taipei City government for building resilient city. The results show that although New Taipei City government actively promotes resiliency in various sectors, particular townships are facing different challenging such as rapid urbanization and lacking of emergent facilities. In fact, the spatial in equilibrium of certain critical facilities might result in serious impacts during disasters. As a whole, the results of the spatial distribution of flood vulnerability could be referred as the future improvements in resilience practice.

The effects of climate change on human health in Africa, a dermatologic perspective: a report from the International Society of Dermatology Climate Change Committee.

Throughout much of the African continent, healthcare systems are already strained in their efforts to meet the needs of a growing population using limited resources. Climate change threatens to undermine many of the public health gains that have been made in this region in the last several decades via multiple mechanisms, including malnutrition secondary to drought-induced food insecurity, mass human displacement from newly uninhabitable areas, exacerbation of environmentally sensitive chronic diseases, and enhanced viability of pathogenic microbes and their vectors. We reviewed the literature describing the various direct and indirect effects of climate change on diseases with cutaneous manifestations in Africa. We included non-communicable diseases such as malignancies (non-melanoma skin cancers), inflammatory dermatoses (i.e. photosensitive dermatoses, atopic dermatitis), and trauma (skin injury), as well as communicable diseases and neglected tropical diseases. Physicians should be aware of the ways in which climate change threatens human health in low- and middle-income countries in general, and particularly in countries throughout Africa, the world's lowest-income and second most populous continent.

Unkept Promises: Israel's Implementation of Its International Climate Change Commitments

Like environmentalists around the world, Israelis concerned about climate change were despondent in November 2019 when President Donald Trump confirmed his intention to take the United States out o...

Climate Change Committee Recommends Pennsylvania Join Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Climate Change Committee Recommends Pennsylvania Join Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Indonesia's land reform: Implications for local livelihoods and climate change

One of the main components of Indonesia's Just Economy policy is extensive and rapid land reform, which targets about 12% of the country's land area for redistribution to farmers and communities by 2019. Much of the reform is occurring on forest land. At the same time, the country has pledged a significant reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, two thirds of which is to be achieved from forests. Hence agrarian reform potentially conflicts with emission reduction commitments. This research analyses how the redistribution of forests, with emphasis on the social forestry program, might affect people's livelihoods and Indonesia's capacity to deliver on its climate change commitments. With reference to Central Kalimantan province, we find that the land reform policy has increased the area distributed to local people through the streamlining of processes. However, ambitious targets and hurried distribution of land have posed significant challenges for processes and implementation. They result in partial understanding of the schemes, rights and responsibilities, inappropriate site allocation and types of forestland being distributed, and inadequate consideration for community capacity and local governance. Importantly, the resources allocated to grant these rights have not been accompanied by equal attention to foster subsequent actual land-based livelihood activities and forest protection. Hence the reform's potential to improve local livelihoods and contribute to climate change mitigation in Central Kalimantan is unlikely to be fully realized in the near future. We suggest that careful consideration be given to the processes of distribution, the type of forests being assigned, attention and support to foster implementation, and monitoring and enforcement of regulations.

Social Cost of Carbon in Environmental Impact Assessment

While the social cost of carbon (SCC) has played a prominent role in regulatory decision-making in recent years, use in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) realm has been minimal. This article explores potential roles for SCC in EIA. Using Canada’s proposed new federal impact assessment (IA) regime as a basis, the analysis examines how a jurisdiction could employ SCC to integrate climate change considerations into project-level assessment and decision-making. Potential roles are first discussed in relation to the broad purposes of IA, before focusing on key assessment factors such as consideration of economic costs and benefits, cumulative effects, climate change commitments and sustainability. Notwithstanding important SCC critiques and limitations, this article identifies several ways in which SCC could be incorporated into IA, finding a particularly strong fit where an assessment deals with a project’s economic costs and benefits. Additionally, as a metric that links project emissions to climate change damages, as opposed to project impacts on emission reduction targets, SCC could be used to complement more traditional carbon emission calculations. This article is the first to provide detailed consideration of the potential roles of SCC in IA in Canada. The analysis has broad international relevance as jurisdictions work to put in place policies and tools -- including carbon pricing mechanisms -- to achieve commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Comprehensive analysis on China’s National Climate Change Assessment Reports: Action and emphasis

Climate change assessment is central for low-carbon management practice. This paper investigates China’s National Climate Change Assessment Reports of 2007, 2011, and 2015. These three reports are compared with other climate change assessment reports by data mining. The necessity of national climate change assessment is analyzed with the requirements at home and abroad. The latest progress surrounding climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation is outlined with the increasing temperature rise in China and the urgency of climate change commitments. The achievements in climate change assessment indicate the increasing climate change vulnerability on sectors and regions in China and the strategies and priorities for low-carbon actions. Distinct gaps and differences are identified in the coverage of industry, regions, and vulnerability assessment between our assessments and other evaluation reports. These gaps and differences demonstrate the importance and future improvements of China’s national climate change assessment in international climate governance. The outlook for China’s fourth assessment report is proposed.

Climate change commitments and agriculture sectoral strategies in Cameroon: Interplay and perspectives

Cameroon like other developing countries is developing approaches to respond to national and global climate change adaptation and mitigation commitments. Sufficient information on the interplay bet...

The Symbolic Value of Leghari v Federation of Pakistan: Climate Change Adjudication in the Global South

Across the globe, citizens and environmental organisations are challenging governments on their failure to respond adequately to climate change. Leghari v Federation of Pakistan is a valuable example in this avalanche of climate change litigation. In a case brought by a drought effected Pakistani agriculturalist, the High Court of Lahore mandated the creation of a Climate Change Commission in order that urgent action be taken to address the impact of climate change in Pakistan. Leghari was the first climate change case from the Global South to attract world-wide scholarly and journalistic attention, emerging as it did at the same time as the far better publicised Urgenda Foundation v The State of Netherlands. The decision of the then Mr Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, now a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, was a bold example of transformative adjudication in pursuit of climate justice and is emblematic of the ‘rights turn’ in climate change litigation. It is also an important example of climate change adjudication from the Global South, which has not been as well documented as suits originating in the US, Australasia and Europe. Its significance, domestically and internationally, is therefore symbolic as well as practical. In this case note we unpack the decision in Leghari, highlight some of its notable features and to examine its particular importance for potential litigants the Global South.

Temperature and humidity affect the incidence of hand, foot, and mouth disease: a systematic review of the literature - a report from the International Society of Dermatology Climate Change Committee.

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is an enterovirus-mediated condition that predominantly affects children under 5years of age. The tendency for outbreaks to peak in warmer summer months suggests a relationship between HFMD and weather patterns. We reviewed the English-language literature for articles describing a relationship between meteorological variables and HFMD. Seventy-two studies meeting criteria were identified. A positive, statistically significant relationship was identified between HFMD cases and both temperature (61 of 67 studies, or 91.0%, reported a positive relationship) [CI 81.8-95.8%, P=0.0001] and relative humidity (41 of 54 studies, or 75.9%) [CI 63.1-85.4%, P=0.0001]. No significant relationship was identified between HFMD and precipitation, wind speed, and/or sunshine. Most countries reported a single peak of disease each year (most commonly early Summer), but subtropical and tropical climate zones were significantly more likely to experience a bimodal distribution of cases throughout the year (two peaks a year; most commonly late spring/early summer, with a smaller peak in autumn). The rising global incidence of HFMD, particularly in Pacific Asia, may be related to climate change. Weather forecasting might be used effectively in the future to indicate the risk of HFMD outbreaks and the need for targeted public health interventions.

Canadian geopolitical culture: Climate change and sustainability

Key Messages Canadian nationalist rhetoric is still premised on resource extraction despite discussions of climate change by the Liberal government since 2015. Taking earth system science seriously requires rethinking national identity and the conventional geopolitical premises on which it is based. Meeting Paris Agreement on Climate Change commitments requires much more fundamental changes than Canadian Federal government rhetoric so far acknowledges.

Development of a hybrid modelling approach for the generation of an urban on-road transportation emission inventory

The development of accurate emission inventories at an urban scale is of utmost importance for cities in light of climate change commitments and the need to identify the emission reduction potential of various strategies. Emission inventories for on-road transportation are sensitive to the network models used to generate traffic activity data. For large networks (cities or regions), average-speed models have been relied upon extensively in research and practice, primarily due to their computational attractiveness. Nevertheless, these models are myopic to traffic states and driving cycles and therefore lack in accuracy. The aim of this study is to improve the quality of regional on-road emission inventories without resorting to computationally-intensive traffic microsimulation of an entire region. For this purpose, macroscopic, mesoscopic, and microscopic emission models are applied and compared, using average speed, average speed and its standard deviation, and instantaneous speeds. We also propose a hybrid approach called the CLustEr-based Validated Emission Re-calculation (CLEVER), which bridges between the microscopic and mesoscopic approaches. CLEVER defines unsupervised traffic conditions using a combination of mesoscopic traffic characteristics for selected road segments, and identifies a representative emission factor (EF) for each condition based on the microscopic driving cycle of the sample. Regional emissions can then be estimated by classifying segments in the regional network into these conditions, and applying corresponding EFs. The results of the CLEVER method are compared with the results of microsimulation and of mesoscopic approaches revealing a robust methodology that improves the emission inventory while reducing computational burden.

Impact of climate change on dermatological conditions related to flooding: update from the International Society of Dermatology Climate Change Committee.

Climate change contributes to the increase in severity and frequency of flooding, which is the most frequent and deadly disaster worldwide. Flood-related damage can be very severe and include health effects. Among those health impacts, dermatological diseases are one of the most frequently encountered. Both infectious and noninfectious dermatological conditions are increasing after flooding. We searched PubMed using the search term climate change OR global warming OR rainfall OR flooding OR skin. Articles published in the English-language literature were included. We also searched the International Society of Dermatology website library on climate change for additional articles. There is an increased risk of trauma during the course of a natural disaster. The majority of post-tsunami wound infections were polymicrobial, but gram-negative bacteria were the leading causes. Infectious diseases with dermatological manifestations, such as impetigo, leptospirosis, measles, dengue fever, tinea corporis, malaria, and leishmaniasis, are important causes of morbidity among flood-afflicted individuals. Insect bites and stings, and parasite infestations such as scabies and cutaneous larva migrans are also frequently observed. Inflammatory conditions including irritant contact dermatitis are among the leading dermatological conditions. Dermatological conditions such as alopecia areata, vitiligo, psoriasis, and urticaria can be induced or exacerbated by psychological conditions post disaster. Prevention is essential in the management of skin diseases because of flooding. Avoiding exposure to contaminated environments, wearing protective devices, rapid provision of clean water and sanitation facilities, prompt vector controls, and education about disease risk and prevention are important.

Estimation of Economic Costs of Flood Impacts of Typhoon “Crising” in Kabacan, North Cotabato, Philippines

Kabacan town in Mindanao, Southern Philippines, which is situated on the flood plain of Cotabato Province, has been heavily affected on flooding in the recent years. Flooding on February 2013 brought about by typhoon “Crising” had worsened as compared to previous flooding events in the area. This flood event has caused heavy damage to agriculture, and economy of the town. The economic impacts of February 2013 flooding was evaluated and monetized. Valuation techniques comprised of clean-up costs method, crop damage and loss of foregone income was used to estimate the economic costs of flooding. Economic costs comprised of loss of income from rice production, loss of income from other source, clean-up costs and government spending were reached up to Php20, 451,247.49. Findings of the study will be beneficial to the Local Government of Kabacan, particularly to the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, Municipal Agriculture Office and to the Climate Change Commission as flooding is one of the major concerns of Climate Change.

The impact of time-varying CO2 injection rate on large scale storage in the UK Bunter Sandstone

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is expected to play a key role in meeting targets set by the Paris Agreement and for meeting legally binding greenhouse gas emissions targets set within the UK (Energy and Climate Change Committee, 2016). Energy systems models have been essential in identifying the importance of CCS but they neglect to impose constraints on the availability and use of geologic CO2 storage reservoirs. In this work we analyse reservoir performance sensitivities to varying CO2 storage demand for three sets of injection scenarios designed to encompass the UK's future low carbon energy market. We use the ECLIPSE reservoir simulator and a model of part of the Southern North Sea Bunter Sandstone saline aquifer. From a first set of injection scenarios we find that varying amplitude and frequency of injection on a multi-year basis has little effect on reservoir pressure response and plume migration. Injectivity varies with site location due to variations in depth and regional permeability. In a second set of injection scenarios, we show that with envisioned UK storage demand levels for a large coal fired power plant, it makes no difference to reservoir response whether all injection sites are deployed upfront or gradually as demand increases. Meanwhile, there may be an advantage to deploying infrastructure in deep sites first in order to meet higher demand later. However, deep-site deployment will incur higher upfront cost than shallow-site deployment. In a third set of injection scenarios, we show that starting injection at a high rate with ramping down, a low rate with ramping up or at a constant rate makes little difference to the overall injectivity of the reservoir. Therefore, such variability is not essential to represent CO2 storage in energy systems models resolving plume and pressure evolution over decadal timescales.

The climate change‐related disclosures and accountability practices of NGOs: Evidence from Australia

AbstractThis paper focusses on non‐governmental organisations’ (NGOs) broader social accountability, investigating their public disclosures on climate change commitment and performance. Using a synthesised disclosure index, we analyse the annual reports of 30 NGOs, all signatories to the Australian Council for International Development's Code of Conduct. Overall disclosure rates from 2008 to 2013 were higher for commitment than performance, but were very low overall. However, the number of NGOs disclosing information rose markedly over the period. Although it is not directly possible to attribute the change in disclosure levels to the implementation of the Code, the enactment of the new Code could be one of the motivating factors for NGOs’ disclosure practices and their demonstrations of greater social accountability.