Mitigation Goals Research Articles

Evaluating Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Mitigation Goals of the Global Food and Beverage Sector

The dramatic increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by humans over the past century and a half has created an urgency for monitoring, reporting, and verifying GHG emissions as a first step toward mitigating the effects of climate change. Fifteen percent of global GHG emissions come from agriculture, and companies in the food and beverage industry are starting to set climate goals. We examined the GHG emissions reporting practices and climate goals of the top 100 global food and beverage companies (as ranked by Food Engineering) and determined whether their goals are aligned with the science of keeping climate warming well below a 2°C increase. Using publicly disclosed data in CDP Climate reports and company sustainability reports, we found that about two thirds of the top 100 global food and beverage companies disclose at least part of their total company emissions and set some sort of climate goal that includes scope 1 and 2 emissions. However, only about half have measured, disclosed, and set goals for scope 3 emissions, which often encompass about 88% of a company's emissions across the entire value chain on average. We also determined that companies, despite setting scope 1, 2, and 3 emission goals, may be missing the mark on whether their goals are significantly reducing global emissions. Our results present the current disclosure and emission goals of the top 100 global food and beverage companies and highlight an urgent need to begin and continue to set truly ambitious, science-aligned climate goals.

Seismic Mitigation of Curved Continuous Girder Bridge Considering Collision Effect

Due to structural irregularity, curved bridgesaremore likely to cause non-uniform collisions and unseating between adjacent components when subjected to earthquakes. Based on the analysis of the collision response of curved bridges duringearthquakes, and according to the seismic characteristics of curved bridges, research was carried out on pounding mitigation and unseating prevention measures. A curved bridge with double column piers was taken as an engineering example, and a finite element model of curved bridges thatcould consider the non-uniform contact collision between adjacent components was built with ABAQUS software. Viscoelastic dampers, viscous dampers, and a lead rubber bearing were selected as the damping devices, and a steel wire rope-rubber mat was used as the pounding mitigation device to form the combinatorial seismic mitigation system. Based on the principle of energy dissipation combined with constraints, three kinds of combined seismic mitigation case were determined; a seismic response analysis was then performed. The results indicated that the three kinds of combined seismic case were effective atreducing the response topounding force, stress, damage, girder torsion and displacement, and achieved the goals of seismic mitigation and unseating prevention.

Efficiency of gas collection systems at Danish landfills and implications for regulations

Globally, landfills are an important source of anthropogenic methane emissions. Regulations require landfill gas be managed to reduce emissions, and some landfills have therefore installed gas collection systems to recover energy and mitigate methane emissions. However, the efficiency of such systems is seldom evaluated. This paper presents the gas collection efficiencies of 23 Danish landfills and suggests how these values could be used to regulate landfill methane emissions in Denmark. Methane emissions from all sites were measured using the tracer gas dispersion method, and gas collection efficiencies were calculated using the ratio of the methane collection rate to the sum of the collection and emission (and oxidation) rates. Gas collection efficiencies ranged between 13 and 86% with an average of 50% – a value lower than for Swedish (58%), UK (64%) and US (63%) landfills. Possible reasons for the inefficiency of gas collection systems in Denmark include shallow gas collection pipes, leakage from installations (e.g. leachate wells, gas engines), low gas recovery due to minimal gas production or a lack of gas collection in active waste cells. It is suggested to use gas collection efficiency to regulate landfills and help them reach a particular methane mitigation goal. Gas collection efficiency that falls below the target mitigation rate would in turn trigger actions to reduce landfill methane emissions. At sites where the quality of the collected gas is too low to operate a gas engine, the installed gas collection system could be retrofitted to a biocover system designed for methane oxidation.

Deforestation scenarios show the importance of secondary forest for meeting Panama\u2019s carbon goals

ContextTropical forest loss has a major impact on climate change. Secondary forest growth has potential to mitigate these impacts, but uncertainty regarding future land use, remote sensing limitations, and carbon model accuracy have inhibited understanding the range of potential future carbon dynamics.ObjectivesWe evaluated the effects of four scenarios on carbon stocks and sequestration in a mixed-use landscape based on Recent Trends (RT), Accelerated Deforestation (AD), Grow Only (GO), and Grow Everything (GE) scenarios.MethodsWorking in central Panama, we coupled a 1-ha resolution LiDAR derived carbon map with a locally derived secondary forest carbon accumulation model. We used Dinamica EGO 4.0.5 to spatially simulate forest loss across the landscape based on recent deforestation rates. We used local studies of belowground, woody debris, and liana carbon to estimate ecosystem scale carbon fluxes.ResultsAccounting for 58.6 percent of the forest in 2020, secondary forests (< 50 years) accrue 88.9 percent of carbon in the GO scenario by 2050. RT and AD scenarios lost 36,707 and 177,035 ha of forest respectively by 2030, a carbon gain of 7.7 million Mg C (RT) and loss of 2.9 million Mg C (AD). Growing forest on all available land (GE) could achieve 56 percent of Panama’s land-based carbon sequestration goal by 2050.ConclusionsOur estimates of potential carbon storage demonstrate the important contribution of secondary forests to land-based carbon sequestration in central Panama. Protecting these forests will contribute significantly to meeting Panama’s climate change mitigation goals and enhance water security.

Prirodi bliska rešenja kao održive mere za smanjenje hidrometeoroloških rizika - primer sliva reke Tamnave

This paper presents briefly a holistic approach to reducing flood risks using the nature-based solutions. This approach takes into account not only the reduced risk as the primary goal of flood mitigation, but also involves other goals such as the protection of the environment, human well-being, socio-economic goals etc. The Tamnava River basin is used as a pilot case to demonstrate the methodology of such an approach, resulting from the work within the RECONECT project from the EU Horizon 2020 programme. The paper presents preliminary results for the Tamnava River basin by considering several scenarios for flood mitigation measures and potential benefits from these measures in flood risk reduction and in improved ecosystem services in the basin. The methodology includes monetary valuation of the effects of the proposed flood mitigation measures in terms of the avoided damages, as well as of the secondary benefits from the erosion control by additional afforestation. The latter also provides basis for preliminary valuation of all relevant ecosystem services in the basin, thus indicating the value of the basin's natural capital. Such an evaluation is important for the decision-making process on possible flood mitigation strategies.

CLIMATE CRISIS AS A CATALYST TO ADVANCE INDIGENOUS RIGHTS

Climate change is the most grievous threat of the 21st century and disproportionately affects politically marginalised communities such as Indigenous peoples. As custodians of approximately 80% of the planet’s biodiversity, Indigenous cultures have practised sustainable management of ecosystems and resources over millennia providing vital pathways for humanity to better mitigate accelerating climate change impacts. This article argues that a rights-based approach is an important legal avenue to help better protect and advance Indigenous peoples’ rights and the biodiversity in their regions. The challenge is to develop a framework that incorporates Indigenous rights into international human rights law while obtaining judicial buy-in by domestic legal systems and nations. Drawing from international legal instruments to better protect and bolster Indigenous rights, and using Aotearoa New Zealand as a case study, this paper identifies how rights of Indigenous communities can be enhanced while serving the global goals of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Reinforcement learning-based real-time control of coastal urban stormwater systems to mitigate flooding and improve water quality

Reinforcement learning agents can learn real-time stormwater system control strategies that balance the competing goals of flood mitigation and sediment capture in urban watersheds.

Spatio-temporal unevenness in local land system regime shifts caused by land deals in Lao PDR

Extensive land-use “regime shifts” have been observed as rapid transitions from natural land cover or subsistence-oriented land use to intensified and/or expanded commodity production. However, it is often unclear whether these land-use changes are part of broader land system regime shifts in which pre-existing production systems and livelihood strategies are fundamentally transformed along with observable land-use changes rather than simply displaced or eliminated. This is a critical social-environment question given that regime shifts are often a desired and intended outcome of national rural development and market-liberalization policies but must also be attentive to environmental conservation and/or climate change mitigation goals. We investigated whether nationally extensive land-use changes implemented through large-scale land deals in Lao People’s Democratic Republic resulted in full, partial, or no village- and landscape-level regime shifts in and around land deals. Overall, land deals triggered a wide variety of full, partial, and no regime shift outcomes. Land deals with both domestic and foreign investors produced positive and negative outcomes, although foreign land deals for the production of rubber led to significantly higher rates of indirect land-use change in impacted villages than domestic and/or non-rubber land deals. Also, financial compensation alone was insufficient to improve community well-being because it could be reinvested to perpetuate previous land uses without the desired transformation in livelihoods and rural development. Land deals that exhibited greater social embeddedness (i.e., provided adequate compensation complemented by job-creation and improved access to infrastructure and/or services) were more likely to lead to positive regime shifts. Our findings demonstrate that any land system regime shift will produce both winners and losers, and thus it becomes necessary to critically analyze the localized distribution of social and environmental costs and benefits within broader-scale land-use regime shifts.

Climate-smart forestry—potential and practicalities

Abstract Climate smart forestry (CSF) integrates ecological, economic and social dimensions in forest decision process under climate change. CSF aims to develop adaptive response to global change and optimally contribute to mitigation goals. CSF projects are ecologically effective and economically efficient in reaching the goals and involve society in the process. Definition The potential to simultaneously adapt to and mitigate climate change in the managed forest ecosystems is defined as climate-smart forestry (CSF). CSF strategies aim to develop adaptive response to global change and enhance the provision of ecosystem services and optimally contribute to mitigation goals. Recent attention to socio-economic implications of CSF search for comprehensive approaches integrates social dimensions and engages stakeholders in the process. Review Methodology After a systematic assessment in the Web of Science database, combinations of three keywords “Climate” AND “Smart” and “Forest*” were used to explore the wealth of knowledge regarding CSF. Finally, the five most cited and most relevant publications were selected for the purpose of this minireview (limited to max. five papers). However, the nature of this minireview is a hybrid of review and opinion paper.

Beyond Personal Vehicles: How Electrifying Scooters Will Help Achieve Climate Mitigation Goals

Beyond Personal Vehicles: How Electrifying Scooters Will Help Achieve Climate Mitigation Goals

Swidden agriculture in transition and its roles in tropical forest loss and industrial plantation expansion

AbstractTropical forest and swidden agriculture are declining, while industrial tree plantations are continuously expanding due to a robust global demand for timber and pulp. However, little is known about the processes, trends and mechanisms of the tropical forest‐swidden‐plantation (TFSP) nexus. Global ongoing initiatives including the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN‐REDD Programme), not only have repeatedly emphasized the significance of conserving forests, reforestation and afforestation, but also pushed swidden agriculture to the forefront of a long‐standing international debate of climate change and biodiversity. Many facets limit our understanding of swidden agriculture and its roles in forest loss and plantations expansion. The lack of geographic and demographic data and their dynamics across the tropics undoubtedly further aggravates this situation since the first appeals for eradication of shifting cultivation by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the late 1950s. Although recent studies have significantly enriched our knowledge of forest loss and plantation expansion, previous research has proceeded separately and has yet to be integrated under the umbrella of 'sustainable development of swidden agriculture'. Efforts are needed to investigate the dynamics of the TFSP nexus for the sake of a synergetic goal of climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and poverty alleviation.

Towards decarbonisation targets by changing setpoint temperature to avoid building overcooling and implementing district cooling in (sub)tropical high-density cities – A case study of Hong Kong

Climate warming, rapid economic development, and urbanisation in (sub)tropical regions lead to increasing electricity demand for building air-conditioning that could jeopardise the efforts of decarbonisation required to meet the climate change mitigation goals. This study investigates two strategies to reduce building energy consumption due to air-conditioning: 1) the bottom-up adoption of an Adaptive Thermal Comfort (ATC)-based cooling setpoint temperature and 2) the top-down implementation of efficient District Cooling Systems (DCS). The subtropical high-density city of Hong Kong is chosen for case study since detailed data on the city's current and realistic future urban form and function are available. Numerical simulations representing the feedback between urban climate and building energy consumption are conducted by employing a mesoscale atmospheric model coupled to an urban climate and building energy model for a scenario of future (mid-21st century) Hong Kong. A prolonged high temperature event representative of future extreme conditions is simulated, during which the ATC and DCS strategies reduce building cooling energy consumption by 9.7% and 5.9%, respectively. The ATC has almost no effect on the local meteorological conditions, whereas the DCS reduces daytime sensible heat flux by up to 600 W/m2 and near-surface air temperature by almost 1 °C in the districts where it is adopted. The DCS thus also contributes to lowering outdoor heat stress in these areas. The cost-free ATC strategy is easily applicable in residential buildings worldwide and can break the vicious cycle in overcooled buildings, where occupants are acclimatised to lower indoor temperature and thus require more air-conditioning than necessary. Apart from reducing energy consumption and near-surface air temperature, the DCS brings additional benefits in building space utilisation and rooftop design. Future policy orientations should therefore encourage a societal change towards the ATC lifestyle and incorporate DCS in the planning of new development areas.

Quantifying the asymmetric spillovers in sustainable investments

Owing to the growing importance of socially responsible investments in the wake of climate change mitigation goals, we estimate the asymmetric time- and frequency-spillovers between global sustainable investments. Additionally, we examine the influence of global risk factors such as US and UK economic policy uncertainties, stock market volatility, US treasury market volatility and infectious diseases related market volatility on the short- and long-run connectedness in these investments. To this end, we use daily returns and volatilities of 14 country-level Dow Jones Sustainability Indices from January 2005 to March 2021. By employing the asymmetric versions of Diebold & Yilmaz (2012, 2014) and Barunik & Krehlik (2018) time–frequency connectedness, our study addresses both good and bad contagion among sustainable investments that is unexplored in the recent literature. The results reveal significant time–frequency asymmetries in return spillovers across different regions in the short- and long-run. Germany, France, Netherlands, and the UK are the primary shock transmitters. We find more intra-regional connectedness among the Asian countries as opposed to inter-regional connectedness. Negative returns propagate more intensely than positive ones, and this contagion is considerably boosted during crises, including the COVID19. The VIX and COVID19 remain influential in the long run. The impact of MOVE is positive in the short-run while negative in the long-run, which shows an overreaction of connectedness to the US treasury market volatility in the short-run. Economic policy uncertainties in the US and the UK increase spillovers more intensely in the short-run. These results are robust to using volatility spillovers, the choice of rolling window and various forecast horizons. Our findings are distinctly important for socially responsible investors as we point out international portfolio diversification opportunities among sustainable investments. Understanding the dynamics of connectedness in sustainable investments can potentially boost financing in this market through portfolio choices and contribute to the climate change mitigation agenda of the United Nations.

Climate and air pollution implications of potential energy infrastructure and policy measures in India

India is a rapidly developing economy with interrelated air quality, sustainable development, and climate change mitigation goals. There are unique challenges to achieving each of these goals as well as potential tradeoffs among them. This study examines the implications of possible future energy, climate, and air pollution control policies and measures in India through 2050. We take a scenario approach using the GCAM global energy-climate-land model combined with the Hector simple climate model and the TM5-FASST air quality source-receptor model to examine energy, climate and air quality outcomes. Reducing use of traditional biomass in buildings can reduce primary carbonaceous particulate emissions well below 2015 levels. However, policies that are more ambitious than current plans would likely be required to reduce SO2 and NOx emissions well below 2015 levels. Among single policy cases considered, pricing of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and expansion of natural gas infrastructure have the largest impacts on overall energy system changes relative to the reference scenario. Ambitious air pollution control and GHG policies lead to the largest reductions in air pollution concentrations and radiative forcing, respectively. However, ambitious air pollution control and GHG policies differ in the extent to which they support or impede other policy objectives. Forcing increases due to reduced aerosols from ambitious air pollution policies can be mitigated, at least in part, by applying air pollution control and GHG policies together.

Evaluating national and subnational CO2 mitigation goals in China's thirteenth five-year plan from satellite observations.

Good-quality emission data are essential to validate national climate commitments and implement domestic policies. However, conventional bottom-up data collection is costly and subject to potential manipulation by stakeholders when data pass through their hands, which could pose challenges on the efficiency and effectiveness of compliance monitoring especially in developing countries. Satellite observations, specifically OCO-2 XCO2 measurements, are utilized in this study to develop a relatively independent and timely dataset for screening the attainment statuses of national and subnational CO2 mitigation goals in China's 13th Five-Year Plan (FYP, 2016-2020). We establish CO2 emission estimation models at both pixel and provincial levels. As interpolated with the pixel-level model, CO2 emissions of prefecture-level municipalities indicate that approximately three fifth of them had accomplished their individualized FYP mitigation goals by 2019, while our provincial-level estimation suggests that three quarters of provinces had attained theirs. More resources for compliance monitoring could thus be directed to other presumably-unattaining local governments. National aggregate absolute emissions showed 8.0-18.3% reduction in 2019 across three provincial models from the 2015 level, while national CO2 intensity dropped by 28.8-36.8% to imply attaining the 18% reduction goals.

Linking solar geoengineering and emissions reductions: strategically resolving an international climate change policy dilemma

ABSTRACT Solar geoengineering appears able to reduce climate change risks but raises controversy, the leading cause of which is the concern that its research, development, and evaluation might inappropriately obstruct efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions (‘mitigation’). Describing how policies could effectively and feasibly manage such possible mitigation obstruction has proven elusive. One option would be to strategically link the international policies of mitigation and solar geoengineering. Here I explore this by disaggregating states based on their relevant characteristics. I propose linkages of mitigation policy with: (1) solar geoengineering research and development, (2) decision-making regarding whether to deploy solar geoengineering, and (3) how to deploy solar geoengineering. Based on the incentives that states would face under them, these linkages are assessed on whether they can be expected to effectively increase mitigation and are seem minimally feasible. Linkages in each of the three categories have potential and could occur sequentially. In the linkage which I believe has the greatest potential, one or more states would proclaim their right to deploy solar geoengineering if and only if they meet their own mitigation goals and the rest of the world insufficiently mitigates, and would promise to forego deployment if either condition is not met. I identify this proposed linkage’s possible challenges, including legitimacy, credibility, optimal size, relations among targets of the linkage, stringency of mitigation goals, and potential counterproductivity. Limitations to this exploration and assessment include the speculative nature, the assumption that states’ preferences regarding mitigation and solar geoengineering are properly related, and the use of noncooperative linkage. Key policy insights Solar geoengineering could reduce the impacts of climate change but is controversial, in large part because of concerns that its research, development, or use might obstruct efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. I explore and assess whether linking international policies of greenhouse gas emissions reductions and solar geoengineering could feasibly and effectively increase emissions reductions. In the linkage that I believe has the greatest potential, one or more states would proclaim their right to deploy solar geoengineering if and only if they meet their emissions reductions goals and other countries do not.

Towards low-carbon housing in Chile: Optimisation and life cycle analysis of energy-efficient solutions

Significant action is needed across the Chilean housing sector to reduce energy consumption and meet climate change mitigation goals. In this study, the performance of a typical house, an optimised house and a Passivhaus in various climates is evaluated and compared, considering eight distinct climatic zones of Chile. For the thermal optimisation of the house, an OpenBIM workflow between REVIT-CYPETHERM and EnergyPlus with JEPlus were interfaced to analyse over a thousand possible combinations of energy optimisation measures for each climate zone. Additionally, a Life Cycle Assessment is used to compare the cases studied. The results show that in the manufacturing stage, building a Passivhaus would have greater environmental impacts than a traditional house. Additionally, it is shown that in warm climatic zones, a thermally optimised house can have an energy performance equivalent to housing constructed to Passivhaus standards but with less environmental impacts in all its phases of the life cycle.

Assessing GHG mitigation goals of INDCs (NDCs) considering socio-economic and environmental indicators of the parties

Assessing GHG mitigation goals of INDCs (NDCs) considering socio-economic and environmental indicators of the parties

Distilling data to drive carbon storage insights

Wide-spread implementation of carbon capture and storage has the potential to decrease carbon emissions and aid in meeting global climate change mitigation goals. Data availability is one of the biggest challenges faced by the carbon capture and storage (CCS) community for modeling risks associated with CCS, necessary for wide-spread implementation in coming years. Collecting, integrating, and intuitively managing data is a time-consuming process, but one which is fundamental to establishing necessary access to carbon storage data. The US Department of Energy (US DOE) has been a major supporter of energy research in the US, including significant investment into carbon capture and storage research and technology development over the last ten years. The US DOE investments into the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships, the National Risk Assessment Partnership, and other CCS related research has resulted in a large volume of data, of which much has been made public through the National Energy Technology Laboratories data repository, the Energy Data eXchange (EDX). Researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory have developed workflows, tools, and other methods that leverage EDX, open-source software, machine learning, and natural language processing to discover, curate, label, organize and visualize available data. This paper describes the available data on EDX for carbon storage applications, describes the results of a spatial and temporal analysis of the data, describes where it is most geographically available, makes a general assessment of the quality of the available data, and discusses visualization tools and natural language processing tools developed for understanding, discovering and reusing the data.

Optimal system design for energy communities in multi-family buildings: the case of the German Tenant Electricity Law

Involving residential actors in the energy transition is crucial for its success. Local energy generation, consumption and trading are identified as desirable forms of involvement, especially in energy communities. The potentials for energy communities in the residential building stock are high but are largely untapped in multi-family buildings. In many countries, rapidly evolving legal frameworks aim at overcoming related barriers, e.g. ownership structures, principal–agent problems and system complexity. But academic literature is scarce regarding the techno-economic and environmental implications of such complex frameworks. This paper develops a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) optimisation model for assessing the implementation of multi-energy systems in an energy community in multi-family buildings with a special distinction between investor and user; the model is applied to the German Tenant Electricity Law. Based on hourly demands from appliances, heating and electric vehicles, the optimal energy system layout and dispatch are determined. The results contain a rich set of performance indicators that demonstrate how the legal framework affects the technologies’ interdependencies and economic viability of energy communities with multi-energy systems. Certain economic technology combinations may fail to support national emissions mitigation goals and lead to lock-ins in Europe’s largest residential building stock. The subsidies do not lead to the utilisation of a battery storage. Despite this, self-sufficiency ratios of more than 90% are observable for systems with combined heat and power plants and heat pumps. Social CO2 mitigation costs range between 147.5–272.8 €/tCO2. Finally, the results show the strong influence of the heat demand on the system layout.