Climate Change Mitigation Goals Research Articles

CLIMATE CRISIS AS A CATALYST TO ADVANCE INDIGENOUS RIGHTS

Climate change is the most grievous threat of the 21st century and disproportionately affects politically marginalised communities such as Indigenous peoples. As custodians of approximately 80% of the planet’s biodiversity, Indigenous cultures have practised sustainable management of ecosystems and resources over millennia providing vital pathways for humanity to better mitigate accelerating climate change impacts. This article argues that a rights-based approach is an important legal avenue to help better protect and advance Indigenous peoples’ rights and the biodiversity in their regions. The challenge is to develop a framework that incorporates Indigenous rights into international human rights law while obtaining judicial buy-in by domestic legal systems and nations. Drawing from international legal instruments to better protect and bolster Indigenous rights, and using Aotearoa New Zealand as a case study, this paper identifies how rights of Indigenous communities can be enhanced while serving the global goals of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Spatio-temporal unevenness in local land system regime shifts caused by land deals in Lao PDR

Extensive land-use “regime shifts” have been observed as rapid transitions from natural land cover or subsistence-oriented land use to intensified and/or expanded commodity production. However, it is often unclear whether these land-use changes are part of broader land system regime shifts in which pre-existing production systems and livelihood strategies are fundamentally transformed along with observable land-use changes rather than simply displaced or eliminated. This is a critical social-environment question given that regime shifts are often a desired and intended outcome of national rural development and market-liberalization policies but must also be attentive to environmental conservation and/or climate change mitigation goals. We investigated whether nationally extensive land-use changes implemented through large-scale land deals in Lao People’s Democratic Republic resulted in full, partial, or no village- and landscape-level regime shifts in and around land deals. Overall, land deals triggered a wide variety of full, partial, and no regime shift outcomes. Land deals with both domestic and foreign investors produced positive and negative outcomes, although foreign land deals for the production of rubber led to significantly higher rates of indirect land-use change in impacted villages than domestic and/or non-rubber land deals. Also, financial compensation alone was insufficient to improve community well-being because it could be reinvested to perpetuate previous land uses without the desired transformation in livelihoods and rural development. Land deals that exhibited greater social embeddedness (i.e., provided adequate compensation complemented by job-creation and improved access to infrastructure and/or services) were more likely to lead to positive regime shifts. Our findings demonstrate that any land system regime shift will produce both winners and losers, and thus it becomes necessary to critically analyze the localized distribution of social and environmental costs and benefits within broader-scale land-use regime shifts.

Towards decarbonisation targets by changing setpoint temperature to avoid building overcooling and implementing district cooling in (sub)tropical high-density cities – A case study of Hong Kong

Climate warming, rapid economic development, and urbanisation in (sub)tropical regions lead to increasing electricity demand for building air-conditioning that could jeopardise the efforts of decarbonisation required to meet the climate change mitigation goals. This study investigates two strategies to reduce building energy consumption due to air-conditioning: 1) the bottom-up adoption of an Adaptive Thermal Comfort (ATC)-based cooling setpoint temperature and 2) the top-down implementation of efficient District Cooling Systems (DCS). The subtropical high-density city of Hong Kong is chosen for case study since detailed data on the city's current and realistic future urban form and function are available. Numerical simulations representing the feedback between urban climate and building energy consumption are conducted by employing a mesoscale atmospheric model coupled to an urban climate and building energy model for a scenario of future (mid-21st century) Hong Kong. A prolonged high temperature event representative of future extreme conditions is simulated, during which the ATC and DCS strategies reduce building cooling energy consumption by 9.7% and 5.9%, respectively. The ATC has almost no effect on the local meteorological conditions, whereas the DCS reduces daytime sensible heat flux by up to 600 W/m2 and near-surface air temperature by almost 1 °C in the districts where it is adopted. The DCS thus also contributes to lowering outdoor heat stress in these areas. The cost-free ATC strategy is easily applicable in residential buildings worldwide and can break the vicious cycle in overcooled buildings, where occupants are acclimatised to lower indoor temperature and thus require more air-conditioning than necessary. Apart from reducing energy consumption and near-surface air temperature, the DCS brings additional benefits in building space utilisation and rooftop design. Future policy orientations should therefore encourage a societal change towards the ATC lifestyle and incorporate DCS in the planning of new development areas.

Quantifying the asymmetric spillovers in sustainable investments

Owing to the growing importance of socially responsible investments in the wake of climate change mitigation goals, we estimate the asymmetric time- and frequency-spillovers between global sustainable investments. Additionally, we examine the influence of global risk factors such as US and UK economic policy uncertainties, stock market volatility, US treasury market volatility and infectious diseases related market volatility on the short- and long-run connectedness in these investments. To this end, we use daily returns and volatilities of 14 country-level Dow Jones Sustainability Indices from January 2005 to March 2021. By employing the asymmetric versions of Diebold & Yilmaz (2012, 2014) and Barunik & Krehlik (2018) time–frequency connectedness, our study addresses both good and bad contagion among sustainable investments that is unexplored in the recent literature. The results reveal significant time–frequency asymmetries in return spillovers across different regions in the short- and long-run. Germany, France, Netherlands, and the UK are the primary shock transmitters. We find more intra-regional connectedness among the Asian countries as opposed to inter-regional connectedness. Negative returns propagate more intensely than positive ones, and this contagion is considerably boosted during crises, including the COVID19. The VIX and COVID19 remain influential in the long run. The impact of MOVE is positive in the short-run while negative in the long-run, which shows an overreaction of connectedness to the US treasury market volatility in the short-run. Economic policy uncertainties in the US and the UK increase spillovers more intensely in the short-run. These results are robust to using volatility spillovers, the choice of rolling window and various forecast horizons. Our findings are distinctly important for socially responsible investors as we point out international portfolio diversification opportunities among sustainable investments. Understanding the dynamics of connectedness in sustainable investments can potentially boost financing in this market through portfolio choices and contribute to the climate change mitigation agenda of the United Nations.

Climate and air pollution implications of potential energy infrastructure and policy measures in India

India is a rapidly developing economy with interrelated air quality, sustainable development, and climate change mitigation goals. There are unique challenges to achieving each of these goals as well as potential tradeoffs among them. This study examines the implications of possible future energy, climate, and air pollution control policies and measures in India through 2050. We take a scenario approach using the GCAM global energy-climate-land model combined with the Hector simple climate model and the TM5-FASST air quality source-receptor model to examine energy, climate and air quality outcomes. Reducing use of traditional biomass in buildings can reduce primary carbonaceous particulate emissions well below 2015 levels. However, policies that are more ambitious than current plans would likely be required to reduce SO2 and NOx emissions well below 2015 levels. Among single policy cases considered, pricing of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and expansion of natural gas infrastructure have the largest impacts on overall energy system changes relative to the reference scenario. Ambitious air pollution control and GHG policies lead to the largest reductions in air pollution concentrations and radiative forcing, respectively. However, ambitious air pollution control and GHG policies differ in the extent to which they support or impede other policy objectives. Forcing increases due to reduced aerosols from ambitious air pollution policies can be mitigated, at least in part, by applying air pollution control and GHG policies together.

Towards low-carbon housing in Chile: Optimisation and life cycle analysis of energy-efficient solutions

Significant action is needed across the Chilean housing sector to reduce energy consumption and meet climate change mitigation goals. In this study, the performance of a typical house, an optimised house and a Passivhaus in various climates is evaluated and compared, considering eight distinct climatic zones of Chile. For the thermal optimisation of the house, an OpenBIM workflow between REVIT-CYPETHERM and EnergyPlus with JEPlus were interfaced to analyse over a thousand possible combinations of energy optimisation measures for each climate zone. Additionally, a Life Cycle Assessment is used to compare the cases studied. The results show that in the manufacturing stage, building a Passivhaus would have greater environmental impacts than a traditional house. Additionally, it is shown that in warm climatic zones, a thermally optimised house can have an energy performance equivalent to housing constructed to Passivhaus standards but with less environmental impacts in all its phases of the life cycle.

Distilling data to drive carbon storage insights

Wide-spread implementation of carbon capture and storage has the potential to decrease carbon emissions and aid in meeting global climate change mitigation goals. Data availability is one of the biggest challenges faced by the carbon capture and storage (CCS) community for modeling risks associated with CCS, necessary for wide-spread implementation in coming years. Collecting, integrating, and intuitively managing data is a time-consuming process, but one which is fundamental to establishing necessary access to carbon storage data. The US Department of Energy (US DOE) has been a major supporter of energy research in the US, including significant investment into carbon capture and storage research and technology development over the last ten years. The US DOE investments into the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships, the National Risk Assessment Partnership, and other CCS related research has resulted in a large volume of data, of which much has been made public through the National Energy Technology Laboratories data repository, the Energy Data eXchange (EDX). Researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory have developed workflows, tools, and other methods that leverage EDX, open-source software, machine learning, and natural language processing to discover, curate, label, organize and visualize available data. This paper describes the available data on EDX for carbon storage applications, describes the results of a spatial and temporal analysis of the data, describes where it is most geographically available, makes a general assessment of the quality of the available data, and discusses visualization tools and natural language processing tools developed for understanding, discovering and reusing the data.

The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions

People with high socioeconomic status disproportionally affect energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions directly through their consumption and indirectly through their financial and social resources. However, few climate change mitigation initiatives have targeted this population segment, and the potential of such initiatives remains insufficiently researched. In this Perspective, we analyse key characteristics of high-socioeconomic-status people and explore five roles through which they have a disproportionate impact on energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions and potentially on climate change mitigation, namely as consumers, investors, role models, organizational participants and citizens. We examine what is known about their disproportionate impact via consumption and explore their potential influence on greenhouse gas emissions through all five roles. We suggest that future research should focus on strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by high-socioeconomic-status people and to align their investments, organizational choices and actions as social and political change agents with climate change mitigation goals.

Evaluating and improving technologies for energy storage and backup power

Evaluating and improving technologies for energy storage and backup power

Discourses on sustainable forest management and their integration into climate policies in South Africa

In South Africa, forests can play an important role in achieving the broader goals of climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, national policies on climate change mitigation and adaptation seem to narrow the potential contributions of the forest sector to climate protection targets. This is largely because of the divergence between the management goals of forests for climate protection, and products for both industries and livelihoods. This article uses discourse analysis as a methodological tool to analyze South Africa's climate and forest policies to identify the discourses shaping forest policy goals and mandates, and their integration into climate policy targets for forest-based climate change interventions. Four discourses, namely, preservation of forest integrity, social inclusiveness, equitable benefit sharing, and inclusive development of forests and forest-based communities, were identified as the dominant discourses influencing forest policy goals in South Africa. Their influence on forest management programmes has a mix of costs and benefits outcomes. For example, policy responses to the discourse on the preservation of forest integrity have resulted in ecologically sustainable forests in some cases and in other cases restricted the participation of local people in forest enterprise development. Additionally, climate policies recognized six possible interventions with respect to forest-based climate change mitigation and adaptation in South Africa but were silent about the four discourses shaping forest policy goals. Consequently, existing climate policies do not contain regulations to guide forest management for climate change mitigation and adaptation. We therefore recommend that forest-related goals in climate policy be grounded in the past experiences and lessons of forest policy implementations in order to take advantage of the synergies and reduce the trade-offs with respect to multipurpose management of forests for livelihoods, enterprise development, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Coal, power and coal-powered politics in Indonesia

Indonesia is among the countries with the largest planned coal power capacity additions worldwide, thereby posing a substantial challenge for global climate change mitigation goals. To understand the underlying political drivers, we carry out expert interviews and examine how individual actors and their objectives, as well as the country context influence energy policy formulation. We find that under President Joko Widodo, energy policy formulation has been driven by the development of public infrastructure, while securing popularity for the presidential election in 2019. State-owned enterprises represent a source of political patronage and are employed to achieve those goals. Diminishing export markets have incentivized the politically well-connected and highly concentrated Indonesian coal industry to lobby for the construction of coal-fired power plants in order to raise domestic demand. There is also a strong incentive to sustain coal mining as a key economic activity, as associated royalties significantly contribute to local and national public budgets. Local pollution and climate change mitigation are of low priority. Despite the government’s documented awareness of the energy sector as the biggest contributor to future emissions, climate protection is narrowly framed as a forestry and land-use issue.

Greening extractivism: Environmental discourses and resource governance in the ‘Lithium Triangle’

The lithium extractive industry is expanding, as technological and economic shifts associated with climate change mitigation goals drive global demand for lithium-ion batteries. This article explores the case of the ‘Lithium Triangle’, a region of Latin America (spanning Bolivia, Chile and Argentina) that contains the world’s largest reserves, and where environmental conflicts associated with lithium mining have proliferated. Emphasising the centrality of discourse in resource governance, we analyse the discursive strategies employed by institutional actors seeking to promote and render acceptable lithium extraction in the region. We argue that such strategies reproduce imaginaries of prosperity and modernisation long attached to oil and mineral wealth, while at the same time introducing a novel association of mining with high-tech industries, ‘green jobs’ and ‘climate-friendly’ extraction, seeking to obscure the social and ecological costs of lithium production. This inaugurates an era of ‘green extractivism’, whereby intensive resource exploitation is framed not only as compatible with climate change, but indeed as necessary to its mitigation. Our findings contribute to ongoing conversations regarding post-fossil fuel ‘transitions’, by highlighting the contradictory character of mitigation strategies that rely on mineral-intensive development.

Increasing the ambition of mitigation action in small emitters: the case of Mauritius

ABSTRACT The objective of the Paris Agreement is to constrain the global temperature increase to well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It is undisputed that the collective mitigation actions proposed by Parties are largely insufficient to meet this objective. All Parties are expected to revise their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) prior to the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP 26) with the aim of increasing levels of mitigation ambition. This paper focuses on Mauritius which has no climate mitigation policy and no strategy for low-carbon development. In this context, a number of policy issues are considered, and propositions are made on how the level of ambition of its updated NDC can be increased. For this, energy-related emissions pathways to 2050 are used to argue for an equity-based, effort-sharing approach to CO2 emissions reductions by capitalizing on a developing country’s ability to propose a combination of unconditional and conditional mitigation contributions. Such a proactive approach will place Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and developing countries in a better position to justify and attract technology transfer, capacity building and climate finance. Further, the energy-climate mitigation nexus is examined to highlight the co-benefits of increasing mitigation ambition. It is shown that, all else being equal, increasing the percentage share of renewables in the electricity mix is necessary but not sufficient for increasing the ambition of mitigation contributions. The insights in this paper are expected to be valuable for other SIDS and small developing countries. Key policy insights A multi-criteria approach is more appropriate for assessing the level of ambition of SIDS and other small emitters than absolute share of global emissions or the percentage share of renewable energies in the energy mix. Based on this approach, the climate change mitigation policy orientation of Mauritius is not ambitious. As Mauritius updates its NDC, it should apply a systemic approach to investigate emission reduction scenarios across sectors and covering time horizons up to at least 2050, in order to better link national climate change mitigation and sustainable development goals.

Carbon prospecting in tropical forests for climate change mitigation

Carbon finance projects that protect tropical forests could support both nature conservation and climate change mitigation goals. Global demand for nature-based carbon credits is outpacing their supply, due partly to gaps in knowledge needed to inform and prioritize investment decisions. Here, we show that at current carbon market prices the protection of tropical forests can generate investible carbon amounting to 1.8 (±1.1) GtCO2e yr−1 globally. We further show that financially viable carbon projects could generate return-on-investment amounting to $46.0b y−1 in net present value (Asia-Pacific: $24.6b y−1; Americas: $19.1b y−1; Africa: $2.4b y−1). However, we also find that ~80% (1.24 billion ha) of forest carbon sites would be financially unviable for failing to break even over the project lifetime. From a conservation perspective, unless carbon prices increase in the future, it is imperative to implement other conservation interventions, in addition to carbon finance, to safeguard carbon stocks and biodiversity in vulnerable forests.

Estimating blue carbon sequestration under coastal management scenarios.

Restoring and protecting "blue carbon" ecosystems - mangrove forests, tidal marshes, and seagrass meadows - are actions considered for increasing global carbon sequestration. To improve understanding of which management actions produce the greatest gains in sequestration, we used a spatially explicit model to compare carbon sequestration and its economic value over a broad spatial scale (2500km of coastline in southeastern Australia) for four management scenarios: (1) Managed Retreat, (2) Managed Retreat Plus Levee Removal, (3) Erosion of High Risk Areas, (4) Erosion of Moderate to High Risk Areas. We found that carbon sequestration from avoiding erosion-related emissions (abatement) would far exceed sequestration from coastal restoration. If erosion were limited only to the areas with highest erosion risk, sequestration in the non-eroded area exceeded emissions by 4.2 million Mg CO2 by 2100. However, losing blue carbon ecosystems in both moderate and high erosion risk areas would result in net emissions of 23.0 million Mg CO2 by 2100. The removal of levees combined with managed retreat was the strategy that sequestered the most carbon. Across all time points, removal of levees increased sequestration by only an additional 1 to 3% compared to managed retreat alone. Compared to the baseline erosion scenario, the managed retreat scenario increased sequestration by 7.40 million Mg CO2 by 2030, 8.69million Mg CO2 by 2050, and 16.6 million Mg CO2 by 2100. Associated economic value followed the same patterns, with large potential value loss from erosion greater than potential gains from conserving or restoring ecosystems. This study quantifies the potential benefits of managed retreat and preventing erosion in existing blue carbon ecosystems to help meet climate change mitigation goals by reducing carbon emissions.

Developing a spatially explicit modelling and evaluation framework for integrated carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation: Application in southern Finland

The challenges posed by climate change and biodiversity loss are deeply interconnected. Successful co-managing of these tangled drivers requires innovative methods that can prioritize and target management actions against multiple criteria, while also enabling cost-effective land use planning and impact scenario assessment. This paper synthesises the development and application of an integrated multidisciplinary modelling and evaluation framework for carbon and biodiversity in forest systems. By analysing and spatio-temporally modelling carbon processes and biodiversity elements, we determine an optimal solution for their co-management in the study landscape. We also describe how advanced Earth Observation measurements can be used to enhance mapping and monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem processes. The scenarios used for the dynamic models were based on official Finnish policy goals for forest management and climate change mitigation. The development and testing of the system were executed in a large region in southern Finland (Kokemäenjoki basin, 27,024 km2) containing highly instrumented LTER (Long-Term Ecosystem Research) stations; these LTER data sources were complemented by fieldwork, remote sensing and national data bases. In the study area, estimated total net emissions were currently 4.2 TgCO2eq a−1, but modelling of forestry measures and anthropogenic emission reductions demonstrated that it would be possible to achieve the stated policy goal of carbon neutrality by low forest harvest intensity. We show how this policy-relevant information can be further utilized for optimal allocation of set-aside forest areas for nature conservation, which would significantly contribute to preserving both biodiversity and carbon values in the region. Biodiversity gain in the area could be increased without a loss of carbon-related benefits.

Design of a Soil-based Climate-Smartness Index (SCSI) using the trend and variability of yields and soil organic carbon

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) has had an increasing role in the agricultural policy arena, as it aims to address climate change mitigation, adaptation and food security goals in an integrated way. In regions where agriculture has been constrained because of soil degradation and climate change, CSA aims to implement soil-based strategies that restore soil function and increase carbon storage. The extent to which such strategies succeed in achieving mitigation, adaptation and productivity goals is referred to as climate-smartness. The co-evolution of yield and Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) over the years presents a proxy for the trade-off between productivity, soil fertility and carbon sequestration. Yield and SOC are widely monitored, analysed and used to inform CSA planning. Yet their analysis is often conducted separately and for a small number of years, which neglects long-term soil fertility dynamics and their impact on crops. Given the absence of integrated climate-smartness metrics to capture the trade-offs and synergies between SOC and yield, we present a soil-based Climate-Smartness Index (SCSI). The SCSI is computed using normalized indicators of trend and variability of annual changes on yield and SOC data. The SCSI was calculated for a set of published experiments that compared Conservation Agriculture (CA) practices with conventional management. The CA treatments scored higher SCSI during the first 5 years of evaluation as compared to conventional management. Analysis of the temporal dynamics of climate-smartness indicated that minimum SCSI values typically occurred before 5 years after the start of the experiment, indicating potential trade-offs between SOC and yield. Conversely, SCSI values peaked between 5 and 10 years. After 20 years, the SCSI tended towards zero, as substantial changes in either SOC or yield are no longer evidenced. The SCSI can be calculated for annual crops under any soil management and at different time periods, providing a consistent metric for climate-smartness across both practices and time.

Landcover change in mangroves of Fiji: Implications for climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Pacific

Mangrove coverage in Fiji is among the highest of all Pacific island nations. These ecosystems store disproportionate amounts of carbon, provide critically important resources for communities, and protect coastal communities against the impacts of tropical cyclones. They are therefore vital in mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change. An improved understanding of both the scale and drivers of mangrove loss in Fiji can underpin sustainable management strategies and achieve climate change mitigation and adaptation goals. In this study we assessed mangrove cover, landcover change, and drivers of landcover change for Fiji between 2001 and 2018, as well as the impacts of landcover change on the structural characteristics of mangroves at selected sites on the Fijian island of Viti Levu. Results were then framed within the context of developing management responses, including the potential to develop forest carbon projects. We found Fiji's mangrove estate to be 65,243 ha, with a loss of 1135 ha between 2001 and 2018 and an annual rate of loss of 0.11%. Tropical cyclones accounted for 77% of loss (~870 ha), with highest losses along the northern coastlines of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Mangrove structural characteristics showed high variability in the level of damage incurred, with taller riverine and hinterland vegetation sustaining greater levels of damage than coastal fringing or scrub mangroves. There was no tropical cyclone damage evident along the southern coastline of Viti Levu, with small-scale harvesting the predominate driver of loss in this region. Because of the large effect of cyclone damage on mangroves in the region, small to medium scale restoration projects may be appropriate interventions to increase mangrove cover and carbon stocks. Where harvesting of mangroves occurs, improved management to avoid deforestation could also provide opportunities to maintain mangrove cover and carbon stocks.

Rethinking community empowerment in the energy transformation: A critical review of the definitions, drivers and outcomes

Empowering communities to engage with the energy transformation is vital to meet climate change mitigation and sustainable development goals. Communities have a key role to play in the energy transformation, through the uptake of new technologies and changing how they engage with energy. However, they remain marginalised limiting the broader benefits of meaningful participation such as energy democracy, energy justice and energy citizenship, which may be achieved through transformation. Addressing this problem requires an understanding of how to facilitate empowerment. Using a multidisciplinary approach, this paper synthesises the literature on community empowerment for sustainable transformations. It outlines a conceptualisation of empowerment through its definition, drivers and outcomes. Community empowerment in the energy transformation should be about the community’s own goals and transformative action. This view of empowerment can be enabled through a variety of different drivers. Empowerment is identified as a multifaceted concept associated with a range of different outcomes such as participation, agency, autonomy and power-shift. Whilst the four outcomes identified in this review are typically described in isolation; we suggest that they are instead a scale wherein each step is a form of empowerment in its own right and yet represents an overall trajectory of empowerment. Facilitating community empowerment within the energy transformation requires a shift in both research and practice.

Co‐creating ambitious climate change mitigation goals: The Copenhagen experience

AbstractRecent research argues that complex problems such as climate change are best tackled through co‐creation, which brings together public and private actors, including citizens, neighborhoods, and civil society organizations, in collaborative processes that define problems and design and implement solutions that produce innovative public value outcomes. This article explores the viability of co‐creation as a strategy for achieving ambitious CO2 emissions reductions in the City of Copenhagen, Denmark. It analyses the starting conditions, the co‐creation processes, the drivers and barriers, the positive results and outcomes, and the role of institutional design and leadership in an effort to understand the actual use of co‐creation in city‐level climate governance. The main finding is that institutional, discursive, and political barriers create a discrepancy between the commitment to and actual use of co‐creation, but also that a new focus on consumption and transport among citizens may lead to stronger future waves of co‐creation.