Climate Change-related Risks Research Articles

Projected local rain events due to climate change and the impacts on waterborne diseases in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

BackgroundClimate change is increasing the number and intensity of extreme weather events in many parts of the world. Precipitation extremes have been linked to both outbreaks and sporadic cases of waterborne illness. We have previously shown a link between heavy rain and turbidity to population-level risk of sporadic cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis in a major Canadian urban population. The risk increased with 30 or more dry days in the 60 days preceding the week of extreme rain. The goal of this study was to investigate the change in cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis risk due to climate change, primarily change in extreme precipitation.MethodsCases of cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis were extracted from a reportable disease system (1997–2009). We used distributed lag non-linear Poisson regression models and projections of the exposure-outcome relationship to estimate future illness (2020–2099). The climate projections are derived from twelve statistically downscaled regional climate models. Relative Concentration Pathway 8.5 was used to project precipitation derived from daily gridded weather observation data (~ 6 × 10 km resolution) covering the central of three adjacent watersheds serving metropolitan Vancouver for the 2020s, 2040s, 2060s and 2080s.ResultsPrecipitation is predicted to steadily increase in these watersheds during the wet season (Oct. -Mar.) and decrease in other parts of the year up through the 2080s. More weeks with extreme rain (>90th percentile) are expected. These weeks are predicted to increase the annual rates of cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis by approximately 16% by the 2080s corresponding to an increase of 55–136 additional cases per year depending upon the climate model used. The predicted increase in the number of waterborne illness cases are during the wet months. The range in future projections compared to historical monthly case counts typically differed by 10–20% across climate models but the direction of change was consistent for all models.DiscussionIf new water filtration measures had not been implemented in our study area in 2010–2015, the risk of cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis would have been expected to increase with climate change, particularly precipitation changes. In addition to the predicted increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events, the frequency and length of wet and dry spells could also affect the risk of waterborne diseases as we observed in the historical period. These findings add to the growing evidence regarding the need to prepare water systems to manage and become resilient to climate change-related health risks.

The Impacts of Climate Change on Nigerian Ecosystems: A Review

Climate change is the single biggest environmental issue facing the world today. It has become a great challenge to our generation and its impact is felt in almost every society in the world. Nigeria is one of the most vulnerable countries in Africa. Nigeria as a developing nation with a population of about 200 million people is likely to be adversely impacted by climate change due to its vulnerability and low coping capabilities. Climate change is evidently linked to human actions, and in particular from the burning of fossil fuels and changes in global patterns of land use. The impacts of human activities, as well as those of natural phenomena on global warming, climate change, and the environment, were presented and discussed. Various manifestations of its impact are evident in Nigeria, which includes temperature rise, increase in draught, and scarcity of food instigated by irregularities in rainfall, over flooding, and so on. This paper examines the concepts of global warming and climate change; its impact on the Nigeria ecosystems. It highlights the climate change-related risks and hazards the nation could face if best practices are not employed to prevent and mitigate its impact. Two sets of measures have been advocated for confronting climate change, these are mitigation and adaptation measures. The review explores possible adaptation strategies that are required to respond to the climatic variations and suggests ways that these adaptation strategies can be implemented.

Building resilience of health systems to climate change in Pacific Least Developed Countries: implementation science

BackgroundThe Pacific Least Developed Countries (LDCs)—Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu—are among the countries most vulnerable to climate variability and change. Key climate change risks include loss of livelihoods, coastal settlements, infrastructure, ecosystem services, and economic stability; and interaction of sea level rise with high-water-level events, threatening low-lying coastal areas. These risks result in increased health impacts, including deaths and injuries from extreme events (eg, heatwaves, storms, and floods); increased risks of infectious diseases (including food-borne, water-borne, and vector-borne); food insecurity and malnutrition; and diffuse impacts from loss of livelihoods and migration. The young, older adults, women of reproductive age, and people with disabilities are most vulnerable. MethodsBuilding resilience to climate change requires that these countries develop National Climate Change and Health Action Plans, including Vulnerability and Adaptation assessments. FindingsTemperature, precipitation, and extreme weather events can influence the incidence, geographic distribution, and seasonality of climate-sensitive health outcomes. In addition, many hospitals and community health centres are highly vulnerable to cyclones, floods, storm surges, sea level rise, and disturbances in water supply caused by drought or salination of aquifers. The capacity to provide health services, particularly in emergency situations, is substantially affected if buildings and essential supplies and amenities are damaged. The majority of health facilities are not resilient to climate-induced pressures in terms of structural, non-structural, and functional safety. InterpretationThe most effective measures to reduce vulnerability are (i) short-term programmes that implement and improve basic public health measures, including the provision of safe water and improved sanitation, secure essential health care, and increase capacity for disaster preparedness and response; and (ii) longer-term programs that enhance national health systems and institutions with climate change-related risks integrated into health governance, strengthen health information management systems, and ensure effective and accessible delivery of health services. FundingLeast Developed Countries Fund under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Impact of Climate Change in the Valuation of Production Assets via the IFRS Framework

Abstract An interesting relatively new development in the field of corporate climate change disclosures is the Task force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The TCFD aims to help identify the information needed by financial stakeholders to appropriately assess and price climate change related risks and opportunities. In its first Report (2016), the TCFD recommends that companies provide climate change related disclosures specifying the impact thereof on their financial performance through mainstream (i. e. public) financial filings. In this paper, we look at the financial accounting standards as an institutional framework, and in particular pose the question to what extent this framework supports companies to disclose how climate change impacts their operations and the value of the production assets. To test to what extent companies make disclosures in relation to climate change, we selected four energy companies and conducted a comparative case study analysis. Our focus is on the valuation of production assets, more specifically, drilling platforms, windmill platforms, heavy equipment and transport means used to support the production, and pipes and cables to transport the energy units produced. Interesting findings were: (i) in all four cases, potential future changes (caused by climate change) concerning the valuation of the production assets are not (yet) accounted for in their Balance Sheet Annex. This is remarkable because climate change is likely to have an effect on the future value of the production assets employed in the two types of industries, among others caused by the development that renewable energy demand increases at the expense of non-renewable energy demand; and (ii) the current financial reporting system does not support renewable energy companies to provide meaningful and quantitative insights in expected increases of their future cash inflows and their financial and innovation potential. This impedes financiers and investors to accurately and meaningfully assess the value of a renewable energy company’s business compared with a non-renewable company’s business.

Adaptation to climate change in Afghanistan: Evidence on the impact of external interventions

Climate change is a significant obstacle for farmers in the least developed countries like Afghanistan and adaptation support is exceptionally scarce. This paper provides evidence on the impact of the agriculture-related external support on farmers’ adaptation to climate change in the Central Highlands of Afghanistan. To this end, we collected primary data from 1434 farmers whom we interviewed across 14 districts in Bamiyan, Ghazni, and Diakundi provinces. We employ quasi-experimental econometric methods, including an endogenous switching regression analysis, to estimate the treatment effects on various adaptation-related outcomes. We find significant impacts of support interventions on the use of improved types of seeds and farmers’ access to irrigation water. Further impacts on the risk of flood, economic and financial as well as government and institutional adaptation constraints appear to be significant, but sensitive to the existence of unobserved factors. We conclude that farmers perceived changes in the climate, and most of them tried to adapt by employing measures available to them. The impact of external support has been partially effective in addressing immediate and short-term farming challenges related to climate change and extreme weather events. They, however, have not been effective in treating long-term fundamental climate change-related risks. Based on our analysis of the past treatments and farmers’ self-reported priorities, we provide a list of policy recommendations for adaptation to climate change in farming communities in Afghanistan.

The role of climate services in handling climate change risks: contributions of UKCP18

The role of climate services in handling climate change risks: contributions of UKCP18

Towards a Comprehensive Framework for Climate Change Multi-Risk Assessment in the Mining Industry

Changing climate conditions affect mining operations all over the world, but so far, the mining sector has focused primarily on mitigation actions. Nowadays, there exists increasing recognition of the need for planned adaptation actions. To this end, the development of a practical tool for the assessment of climate change-related risks to support the mining community is deemed necessary. In this study, a comprehensive framework is proposed for climate change multi-risk assessment at the local level customized for the needs of the mining industry. The framework estimates the climate change risks in economic terms by modeling the main activities that a mining company performs, in a probabilistic model, using Bayes’ theorem. The model permits incorporating inherent uncertainty via fuzzy logic and is implemented in two versatile ways: as a discrete Bayesian network or as a conditional linear Gaussian network. This innovative quantitative methodology produces probabilistic outcomes in monetary values estimated either as percentage of annual loss revenue or net loss/gains value. Finally, the proposed framework is the first multi-risk methodology in the mining context that considers all the relevant hazards caused by climate change extreme weather events, which offers a tool for selecting the most cost-effective action among various adaptation strategies.

Drivers of flood and climate change risk perceptions and intention to adapt: an explorative survey in coastal and delta Vietnam

This article contributes to current research about determinants of climate change and flood risk perception, and intentions to take adaptive measures. We propose a research model that distinguishes between vulnerability and severity components of perceived risks, and adds perceived adaptive capacity as a third factor to predict the intention to take adaptive measures. We used this combined model as a conceptual lens for an explorative survey among 1086 residents of coastal and delta communities in Vietnam. Pairwise analyses revealed a significant association of flood and climate change risk perceptions with individual’s flood experience, climate change knowledge, frequency of community participation and socio-demographic factors. However, in multivariate analysis, the influence of most socio-demographic factors became weak or patchy. Flood experience was the most influential driver of flood-related risk perceptions but weak for climate change-related risk perceptions and behavioural intentions. Knowledge strongly increased the intention to adapt to flood and climate risks and the perceived vulnerability to and severity of climate change risks, but reduced the perceived capacity to adapt to climate risks. Frequency of community participation increased the perceived vulnerability and severity of climate change risks, the intention to adapt to both climate and flood risks and the perceived capacity to adapt to flood risks, but reduced the perceived capacity to adapt to climate risks. Our research confirms earlier findings that individuals’ knowledge, place-specific experience and social-cultural influences are key predictors of both flood and climate change risk perceptions and intentions to take adaptive measures. These factors should therefore receive ample attention in climate risk communication.

The emission trading system, risk management committee and voluntary corporate response to climate change – a CDP study

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of emission trading system, board risk management committee and firm age on firms’ responsiveness to climate change in Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) 2011. More specifically, this study investigates whether global corporation’s responses on carbon-related disclosure are influenced by some specific attributes.Design/methodology/approachThe study covers a sample of 500 companies in 38 countries in 12 geographical locations. It uses the carbon disclosure scores in the CDP 2011 as the dependent variable. The authors estimate the OLS regression model to investigate the hypotheses.FindingsThe findings demonstrate that the presence of an emission trading system, a board risk management committee and the firm age have a significant positive relationship with carbon disclosure scores (i.e. CDP scores). However, the impacts of the board risk management committee and firm age on CDP scores are not moderated by the emission trading system at the firm level, suggesting that they have an independent and substitutive effect on climate change-related risk disclosure.Originality/valueThe study may be of relevance to investors and other stakeholders in evaluating the accountability of companies in relation to strategies for managing climate risk.

Temperature-Related Summer Mortality Under Multiple Climate, Population, and Adaptation Scenarios.

Projections of the magnitude and pattern of possible health risks from climate change should be based on multiple climate and development scenarios to describe the range of uncertainties, to inform effective and efficient policies. For a better understanding of climate change-related risks in seven metropolitan cities of South Korea, we estimated temperature-related summer (June to August) mortality until 2100 using projected changes in climate, population, and adaptation. In addition, we extracted the variations in the mortality estimates associated with uncertainties in climate, population, and adaptation scenarios using 25 climate models, two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and 8.5), three population scenarios (high, medium and low variants), and four adaptation scenarios (absolute threshold shift, slope reduction in the temperature-mortality relationship, a combination of slope reduction and threshold shift, and a sigmoid function based on the historical trend). Compared to the baseline period (1991–2015), temperature-attributable mortality in South Korea during summer in the 2090s is projected to increase 5.1 times for RCP 4.5 and 12.9 times for RCP 8.5 due to climate and population changes. Estimated future mortality varies by up to +44%/−55%, −80%, −60%, and +12%/−11% associated with the choice of climate models, adaptation, climate, and population scenarios, respectively, compared to the mortality estimated for the median of the climate models, no adaptation, RCP 8.5, and medium population variant. Health system choices about adaptation are the most important determinants of future mortality after climate projections. The range of possible future mortality underscores the importance of flexible, iterative risk management.

Conceptualizations of climate-related health risks among health experts and the public in Ghana

One major area that has gathered public attention in relation to climate change is health risks. Studies into risk perceptions have acknowledged differences between public and expert knowledge. What is less known is how perceptions of climate change related health risk vary between the public and health experts and how these differentiated perceptions are shaped and modified by everyday complex climate change narratives from multiple actors, and contextual ecologies of social and physical spaces. A concurrent mixed-methods approach was used to elucidate climate change knowledge and awareness of climate-related health risks among health experts and the public. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected on community members (n = 927) and health experts (n = 99) in Savelugu-Nanton and Ada East Districts in Ghana. The results showed that both groups were likely to report climate change-related health concerns, of which disease was the top concern. However, differences exist in public and experts' perceptions of climate change health linkage. Community members were less likely to link climate change to health risks compared with health experts (OR = 0.02, p ≤ 0.000). The contrasting climate change health risk perceptions between health experts and the public adds to the literature on the health dimensions of global environmental change. The findings from this study highlight limited knowledge about climate change health related risks among the public. Hence, in building sustainable communities in light of persistent climate change impacts, it is crucial to improve climate change adaptation by implementing climate change sensitization programs. In addition, health infrastructure, decision-making and management should be strengthened for effective response to emerging climate-health risks in Ghana and similar contexts.

Science-Based Carbon Emissions Targets

We examine the effect of voluntarily adopting a standard for setting science-based carbon emissions targets on target difficulty and investments to achieve those targets. We find that firms with a track record of setting and achieving ambitious carbon targets are more likely to set science-based targets. Firms are also more likely to set science-based targets if they perceive climate change-related risks and have carbon-intensive operations. Using a difference-in-differences research design that compares the science and non-science targets of a firm, we find that targets become more difficult when firms adopt the science-based standard for the target, consistent with the standard increasing target difficulty and inconsistent with firms relabeling their existing targets. The increase in target difficulty is accompanied by more investment in carbon-reduction projects and higher expected emissions and monetary savings from these projects. Given that the science-based standard is determined externally of the adopting organization, our results suggest that external standards for target setting could have both target and investment effects.

How Local Health Districts can prepare for the effects of climate change: an adaptation model applied to metropolitan Sydney.

Climate change adaptation can be defined as a form of risk management (i.e. assessing climate change-related risks and responding appropriately so that the risks can be pre-emptively minimised and managed as they arise). Adapting to climate change by hospital and community health services will entail responding to changing health needs of the local population, and to the likely effects of climate change on health service resources, workforce and infrastructure. In this paper we apply a model that health services can use to predict and respond to climate change risks and illustrate this with reference to Sydney's Local Health Districts (LHDs). We outline the climate change predictions for the Sydney metropolitan area, discuss the resulting vulnerabilities for LHDs and consider the potential of LHDs to respond. Three 'core business' categories are examined: (1) ambulance, emergency and acute health care; (2) routine health care; and (3) population and preventative health services. We consider the key climate change risks and vulnerabilities of the LHDs' workforce, facilities and finances, and some important transboundary issues. Many Australian health services have existing robust disaster plans and management networks. These could be expanded to incorporate local climate and health adaptation plans.

Carbon Disclosure, Contextual Factors, and Information Asymmetry: The Case of Physical Risk Reporting

The paper focusses on the reporting of climate change-related physical risks. Drawing on data from the CDP questionnaire for 717 European companies over three years (2011–2013) we find that information asymmetry is generally smaller when firms report about their physical risks. Furthermore, we find that reporting of a higher exposure to physical risks is associated with lower information asymmetry for firms falling under the regulation of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, whereas for other firms the direction of the relationship reverses. We can rule out that our results are driven by other climate change-related risk disclosures and by disclosures about opportunities arising from climate change. This study is not only relevant because it attests the materiality of climate change-related physical risks. Moreover, we show how a contextual factor – in this study: whether a company falls under climate change-related regulation – moderates the direction of the relationship between reported information and information asymmetry.

Using Episodic Future Thinking to Pre-Experience Climate Change Increases Pro-Environmental Behavior

Research has found that many people view climate change as a psychologically distant, future threat, which leads them to be less motivated to engage in pro-environmental behavior. Engaging in episodic future thinking (EFT; projecting the self into the future to pre-experience future events) may facilitate the perception of future events as psychologically close, thereby increasing the perceived risk associated with those events. Therefore, engagement in EFT regarding climate change–related risks should induce higher risk perceptions and lead to acting pro-environmentally. In two experiments, we demonstrated that engaging in EFT to pre-experience climate change–related risk events was associated with a higher level of risk perception and a greater tendency toward pro-environmental behavior, including energy-saving use of air-conditioning (Experiment 1), willingness to participate in beach cleaning (Experiment 2), and choice of a meal with lower environmental impact (Experiment 2). The current research provides experimental evidence for an innovative approach to improving public engagement with climate change.

Making Administrative Systems Adaptive to Emerging Climate Change-Related Health Effects: Case of Estonia

To facilitate resilience to a changing climate, it is necessary to go beyond quantitative studies and take an in-depth look at the functioning of health systems and the variety of drivers shaping its effectiveness. We clarify the factors determining the effectiveness of the Estonian health system in assessing and managing the health risks of climate change. Document analyses, expert interviews with key informants from health systems whose responsibilities are relevant to climate change, and analysis of a population-based survey conducted in 2015, indicate that the health effects of climate change have not been mainstreamed into policy. Therefore, many of the potential synergistic effects of combining information on health systems, environment, and vulnerable populations remain unexploited. The limited uptake of the issue of climate change-related health risks may be attributed to the lack of experience with managing extreme weather events; limited understanding of how to incorporate projections of longer-term health risks into policies and plans; unclear divisions of responsibility; and market liberal state approaches. Minority groups and urban dwellers are placing strong pressure on the health system to address climate change-related risks, likely due to their lower levels of perceived control over their physical wellbeing. The results have implications for national, community, and individual resilience in upper-middle income countries in Eastern Europe.

Motivating low-carbon initiatives among suppliers: The role of risk and opportunity perception

Regulators increasingly pressure companies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the case of many large corporations, most emissions originate from supply chain operations. Consequently, firms often pass on external pressures to their suppliers by requesting them to implement low-carbon initiatives. While existing research suggests that external pressures from both regulators and customers are mostly effective in motivating environmental action among suppliers, it remains unexplored how organizational perception of risks and opportunities influences this relationship. The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically how the perception of climate change-related risks and opportunities moderates the influence of external pressures on a supplier’s decision to adopt low-carbon supply chain management (LCSCM) practices. The sample consists of 877 companies from 37 countries that supply to large multinational enterprises. Secondary data is sourced from CDP’s Supply Chain Program and other databases and statistically analyzed using binary logistic regression models. The results show that a supplier’s decision to implement LCSCM practices is mainly determined by customer requests to reduce GHG emissions and the stringency and effectiveness of climate change policies in its home country. Contrary to theoretical predictions, little empirical evidence is provided for a moderating influence of perceived climate-related risks and opportunities. However, in most cases a company’s perception of both risks and opportunities is directly and positively related to LCSCM. Firm size is also found to be influential, while profitability, an industry’s GHG intensity, a country’s economic development and the private sector’s responsiveness to environmental issues do not significantly affect suppliers’ behavior.

The political ecology of stakeholder-driven climate change adaptation: Case study from Ntalale ward, Gwanda district, in Zimbabwe.

Vulnerable rural communities face climate change-related shifts in rainfall patterns, particularly droughts and floods. The study investigated how Ntalale ward households in Gwanda district of Zimbabwe interpret climate change and adapt to its stressors in the context of the Zimbabwean political economy. Focus group discussions and interviews collected qualitative data. The community has experienced the following climate change-related risks: droughts, floods, heatwave and intra-seasonal rainfall variability. Droughts were reported to be occurring more frequent in the past 25 years as compared to the period before 1991. Ntalale area experienced floods in the 2002–2003 rainy season only. Respondents generally perceived that the rainy season had changed in the past 5 years, with the season now beginning in December and ending in March. The households have resorted to shifting cultivation practices, replanting, use of wetlands in preference to upland fields, changing of seed varieties or crops, selling of livestock and informal trading as coping strategies. Although non-governmental organisations have assisted the community to set up irrigation schemes, a few selected community members have benefited from the initiative. The Ntalale community has experienced four climate change-related risks and institutions have assisted the community. It is recommended that cooperation between households and institutions is key in developing stakeholder-driven adaptation strategies.

Simulating streamflow in ungauged basins under a changing climate: The importance of landscape characteristics

In this paper we explored how landscape characteristics such as topography, geology, soils and land cover influence the way catchments respond to changing climate conditions. Based on an ensemble of 15 regional climate models bias-corrected with a distribution-mapping approach, present and future streamflow in 14 neighboring and rather similar catchments in Northern Sweden was simulated with the HBV model. We established functional relationships between a range of landscape characteristics and projected changes in streamflow signatures. These were then used to analyze hydrological consequences of physical perturbations in a hypothetically ungauged basin in a climate change context. Our analysis showed a strong connection between the forest cover extent and the sensitivity of different components of a catchment’s hydrological regime to changing climate conditions. This emphasizes the need to redefine forestry goals and practices in advance of climate change-related risks and uncertainties.

The implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement on climate change for globally significant biodiversity areas

Climate change is already affecting species and their distributions. Distributional range changes have occurred and are projected to intensify for many widespread plants and animals, creating associated risks to many ecosystems. Here, we estimate the climate change-related risks to the species in globally significant biodiversity conservation areas over a range of climate scenarios, assessing their value as climate refugia. In particular, we quantify the aggregated benefit of countries’ emission reduction pledges (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions and Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement), and also of further constraining global warming to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, against an unmitigated scenario of 4.5 °C warming. We also quantify the contribution that can be made by using smart spatial conservation planning to facilitate some levels of autonomous (i.e. natural) adaptation to climate change by dispersal. We find that without mitigation, on average 33% of each conservation area can act as climate refugium (or 18% if species are unable to disperse), whereas if warming is constrained to 2 °C, the average area of climate refuges doubles to 67% of each conservation area (or, without dispersal, more than doubles to 56% of each area). If the country pledges are fulfilled, an intermediate estimate of 47–52% (or 31–38%, without dispersal) is obtained. We conclude that the Nationally Determined Contributions alone have important but limited benefits for biodiversity conservation, with larger benefits accruing if warming is constrained to 2 °C. Greater benefits would result if warming was constrained to well below 2 °C as set out in the Paris Agreement.