Climate Change Mitigation Efforts Research Articles

Penyuluhan Peraturan Daerah Kalimantan Timur No 7 Tahun 2019 Tentang Adaptasi dan Mitigasi Perubahan Iklim


 East Kalimantan Province is very vulnerable to climate change, so it needs policies and strategies in managing climate change impacts through adaptation and mitigation actions. So it is necessary to stipulate local regulations on climate change adaptation and mitigation. Management of climate change in East Kalimantan is one of the local government's efforts in providing guarantees to the community to get a quality living environment. The purpose of this community service activity is to provide understanding to residents regarding East Kalimantan Regional Regulation No. 7 of 2019 concerning climate change adaptation and mitigation. The method of implementing this community service activity is in the form of counseling and discussion of East Kalimantan Regional Regulation No. 7 of 2019 concerning climate change adaptation and mitigation.
 
 Based on the results of community service activities related to the extension of East Kalimantan Regional Regulation No. 7 of 2019 regarding climate change adaptation and mitigation, it was concluded that many people still do not know about the regional regulation. Efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change are not only the responsibility of the Government, but also the responsibility of the DPR. The DPR's climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts can be carried out through the implementation of its three functions, namely the budget function, the supervisory function, and the legislative function. Every stakeholder, including the community, must mitigate and adapt to climate change, because adaptation and mitigation is the key to addressing climate change, which is the key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon stocks to reduce the impact of climate change. The active role of the regional government in formulating policies related to climate change is a must, the policy is expected to be a direction for stakeholders in East Kalimantan.

Demoralizing: integrating J.D. Peters’ communication “chasm” with Niklas Luhmann’s (1989) ecological communication to analyze climate change mitigation inaction

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the US society’s insignificant mitigation of climate change using Niklas Luhmann’s (1989) autopoietic social systems theory in ecological communication. Specifically, the author’s analysis falls within the context of Luhmann re-moralized while focusing on particular function systems’ binary codes and their repellence of substantive US climate change mitigation policy across systems.Design/methodology/approachThe author achieves this purpose by resituating Luhmann’s conception of evolution to forgo systems teleology and better contextualize the spatial-temporal scale of climate change; reinforcing complexity reduction and differentiation by integrating communication and media scholar John D. Peters’s (1999) “communication chasm” concept as one mechanism through which codes sustain over time; and applying these integrated concepts to prominent the US climate change mitigation attempts.FindingsThe author concludes that climate change mitigation efforts are the amalgamation of the systems’ moral communications. Mitigation efforts have relegated themselves to subsystems of the ten major systems given the polarizing nature of their predominant care/harm moral binary. Communication chasms persist because these moral communications cannot both adhere to the systems’ binary codes and communicate the climate crisis’s urgency. The more time that passes, the more codes force mitigation organizations, activist efforts and their moral communications to adapt and sacrifice their actions to align with the encircling systems’ code.Social implicationsIn addition to the conceptual contribution, the social implication is that by identifying how and why climate change mitigation efforts are subsumed by the larger systems and their codes, climate change activists and practitioners can better tool their tactics to change the codes at the heart of the systems if serious and substantive climate change mitigation is to prevail.Originality/valueTo the author’s knowledge, there has not been an integration of a historical communication concept into, and sociological application of, ecological communication in the context of climate change mitigation.

Japanese carbon emissions patterns shifted following the 2008 financial crisis and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake

Unexpected events such as economic crises and natural disasters can have profound implications for energy systems and climate change mitigation efforts at different levels. Here we explore the national and regional carbon emission patterns (and their drivers) for the main economic sectors in Japan between 2007 and 2015, a period shaped by the 2008 financial crisis and the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Following the 2011 earthquake the previously decreasing regional emissions patterns started increasing in practically all regions except Hokkaido. This was mainly due to growing coal use particularly in the Kyushu, Chugoku and Kansai regions. Furthermore, most regions experienced shifts in the dominance of different drivers of emissions over time, with a stronger initial impact from economic effects after the 2008 financial crisis, followed by energy structure after the 2011 earthquake, and then by economic effects and energy intensity. These results offer a more nuanced understanding of how individual events can affect emissions at different periods and levels (national vs. regional) to inform the design of climate change mitigation strategies.

How many hot days and heavy precipitation days will grandchildren experience that break the records set in their grandparents’ lives?

One of the major barriers to climate communication is that climate change is often presented to the public in such a way that impacts seem distant in time. To improve how climate change resonates with people, we propose a simple indicator: how many extreme events (hot days and heavy precipitation days) are grandchildren projected to experience that their grandparents will not experience in their lives? We analyse the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 ensemble. During grandchildren’s lifetime (2020–2100) under the shared socioeconomic pathway 5–8.5 (SSP5-8.5), in some tropical regions, they are projected to experience >1000 hot days and >5 heavy precipitation days breaking records set in their grandparents’ lifetime until 2040. These numbers of unprecedented hot days and heavy precipitation days under SSP5-8.5 are greater in countries with lower CO2 emissions and income per capita than in countries with higher CO2 emissions and income per capita. We show that not only the numbers of unprecedented hot days and heavy precipitation days but also their unevenness across countries can be significantly lowered in the SSP1-2.6 scenario, which is consistent with the 2 °C goal of the Paris Agreement. This new approach would help adults easily understand how their climate change mitigation efforts could decrease the unprecedented extreme events during youths’ lifetime and reduce the intergenerational and intragenerational inequalities regarding extreme events.

Radical Existentialist Exercise

Radical Existentialist Exercise

Patient-Planetary Health Co-benefit Prescribing: Emerging Considerations for Health Policy and Health Professional Practice.

In addition to the importance of fostering and developing measures for better health-system resilience globally from the effects of climate change, there have been increasing calls for health professionals, as well as public health and medical education systems, to become partners in climate change mitigation efforts. Direct clinical practice considerations, however, have not been adequately fostered equitably across all regions with an often-confusing array of practice areas within planetary health and sustainable healthcare. This article calls for a more coordinated effort within clinical practice spaces given the urgency of global environmental change, while also taking lessons from Indigenous traditional knowledge systems—a viewpoint that is rarely heard from or prioritized in public health or medicine. Simpler and more coordinated messaging in efforts to improve patient and planetary health are needed. The creation of unifying terminology within planetary health-rooted clinical and public health practice has been proposed with the potential to bring forth dialogue between and within disciplinary offshoots and public health advocacy efforts, and within clinical and health-system policy spaces.

Health impacts of fine particles under climate change mitigation, air quality control, and demographic change in India

Despite low per capita emissions, with over a billion population, India is pivotal for climate change mitigation globally, ranking as the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. We linked a previously published multidimensional population projection with emission projections from an integrated assessment model to quantify the localised (i.e. state-level) health benefits from reduced ambient fine particulate matter in India under global climate change mitigation scenarios in line with the Paris Agreement targets and national scenarios for maximum feasible air quality control. We incorporated assumptions about future demographic, urbanisation and epidemiological trends and accounted for model feedbacks. Our results indicate that compared to a business-as-usual scenario, pursuit of aspirational climate change mitigation targets can avert up to 8.0 million premature deaths and add up to 0.7 years to life expectancy (LE) at birth due to cleaner air by 2050. Combining aggressive climate change mitigation efforts with maximum feasible air quality control can add 1.6 years to LE. Holding demographic change constant, we find that climate change mitigation and air quality control will contribute slightly more to increases in LE in urban areas than in rural areas and in states with lower socio-economic development.

Carbon Dioxide and Methane Fluxes from a Tropical Freshwater Wetland Under Natural and Rice Paddy Conditions: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation

We investigated the impact of converting a natural tropical freshwater wetland in Uganda into a rice paddy wetland on climate change mitigation, by comparing carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) fluxes from the natural section (under different vegetation communities dominated by Cyperus papyrus, Typha latifolia and Phragmites mauritianus) and from a rice paddy section, during the dry and wet seasons. CO2 fluxes (mg C m− 2 h− 1) from the rice paddy section during the dry and wet seasons were 1045.4 ± 46.6 (mean ± SE) and 804.4 ± 50.2 respectively, significantly higher (p < 0.05) than those obtained from all the three vegetation communities of the natural section. However, CH4 fluxes (mg C m− 2 h− 1) from the rice paddy section during the dry and wet seasons were 2.1 ± 0.4 and 5.1 ± 0.5 respectively, significantly lower (p < 0.05) than those observed from all the vegetation communities of the natural section. Considering total carbon emission, it was observed that whereas conversion of natural tropical freshwater wetlands into rice paddies may limit CH4 emission, it compromises climate change mitigation efforts by increasing total carbon emission, that could make rice paddy wetlands net carbon sources. Fluxes of CO2 and CH4 from the wetland were mainly influenced by water level. Further, we estimated that rice paddy wetlands currently emit only 0.72 and 0.14 % of the total annual CO2 and CH4 respectively, emitted from Uganda’s wetland soils due to their low spatial coverage. However, we predict that future emission of both gases from Uganda’s wetlands will mainly originate from rice paddy wetlands due to their rapid expansion rate.

Village forest management for mitigation of climate change and contribution to community social-economic resilience

Indonesia has the potential of forest resources with an area of 120.7 million hectares. The government has established various forest area management mechanisms to create livelihoods, environmental services, and climate change mitigation efforts. This study aims to determine the contribution of village forests to the creation of livelihoods for the community through physical observation, social observation, and in-depth interviews. The Village Forest in the study location has advantages because it consists of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, so the biodiversity richness is very high. The strength of the village forest system is that it can be managed by local communities as a source of livelihood for 59.9% of respondents, but it is not yet optimal in its management as a source of income with the majority of respondents earning less than one million rupiahs (70% of respondents). Although, the majority of the 148 respondents (37.4%) are considered that the forest areas contributed to new types of work as a source of income. The potential for exploitation and degradation of forest areas needs to be considered because of the high frequency of people entering forest areas and opening access. The existence of village forests in the region directly or indirectly contributes to efforts to mitigate global climate change. It can be conserved and protected as a carbon pool and a carbon sink. The existence of various types of new jobs and potential economic opportunities from this can reduce the rate of forest conversion and exploitation by the community which is generally done to earn income.

Predicting the abatement rates of soil organic carbon sequestration management in Western European vineyards using random forest regression

The implementation of soil organic carbon sequestration (SCS) practices on agricultural land has the potential to help to mitigate climate change at the global level. However, our understanding of the extent to which viticultural soils can contribute to this global effort remains limited. In this study, we used a random forest regression to predict the change in soil organic carbon stocks in vineyards of Western Europe under five SCS practices: organic amendments (OA), cover cropping (CC), organic amendments and no-tillage (OA+NT), no-tillage and cover cropping (NT+CC), and a combination of organic amendments, no-tillage and cover cropping (OA+NT+CC). The abatement rate of each SCS practice was modelled and mapped for six countries in Western Europe: Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Germany and Austria. Overall, the highest abatement rate was reached under OA+NT+CC (8.29 ​Mg CO 2 -eq. ha −1 yr −1 ), whereas the lowest was observed under CC (7.03 Mg CO 2 -eq. ha −1 yr −1 ). Results showed major differences in abatement rates at the regional and national level. Despite these differences, the adoption of SCS practices was associated with a high abatement potential in the six countries and should be encouraged in the viticulture sector as a way to offset greenhouse gas emissions via soil carbon sequestration. • Soil carbon sequestration was modelled in vineyards using random forest regression. • Random forest regression provided accurate predictions. • All modelled practices were associated with high abatement rates in vineyards. • The highest abatement rate was reached in the Canary Islands under OA+NT+CC. • Vineyards can contribute to global climate change mitigation efforts.

Does Aiming for Long-Term Non-Decreasing Flow of Timber Secure Carbon Accumulation: A Lithuanian Forestry Case

Lithuanian forestry has long been shaped by the classical normal forest theory, aiming for even long-term flow of timber, and the aspiration to preserve domestic forest resources, leading to very conservative forest management. With radically changing forest management conditions, climate change mitigation efforts suggest increasing timber demands in the future. The main research question asked in this study addresses whether current forest management principles in Lithuania can secure non-decreasing long-term flow of timber and carbon accumulation. The development of national forest resources and forestry was simulated for the next century using the Kupolis decision support system and assuming that current forest management is continued under the condition of three scenarios, differing by climate change mitigation efforts. Potential development trends of key forest attributes were analysed and compared with projected carbon stock changes over time, incorporating major forest carbon pools—biomass, harvested wood products and emission savings due to energy and product substitution. The key finding was that the total carbon balance should remain positive in Lithuania during the next one hundred years; however, it might start to decrease after several decades, with steadily increasing harvesting and a reduced increase of forest productivity. Additionally, incorporating the harvested wood and CO2 emissions savings in carbon balance evaluations is essential.

Community Solar Value Generation and Distribution

Climate change mitigation efforts are taking place around the world, including efforts to decarbonize the electricity grid with renewable energy generation. In addition to small-scale rooftop and large-scale utility-scale solar, intermediate commercial-scale solar projects are gaining traction through an innovative business model known as community solar, in which residential customers pay a local solar project developer (via either an ongoing subscription fee or an upfront investment) for a share of solar capacity. The participating customers are compensated for the solar energy generated from their share of capacity by the utility, at a bill credit rate set by the regulator. The total cost of energy can be reduced if the bill credits are less than what the utility would otherwise pay for the conventional energy. In this paper, we study how the community solar business model generates value and how this value is distributed among all the players, using a model that endogenizes the adoption decisions of heterogeneous customers and the solar developer's pricing decisions in response to the bill credit rate. Our model captures the fundamental tradeoffs between the direct benefits of community solar participation and the indirect benefits from overall energy cost reduction, as well as between the solar developer's profit and the welfare improvement of the customers. Our analysis provides guidance to the policy makers on regulating community solar programs to achieve both high value generation and equitable value distribution.

Does solar geoengineering crowd out climate change mitigation efforts? Evidence from a stated preference referendum on a carbon tax

Solar geoengineering is increasingly being considered a realistic approach to managing climate change. One crucial concern is whether geoengineering crowds out efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Adding to a limited body of empirical evidence, we use a survey experiment to estimate how informing the U.S. public about solar geoengineering impacts support for a proposed national carbon tax. In contrast to the crowding-out hypothesis, we find that respondents who are provided with information about geoengineering are significantly more likely to support the tax. Further, we document systematic variation as people with egalitarian and communitarian worldviews are more responsive to the information relative to those with hierarchical and individualist worldviews. Our study suggests that the availability and awareness of solar geoengineering options may lead to an increase in greenhouse gas abatement efforts.

Cutting edge technologies to end food waste

Cutting edge technologies to end food waste

The salience of future impacts and the willingness to pay for climate change mitigation: an experiment in intergenerational framing

Globally, investment in climate change mitigation has lagged far behind the optimal level as estimated by a large body of science. This lag may be caused, in part, by the psychological distance between decision-makers today and those who will likely experience the worst impacts of climate change in the future. This psychological distance reduces the salience of those impacts in today’s decisions. In a randomized control experiment using a letter-to-the-future treatment and a climate change essay treatment, I find that compared to a control group, both writing tasks that focus attention on the future risks of climate change increase the willingness to donate to climate change mitigation efforts. I also find evidence that for parents and grandparents, writing a letter to one’s child or grandchild increases the salience of existing concerns about how climate change may impact one’s children. These findings contribute to the understanding of how to bridge the psychological distance between choices and consequences for climate change mitigation and have implications for a wide range of decisions from personal health choices to retirement savings.

Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on global fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions

We assess the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on global fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions over the two-year horizon 2020Q1-2021Q4. We apply a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model, which captures complex spatial-temporal interdependencies across countries associated with the international propagation of economic impact due to the virus spread. The model makes use of a unique quarterly data set of coal, natural gas, and oil consumption, output, exchange rates and equity prices, including global fossil fuel prices for 32 major CO2 emitting countries spanning the period 1984Q1–2019Q4. We produce forecasts of coal, natural gas and oil consumption, conditional on GDP growth scenarios based on alternative IMF World Economic Outlook forecasts that were made before and after the outbreak. We also simulate the effect of a relative price change in fossil fuels, due to global scale carbon pricing, on consumption and output. Our results predict fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions to return to their pre-crisis levels, and even exceed them, within the two-year horizon despite the large reductions in the first quarter following the outbreak. Our forecasts anticipate more robust growth for emerging than for advanced economies. The model predicts recovery to the pre-crisis levels even if another wave of pandemic occurs within a year. Our counterfactual carbon pricing scenario indicates that an increase in coal prices is expected to have a smaller impact on GDP than on fossil fuel consumption. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic would not provide countries with a strong reason to delay climate change mitigation efforts.

Carbon Capture and Storage in the United States: Perceptions, preferences, and lessons for policy

Although Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies can potentially play an important role in climate change mitigation efforts, commercial CCS projects are still rare. Knowledge about the technical challenges of these technologies is rapidly advancing, but the challenges related to their public acceptance are still underinvestigated. Here we try to close this research gap by investigating public perceptions of CCS and public attitudes towards policies to scale up these technologies in the United States, where most existing industrial-scale CCS projects are operating. Based on a demographically representative sample of US residents, we find that awareness of CCS is very low. Using a conjoint experiment, we show that policies that outlaw the construction of new coal- and gas-fired power plants without CCS find higher public support than CCS subsidies and increases in taxes on unabated fossil fuel power generation. Public support decreases with rising costs of CCS deployment and decreasing minimal distance requirements of CCS plants from residential areas. Our results provide insights into the political feasibility of a large-scale deployment of CCS and show that specific policy design choices play an important role in influencing public support for policies to scale up these technologies.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON LEGAL FRAMEWORKS ON RENEWABLE ENERGY IN MALAYSIA AND INDIA: TOWARDS THE COMMITMENTS UNDER THE PARIS AGREEMENT

Climate change has always been an agenda for the international community, individually and collectively, due to global warming and unusual weather conditions. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) believes that the adequate deployment of clean energy can achieve the targets of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Many countries have shown their commitment to decrease their carbon emission levels substantially, and they have done so by resorting to renewable energy sources. Renewable energy generation opens a viable door for climate change mitigation efforts. Both Malaysia and India are committed to fulfilling their obligation under the Paris Agreement. This comparative study evaluates the laws and policies related to renewable energy in Malaysia and India, as these countries progress towards their commitments under the Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC). This study operates under the comparative qualitative methodological framework and utilises secondary sources for analysis. Based on the comparative expositions, Malaysia can learn measures adopted by India to accelerate renewable energy development as well as to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, which will prove beneficial to the country as well as in order to comply with international conventions and agreements.

Bioenergy research under climate change: a bibliometric analysis from a country perspective.

Development of bioenergy will be a key component for meeting increasing energy demands while mitigating global warming. With the intent of identifying current topics of major interest and development of research directions in the field of bioenergy under climate change, we conducted a bibliometric analysis and network analysis from a country perspective based on 3050 articles published since 1999 derived from the Scopus database. The results indicated that USA, UK, and Germany led other countries in terms of number of publications (1006, 366, and 280 articles, respectively) and h-index (greater than 50) in this research area. The USA has also produced a large number of articles in highly respected journals. Compared with developed countries, some developing countries (e.g., China, India, and Brazil) have a larger proportion of publications which are cited less than 10 times and researchers who have academic age of 1 year. The number of publications dealing with some of these research topics coming from developing countries has lagged behind the number of similar publications coming from developed countries. In spite of this, research on sustainable energy systems is still needed for developing countries to further establish feasible systems that can effectively promote global economic development and strengthen climate change mitigation efforts.

The Role of Green Biotechnology through Genetic Engineering for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, and for Food Security: Current Challenges and Future Perspectives

Climatic change has a great challenge to almost all human activities over the years. Continuous increase in climate change could have a negative effect on global food security. In order to feed the current ever-increasing world population, there is a need to double the rate of agricultural productivity. Biotechnology through genetic modification can contribute their incredible roles positively towards reducing vulnerability of natural and human systems to climate change effects including greenhouse gas reduction, and increase agricultural production on less land in helping to meet future food by the adoption of GM-crop traits such as herbicide-tolerant crops, drought-tolerant crops, insect-resistant crops, and high-yielding transgenic crops which counters the negative effects of climate change. It is important that bio-safety regulatory systems to be established and good policies formulated on agricultural development with the use of sustainable agricultural biotechnology with public-private partnership to effectively utilize modern biotechnology to enhance food security and mitigate climatic changes. Currently, modern biotechnology has encountered enormous public debates related to risks and benefits of genetically modified organisms in terms of human health, environment, socio-economic, and ethical and cultural concern issues. However, safe application of modern agricultural biotechnologies is significantly contributing to the current and future climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts, and greatly improve agricultural productivity and food security to ensure food availability or access to food for all and efficient utilization of food resources globally. This will ensure that the GM-crops have no adverse effect on living organisms and the environmentally safe. Therefore, the aim of this review paper was to assessed the current challenges and future perspectives of biotechnology through genetic modification for climate change adaptation and mitigation, and food security.