Cross-border Climate Research Articles

Assessment of SADC Countries' National Adaptation Planning Health Impacts Inclusion: A Thorough Review.

Background: The impacts of climate change are recognised as a key challenge of the 21st century. By 2030, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to have the globally highest burden of disease due to climate change. Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a sub-region under-represented at a global level, in addressing current and future climate change-related health impacts. It specifically assesses the NAPs of Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Methods: A thorough review was conducted, analysing articles, government reports, and national communications related to NAPs and climate change health outcomes in the selected countries. Sources were evaluated against pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Main findings: All five countries prioritised health in their NAPs; however, health departments were excluded from assessments in two of the countries. Although health surveillance and early warning systems were included in the NAPs, there was limited evidence of their integration into broader climate, health, economic, and labour policies. National climate change focal points were identified, but governance and implementation at district and local levels were not well-documented. This review highlighted a need for greater inclusion of Indigenous and locally led knowledge. Common barriers identified included the lack of data with appropriate frequency and scale. Governance and implementation difficulties were also identified in all five countries; these difficulties included both a lack of coordination and a lack of institutional capacity. These challenges, especially a lack of political will to address the compound impacts of altered climate and health on all earth systems, are also found at the regional level. Conclusions: National strategies and implementation programs in SADC countries need to be agile in their ability to scale and adapt, yet they also need to include measurable actions and timeframes. Given the shared climate and health trends and the interconnected socio-economic, environmental, and political landscape, there is significant potential for regional coordination to address cross-border climate change impacts and to optimise resource use.

Threatening the Poor? The economic impacts of carbon border adjustment mechanism on developing countries

It is highly necessary to conduct a more detailed assessment of the economic impacts caused by the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), especially for numerous developing countries. This study utilizes the input-output (IO) model to evaluate the inequality consequence of CBAM. Results indicate that 1) the overall impact of output decline and production cost increase on non-OECD countries is greater than that on OECD countries; 2) regionally, African countries experience a more severe output decline, while Asian countries see a higher increase in production costs. Apart from BRICS, other developing countries demonstrate low reduction efficiency; 3) a refund mechanism based on historical emission responsibility results in larger benefits for the LDCs. Conversely, green innovation contribution and emission reduction efforts primarily benefit developed economies and large developing countries. We recommend 1) prioritizing assessments for developing countries before designing cross-border climate policy; 2) considering both fairness and efficiency when designing a refund mechanism.

Turning the Tide: A Comparative Analysis of Regional Parliamentary Approaches for Scaling up Climate Action

This study explores the crucial role that regional parliaments play in promoting climate action across different regions. It underscores the necessity of cross-border climate action, given the interconnectedness of the climate system and the transboundary impacts of climate change. The study concentrates on the contributions of regional parliaments, often overlooked, in enhancing climate action through institutional structure. It identifies the approaches, work done, and strategies implemented by regional parliaments to fill the knowledge gap in the field. By empowering regional parliamentary institutions, this study highlights their potential to drive effective climate action and accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable future.

Evaluating policy coherence and integration for adaptation: the case of EU policies and Arctic cross-border climate change impacts

ABSTRACT The impacts of climate change materialize in different ways and are of varying magnitudes at different locations around the world. Adaptation is a global policy challenge because some of those impacts propagate across borders. The presence of borders influences the policy responses that may aim at preventing, alleviating, or exploiting the impacts. Yet the dynamics of responses to cross-border impacts have not been explored in research on policy coherence. We extend the analysis of climate policy coherence and integration to cover adaptation policies that are enacted at different but interacting geographical locations, proposing a conceptual approach how to do this. We illustrate our approach with examples of European Union (EU) policies related to the cross-border ramifications of climate change impacts originating in the Arctic. Our example highlights interconnections between climate change adaptation policy with foreign, security and trade policies. Since climate change impacts are transmitted through systems that cross borders, policymakers in the EU and elsewhere should recognize the links between policy domains with potential significance in responding to these propagating impacts. The policy responses of a recipient region at risk of such impacts are limited by jurisdictional borders. By explicitly recognizing elements of integration and coherence, more effective policy actions can be developed. Seeking coherence between climate and other policies between different regions, intertwined together via global networks of trade and other relations, should be a fundamental policy goal for the EU.

Unraveling cross-border climate risks through climate storylines: An example from Europe's cocoa industry

The traditional assessment of climate change's impact on agriculture, confined by geographical borders, is insufficient due to the global trade, allowing climate risks to affect multiple nations. This study uses cacao as an example to highlight cross-border climate risks, showing their implications for the EU's chocolate industry. Concentrating on cacao supply from Ivory Coast and Ghana, the study models various warming scenarios, revealing reduced cacao yields in both countries. Under RCP2.6, Ivory Coast could lose around 7% of cacao production by 2050, rising to 23% at RCP8.5. Ghana might experience losses of 39% by 2050, with a potential extreme loss of 86%. A no-deforestation import policy further affects production, reducing about 24% in the Ivory Coast and 16% in Ghana. These losses possibly cause EU supplies to decrease by 8% by 2050 in the long term and up to 20% in an extreme year. Predicted cacao price hikes of 30% by 2050 will cost the EU 2.5 billion euros annually by 2050. Extreme drought might elevate prices by 115% (RCP8.5), resulting in an additional annual expense of 10 billion euros for the EU. Findings indicate importance of addressing cross-border dimension in climate risk studies. These risks intensify with higher warming degrees, compounded by concentrated crop production, making countries dependent on these commodities highly susceptible to simultaneous, multi-location crop failures. Presently, EU trade agreements lack provisions for such scenarios. Given the increased likelihood of such shocks under a warming climate, more significant investment into disaster management strategies and policies is advisable.

Cross-border impacts of climate change affect the energy transition: Insights from the Finnish energy sector

The world is currently in the midst of an energy transition, in which renewable and low-carbon energy is replacing the use of fossil fuels. Along the way, however, planning for and adapting to impacts of climate change is urgently needed, as these are projected to intensify in the future, despite ambitious mitigation efforts. Since the low-carbon energy transition is likely to involve many international interdependencies and connections between countries and regions, assessments of cross-border impacts of climate change, i.e., consequences of climate change that occur remotely from the location of their initial impact, are of utmost importance to ensure the decarbonisation of society is safe and sustainable. This paper utilises expert interviews and a general morphological analysis with the shared socioeconomic pathways to situate national decarbonisation efforts within a global context and identify cross-border impacts of climate change that may affect the energy transition, using the Finnish energy sector as a case study. Interestingly, many of the global development trends that were found to have a boosting effect on the Finnish energy transition, also increased the risk from cross-border climate change impacts, stressing the importance of rigorous adaptation planning. The findings affirm the need for studying national energy transitions from a global perspective and highlight the tendency of climate change impacts to be transmitted across borders via complex pathways. The study offers valuable insights into the importance of cross-border impacts for adaptation planning pertinent to any country or region currently engaged, or planning to engage, in the global low-carbon transition.

Stakeholder perspectives on cross-border climate risks in the Brazil-Europe soy supply chain

Climate change impacts in one country can lead to impacts in distant locations, for example, via internationally traded crops. Previous work has highlighted a need to include cross-border climate change impacts in climate risk assessments, to describe the exposure and transmission of cross-border climate risk across actors, and understand options for managing this risk. In a case study of the Brazil-Europe soy supply chain, this paper aims to explore how stakeholders perceive past and future shocks, how climate change impacts affect stakeholders differently, and how they might respond. Soy is a key internationally traded commodity and Europe relies on imports for the majority of its soy consumption, used widely in livestock feed. Via 96 semi-structured expert interviews, we found different stakeholder groups are vulnerable to different types of weather shocks, experience different price and supply consequences, and have different capacities to respond. While some responses can reduce risk of impacts across the supply chain (e.g. new soy cultivars, improving transport infrastructure), we also identified examples where responses exacerbate risk for other stakeholders (e.g. export bans, changing demand). A holistic cross-border approach to analysing risk in the soy supply chain can help avoid maladaptation and offer opportunities for more collaborative adaptation.

What drives the cross-border spillover of climate transition risks? Evidence from global stock markets

Despite increasing efforts to better understand the financial consequences of climate change, the question of how climate-related financial risks could spill over across borders remains largely unexplored. By studying the role of countries’ climate transition risks in the bilateral co-movement of stock market returns in 42 countries, this paper finds that climate transition risks could increase the co-movement of stock market returns. The effect of climate transition risks increases with greater similarity of economic conditions and a higher dependence on import between two countries, which we interpret as a proof of cross-border climate transition risk spillover. While good country performances in combating climate change can help reduce the impact, an effective mitigation likely requires good performances by both. Our results suggest that countries with lower transition risks are not immune to the impact of climate change risks because of the potential for international spillover, and there is a strong need for international efforts to deal with the risks of climate change to financial stability.

IMPACT: Ideal Measures for Participation and Awareness of Climate Change: Stronger Together Citizen participation in achieving the European Green Deal in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion

Context: The European Green Deal is a tool to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. To reach this goal, action is needed on all organizational levels. At the same time, temperatures keep rising, and the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion (EMR) suffered from heavy floods in the summer of 2021and extreme weather events are expected to increase. This is an example of a cross-border issue and therefore shows the need for cross-border climate action. The EMR could be a showcase for climate action and collaboration for other border regions across Europe and worldwide. Policy Options: Citizens often do not feel responsible for taking climate action; however, everyone should contribute to achieving the biggest results in tackling climate change. Therefore, three policy options are presented to increase citizen participation in climate action: local climate measurements, sustainable food consumption, less food waste, and sustainable cities through urban gardening. These policy areas deserve more attention and have room for improvement. Recommendations: Encourage the implementation of citizen science projects in the EMR. Gather insights on the region's greenhouse gas emissions. Provide more sustainable food in institutional canteens and reduce food waste. Use social media as a tool to provide information about sustainable food. Use urban areas for urban gardening projects. Create community sustainability challenges.

Climate Action from Abroad: Assessing Mass Support for Cross-Border Climate Compensation

Climate Action from Abroad: Assessing Mass Support for Cross-Border Climate Compensation

Impacts of climate change on global food trade networks

Countries’ reliance on global food trade networks implies that regionally different climate change impacts on crop yields will be transmitted across borders. This redistribution constitutes a significant challenge for climate adaptation planning and may affect how countries engage in cooperative action. This paper investigates the long-term (2070–2099) potential impacts of climate change on global food trade networks of three key crops: wheat, rice and maize. We propose a simple network model to project how climate change impacts on crop yields may be translated into changes in trade. Combining trade and climate impact data, our analysis proceeds in three steps. First, we use network community detection to analyse how the concentration of global production in present-day trade communities may become disrupted with climate change impacts. Second, we study how countries may change their network position following climate change impacts. Third, we study the total climate-induced change in production plus import within trade communities. Results indicate that the stability of food trade network structures compared to today differs between crops, and that countries’ maize trade is least stable under climate change impacts. Results also project that threats to global food security may depend on production change in a few major global producers, and whether trade communities can balance production and import loss in some vulnerable countries. Overall, our model contributes a baseline analysis of cross-border climate impacts on food trade networks.

Cross-border climate vulnerabilities of the European Union to drought

European Union’s vulnerability to climate change stretches far beyond its borders because many of its economic sectors, such as meat and dairy, use raw materials sourced from far afield. Cross-border climate vulnerability is a relatively new subject in scientific literature, while of high societal and economic relevance. We quantify these climate vulnerabilities with a focus on drought risk and assessed them for 2030, 2050, 2085 and for RCP 2.6 and 6.0 climate scenarios. Here we find that more than 44% of the EU agricultural imports will become highly vulnerable to drought in future because of climate change. The drought severity in production locations of the agricultural imports in 2050 will increase by 35% compared to current levels of drought severity. This is particularly valid for imports that originate from Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, India and Turkey. At the same time, imports from Russia, Nigeria, Peru, Ecuador, Uganda and Kenya will be less vulnerable in future. We also report that the climate vulnerabilities of meat and dairy, chocolate (cocoa), coffee, palm oil-based food and cosmetic sectors mainly lie outside the EU borders rather than inside.

A conceptual framework for cross-border impacts of climate change

Climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability studies tend to confine their attention to impacts and responses within the same geographical region. However, this approach ignores cross-border climate change impacts that occur remotely from the location of their initial impact and that may severely disrupt societies and livelihoods. We propose a conceptual framework and accompanying nomenclature for describing and analysing such cross-border impacts. The conceptual framework distinguishes an initial impact that is caused by a climate trigger within a specific region. Downstream consequences of that impact propagate through an impact transmission system while adaptation responses to deal with the impact propagate through a response transmission system. A key to understanding cross-border impacts and responses is a recognition of different types of climate triggers, categories of cross-border impacts, the scales and dynamics of impact transmission, the targets and dynamics of responses and the socio-economic and environmental context that also encompasses factors and processes unrelated to climate change. These insights can then provide a basis for identifying relevant causal relationships. We apply the framework to the floods that affected industrial production in Thailand in 2011, and to projected Arctic sea ice decline, and demonstrate that the framework can usefully capture the complex system dynamics of cross-border climate impacts. It also provides a useful mechanism to identify and understand adaptation strategies and their potential consequences in the wider context of resilience planning. The cross-border dimensions of climate impacts could become increasingly important as climate changes intensify. We conclude that our framework will allow for these to be properly accounted for, help to identify new areas of empirical and model-based research and thereby support climate risk management.

Assessing future cross-border climate impacts using shared socioeconomic pathways

Significant effort has gone into identifying and assessing climate change impacts, often within tightly defined sectoral contexts or within specific administrative boundaries, for example in national adaptation plans. Interest is now growing among policy makers and researchers to better understand the transmission of climate impacts from one location to another. While impacts, adaptation and vulnerability research traditionally failed to take such climate impacts into account, a number of recent national-level scoping studies have recognized the potential significance of cross-border climate impacts. However, these studies have lacked an explicit futures perspective, and implicitly assumed static conditions under which cross-border climate impact is assessed.This paper addresses this research gap by developing a scenario-based framework for the study of future cross-border climate impacts using the global Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). We apply this framework to assess future cross-border climate impacts in Kenya. We develop ‘extended SSPs’ in a combined top-down and bottom-up approach implemented through a co-production process together with local stakeholders. The bottom-up element of our approach consists of local drivers for understanding Kenya’s vulnerability to future cross-border climate impacts, and the top-down element consists of the global SSPs as common boundary conditions. Finally, the extended SSPs combined with identified future cross-border climate impacts are used to stimulate a participatory co-production process to explore and evaluate different sets of adaptation options and activities. These future-oriented adaptation actions have the potential to improve Kenyan adaptation planning to mitigate and adapt to future climate impacts generated from global flows.

The Constitutionality of State and Local 'Norm Sustaining' Actions on Global Climate Change Actions: The Foreign Affairs Federalism Grey Zone

States and cities have long been leaders on global climate change by participating in international meetings, forming cross-border alliances, entering into bilateral memoranda of understanding, and even harmonizing their regulatory systems, as in the case of the California-Quebec emissions trading program. Such subnational efforts have taken on a new importance in the wake of President Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Although states and cities cannot be parties to this international agreement, they can contribute to its success by engaging in what I describe as “norm sustaining” activities. However, how can such norm sustaining activities survive constitutional scrutiny when the Supreme Court has often said the nation should speak with “one voice” on foreign affairs? The analysis of several different cross-border climate agreements between subnational actors raises some concern, especially for California’s linked cap-and-trade program with Quebec, which the Trump administration has challenged in court. Under the Compact Clause, the presumed constitutionality of existing agreements between states and foreign governments largely turns on the assumption that the interstate doctrine applies. Under the Supremacy Clause, the Supreme Court’s expansive reading of executive power could be interpreted to give preemptive effect to President Trump’s repudiation of the Paris Agreement. If California’s emissions trading program is perceived as a tax under the dormant Foreign Commerce Clause, then the requirement that the nation speak with one voice on international commerce could be violated. However, two trends—one legal and one factual—suggest otherwise. First, the legal and historical justifications for foreign affairs exceptionalism may make less sense in today’s society than at our nation’s founding. Recent cases suggest that the Supreme Court may be more likely to treat foreign affairs like domestic matters, at least where national security is not at issue. Second, when one considers the other ways in which state and local governments have engaged in the grey zone of foreign affairs law—such as by conducting trade and investment missions, entering into agreements to facilitate cross-border legal processes, and engaging in human rights treaty processes —subnational climate actions do not seem so extraordinary. Even the agreement creating the California-Quebec emissions trading program is similar to other cross-border activities, such as an agreement between New York and Quebec on driver’s licenses and an agreement between states and provinces on the Great Lakes. Through a unique analysis that situates subnational climate change agreements within a broader legal and factual context, this Article argues that cross-border climate action by states and cities is well-positioned to survive constitutional scrutiny.

MIGRACIONES CLIMÁTICAS: EL PAPEL DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS PARA SUPERAR EL PERSISTENTE VACÍO JURÍDICO

Los impactos del cambio climático afectan, directa e indirectamente, a los patrones de movilidad humana. De hecho, existen ya ejemplos de migraciones climáticas alrededor de todo el planeta. Las migraciones climáticas transfronterizas son especialmente relevantes, pues uno de los problemas más graves a los que se enfrentan las personas que huyen de sus países a causa del cambio climático, junto con otros motivos, es el escaso reconocimiento de su situación por el derecho internacional y, en consecuencia, la falta de protección jurídica. Ante este vacío, en el presente artículo se analiza la posible aplicación del derecho internacional de los derechos humanos, mediante dos formas, por un lado, como garantía básica de los derechos fundamentales de estas personas y, por otro, como fundamento para exigir la responsabilidad internacional de los Estados contaminantes, ante las violaciones de los derechos humanos que experimentan los migrantes climáticos.

Cross-border climate change impacts: implications for the European Union

The European Union (EU) is increasingly connected to the rest of the world via flows of people, capital, goods and resources, exposing it to the potential impacts of climate change occurring outside its borders, in addition to impacts occurring on and between EU countries themselves. However, there is currently no peer-reviewed literature that describes the way in which cross-border impacts might affect the EU as a whole, or what the pattern of exposure to cross-border impacts might look like from a European perspective. This paper describes the pathways via which the EU may be impacted and analyses indicator data to identify some of the potential key issues for EU adaptation. We find that many EU countries are more exposed than the global average to climate-related risks in the context of transboundary water dependency, trade openness, openness to asylum and globalisation. We introduce a typology of cross-border climate change impacts to guide future assessments and adaptation planning in the European Union: EU internal aspects resulting from climate risks shared between neighbouring member states and within the single market; EU external aspects resulting from climate impacts beyond the EU’s borders; and EU impacts on the rest of the world, recognising that the EU and its member states will themselves transmit impacts to others depending on the success of their own adaptation efforts. Cross-border climate impacts raise a number of challenges for EU adaptation—such as applying existing cohesion and external action mechanisms to build resilience to cross-border climate change impacts, or monitoring member states to track changes in exposure to “internal” cross-border climate risks; and to research—such as making better use of economic, trade and other supply chain modelling and data analysis to assess climate-related risks, as well as other methods and approaches that have not been applied widely in adaptation studies to date. Overcoming these challenges will help to advance society’s understanding of and preparedness for cross-border climate change impacts.

United States’ Options for Receiving Cross-Border Climate Migrants

Although the current political climate in the United States is not especially receptive to welcoming displaced persons, the country has a history of oscillating between greater and lesser openness to immigration. This article seeks to establish that there are meaningful options for the United States to provide a refuge for climate migrants under existing us immigration law, contrary to suggestions in the literature that legislative change would be necessary for the country to provide a safe haven for such migrants. The article highlights three legal options that the United States could use to assist climate migrants from other countries under existing domestic law. In addition, it identifies recent precedents in the use of these options that could be helpful in adapting them to assist climate migrants.

Solidarity in transboundary flood risk management: A view from the Dutch North Rhine–Westphalian catchment area

Climate change is putting pressure on water systems, and its effects transcend man-made boundaries, making cooperation across territorial borders essential. The governance of transboundary flood risk management calls for solidarity among riparians, as climate change will make river basins more prone to flooding. ‘Solidarity’ means that individuals act to support members of a particular community to which they belong. Recently, the solidarity principle has become institutionalized due to its formalization in the EU Floods Directive. However, it is not clear what solidarity means in the upstream–downstream practices of transboundary flood risk management. Understanding the meaning of solidarity is important for the development of cross-border climate adaptation governance. This article discusses the conceptualization of the solidarity principle and explores its meaning for international cooperation in the Dutch North Rhine–Westphalian border region. Our critical case study reveals that although all actors understand the importance of solidarity, they interpret it differently, often based on self-interest related to their position in the catchment. The formal inclusion of the solidarity principle in the Floods Directive can best be seen as a step in the continuous development of transboundary flood risk governance, as no striking changes in practice have been identified after its formalization.Policy relevanceAs climate change increasingly puts pressure on river basins and other shared resources, cross-border cooperation and solidarity are seen as increasingly important. This article discusses the meaning of solidarity in practice and reveals how this normative principle may contribute to transboundary climate adaptation governance. Understanding its meaning is important for future cross-border climate adaptation governance.

Exploring the Prospects for Cross-Border Climate Change Adaptation between North Rhine-Westphalia and the Netherlands

The Utrecht Law Review is an open-access peer-reviewed journal which aims to offer an international academic platform for cross-border legal research. In the first place, this concerns research in which the boundaries of the classic branches of the law (private law, criminal law, constitutional and administrative law, European and public international law) are crossed and connections are made between these areas of the law, amongst others from a comparative law perspective. In addition, the journal welcomes research in which classic law is brought face to face with not strictly legal disciplines such as philosophy, economics, political sciences and public administration science.The journal was established in 2005 and is affiliated to the Utrecht University School of Law. If you wish to receive e-mail alerts please join the mailing list.