Climate Readiness Research Articles

Climate change and external debt vulnerability: the case of Sub-Saharan Africa

This study examined the influence of climate change vulnerability on the external debt vulnerability of Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on the Vulnerable Twenties (V20s), utilizing panel data spanning from 2015 to 2020. The climate readiness, climate vulnerability, and external debt vulnerability indices were derived via principal component analysis (PCA). The results from the system GMM analysis indicate that climate readiness exhibits a negative and significant impact across short- and long-term periods for the overall sample. However, for the V20s, the negative effect of climate readiness shifts to a positive and significant one over both short and long terms, with the long-term effect being more notable. These findings highlight a vicious cycle between debt and climate crises within the V20s. Thus, prioritizing debt relief over climate finance loans, decarbonizing greenhouse gas emissions, redirecting funds for climate goals, improving debt practices, and investing in public services would break nations’ vicious cycle of debt and climate vulnerability.

Assessing the Climate Readiness of Physician Education Leaders in Graduate Medical Education.

Climate change affects patient health through an array of exposures, including increasing heatwaves, extreme weather events, poor air quality, and expanding vector-borne illnesses. Physicians are at the forefront of addressing the health consequences of these exposures with patients, and environmental sustainability has become a priority for health care organizations. Accordingly, climate change and health is becoming a critical area for graduate medical education (GME). As GME leaders design and drive education in residency and fellowship programs, understanding those leaders' baseline knowledge on this topic and its alignment with their organizations' priorities is an essential step in the development of climate and health education programs. A search of existing climate and health knowledge assessments revealed an array of tools, yet most had limited applicability for physicians. We systematically created a brief GME climate and health baseline assessment requiring less than 10 minutes of users' time. The assessment was administered anonymously via an online survey tool to GME leaders at three sponsoring institutions across three states within our health care system. Responses from 115 of 155 individuals (74% response rate) yielded an average 62% correct (standard deviation = 16%) and a score range of 10% to 90%. This baseline assessment identifies GME leaders' knowledge gaps about climate change and its impacts on health, the role of health care organizations in producing planet-warming pollution accelerating climate change, and the prioritization of these issues within our organization.

Mapping the Environmental Co-Benefits of Reducing Low-Value Care: A Scoping Review and Bibliometric Analysis.

Reducing low-value care (LVC) and improving healthcare's climate readiness are critical factors for improving the sustainability of health systems. Care practices that have been deemed low or no-value generate carbon emissions, waste and pollution without improving patient or population health. There is nascent, but growing, research and evaluation to inform practice change focused on the environmental co-benefits of reducing LVC. The objective of this study was to develop foundational knowledge of this field through a scoping review and bibliometric analysis. We searched four databases, Medline, Embase, Scopus and CINAHL, and followed established scoping review and bibliometric analysis methodology to collect and analyze the data. A total of 145 publications met the inclusion criteria and were published between 2013 and July 2023, with over 80% published since 2020. Empirical studies comprised 21%, while commentary or opinions comprised 51% of publications. The majority focused on healthcare generally (27%), laboratory testing (14%), and medications (14%). Empirical publications covered a broad range of environmental issues with general and practice-specific 'Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions', 'waste management' and 'resource use' as most common topics. Reducing practice-specific 'GHG emissions' was the most commonly reported environmental outcome. The bibliometric analysis revealed nine international collaboration networks producing work on eight key healthcare areas. The nineteen 'top' authors were primarily from the US, Australia and Canada.

Climate policy uncertainty and bank systemic risk: A creative destruction perspective

We conduct an international study on the effect of climate policy uncertainty on the systemic risk of banks from G20 countries. We find that climate policy uncertainty is associated with lower bank systemic risk. This relation is more pronounced in countries with high innovation capacity, climate readiness, more systemically important banks, and a more competitive banking system. Climate-related information disclosure and sustainable investments are critical economic channels through which the effect of climate policy uncertainty works. Our findings alleviate the concern that climate transition risk may contribute to financial instability and provide practical implications for regulators to design climate transition policies.

The Effectiveness of Climate Adaptation Finance and Readiness on Vulnerability in African Economies

Addressing climate vulnerability remains a priority for economies globally. This study used the panel-corrected standard error (PCSE) methodology to investigate the impact of adaptation financing on climate vulnerability. This analysis examined 52 African countries from 2012 to 2021 while considering their climate adaptation readiness. The impact was also assessed based on the Human Development Index (HDI) categories to reflect different levels of development. The findings showed that adaptation finance considerably influenced climate vulnerability reduction in Africa, particularly in nations with a moderate HDI. However, most countries still need higher levels of adaptation financing, resulting in a small impact on vulnerability reduction. Furthermore, the impact of readiness measures differed by HDI category. Economic and social climate readiness strongly impacted climate vulnerability in high-HDI nations, but governance preparedness was more critical in low-HDI countries. Based on the empirical facts, two policy proposals emerge. First, it is critical to reconsider the distribution of adaptation financing to reduce disparities and effectively alleviate climate vulnerability. Moreover, African economies should consider implementing innovative localized financing mechanisms to mobilize extra adaptation finance. Second, African governments should customize climate readiness interventions based on their HDI levels to improve the achievement of a positive impact on climate vulnerability.

Toward a Climate-Ready Health Care System: Institutional Motivators and Workforce Engagement.

Policy Points The US health care system faces mounting pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change; motivated institutions and an engaged health care workforce are essential to the development, implementation, and maintenance of a climate-ready US health care system. Health care workers have numerous profession-specific and role-specific opportunities to address the causes and impacts of climate change. Policies must address institutional barriers to change and create incentives aligned with climate readiness goals. Institutions and individuals can support climate readiness by integrating content on the health care implications of climate change into educational curricula.

Supporting agriculture in developing countries: new insights on the impact of official development assistance using a climate perspective

Agriculture is a major source of food and income for poor and rural households living in developing countries; yet, agricultural systems are increasingly threatened by changing climate conditions that compromise their productivity and resilience. Over time, international aid has provided support to the agricultural systems of recipient countries, though the literature is not unanimous in confirming their effectiveness.To shed light on this issue, the purpose of this work is to assess the efficacy of these aid in increasing the agricultural productivity of recipient nations, employing original approaches.First, to adopt a climate change perspective, we conduct our analysis using a recent classification adopted by the Official Development Assistance—the Rio Markers—which distinguishes aid between adaptation and mitigation to climate change.Second, taking into account that the starting conditions of recipient countries can significantly impact aid effectiveness, we classify 115 developing countries into four subgroups according to their vulnerability and readiness to climate change, as evaluated by the ND-Gain indicators.We perform a two-stage instrumental variable approach within the context of panel models to investigate the potential growth-enhancing impact that different types of agricultural aid may exert on the agriculture Total Factor Productivity in recipient countries.Our findings show that aid to agriculture, especially adaptation aid, has a positive impact on agricultural productivity growth. We also observe that countries with a higher climate readiness benefit the most from aid, whereas countries highly vulnerable and heavily dependent on the agricultural sector are less able to leverage the aid received to the same extent.Overall, our analysis confirms the importance of international aid to the agricultural sector and suggests that accurate impact assessment analyses should also consider a climate perspective to distinguish adaptation from mitigation aid.

Health justice and economic segregation in climate risks: Tracing vulnerability and readiness progress

Climate vulnerability can make urban space unhealthy and accentuate existing health (in)justice and (economic) segregation. Drawing on the vulnerability-readiness nexus and measuring health justice (i.e., health poverty, health distribution, and health access) and economic segregation (through indices), we strive to investigate the plausible pathways of the two constructs at the heat risks. Our work, focusing on metropolitan cities in South Korea, addresses the role of heat vulnerability and readiness nexus regarding health justice and economic segregation through correlational analysis and a time-trend comparative approach between 2011 and 2015 (as five year-long effects). Our results show that potential positive links exist between health poverty as a component of health justice and economic segregation. Moreover, climate readiness, as opposed to vulnerability, plays a crucial role in reducing economic segregation in the context of health justice and heat risks.

Implementing an ecosystem oceanography program to increase capacity and preparedness for dynamic ocean management and fishery challenges

Building resilience in coastal resources and related communities is improved by a holistic ecosystem research approach for integrating socioecological system components; a key challenge in this process is capturing dynamic interactions between components. We present an application of ecosystem oceanography to address goals of marine conservation and management, including climate readiness and supporting a blue economy. Treating the ecosystem as the sample unit is fundamental to our research program. Specifically, spatiotemporal structure of relationships among taxa themselves is the study subject, not the individual members. Our approach outlines four steps toward successful implementation: 1) Build a conceptual ecosystem-oceanography model informed by previous science and human dimensions research to test hypotheses and identify gaps in our understanding; 2) Design survey and adaptive monitoring efforts, including data sharing protocols, to capture the spatiotemporal processes of ecosystem structure; 3) Use diet data and spatiotemporal variability in trophic interactions to quantify processes influencing ecosystem function, including persistent hotspots of abundance, biodiversity, and trophic transfer; 4) Link empirically-determined processes to improve parameterization of biophysical models to enable evaluation of ecosystem structure and functionality retrospectively and prospectively. Accomplishing these objectives requires a transdisciplinary team and will enable evaluation of specific management goals, develop indicators for tracking progress towards meeting them, and carry out scenario evaluation under near-term and long-term scenarios that explore key uncertainties (e.g., future climate and policy directions). We apply this four-step approach to identify key drivers for recent ecosystem and fishery surprises in the California Current Ecosystem. We propose this approach offers a means for anticipating future ecosystem states and increasing preparedness and capacity to overcome fishery surprises, and in doing so supporting the development of management approaches that are robust to uncertainty.

Sovereign ratings change under climate risks

Do climate risks affect sovereign ratings? This study selects 117 countries around the globe and constructs the ordered logit model to study the relationship between climate risks and sovereign ratings quantitatively. It also determines the importance of climate risk factors compared with traditional sovereign rating determinants through a random forest model. The empirical results show that climate vulnerability and readiness have become new determinants that have received some attention in the sovereign rating system, and after controlling for traditional sovereign rating determinants including macroeconomic, political, and external factors, climate vulnerability has a significant negative effect on sovereign ratings, and climate readiness has a significant positive effect on sovereign ratings. The heterogeneity results suggest that the impacts of climate risks are stronger for developing and high-damaged countries and that greater gains can be achieved by increasing climate readiness for these countries. This study provides new evidence to quantify the impacts of climate risks on sovereign ratings and provides decision support for countries to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change.

Heat vulnerability, climate readiness, and health outcomes: linking anticipatory adaptation in Urban Korea

ABSTRACT Can climate policy efforts with proactive health adaptation be helpful to mitigate the adverse impacts of heat events? In this work, we identify the relationships between heat vulnerability and health outcomes and articulate the potential role of anticipatory adaptation in reducing the vulnerability to heat events within major cities of Korea over a recent five-year period (2010–2015). From the perspectives of vulnerability-readiness nexus and anticipatory adaptation, our work integrates heat vulnerability with health outcomes that assist in accounting for climate adaptation policy efforts using a quantitative approach. Our results suggest that positive associations exist between heat vulnerability and health outcomes. Further, high levels of anticipatory adaptation and climate readiness can play crucial roles in mitigating the negative effects of heat events and enhancing health adaptation.

Anticipating ‘The Big One’: Developing decision support with emergency managers to mitigate flood impacts

Flooding from excessive rainfall remains a major weather hazard with respect to lives and property. The US National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center and National Water Center work continuously and collaboratively to produce accurate and timely forecasts of potential flooding disasters for the public. This paper explores their ongoing efforts to mitigate flood impacts with enhanced impact-based decision support services, via the Excessive Rainfall Outlook (ERO) and Flood Inundation Mapping (FIM) services. Future directions for precipitation and flood inundation forecasting are also discussed. Through the ERO and FIM services, the National Weather Service hopes to strengthen collaboration with partners in the weather industry, emergency management and water resources management to develop weather, water and climate readiness in communities around the nation.

Cities: Allocating climate change responsibilities at planetary scale

Computing global cities' carbon footprints is core in allocating regional climate change responsibilities and cutting urban carbon emissions. However, cities' carbon footprint of the Global North are better documented than those in the Global South. Although cities belonging to developing countries, especially African and Asian cities, are growing significantly in terms of size, population, GDP, their carbon footprint remains poorly documented in the scientific literature. Cities' carbon footprints inventories of the Global South are usually hampered by (i) lack of local urban emissions data, (ii) reduced climate footprint, and (iii) shortages in climate finance. To bridge this gap, we aim to estimate 24,110 cities' carbon footprints using machine learning algorithms to provide a comprehensive analysis on a planetary scale, while allocating responsibilities according to the cities' regions and sizes. The findings highlight that such a granular approach can enhance future global climate collaboration by erupting a robust local, and thus global, climate-friendly actions and increase peer-cities climate readiness.

Inclement Weather and Risk of Missing Scheduled Hemodialysis Appointments

Background and Aim: Non-adherence to dialysis treatments results in health complications that are associated with increased morbidity and mortality in hemodialysis patients. We examined the association between different types of inclement weather conditions and missed dialysis treatments. Methods: We obtained health records on end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients who received hemodialysis at Fresenius Kidney Care (FKC) clinics across the Northeastern U.S. during 2001-2019. County-level daily meteorological data on rainfall, hurricane events, snowfall, snow depth, and wind speed were extracted through the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Agency (NOAA) database. A time-stratified case-crossover study design with conditional Poisson regression was employed to estimate the effect of inclement weather exposures on hemodialysis treatment adherence. We applied distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) framework to estimate the delayed effect of inclement weather for up to one week. Results: We studied 28,620 ESKD patients from 27 northeastern counties who had any missed hemodialysis appointment. Overall, the missed appointment rate was higher for all of the inclement weather type (rainfall, hurricane, snowfall, snow depth, and wind advisory) compared to non-inclement weather days. The risk of missed appointment was highest at lag 0 for 10mm increase of rainfall (RR=1.027, 95% CI: 1.021, 1.032), snowfall (RR=1.019, 95% CI: 1.017, 1.021), and snow depth (RR=1.014, 95% CI: 1.013, 1.016). Hurricane events showed the highest RR at lag 5 (RR=1.163, 95% CI: 1.016, 1.332). Wind advisory showed sustained higher risk compared to non-exposure days through up to lag 5. Conclusions: All types of inclement weather events showed increased risk of missed hemodialysis appointments. Since inclement weather events are projected to increase due to ongoing climate change, our findings suggest the need for enhanced climate readiness by health care delivery systems that include early warning systems disaster response plans for delivering uninterrupted dialysis-related health services. Keywords: inclement weather, climate change, hemodialysis

Climate Change, Aging, and Well-being: How Residential Setting Matters

How do older people’s living environments influence their vulnerabilities to climate change? Much has been written about the physiological consequences of climate change for older individuals, particularly the dangers of increased incidence of severe heat. Less is known about how older people’s residential settings moderate their exposure to climate stressors, their particular sensitivities to the effects of climate change, or their capacities to respond to extreme events or adapt to long-term environmental changes. Drawing on literature in English, with a focus on work relevant to the United States, we examine how the housing, neighborhood, and urban or rural contexts in which older people live shape their experiences of climate change, moderating their exposure to risks related to climate change, sensitivity to those events and trends, and their capacities to adapt and recover. Older people face multiple life changes, making prioritizing climate readiness more challenging. They are also diverse, with different vulnerabilities and perceptions of risks and the ability to manage them. This paper lays out an agenda where additional research can inform policy and planning efforts aimed at reducing older individuals’ risk and building the capacity to adapt to climate change. The agenda includes understanding specific vulnerabilities and how older people and their housing providers are already responding.

Suggestions for marine protected area management in Australia: a review of temperature trends and management plans

Climate change and related ocean warming have affected marine ecological and socioeconomic systems worldwide. Therefore, it is critically important to assess the performance of conservation mechanisms, particularly marine protected areas (MPAs) to moderate the risks of climate-related impacts. In this study, sea surface temperature trends of Australian Commonwealth MPAs are assessed against climate change management criteria, as defined in Adapting to Climate Change: Guidance for Protected Area Managers and Planners. Monthly sea surface temperature trends between 1993 and 2017 were statistically assessed using the Mann–Kendall trend test and management plans were subject to a thematic analysis. Temperature trends showed variable SST changes among the regions, with the northern reserves all showing statistically significant increases in temperature, and the Southwest Network having the least number of reserves with statistically significant increases in temperature. The thematic analysis shows that management plans address approximately half of the climate change adaptation criteria. Several management strategies, such as dynamic MPAs, replication, and translocations, are currently absent and have been suggested as necessary tools in supporting the climate readiness of Australian MPAs. This study is significant because it helps to identify and synthesize regions most vulnerable to the impacts of ocean warming and provides management suggestions make MPAs “climate ready.”

A Framework to Manage University–Industry Technology Transfer

This paper focuses on university–industry relationships, and the value in such linkages that motivates firms to choose a particular mode to acquire university-generated research output. We combined insights from literature review and 15 exploratory interviews of multiple stakeholders, and developed a framework to examine university–industry linkages. We grounded our framework on the social exchange theory (SET) and quadruple helix concept. It proposes university climate readiness (e.g. incentive system), firm climate readiness (e.g. managers’ attitude toward academic research), and exchange readiness (e.g. a firm’s absorptive capacity) as antecedents to science-business collaboration, coupled with environmental readiness factors (e.g. unique socio-cultural setting in developing economies) as moderating variables. The framework highlights (1) functional value (i.e. technology pricing, quality, and applicability) and (2) relational value (i.e. trust between academia and industry) in the said relationship. The framework further provides a basis for practitioners to arrive at a suitable university-developed technology transfer mode (e.g. patent licensing, research services, and research partnerships).

Climate Change and Extreme Heat Events: How Health Systems Should Prepare

Summary Earth’s warming climate is causing heat waves to become more frequent, longer lasting, and hotter, while occurring in locations unaccustomed to such weather events. Extreme heat events (EHEs), such as those in the western United States, India, Pakistan, Central Europe, and other locations in recent years, are one of the deadliest consequences of climate change. EHEs cause excess morbidity and mortality directly from heat illness, aggravation of comorbid conditions, and exacerbation of the damaging health effects of social factors as well as indirectly from corollary events such as wildfires and air pollution. Climate change–related EHEs are projected to worsen for at least the next 3 decades, necessitating that health systems be prepared to meet a growing burden of heat-related illnesses and become more heat resilient, as well as to reduce health care–related climate impacts. In this article, the authors discuss the health effects of EHEs and provide illustrative examples of what health systems can do to promote climate readiness and heat resiliency.

Asbestos Removal Acceleration for New Jobs and Fossil Fuel Use Reduction for Public Health and Climate Readiness: A Contribution to the Revival of the Italian Economy Post-COVID-19.

The Italian economy has been battered by the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic. European Union and Italian government economic recovery funds will provide special economic recovery loans aimed toward energy saving and the consequent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to meet the Paris Agreement climate goals. In, Italy, millions of square meters of asbestos cement (AC) roofing cover industrial and civic buildings. Removal of this asbestos containing material (ACM) would contribute to three pandemic and economic recovery objectives: job creation, reduction of greenhouse gasses (thru energy savings), and public health improvements. Though asbestos was used for its excellent thermal insulation properties, we provide calculations that demonstrate that the cement binding in AC roofing negates the asbestos insulation function. Therefore, replacing AC roofing with roofs made with alternative materials with better thermal transmission coefficients can contribute significantly to energy savings, reduce the risk of asbestos-related morbidity and mortality, and establish substantial economic activity.

Climate change, risk perception, and protection motivation among high-altitude residents of the Mt. Everest region in Nepal.

Mountain ecosystems are considered vulnerable to early impacts of climate change. Whether and how local residents of these areas perceive these changes, however, remain under-studied questions. By conducting a household survey in the Khumbu region of Nepal, this study assessed local residents' experience-based perception of changes in climate trends and patterns, perceived risk, and attitudes towards climate issues. Multivariate cluster analysis based on residents' climate change beliefs revealed three segments: "Cautious," "Disengaged," and "Alarmed." A comparison of these segments along key psychosocial constructs of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) revealed significant inter-segment differences in residents' perception of severity, vulnerability, response efficacy, self-efficacy, and response cost associated with engaging in mitigating behavior. Results shed light on how residents of high elevation areas that are considered to be exposed to early impacts of climate change perceive the risk and intend to respond. These findings could also assist stakeholders working in other similar mountain ecosystems in understanding vulnerability and in working towards climate readiness.