Effective Mitigation Policies Research Articles

General Review of Smartphone Usability in Noise Mapping

The global urban population is steadily increasing, with more than half of the world's population currently residing in cities, and this trend is expected to double by 2050. As urbanization continues, noise pollution becomes a significant concern, affecting over 60% of major city dwellers and impacting human health on both physiological and psychological levels. To address this issue, governments and organizations are striving to develop effective noise assessment, regulation, and mitigation policies. This literature review explores the role of noise mapping and the potential of smartphones in collecting noise data to inform these policies. Traditional noise mapping techniques and smartphone-based data collection methods are discussed, along with their importance in urban planning, environmental studies, and public health. Key research questions are identified, including the methodologies employed for smartphone-based noise mapping, the accuracy of smartphone-collected data compared to traditional measurements, practical applications, challenges, and emerging trends. The review reveals that smartphones offer a cost-effective and widespread means of gathering noise data, enabling real-time insights and enhancing various domains' practical applications. However, challenges such as data accuracy, privacy concerns, and device limitations must be addressed. The future of smartphone-based noise mapping looks promising, with advancements in sensor technologies, artificial intelligence, and data analysis tools empowering researchers, urban planners, and policymakers to make informed decisions about noise pollution in urban environments.

Landscape-Scale Biodiversity Impacts Analysis of Côte d'Ivoire's Cocoa Cultivation along Export Supply Chains.

Agricultural land use for export commodities leads to significant biodiversity impacts. A spatially detailed assessment of these impacts is crucial for implementing effective mitigation policies. Using cocoa cultivation and exports in Côte d'Ivoire as an example, we present a novel framework that combines earth observations, enhanced landscape-scale biodiversity models, and subnational export supply chain data sets to track the tele-connected potential biodiversity impacts of export groups and importing countries. We found that cocoa cultivation accounts for ∼44% of the biodiversity impacts in Côte d'Ivoire's cocoa cultivation areas, with >90% attributable to cocoa exports. The top 10 importing countries account for ∼84% of these impacts. Our method offers improved spatial detail compared to the existing approaches, facilitating the identification of biodiversity impact hotspots. Additionally, the biodiversity impacts of agroforestry cocoa are not always lower compared to full-sun cocoa, especially when agroforestry systems are established in regions of high biodiversity importance. Our transferable framework provides a comprehensive understanding of biodiversity footprint and promotes informed decision-making for sustainable agricultural production, processing, and trade. Our framework's application is currently constrained by the scarcity of detailed supply chain data sets; we underscore the urgent need for improved supply chain transparency to fully unlock the framework's potential.

Catch-up growth with alpha and beta decoupling and their relationships between CO2 emissions by GDP, population, energy production, and consumption

This study explores the relationship between CO2 emissions by GDP, population, energy production, and consumption in the United States, China, Romania, and Thailand economies from 1990 to 2019. It evaluates the phenomenon of catch-up growth, which transpires when an lagging economy goes through an expansionary phase after a period of below-average performance. We used the stochastic model to illustrate in terms of alpha and beta decoupling techniques. The outcomes validated by positive and negative decoupling attitudes play a crucial role in predicting a rise in CO2 emissions owing to oil, gas, and coal use in comparison to Romania. Thailand and Romania have a more viable road to sustainability than the United States and China. The United States and China appear to have an antagonistic relationship, as suggested by decoupling attitudes. Thailand and Romania are considered to be highly environmentally sustainable countries on account of their minimal carbon emissions, efficient energy usage, and forward-thinking environmental policies. Accordingly, policy recommendations are offered based on CO2 emissions and effective mitigation policies, since this allows for determining which countries with high emissions need technological advances, best practices, and intersectoral policies.

A data-driven conceptual framework for understanding the nature of hazards in railway accidents

Hazards threaten railway safety by their potential to trigger railway accidents, resulting in significant costs and impacting the public's willingness to use railways. Whilst many prior works investigate railway hazards, few offer a holistic view of hazards across jurisdictions and time because the large number of primary sources make synthesising such learnings time consuming and potentially incomplete. The conceptual framework HazardMap is developed to overcome this gap, employing open-sourced Natural Language Processing topic modelling for the automated analysis of textual data from Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB), Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) railway accident reports. The topic modelling depicts the relationships between hazards, railway accidents and investigator recommendations and is further extended and integrated with the existing risk theory and epidemiological accident models. The results allow the different aspects of each hazard to be listed along with the potential combinations of hazards that could trigger railway accidents. Better understanding of the aspects of individual hazards and the relationships between hazards and previous accidents can inform more effective hazard mitigation policies including technical or regulatory interventions. A case study of the risk at level crossings is provided to illustrate how HazardMap works with real-world data. This demonstrates a high degree of coverage within the existing risk management system, indicating the capability to better inform policymaking for managing risks. The primary contributions of the framework proposed are to enable a large amount of knowledge accumulated to be summarised for an intuitive policymaking process, and to allow other railway investigators to leverage lessons learnt across jurisdictions and time with limited human intervention. Future research could apply the technique to road, aviation or maritime accidents.

A coupling model based on spatial characteristics and evolution of terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage: a case study of Hanzhong.

Ecosystem carbon storage (ECS) is a critical consideration in reducing the impact of global warming and tackling environmental challenges, positioning it at the forefront of contemporary research. Due to the significant differences in the influence of land usage patterns on ECS in various policy contexts and China's commitment to attaining a carbon-neutral status, a model simulating different scenarios is needed to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics and evolutionary process of carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems accurately. To address this challenge, this study established a coupling model of "Geographical analysis -Evolution analysis -Predicting (GEP)" for assessing ecosystem ECS and analyzing its spatial characteristics and evolutionary patterns and projecting the spatial distribution of ECS under various developmental scenarios, which analyzed variations in ECS across different levels of magnitude and delineated the changing areas across a range of varying scenarios in the future additionally. The outcomes suggested that the ECS decreased by 1.17 × 106 t from 1990 to 2020, which pertaining to the utilization transfer of land in the area, whose change in ECS levels with a positive trend. It is predicted that the ECS will grow by 1.15 × 106 t and 1.44 × 106 t, in 2030 and 2060 compared with 2020 within the framework of natural development scenario (NDS), while within the framework of ecological protection scene (EPS), ECS will increase significantly, increasing by 3.06 × 106 t and 4.44 × 106 t. There will be more areas where ECS increases within the framework of EPS, by comparing with the NDS. This study offers a comprehensive analysis of Hanzhong City's carbon storage trends, demonstrating its significant impact on climate change mitigation and serving as a predictive model for similar regions, which underscores the importance of localized carbon management strategies, offering valuable insights for local governments in formulating effective climate adaptation and mitigation policies.

ESG practices mitigating geopolitical risks: Implications for sustainable environmental management

As climate change and geopolitical conflicts intensify, understanding how geopolitical risks affect companies prioritizing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices is crucial. This study investigates the dynamic relationship between global geopolitical risks and the performance of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and non-ESG companies, particularly their influence on green markets. Utilizing a robust methodological framework, including the dynamic time-varying parameters vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) model, and causal impact modeling, we analyze daily financial data from 2021 to 2024. The results reveal a substantial negative impact of geopolitical risks on non-ESG companies, contrasting with the resilience of ESG-committed counterparts. This suggests that ESG-committed companies demonstrate better resilience against geopolitical risks, emphasizing the protective role of ESG practices amid uncertainties. Additionally, the inclusion of ESG companies in green markets diminishes the severity of the negative impact of geopolitical risks, underlining the transformative role of ESG commitment in shaping investor behavior towards sustainable investments. Our findings offer insights for policymakers and investors navigating geopolitical risks and ESG performance, with a focus on environmental management, and provide guidance for effective risk mitigation and investment policies to enhance environmental sustainability.

Reconciling Modeled and Observed Δ17O(NO3−) in Beijing Winter Haze With Heterogeneous Chlorine Chemistry

AbstractThe fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in Chinese megacities has declined significantly after the implementation of strict mitigation strategies since 2013. However, the concentration of wintertime nitrate in PM2.5 (p‐NO3‐) has only changed slightly and became the dominant inorganic component despite considerable precursor emission reductions. Discerning chemical mechanisms leading to nitrate growth during haze events is critical to implementing effective pollution mitigation policies. The oxygen isotope anomaly of nitrate (Δ17O(NO3−)) is a powerful means to distinguish nitrate formation mechanisms. Nevertheless, the observed high Δ17O(NO3−) values were significantly underestimated by chemical transport models during extreme haze events (PM2.5 > 225 μg m−3) in Beijing, indicating an incomplete understanding of nitrate chemistry. To reconcile this model‐observation discrepancy, we compiled reported Δ17O(NO3−) data in Beijing haze along with relevant observational parameters (e.g., hydroxyl (OH) reactivity, peroxyl radical concentrations), then tested assumptions on Δ17O of key precursors (e.g., OH and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)), recalculated Δ17O(NO3−) and compared them with observations. Our results indicate that considering heterogeneous dinitrogen pentoxide reactions on chlorine‐containing aerosols (N2O5 + Cl− chemistry) with a nitryl chloride (ClNO2) yield of ∼0.75 can explain the observed high Δ17O(NO3−) during extreme haze events. According to the Δ17O(NO3−) data, on average this heterogeneous N2O5 + Cl− chemistry can explain ∼60% of nighttime nitrate production and make daytime and nocturnal pathways equally important in winter Beijing haze (PM2.5 > 75 μg m−3). Our results highlight the critical role of reactive chlorine chemistry in air pollution/chemistry in inland cities.

EQ-DIRECTION Procedure towards an Improved Urban Seismic Resilience: Application to the Pilot Case Study of Sanremo Municipality

This paper discusses the critical importance of effective mitigation policies to enhance earthquake resilience in urban systems, especially in light of recent seismic events in Italy. The Italian Civil Protection Department (ICPD) has delineated specific Limit Conditions (LCs) for urban settlements, serving as benchmarks for targeted mitigation policies, and akin to Limit States for buildings in Codes. While the ICPD has already developed operational procedures for some LCs, concentrating on evaluating the structural operational efficiency of strategic functions during emergency management, only a conceptual outline exists for other LCs involving preparedness and recovery/reconstruction phases. To address this gap, this paper introduces the EQ-DIRECTION (EarthQuake Disaster-REsilient City acTIOn plan) procedure. This method aims to analyze and assess the “Limit Condition for Safeguarding the Existence of the Settlement” (referred to as SLC). The procedure entails identifying the “minimum urban system” required for effective recovery and evaluating the performance of this system in terms of structural damage and economic losses against the SLC requirement. The practical application of this methodology to a real-world case study in Sanremo municipality on the western coast of Liguria (Italy) demonstrates the feasibility and potential effectiveness of the procedure for earthquake resilience in urban planning and management.

Evaluation of Korean methane emission sources with satellite retrievals by spatial correlation analysis

Methane is a significant greenhouse gas (GHG), and it is imperative to understand its spatiotemporal distribution and primary sources in areas with higher methane concentrations, as such insights are essential for informing effective mitigation policies. In this study, we employed TROPOMI satellite retrievals to analyze the spatiotemporal patterns of methane distributions and identify major emission sources in South Korea over the period from August 2018 to July 2019. Additionally, we examined the spatial correlations between satellite methane retrievals and emission sources to characterize regions with higher methane levels on an annual basis.Concerning spatial distributions, concentrations exceeding 1870 ppb were predominantly observed in western non-mountainous regions, particularly in rice paddy areas. Moreover, sporadic concentrations exceeding 1880 ppb were detected in large ports and industrial zones, primarily located in coastal regions of South Korea.Our spatial correlation analysis, conducted using the SDMSelect method, identified specific emissions contributing to regions with higher methane concentrations. There were some areas with relatively strong correlations between high XCH4 and emissions from the domestic livestock industry, fossil fuel utilization (specifically, the oil and gas sector), landfills, and rice paddies. This analysis, incorporating domestic emission inventories and satellite data, provides valuable insights into the characteristics of regional methane concentrations. In addition, this analysis can assess national methane emissions inventories, where there is limited information on the spatial distributions, offering critical information for the prioritization of domestic regional policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Decomposition of the site-level energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of the iron and steel industry.

Identifying the key factors influencing energy consumption and CO2 emissions is necessary for developing effective energy conservation and emission mitigation policies. Previous studies have focused mainly on decomposing changes in energy consumption and CO2 emissions at the national, regional, or sectoral levels, while the perspective of site-level decomposition has been neglected. To narrow this gap in research, a site-level decomposition of energy- and carbon-intensive iron and steel sites is discussed. In this work, the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method is used to decompose the changes in the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of iron and steel sites. The results show that the production scale significantly contributes to the increase in both energy consumption and CO2 emissions, with cumulative contributions of 229.63 and 255.36%, respectively. Energy recovery and credit emissions are two key factors decreasing site-level energy consumption and CO2 emissions, with cumulative contributions to the changes in energy consumption and CO2 emissions of -158.30 and -160.45%, respectively. A decrease in energy, flux, and carbon-containing material consumption per ton of steel promotes direct emission reduction, and purchased electricity savings greatly contribute to indirect emission reduction. In addition, site products and byproducts promote an increase in credit emissions and ultimately inhibit an increase in the total CO2 emissions of iron and steel sites.

Factorial optimization-driven input-output analysis for socio-economic and environmental effects of GHG emission reduction in electric power systems – A Canadian case study

Low-carbon transition of electric power system plays an important role in meeting national greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goals. Analyzing the effects of such transition on various sectors could provide targeted and effective mitigation policy recommendations at sectoral level. In this study, a factorial optimization-driven input-output model has been developed to explore socio-economic and environmental (SEE) effects of GHG emission reduction in Canada's electric power system under uncertainty and their interactions. The results highlight the importance of optimizing the structure of a certain system (e.g., energy system or electric power system) on the emission reduction of the whole society under a specific mitigation target. Significance of indirect GHG emissions for sectoral emission reduction policy formulation is further emphasized, especially for agriculture- and manufacturing-related sectors. In addition, factors with significant interactive effects on sectoral total outputs have been identified. Increasing the proportion of clean power (i.e., wind/solar power, small modular reactor power, and coal-fired power with carbon capture and storage technology) is conducive to promoting sectoral total outputs and GHG emission reduction by 2050. The modelling framework can be extended and applied to other regions to help analyze SEE effects under various emission mitigation policies and scenarios.

Examination of factors associated with the temporal stability assessment of crash severity by using generalised linear model-A case study.

Road crashes are a major public safety concern in Pakistan. Prior studies in Pakistan investigated the impact of different factors on road crashes but did not consider the temporal stability of crash data. This means that the recommendations based on these studies are not fully effective, as the impact of certain factors may change over time. To address this gap in the literature, this study aims to identify the factors contributing to crash severity in road crashes and examine how their impact varies over time. In this comprehensive study, we utilized Generalised Linear Model (GLM) on the crash data between the years 2013 to 2017, encompassing a total sample of 802 road crashes occurred on the N-5 road section in Pakistan, a 429-kilometer stretch connecting two big cities of Pakistan, i.e., Peshawar and Lahore. The purpose of the GLM was to quantify the temporal stability of the factors contributing crash severity in each year from 2013 to 2017. Within this dataset, 60% (n = 471) were fatal crashes, while the remaining 40% (n = 321) were non-fatal. The results revealed that the factors including the day of the week, the location of the crashes, weather conditions, causes of the crashes, and the types of vehicles involved, exhibited the temporal instability over time. In summary, our study provides in-depth insights aimed at reducing crash severity and potentially aiding in the development of effective crash mitigation policies in Pakistan and other nations having similar road safety problems. This research holds great promise in exploring the dynamic safety implications of emerging transportation technologies, particularly in the context of the widespread adoption of connected and autonomous vehicles.

Evaluating the Crucial Relationships between Soil Health and Climate Change

Content of paper emphasizes the significant influence of soil health on global warming and climate stability. Soil affects the Earth's carbon cycle by acting as a source and sink of greenhouse gases. Climate is considered important a factor in soil formation, but also soils also have an impact on the climate. Therefore, soils are affected by the current climate change as well, particularly because they may release excessive amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHG) as a result of changing their usage or poor management or human wrong practices. The pressure that climate change places on soil ecosystems has a significant impact on agriculture, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. For effective climate mitigation and adaptation policies to be developed, it is essential to understand these relationships. Worthwhile that the greatest soil management practices for reducing climate change focus on increasing soil organic matter content and water retention. The enormous carbon and nitrogen (N) store that is soil. acting as a possible regulator of the CO2, N2O, and CH4—the three main greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Because biota is the organic matter carrier to the soil, both in living organisms and through their decomposing remains, mature soils rich in life are frequently CO2 sinks. But heterotrophic organisms that live in soil are also OM net consumers, and they release CO2 into the atmosphere through respiration. The interactions between plants, soil organisms, and abiotic soil conditions are actually changing as a result of climate change, which has an impact on plant performance, plant diversity, and community structure. The loss of soil organic matter (OM) and its development to the atmosphere quickly became a significant effect of tillage and any other activity, agricultural or otherwise, that disturbs the natural soils since then. It is anticipated that the areas affected by salinization would increase due to climate change which affects the suitability of the soil agriculture or any other development purposes.The conclusion of the current study Carbon sequestration can reduced the green house gas emission.

External finance for climate change mitigation: Assessing the impact of energy aid and total aid inflows on the ecological footprint

This study examines the role of energy aid and total aid inflows in the ecological footprint of BRICS countries while controlling the economic growth, energy consumption, remittance inflows, and foreign direct investment inflows for the period spanning from 1992 to 2016. The empirical outcome of this work shows the long-run relationship for the selected variables. We find that overseas energy aid, total aid, and foreign direct investment inflows reduce ecological footprint while economic growth, remittance inflows, and energy consumption fuel it. These findings are robust across the alternative panel techniques used. However, the results imply that the energy aid, total aid, and investment capital coming from other countries and international agencies to BRICS countries are enhancing green energy plans rather than profiteering. This may be one of the reasons for the reduction of the ecological footprint in BRICS countries. Therefore, this study further suggests an effective climate mitigation policy for ensuring a life-sustaining green environment if the governments of BRICS countries can stimulate greater inflows of overseas energy aid, total aid, and foreign direct investment towards making the investment in green energy plans.

Carbon tax on milk products and the exact consumer welfare measure in emerging economies

AbstractCurrent milk prices do not account for the emissions, environmental externalities, and the excessive resource use that occur during milk production. Imposing a “carbon tax on food” can be a very effective climate change mitigation policy and the ultimate distributional effect depends heavily on the way the tax is implemented. To offset the regressive financial effect, redistribution measures need to be designed and the financial welfare loss can serve as a first orientation for designing these redistribution measures. Current literature mainly uses estimated elasticities from empirical demand systems to approximate the welfare change which can lead to a substantial bias if the tax rate is sufficiently large. In contrast, we calculate the welfare change by using the Exact Consumer Welfare of a carbon tax on milk for selected emerging economies. We show that on average, consumers in upper‐middle‐income economies would face a financial welfare loss of 19.4–176.9 USD (in the value of 2017) measured by the compensating variation (CV), depending on the tax scenario. Among a set of 16 emerging economies, consumers in Argentina (ARG) and Türkiye (TUR) face the highest financial welfare losses. We also find that discrepancies between the Exact Consumer Welfare and the consumer surplus are very small. [EconLit Citations: Q11, Q18].

The elasticity and efficiency of carbon reduction strategies in transportation

ABSTRACT Transportation significantly contributes to carbon emissions, prompting the need for effective mitigation policies. This study addresses the knowledge gaps in assessing the effectiveness of transport carbon policies and offers the lack of a holistic comparative overview. The study used a model composed of a mixed-effects meta-regression and carbon elasticity to investigate policies, like shared bikes, mobility hubs, low emission zones, congestion pricing, electric vehicles, and hydrogen vehicles. This model included seven control variables: year, GDP, implementation costs, geographic scale, environmental benefits, and transport share of energy consumption and carbon emissions. Mobility hubs and electric vehicles ranked are top effective policies with carbon elasticities of 3.73 and 3.72, effect sizes of 127.47 and 86.73, and confidence intervals of [65.55, 107.93] and [106.17, 148.78], respectively. Followed by the low emission zone of 16.3 carbon elasticity, proving its cost-effectiveness, effect size of 10.16, and a confidence interval of [−2.48, 22.80]. Congestion pricing, despite having the highest effect size of 873.39, its confidence interval [−354.01, 2100.80] is wide, indicating the uncertainty of this effect. Shared bikes and hydrogen vehicles ranked lowest, suggesting a need for deeper life cycle-based analysis. Although this model displayed high accuracy, the findings’ interpretation should consider the inherent data limitations.

Development of recommendations for the implementation of seismic risk mitigation policy in the Russian Federation based on world experience

The current state of practice of seismic risk mitigation policy in the following countries is analyzed: Japan, USA, China, Italy and the Russian Federation. In particular, the paper compares seismic retrofit policies for existing buildings and financing mechanisms for comprehensive seismic risk mitigation in the context of each country's regulatory framework. The analysis of the current seismic risk mitigation policy in the Russian Federation leads to the conclusion that it needs serious modernization and reorganization, including: 1) development of a new generation of standards specifying nonlinear analysis methods and 2) development of effective financing mechanisms for the seismic evaluation and seismic modernization of the existing building stock. 
 The aim of this paper is to identify best practices in seismic retrofitting policy that may be useful for the implementation and adjustment of seismic risk mitigation policies in the Russian Federation at the federal and regional levels. 
 The result of the paper is a set of recommendations based on the most effective seismic risk mitigation policy instruments, grouped according to the key stages of the seismic amplification process:
 – risk assessment of existing buildings;
 – knowledge transfer; 
 – setting targets for the seismic modernization; 
 – implementation of the seismic strengthening policy;
 – policy implementation monitoring.

Increased precipitation over land due to climate feedback of large-scale bioenergy cultivation

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is considered to be a key technology for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, large-scale bioenergy crop cultivation results in land cover changes and activates biophysical effects on climate, with earth’s water recycling altered and energy budget re-adjusted. Here, we use a coupled atmosphere-land model with explicit representations of high-transpiration woody (i.e., eucalypt) and low-transpiration herbaceous (i.e., switchgrass) bioenergy crops to investigate the range of impact of large-scale rainfed bioenergy crop cultivation on the global water cycle and atmospheric water recycling. We find that global land precipitation increases under BECCS scenarios, due to enhanced evapotranspiration and inland moisture advection. Despite enhanced evapotranspiration, soil moisture decreases only slightly, due to increased precipitation and reduced runoff. Our results indicate that, at the global scale, the water consumption by bioenergy crop growth would be partially compensated by atmospheric feedbacks. Thus, to support more effective climate mitigation policies, a more comprehensive assessment, including the biophysical effects of bioenergy cultivation, is highly recommended.

Designing a virtuous cycle: Quality of governance, effective climate change mitigation, and just outcomes support each other

Climate change mitigation is mostly assessed through the lens of technologies and policy instruments. However, governance and social capital are crucial factors in complex social systems and may be relevant in the formation of effective climate policies. Here, we investigate the role of quality of governance (QoG), social capital, and equality as preconditions for enacting climate policies. Relying on indicators of social systems at nation state level, we investigate relationships with Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Structural Equation Models (SEM). We find that quality of governance, measured as impartiality, underpins social capital and interpersonal trust, equality and effective climate mitigation policies, indicated by the level of carbon pricing. Impartiality and social capital are necessary conditions for climate policies. Socio-economic inequalities reduce trust and political engagement, and thus compromise the overarching goal of climate change mitigation. Evidence from complementary literature indicates that fairly implemented climate policies could foster a virtuous cycle that further improves quality of governance, and thus the capacity for implementing strong climate policies. Our results demonstrate that impartial governance and resulting social capital form the underpinnings of effective climate policies.

Who Is Responsible for the Climate Crisis? A Perspective from the Global South

ABSTRACT This article argues that insistence on adaptation to climate change, popularised by the rich nations of the Global North, is crowding out discussions on mitigation strategies. Mitigation (or degrowth) is central to formulating a fair and collective strategy to tackle the climate crisis at the global scale. In this context, we have calculated the historical cumulative emissions, material footprints, and carbon debt, which are essential prerequisites to tackling the climate crisis. This article empirically proves that the Global North owes a huge carbon debt based on historical cumulative emissions. We estimate the carbon debt of all the outlier countries (carbon debtors) to be US$ 3127.28 trillion, of which the US (the United States) and EU (European Union, including 28 countries) owe US$ 1174.19 and US$ 771.90 trillion, respectively. The paper concludes that any adaptation policy requires settling this debt through directly financing adaptation operations in the poor countries of the Global South and effective mitigation (de-growth) policies in the Global North.