High Climate Change Research Articles

Towards sustainable resource valorization: A life cycle sustainability assessment of metals recovery from sulfidic mining residues in Sweden

The mining industry is crucial to the current global economy; however, it confronts sustainability challenges. Recovering secondary metals from mining residues is a promising opportunity to enhance the sustainability of the mining sector. This paper introduces a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) to evaluate the sustainability of a new valorization process designed for a residue from a sulfidic mine located in Sweden. Results show mixed environmental impacts, with higher climate change (+22%) but lower mineral resource use (-98%) compared to primary mining. Economic analysis suggests that with a CAPEX between 80 M€and 120 M€, the final NPV is between 8.2 M€and 48 M€, depending on the purity of the recovered cobalt. Social analysis reveals fair worker compensation and limited access to local resources as crucial social risks. In the case study presented in this paper, the LCSA provides valuable insights for future cleaner production and more sustainability-oriented decision-making.

Climate change, traditional ecological knowledge, and riverine biodiversity conservation: a case in Aklan, Central Philippines

AbstractWe framed climate change (CC) discourse through its disruptions to local culture and livelihood in a subsistence riverine fishing community in Central Philippines. Our main goal was contextualizing how local communities' traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) related to climate, fisheries, and taboos can strengthen freshwater fisheries management and biodiversity conservation. We adopted a mixed-method purposive sampling of the 126 fishing households in the Nabaoy River Watershed in the municipality of Malay in Aklan province. The high CC awareness was associated with the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme climatological events and erratic weather patterns. These CC-driven perturbations were primarily attributed to the ballooning human population and deforestation. These threats, in turn, were linked to the diminishing state of the Nabaoy River, heralded by the perceived marked decline of frog and dragonfly populations believed to be indicators of river health. Riverine biodiversity was also perceived as dwindling, with fish catch and their sizes shrinking. Furthermore, the observed fishing taboos guiding local informal (de facto) institutions corroborated formal (de jure) temporal and spatial fisheries management measures. Indeed, local communities have relevant long-term knowledge of management (e.g., TEK) and development-oriented structures and systems (e.g., informal institutions). These invaluable social capital assets are crucial in building resilient governance systems to address local conservation issues and concerns, particularly in data-deficient areas or lacking formal management contexts. Hence, formal management interventions should integrate TEK and the informal institution in which it is embedded and engage local TEK holders as partners in freshwater conservation efforts.

Climate change news risk and corporate bond returns in China

By constructing a climate change news index based on the textual analysis of newspapers and estimations of the covariance of bond returns, this paper investigates whether climate change news risk is “priced in” in Chinese corporate bonds. We find that bonds with a higher climate change news beta are associated with lower future returns. Moreover, the low climate change news beta premium originates from the transition news beta. Additionally, the low climate change news beta premium is more obvious during times of heightened climate change news risk, which is consistent with the asset pricing theory of intertemporal hedging demand.

Climate Extreme and Agriculture Development: Fresh Insight From Top Agri-Economics

A range of studies have been observed, covering the title of climate change and its linkage with the agriculture sector. This would justify the claim that changing environment has its several outcomes for which the agriculture sector cannot be ignored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of various climate change dynamics and modelling on the four indicators of agriculture sector. Overall, five panel economies were selected having highest level of agriculture output in the world economy. The time duration of the study was during 1990–2018 with yearly data as collected from world development indicator or WDI. The study analysis was conducted while applying four panel regression models like ordinary least square, fixed effect estimator, least square dummy variable, and finally the random effect. For better understanding, study findings are empirically explained. The results confirm that both positive and negative impact of various proxies of climate change on agriculture dimension of selected economies. More specifically, it is observed that higher climate change in the form of carbon emission from different sources are causing a downturn effect on the agriculture export while at the same time, they are causing an up-ward shift in the agriculture import of selected economies. Besides, study has reasonably disrobed various policy implications both in theoretical and practical perspective. However, some limitations are also under observation. Firstly, this study considers the limited number of explanatory variables for reflecting the changing climate trends among top five agriculture economies of the world. However, there are still range of other factors which can be observed in the future studies to examine their influence on the selected indicators of agriculture industry. Secondly, this study has applied traditional panel models where no implication is observed for the dynamic panel methods like Generalized methods of Moments or GMM. Thirdly, this study has not provided any evidence for the cross-country analysis. Fourthly, this study has limited time span along with missing examination of both short run and long as well. Future studies may address these limitations for better implication in both theoretical and practical perspective.

Exploration of youth knowledge and perceptions of individual-level climate mitigation action

The current climate crisis necessitates effective mitigation action across all scales, including behaviours and lifestyle decisions at the individual level. Youth need to align lifestyle with the 2.1 tonnes of CO2 emissions per person per year required by 2050 to prevent the worse impacts of climate change (CC), yet little is known regarding their preparedness to act nor knowledge of the efficacy of the personal actions available to them. The main objectives of this study were to determine in a representative sample of 17–18 year old Canadians (n = 487) their: (1) beliefs around whether their activities or lifestyle choices can help to lessen CC, and (2) knowledge of the efficacy of individual-level behaviours in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GGE). Results from the online survey (Likert scale) show that youth have limited confidence in how well their schooling has prepared them for CC and mitigation. However, the majority (88%) believe that their activities and lifestyle choices can help in mitigating CC. Knowledge of the relative efficacy of GGE-reducing actions was generally poor (Wilcoxon signed rank tests and open-ended responses) with, for instance, recycling overestimated and having one fewer child underestimated, suggesting that youth are not well equipped with the requisite knowledge to maximise CC mitigation through their personal choices. Our findings inform high school curricula and CC education and policy more broadly.

Climate Change News Risk and Corporate Bond Returns

AbstractWe examine whether climate change news risk is priced in corporate bonds. We estimate bond covariance with a climate change news index and find that bonds with a higher climate change news beta earn lower future returns, consistent with the asset pricing implications of demand for bonds with high potential to hedge against climate risk. Moreover, when investors are concerned about climate risk, they are willing to pay higher prices for bonds issued by firms with better environmental performance. Our findings suggest that corporate policies aimed at improving environmental performance pay off when the market is concerned about climate change risk.

Assessing the Role of the Perceived Impact of Climate Change on National Adaptation Policy: The Case of Rice Farming in Indonesia

Climate change (CC) is one of the primary threats to the agricultural sector in developing countries. Several empirical studies have shown that the implementation of adaptation practices can reduce the adverse effects of CC. The likelihood of farmers performing adaptation practices is mostly influenced by the degree of CC impact that they perceive. Thus, we identified the characteristics of farmers that affect the degree of the CC impact that they perceive. We used data from the Indonesian Rice Farm Household survey consisting of 87,330 farmers. An ordered probit regression model was used to estimate the effect of each variable on the degree of the perceived impact of CC. The results of this study confirm those of previous empirical studies. Several variables that have been identified as having a positive effect on farmer adaptation practices, such as farmer education, land tenure, irrigation infrastructure, cropping system, chemical fertilizer application, access to extension services, and participation in farmer groups, negatively affect the degree of the perceived impact of CC. However, a different result was found in the estimation of the gender variable. We found that female farmers have a higher CC resilience and ability to withstand climatic shocks and risks than male farmers. Female farmers have a more positive perception of future farming conditions than male farmers. We recommend the implementation of a national adaptation policy that use and expand the channel of agricultural extension services to deliver the planned adaptation policy, and prioritizes farmers with insecure land tenure. Additionally, we encourage the increasing of female involvement in the CC adaptation practices and decision-making processes.

Nutrient-derived environmental impacts in Chinese agriculture during 1978–2015

Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) play a critical role in agricultural production and cause many environmental disturbances. By combing life cycle assessment (LCA) method with the mass balance principle of substance flow analysis (SFA), this study establishes a nutrient-derived environmental impact assessment (NEIA) model to analyze the environmental impacts caused by nutrient-containing substances of agricultural production in China during 1978–2015. The agricultural production system is composed of crop farming and livestock breeding, and the environmental impacts include energy consumption, global warming, acidification, and eutrophication. The results show all these environmental impacts had increased to 8.22*109 GJ, 5.01*108 t CO2-eq, 2.41*107 t SO2-eq, and 7.18*107 t PO43--eq, respectively. It is noted the energy consumption and the climate change caused by the crop farming were always higher than those from livestock breeding, which were average 60 and two times, respectively. While the acidification and the eutrophication were opposite after 1995 and 2000, even they were similar. This was mainly due to the high N application including synthetic N fertilizer (from 1.33*109 GJ to 2.08*109 GJ), applied manure (from 4.94*108 GJ to 5.65*108 GJ) and applied crop residue (from 2.94*108 GJ to 5.30*109 GJ), while the synthetic N fertilizer was controlled and the livestock expanded rapidly after 1995. Among the sub-categories, the three staple crops (rice, wheat, and maize) contributed greater environmental impacts, which were about two to 10 times as other crops and livestock, due to their high fertilizer uses, sown areas and harvests. While the oil crops and fruit consumed the least energies because of their much lower fertilizer-use intensities. Pig and poultry especially pig also caused obvious effects on environment (even 20 times as other livestock) because of their large quantities and excretions, which emitted much higher N2O and P loss resulting in much higher climate change, acidification and eutrophication than other livestock. Then the study proposes the nutrient management in agricultural production by considering crop production, livestock breeding and dietary adjustment, so that some valuable experiences can be shared by the stakeholders in other Chinese regions.

Defining rural–urban interfaces for understanding ecohydrological processes in West Java, Indonesia: Part II. Its application to quantify rural–urban interface ecohydrology

Part II of this two-part article aims to quantify the state of rural–urban interface ecohydrology using the Cirebon Metropolitan Region (CMR) in West Java, Indonesia as a case study. The methodology proposed in this study used 11 socio-economic and spatial variables related to open spaces distribution, biodiversity and ecosystem services, water supply requirement, water quality risks, water management capacity and climate change pressures. Regional rural–urban classifications from the eight spatial classification methods (part I of this article) and 2010 national census were validated using three rural–urban water indicators from random sampling of the rural–urban household survey in the CMR. Six proxy ecohydrological indicators were identified and a composite index using these indicators to quantify the state of ecohydrology at rural–urban interface was developed and applied to 45 sub-districts of CMR. The index indicates that all urban sub-districts have very low capacity in providing ecosystem services and will need peri-urban ecosystem services for enhancing urban sustainability and liveability. In general, urban and urban–peri-urban transition sub-districts in the CMR have significant higher values of composite index related to socio-economic aspects compared to those in the peri-urban and rural sub-districts. This indicates lower significantly open spaces distribution, higher water supply requirement, greater water quality risks, and higher climate change pressures. The six proxy indicators identified in this study and methodology developed for calculating the composite index is potentially useful for an objective assessment of ecohydrology of an urbanising landscape and thus for developing effective urban planning of future cities and their outskirts.

Comparing environmental impact of air scrubbers for ammonia abatement at pig houses: A life cycle assessment

Intensive livestock production involves environmental emissions and impacts, including emission of greenhouse gases and ammonia leading to climate change and terrestrial acidification. Ammonia emission from animal housing systems can be reduced by introducing air scrubbers for cleaning the exhaust air, but insight into the environmental impact throughout the entire system is lacking. This study aimed to assess and compare the environmental impact of three types of air scrubbers: an acid scrubber and two biotrickling filters, one with nitrification only and one with nitrification and denitrification. Air scrubbers were compared by using life cycle assessment and assessing five environmental impacts: climate change, terrestrial acidification, marine eutrophication, particulate matter formation and fossil fuel depletion. The acid scrubber showed reductions in all environmental impact categories (up to >2000%), whereas the biotrickling filter with combined nitrification and denitrification had highest climate change and fossil fuel depletion. The biotrickling filter with nitrification only had highest terrestrial acidification and marine eutrophication.

Choosing co-substrates to supplement biogas production from animal slurry – A life cycle assessment of the environmental consequences

Biogas production from animal slurry can provide substantial contributions to reach renewable energy targets, yet due to the low methane potential of slurry, biogas plants depend on the addition of co-substrates to make operations profitable. The environmental performance of three underexploited co-substrates, straw, organic household waste and the solid fraction of separated slurry, were assessed against slurry management without biogas production, using LCA methodology. The analysis showed straw, which would have been left on arable fields, to be an environmentally superior co-substrate. Due to its low nutrient content and high methane potential, straw yields the lowest impacts for eutrophication and the highest climate change and fossil depletion savings. Co-substrates diverted from incineration to biogas production had fewer environmental benefits, due to the loss of energy production, which is then produced from conventional fossil fuels. The scenarios can often provide benefits for one impact category while causing impacts in another.