Climate Perspective Research Articles

6.F. Scientific session: Understanding the impact of climate change on health: the latest reports from EEA and NPHIs

Abstract Climate change poses a significant threat to human life and wellbeing worldwide. Extreme weather events like heatwaves, storms or floods can have adverse impacts on health, as can many other factors influenced by climate change, such as allergens, UV radiation and vector-borne diseases. In order to support the action needed to protect and promote health and wellbeing, many National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) aim to keep relevant stakeholders informed on the scientific evidence of the impacts of climate change on health. Reports that synthesise the evidence can help in the development of suitable and health-relevant climate change adaptation and mitigation measures. In this workshop, European Environment Agency assessments on climate and health are presented, including the European Climate Risk Assessment Report and recent outputs of the European Climate and Health Observatory. Next, three NPHIs introduce their recent national reports on the impact of climate change on health, sharing lessons learned and valuable insights into their content, process and reception, highlighting similarities and differences. The workshop will feature presentations by NPHIs from the United Kingdom (UK Health Security Agency), Germany (Robert Koch Institute), and the Netherlands (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) as well as the European Climate and Health Observatory. The perspective of the European Climate and Health Observatory offers Europe-wide insights as a provider of tools and knowledge that support actions from NPHIs and other health actors. Our aim is to highlight the value of such reports, and inform and inspire NPHIs and other stakeholders that may be considering the publication of similar reports. The format of the workshop will be informative and interactive, with opportunity for Q&A, discussion, and engagement with the audience. By showcasing the recent reports, the workshop aims to increase awareness of climate change as a public health issue and establish NPHIs as key climate actors. Furthermore, it aims to highlight the importance of having a national, up-to-date evidence base to drive climate measures and enhance resilience. Key messages • National evidence-based reports on climate change and health are a useful tool for informing health-relevant climate change adaptation and mitigation measures. • Through the public health functions of surveillance, monitoring, responding and evaluating, NPHIs play a crucial role in collating and assessing the evidence on the health effects of climate change.

How Extreme Were Daily Global Temperatures in 2023 and Early 2024?

AbstractGlobal temperatures were exceptionally high in 2023/24. Every month from June 2023 to June 2024 set a new record, and September shattered the previous record by °C. The 2023 annual average approached °C above pre‐industrial levels. This results from both long‐term warming and internal variability, with the occurrence of an El Niño episode. However the amplitude of the 2023/24 anomalies was remarkable and surprised the scientific community. Here we analyze the rarity of 2023/24 global temperatures from a climate perspective. We show that a ‘normal’ year 2023 would have roughly equaled the previous annual record, and that the most extreme events of 2023/24 rank among the most extreme since 1940. Our analysis suggests that the 2023/24 event can be reconciled with the long‐term trend and an intense, but not implausible, peak of internal variability.

Study on Urban Land Simulation under the Perspective of Local Climate Zoning—A Case Study of Guiyang City

The examination of land-use change simulations across a range of scenarios represents a pivotal research avenue for the advancement of sustainable development analysis. Nevertheless, the extant research merely categorises all building land in a land-use classification into a single category, which is unable to provide a detailed analysis of the dynamic internal spatial form of the city. This paper analyses 17 LCZ land-use types in Guiyang City in 2013 and 2022, and reclassifies them into 7 RLCZ land-use types based on the height of urban building sites. It also proposes three possible scenarios of BAU, WLC, and SPC in 2040 and simulates their land-use changes using the PLUS model. The results demonstrate that (1) the size of low-rise buildings in Guiyang has declined significantly over the past decade; (2) built-up land within cities is significantly affected by drivers such as night-time lighting, topography, elevation, and roads; (3) the SPC scenario emphasises a development pattern of land intensification and a focus on high density in urban built space. It also protects the stability of the ecosystem. The scenario can provide informative suggestions for spatial pattern changes in rapidly developing cities such as Guiyang.

Greenium and public climate concerns: Evidence from China

This paper examines the “greenium” in China's stock market and offers an analysis from the perspective of public climate concerns. With data during 2011–2020, we firstly find that the green stocks outperform the brown ones in China and public climate concerns brings the premium. Secondly, we figure out that firms’ stock returns are positively correlated to their ESG ratings. Last but not least, we find investors’ behavior, including both public climate concerns and retail investors’ entry to the markets strengthens the relationship. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of green asset pricing.

Mapping climate suitability index for rainfed cultivation of medicinal plants by developing an AI-based probabilistic framework

The Climate Suitability Index (CSI) can increase agricultural efficiency by identifying the high-potential areas for cultivation from the climate perspective. The present study develops a probabilistic framework to calculate CSI for rainfed cultivation of 12 medicinal plants from the climate perspective of precipitation and temperature. Unlike the ongoing frameworks based on expert judgments, this formulation decreases the inherent subjectivity by using two components: frequency analysis and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). In the first component, the precipitation and temperature layers were prepared by calculating the occurrence probability for each plant, and the obtained probabilities were spatially interpolated using geographical information system processes. In the second component, PSO quantifies CSI by classifying a study area into clusters using an unsupervised clustering technique. The formulation was implemented in the Lake Urmia basin, which was distressed by unsustainable water resources management. By identifying clusters with higher CSI values for each plant, the results provide deeper insights to optimize cultivation patterns in the basin. These insights can help managers and farmers increase yields, reduce costs, and improve profitability.

Biome variability in southernmost Africa since the last deglaciation recorded in marine sediments

From a climate perspective, the southern Cape of South Africa is a particularly dynamic region because it occupies the transition between warm-temperate and subtropical circulation systems. However, in terms of understanding the longer-term dynamics of these systems, palaeoenvironmental data, especially marine records from offshore the southern coast are limited. To better understand the history of climate in the region, and its associated vegetation impacts, we present here terrestrial proxies including palynological and charcoal data and marine proxies (non-pollen palynomorph data) for marine sediment core GeoB20628-1 retrieved from offshore the southern Cape coast. Applying a chronology based on radiocarbon dating, the sediments of the core allow a detailed reconstruction of biome and climate variations in southwestern South Africa since the last deglaciation, spanning the last 13,900 years. The record clearly indicates a shift from non-marine to marine influence due to sea level rise during the transition from the last deglaciation to the Holocene. The region was evidently dominated by two major biomes (fynbos and renosterveld) throughout the record, with apparent shifts in domination during different periods. The fynbos taxa, particularly Restionaceae, that dominate the pollen record correspond well with variations in the Southern Hemisphere winter latitudinal insolation gradient. The associated charcoal record reveals the ongoing prevalence of fire in the fynbos and renosterveld biomes throughout the sequence. During the last 1300 years, a marked shift is evident, represented by a decline in Restionaceae-rich fynbos elements together with an increase in Stoebe/Elytropappus-type-rich renosterveld elements. The associated occurrence of neophyte taxa (Pinus spp.) combined with increased evidence for fire suggests that late Holocene vegetation responded to the influence of both climate and anthropogenic activities on the landscape.

Nutritional implications of substituting plant-based proteins for meat: evidence from home scan data

There is growing concern among policymakers and researchers about the negative health and climate impacts of meat consumption. Consumers are encouraged to re-evaluate their dietary choices to preserve our ecosystem and reduce the burden of diet-related diseases. However, limited information is available about how price changes in animal protein sources affect plant-based protein demand and the consequences for nutrient intake and/or diet quality. The goal of the present paper is to fill this gap by explaining how consumers react to price changes in animal protein types and to present the implications for nutrition or diet quality. This paper applied the exact affine stone index implicit (EASI) Marshallian demand system to 2021 home scan panel data collated by the Kantar Worldpanel to estimate both price and expenditure elasticities. Twelve food groups of seven animal-based protein products and five plant-based protein products were considered. The results revealed that dairy and eggs are daily necessities for the people of Scotland. The demand for fish and non-dairy milk are the most sensitive to price. Estimates based on expenditure elasticities show that beef is considered a luxury and a highly substitutable product in the Scottish diet. Peas are relatively basic, essential foodstuffs. In general, increasing the price of animal protein sources will shift demand towards plant protein. On the positive side, there will be a significant reduction in cholesterol and fat purchases. However, there would also be a significant reduction in the total amount of protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats, such as unsaturated fatty acids, purchased by the average household. This shows that increases in plant-based protein are not enough to compensate for the reductions in essential macro- and micronutrient purchases from animal protein. From the climate perspective, reductions in meat purchases could reduce emissions from production and consumption.

Prospective impacts of windstorm risk on carbon sinks and the forestry sector: an integrated assessment with Monte Carlo simulations

Abstract Storms pose a significant threat to economic activities in the forest sector and introduce non-permanence risks for carbon stocks. Following escalating climate ambitions, understanding and addressing these risks becomes imperative. Uncertainties intrinsic to the storm phenomenon render this task complex. This study uses an integrated forest sector model to assess the economic and carbon impacts of storm regimes, emphasizing the importance of uncertainties through Monte Carlo simulation. From an economic perspective, we unravel complex interplays between the salvage and inventory effects of storms that lead to heterogeneous transfers of economic welfare across agents and space. Non-affected forest owners benefit from inflated prices, while affected owners’ recovery hinges on the magnitude of storm damage. From a climate perspective, storms significantly impact the forest sector’s carbon sink, with a high risk of falling short on mitigation objectives. In 25% of simulations, we observe a substantial 24% decrease in carbon sequestration. Our findings advocate for (1) conservative reliance on natural carbon sinks in national climate mitigation strategies toward net-zero, and (2) tailored risk-sharing insurance mechanisms for forest owners, providing a buffer against economic uncertainties arising from climatic disruptions.

Staff Perspectives and Organizational Climate Factors Related to Implementation of Food is Medicine Programming in a Federally Qualified Health Center

Abstract: The Food is Medicine (FIM) movement posits that food access and knowledge are key parts of disease prevention and treatment, but little research has explored how FIM programs fit into the organizational context of federally qualified health centers (FQHC). The purpose of this study was to explore the organizational climate and clinic staff perspectives on a FIM program being implemented in an FQHC. We conducted a cross-sectional survey study with clinic staff during the early implementation of a clinicbased FIM program. Clinic staff (n=40) perceived that patient nutrition was a high priority for the clinic, but that support for providing nutrition resources was more limited. We found high willingness and likelihood of using the FIM program services among staff, but some expressed concern regarding staffing and cultural appropriateness of programming. Optimal adoption and use of FIM investments in FQHCs may be supported by integration with existing clinical workflows.

Eavttut ja hástalusat boazodollui Norggas, Ruoŧas ja Suomas

This report is based on the book "Reindeer Husbandry and Global Environmental Change - pastoralism in Fennoscandia". The book, which was published in 2022, brings together previous and new research compiled within a Nordic collaboration project, ReiGN (Reindeer husbandry in a Globalizing North), funded by NordForsk during the years 2016 – 2021. Grants from NordForsk also funded this report. The report, published in Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and North Sámi, summarizes some of the main results from the book. In nine chapters it describes how reindeer herding is affected by climate change, the continuous loss of reindeer grazing land and other external factors that together represent large challenges for reindeer, reindeer herders and the reindeer herding community as a whole. The report contains perspectives from many different research areas. Each chapter in the report has one or more references and links to chapters in the above mentioned book, which is freely available online (https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003118565). The chapters in the report cover a range of different topics, like present and historical reindeer herding (Chapter 1), the genetic background of the semi-domesticated reindeer (Chapter 2), how reindeer ranges are used and how they are affected by climate change and expanding industrial development (Chapter 3), possibilities for adaptation to a warmer climate (Chapter 4), impact of large predators (Chapter 5), external and internal governance (Chapter 6), reindeer herding as subsistence (Chapter 7), the role of supplementary feeding (Chapter 8), and reindeer health and diseases in a climate perspective (Chapter 9). The report ends with some reflections over the present situation and future perspectives for reindeer herding. The report is aimed at herders and managers, as well as other land users, authorities and policymakers who deal with natural resource management, climate and environmental issues or other matters related to reindeer herding and the use of land and water within the reindeer herding area. Rangifer Report No 21 is the North Sámi version of the report. Reports in Swedish and Norwegian have already been published as Rangifer Report No 16 and No 17, respectively. A Finnish version is published as a following number of Rangifer Report.

Life Cycle Analysis of a Battery Energy Storage System

For Latvian government and transmission system operator energy security and independence has been an issue for a period of time, even more when political situation changed, motivating to act faster in order to swich off from BREL system completely. Therefore, three Baltic states have made an agreement on building more stable electricity transmission system within Baltic region and to connect with European transmission systems, building new stations with synchronous compensators and energy storage systems. In order to build a system, that allows to include more energy from renewable resources and secure possible disbalances in system, Latvian TSO operator is building a new battery energy storage system. This paper is aimed to look at what are the costs of this battery energy storage system from climate perspective to Latvia and its society in order to gain energy security and possibility to include more energy from renewable resources.

Recent multispecies tree-growth decline reveals a severe aridity change in Mediterranean Chile

Soil moisture (SM) is a crucial factor in the water cycle, sustaining ecosystems and influencing local climate patterns by regulating the energy balance between the soil and atmosphere. Due to the absence of long-term, in-situ measurements of SM, studies utilizing satellite-based data and tree-ring analysis have become valuable in assessing variations of SM at regional and multi-century scales, as well as determining its effects on tree growth. This information is particularly pertinent in biodiversity hotspots made up of semi-arid ecosystems currently threatened by climate change. In the Mediterranean Chile region (MC; 30°–37° S), an ongoing megadrought since 2010 has resulted in a significant decline in the forest throughout the area. However, the impact of SM on tree growth at a multi-species and regional level remains unexplored. We analyzed a new network of 22 tree-ring width chronologies across the MC to evaluate the main spatiotemporal tree-growth patterns of nine woody species and their correlation with SM, using PCA. We also reconstructed the SM variations over the past four centuries and assessed its connection with large-scale climate forcings. Our results indicate that the primary growth patterns (PC1) explained 27% of the total variance and displayed a significant relationship with SM between 1982–2015 (r = 0.91), accurately reflecting the current megadrought. The tree-ring SM reconstruction covers the period 1616–2018 and shows a strong decrease around the year 2007, revealing an unprecedented recent change in aridity with respect to the last four centuries. The intensity of the South Pacific subtropical anticyclone, which primarily owe their existence to the subsiding branch of the Hadley Cell, appears as the primary climatic mechanism correlated with the reconstruction and the present aridity conditions in MC. The current SM conditions align with anticipated aridity changes in MC, providing a bleak perspective of future regional climate.

Greening Digital

Abstract Interest in sustainable IT is growing. Andrew Nind, MMaths, MSc, and Siani Pearson, PhD, from Just Algorithms Action Group (JAAG), explain how the assessment of digital technologies from a climate perspective can be misleading, and why the use of smaller systems should be considered.

Scientists’ identities shape engagement with environmental activism

Scientists are increasingly joining environmental movements. As knowledge producers and influential figures in society, scientists are uniquely positioned to drive change. Here we explore how scientist identity shapes engagement in environmental activism using qualitative and quantitative data from a multinational survey of 329 scientists from 41 countries. Scientist identity content, specifically perception of the science-activism relationship, was a stronger explanatory variable than strength of identification as a scientist. Perceiving a harmonious relationship between science and activism, endorsing environmental stewardship as a scientist’s duty, and believing objectivity and impartiality remained uncompromised by activism, each had significant correlations with engagement. These components formed a composite variable, which remained a robust explanatory variable of engagement even when accounting for the influence of activist identity. Scientists embracing scientist-activist compatibilism were also less inclined to view new technologies as a panacea for the climate crisis. This research underscores the important role of scientist identity content in shaping climate actions and perspectives.

Lessons Learned from Information Sources on Building Defect Studies

Building defects are very prevalent and contribute significantly to a building’s economic value. There are numerous information sources on building defects that have significant potential for learning more about building defects. This study aimed to identify the information sources used in previous building defect studies and to identify the motivation for carrying out such studies. To fulfil this aim, a scoping study was carried out. The information sources identified included insurance companies, private databases, questionnaire surveys, lawsuits, building surveys, client complaint forms, and maintenance reports. This study found that insurance company and client complaint forms include the largest collection of real building defect cases, but such databases may lack detailed descriptions of the causes of the defects. The main purposes of the building defects studies identified here included design challenges, identification of defects, building maintenance management, quality management, systematization in data collection, providing an overview of typical defects, and classifying defects. Identification was found to be the most common purpose, indicating that the industry wants to learn more. This study identified research gaps in the climate perspective in relation to building defects. Most of the studies focused on the economical perspective, and none focused on the carbon footprint perspective. This study provides an overview of information sources, which can motivate stakeholders to collaborate in learning about the physical causes of building defects as well as about other key aspects such as fault, finances consequences, and procedural causes.

Cross-sectional analysis of the environment in Agenda 2030: Public diplomacy on municipal websites in Portugal

This article delves into local public diplomacy from the perspective of climate action. A cross-sectional analysis is made of the climate perspective in the international 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, considering the social, political, and economic challenges implied by human alteration of the environment. The websites of local municipal corporations in Portugal are analysed to identify the information referring to Agenda 2030 and its convergence in climate action. To this end, a content analysis method was designed based on the relationship of the Agenda’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) with their associated climate change goals. Attention is paid primarily to the websites’ fixed sections, and secondarily to their informational content and external portals. The method is applied to the websites of seven of Portugal’s municipalities. Conclusions are drawn concerning whether or not they provide information on climate change so that the effort directed by these local governments towards climate action can be determined. A comparison is made with the international case. This tool contributes to localizing the SDGs and prioritizing environmentally important components.

Machine learning system to assess rice crop change detection from satellite-derived RGVI due to tropical cyclones using remote sensing dataset

Tropical cyclones strike massive devastation of agricultural crops in South Asian countries practically every year. For assessing impacts on primary land use and land cover (LULC) classes of Patuakhali district in Bangladesh, this study utilized the Landsat-8 image dataset to compute change detection indices of a consistent cyclone landfall period in the late rainy season (October and November). Different stage of cyclones based on their wind speed (km/h) were also analyzed to explore agricultural crop change detection due to the tropical cyclone (TC) Bulbul (made landfall on November 9th, 2019). Three years later, cyclone Sitrang made landfall on October 24th, 2022, and was employed for the test results that the Bulbul's rice growth vegetation index (RGVI)-CD trained in the study's machine learning (ML) system. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine rice crop changes from RGVI due to a cyclone (Bulbul) to evaluate growth change status by another cyclone (Sitrang) using machine learning system. In Patuakhali district, the rice crops were damaged mainly and affected in classification as moderately changed detected (MCD) 26.07%, very changed detected (VCD) 48.83%, and extremely changed detected (ECD) 17.73% in total agricultural lands area (1548.93 km2). It was also significantly monitored for the rice crops to change as rice growth vegetation index (RGVI)-CD related to cyclone wind speed (km/h), DEM, distance from the rivers, and shorelines. From the result, the symmetric regression of coefficient (R2) of (i) linear regression, (ii) fine tree, (iii) support vector machine, (iv) ensemble boosted trees, and (v) trilayered neural network were obtained 0.735, 0.734, 0.737, 0.756 and 0.736 as good-fitted test outcomes respectively. Applying the five machine learning models that were created from cyclone Sitrang, it was discovered that the test set in this system was accurate to the observed forecast with acceptable RMSE and MAE values. Therefore, study can be helpful for researchers creating new damaged and yield loss area assessment policies to help TC-affected farming communities, especially rice growers, prepare an effective emergency response plan for their socioeconomic needs fulfillment in the changing climate perspectives for attaining sustainable development.

Scope 3: what question are we trying to answer?

Once a little-scrutinized and largely optional aspect of corporate greenhouse gas emissions disclosure, Scope 3 emissions accounting and reporting is now a common element of voluntary climate best practice and is increasingly being adopted as part of new mandatory corporate climate disclosure policies. As Scope 3 disclosure becomes more central to what companies are asked (or required) to do, we perhaps should ask anew what exactly it is we are trying to accomplish. While those NGOs and other stakeholders that designed the Scope 3 framework and who have included it in highly influential corporate leadership programs were well-intentioned, it is becoming clear that the system as designed is ill-suited to serve its fundamental purpose: driving corporate actions to reduce, avoid, and remove greenhouse gas emissions. Scope 3 inventories are often seen as an end in and of themselves, yet from a climate perspective, they are only tools—and only useful if they help lead to positive emissions impact. What companies are asked to do regarding value chain emissions is not adequately aligned with what climate science demands. Therefore, greenhouse gas accounting, disclosure, and leadership programs and rules must modernize their approaches to Scope 3. Options include: limiting data collection requirements to seeking actionable, primary data; using proxy data only as a baseline from which the demonstrated impact of emissions-reducing interventions can be credited by target setting and leadership programs; and by fully embracing the use of verified market mechanisms to enable investments in positive emissions impact.

Extreme Events in 2023 From a Climate Perspective

Extreme Events in 2023 From a Climate Perspective

China’s Crackdown on Crypto Mining from a Climate Perspective: Unified Efforts from Administrative Authorities and the Judiciary

Abstract This article presents an examination of the unified efforts by China’s central authorities and the judiciary in the crackdown on crypto mining within the country. It discusses the environmental ramifications of crypto mining and traces its development in China, highlighting the resource-intensive nature of the process. Crypto mining risks China’s national objectives of promoting high-quality economic and social development, as well as industrial optimisation, energy conservation and emissions reduction. The central government’s commitment to climate goals and ecological civilisation, coupled with the perceived minimal economic benefits and substantial environmental damage caused by crypto mining, led to the issuance of the Notice on Rectifying Mining Activities of Virtual Currencies in September 2021. This article discusses the implications of the Notice and how it has been implemented at both national and local levels by the administrative authorities. With reference to typical cases, it examines how the judiciary in delivering judgments has kept in line with the spirit of the Notice by analysing mining-related civil disputes as they arise in courts and reflects on the interplay of legal and administrative measures in shaping a sustainable and environmentally conscious approach to emerging technologies in China and beyond.