UN Climate Change Research Articles

Fulfilling global climate pledges can lead to major increase in forest land on Tibetan Plateau

The UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow spawned the enhancement and updating of many nations' climate pledges. Previous research has investigated the effects of these pledges on limiting planetary warming, but their spatially explicit effects on land use/cover are unknown. Here, we linked the Glasgow pledges and the spatially explicit responses of the Tibetan Plateau's land systems. We found that while fulfilling global climate pledges may not significantly affect the global shares of forestland, grassland/pasture, shrubland, and cropland, it needs a 9.4% increase in the forest area of the Tibetan Plateau. This need is an area 11.4 times the increase of the plateau's forest in the 2010s, or greater than the size of Belgium. The new forest comes mainly from the medium-density grassland in the Yangtze River basin, calling for more proactive environmental management for the headwaters area of this longest river in Asia.

Learning and community building in support of collective action: Toward a new climate of communication at the COP

AbstractThe international UN Climate Change conferences known as “Conferences of the Parties (COPs)” have an enormous convening power and are attended annually by tens of thousands of actors working on climate change topics from a wide range of perspectives. In the COP spaces outside of the formal negotiations, the communication culture is dominated by “side events,” a format that relies heavily on conventional presentations and panels that can be informative, but is generally not conducive to mutual engagement, reflection, or dialogue. There is an urgent need for new dialogue formats that can better foster learning and community‐building and thereby harness the enormous latent potential for climate action represented by the diverse stakeholders that gather at the COP. Against this backdrop, and drawing on our experience with the development and implementation of the Co‐Creative Reflection and Dialogue Spaces at COP25, COP26, and COP27, we make recommendations for further developing the communication culture of the COPs. At the level of individual sessions, we provide recommendations for designing participatory dialogues that can better support reflection, interconnection, and action orientation. In addition, we offer guidance for scaling up these practices, for instance through networks and communities of practice to support a shift of the overall communication culture of the COPs. Our recommendations focus on interactions and exchanges that unfold outside of the formal negotiation sessions, with a view toward enabling and accelerating transformative action by non‐state actors.This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication Policy and Governance > International Policy Framework

Nuclear Cyber Attacks: A Study of Sabotage and Regulation of Critical Infrastructure

As of 2021, the World Nuclear Association reports 440 Nuclear reactors are in operation worldwide in 30 countries generating capacity of 390 (GW) which is equivalent to about 10% of the world’s electricity. After Hydroelectric power, nuclear is the world's second largest source of low-carbon power. Important new nuclear technologies including the Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are being developed globally creating more efficient and safer reactors that can be reproduced off site. 
 While governments redoubled their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, the recovery of economies following the harsh impacts of COVID-19 led to a surge in energy demand that surpassed the growth in production from clean sources including nuclear. The safety and security of nuclear power has received renewed attention since the Russian invasion of Ukraine presenting growing concern about the potential threat of increased malevolent cyber activity against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. Moreover, there have been more than 20 known cyber incidents worldwide at nuclear facilities since 1990. 
 To address these concerns this paper focuses on the progress of cyber security and cyber resilience in the nuclear industry globally. The 2015 cyber-attack on the Ukrainian Kyivoblenergo, a regional electricity distribution company was analyzed by multiple sources including private companies, investigators in Ukraine, and the U.S. government. The analysis revealed many opportunities to stop or prevent this attack, however, the nuclear industry continues to face serious challenges in protecting against cyber threats. This research will investigate through a comparative analysis the recent government regulations, rules and standards, for nuclear cyber security safety in the United States and internationally to determine whether these laws adequately protect energy infrastructure from cyberattacks and hold responsible parties accountable. Recent initiatives by government and the private sector to enhance the opportunities for improving cyber security in the nuclear sector will be reviewed to determine best practices for improving nuclear safety and cyber resilience.

Assessing residue and tillage management options for carbon sequestration in future climate change scenarios

Soil carbon depletion is a major concern for food security in drylands. The objective of this study is to test tillage with residue management under sequential and intercropping systems for carbon sequestration in semi-arid tropical drylands of India. We report the findings from a long-term field experiment (9 years) used to simulate the effect of residue and tillage management in Maize-chickpea sequential and Maize-Pigeonpea intercropping systems for the four possible future climate projections using APSIM model. These findings demonstrate a sustainable route with inclusive growth, as pledged at the UN climate change summit. A comparison of results under SSP 2.6 and 4.5 Wm−2 with SSP 8.5 shows that demand pressure from competitive marketplaces inhibits the establishment of soil carbon sinks and significantly reduces crop yields, likely due to indiscriminate chemical fertilizer use. We observed that a better decision in selecting cropping system might improve soil organic carbon content (SOC). SOC content ranging from 0.9 to 1.2% in Maize-pigeonpea intercropping and 0.85–1.1% in maize-chickpea sequential cropping systems, demonstrate good potential in the climate change mitigation exertions. Early SOC saturation (20 years) led to a decreased carbon stock in topsoil without residue addition practises. The addition of crop residues significantly increased SOC levels under both conventional and minimum tillage and created additional income for farmers. Simulation analysis showed impact of SOC changes on crop yield which remained nearly stable for 85 years. Therefore, hardy straw biomass of crops covering a large tract in dryland tropics, can be a scalable and sustainable solution to yield losses, while mitigating climate change through carbon sequestration.

Location location location: a carbon footprint calculator for transparent travel to the UN Climate Conference 2022.

Addressing the large carbon footprint of conferences such as the United Nations Climate Change Convention Conference of the Parties (COP) will be important for maintaining public confidence in climate policy. Transparency is also a vital aspect of creating equitable outcomes in climate policies, as those most likely to be affected or who can create change on the ground are often unable to attend in person because of the high financial costs as well as having a large carbon footprint. The selection of host locations for the regular meetings of the UN Climate Change Convention is based on a rotation amongst the five UN regions, which for 2022 was Africa. Here, we present a carbon footprint calculator for travel to COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, weighing the benefits of certain routes and modes of transport. The calculator demonstrates the well-known carbon efficiency of coach and rail over flights but shows that these benefits were partly diminished in the case of COP 27 due to insufficient transport links from Europe to the conference location. However, we also highlight some of the benefits of hosting a COP in the Global South, particularly in the context of climate justice. Users of the calculator are invited to consider all their options for travel and acknowledge the issue of climate justice through careful selection of carbon offsets.

Local Practice of Intelligent Innovation and Sustainable Development of Environmental in NCUT of Taiwan

The purpose of this project is to assist local fruit farmers to increase output value through innovative development, build a distribution network for agricultural products, and increase farmers' income. In the technology of increasing agricultural output value, NCUT's professional team applies smart agricultural technology to monitor fruit trees to prevent pests and diseases, maintain the healthy growth and yield of fruit trees, and solve the problem of lack of labor in farmland. The NCUT team practices strategic marketing and business models to guide fruit farmers to promote local creation and enhance local cultural characteristics. This project assists in the implementation of new quality-guaranteed and value-added technologies, promotes high-quality agricultural products across the country and improves local tourism marketing, and activates agricultural product promotion activities to achieve mutual support between industry and academia. In addition, in response to the 50th anniversary of the World Earth Day, NCUT held a tree planting to save the earth to implement the concept of sustainable environmental development. President Chen, faculty and students planted 500 Cinnamomum camphor seedlings on the NCUT campus in response to the UN Climate Change Framework Convention.Keyword: Environmental Protection, Local Practice, Intelligent Innovation, Intelligent Agricultural Technology, Sustainable Development

Argumentation and Identity: A Normative Evaluation of the Arguments of Delegates to the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference

Arguments may sometimes be advanced with a non-standard function. One such function, it is suggested, is the expression of identity, a practice which may play a significant role in political representation. This paper sets out to examine a number of short addresses given at the High-Level segment of the Cop26 conference, which are considered to contain instances of such argumentation. Their content is analysed and evaluated by means of the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA), and an attempt is made to highlight the purposes of the delegates in addressing the conference. At a more fundamental level, the goal of this work is to assess the possibility of identifying arguments as being meant largely as statements of identity or representation, and the suitability of the CAPNA or other norm-based systems for evaluating such discourse. The speakers studied include representatives from OPEC, the Trade Unions, and the leaders of Vietnam and Liechtenstein. Ultimately, the study concludes that while further work is necessary both on understanding the relationship between argument and identity in the political arena, and on the application of argument norms to representational discourse, evaluations of this kind are meaningful and informative.

Do sustainability criteria affect the valuation of companies? Evidence from an oil giant

Nowadays we see how many media, governments and international organizations are echoing the serious consequences of climate change on our planet. A report recently published by the United Nations Climate Change Organization (UN Climate Change News, 2022) reiterated that the practices currently being carried out by governments are not sufficient to keep the temperature increase to 1.5ºC compared to the pre-industrial era. Moreover, it predicts that if we continue with business as usual, the increase will be 2.5ºC by the end of the century. One of the solutions to this problem is the energy transition, understood as a paradigm shift in which the system gradually stops relying on fossil and non-renewable energy sources, to make way for the exploitation, use and consumption of alternative energy sources that will reduce CO2 emissions and improve waste and water management, among many other advantages (Edenhofer et al. 2012). According to the latest report published by the British oil company BP (BP Statistical Review, 2022), 55% of the energy consumed by The Earth in 2021 will come from oil and gas, compared to 7% from renewable energies. Keywords: O&G sector | DCF Method | Sustainable criteria | Investment | VDA approach

POLITICAL DISCOURSE: AT THE CROSSROADS OF LANGUAGE AND POLITICS

The present paper is devoted to the study of some peculiarities of political discourse. The aim of the research is to examine the notion of discourse as well as to provide the analysis of a political speech by Emmanuel Macron at the lexical level. The research is carried out with reference to the speech by the French President at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. Within the framework of the research, the lexical peculiarities of Emmanuel Macron's speech have been presented.

Tackling climate change and health inequalities in primary care.

The Climate Emergency is now widely accepted as the biggest public health crisis facing humanity. Previous research has highlighted how social and health inequalities shape the health impacts of climate change in the UK, but there has been little attention to the role of general practice in deprived areas. This Brief Report summarises a roundtable discussion of Scottish 'Deep End' GPs - family doctors working in the most socio-economically deprived areas - which took place weeks before the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), held in Glasgow in November 2021. The report highlights the need for urgent action to make general practice more sustainable, including recommendations for community engagement, (de)prescribing, medical education, digital inclusion, and investment in premises and capacity building.

Novelty in fossil fuel carbon abatement technologies in the 21st Century: post‐combustion carbon capture

AbstractA global net zero target by mid‐century and keeping the maximum global temperature rise to below 1.5 °C was agreed by nearly 200 nations at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change advises that emission cuts by 45% are needed by 2030 in order to maintain the global temperature rise below the 1.5 °C target. To achieve this target, it is necessary to investigate technological options that are economically viable and globally acceptable for commercial deployment. This review paper looks at the new technologies needed to reduce CO2 emission and to motivate commercial deployment, considering that the commercial deployment of CO2 has been slowed down as a result of high capital and operating expenses which invariably increase the cost of energy. The paper presents a review on early years of process intensification technologies as well as a discussion on potential new process intensification options for CO2 capture, with suggestions on how to modify those technologies for suitable application to solvent‐based carbon capture. The work further discusses current process intensification technologies used for CO2 capture applications. Solvent developments for enhancing CO2 capture also are discussed as they contribute to cutting down the sizes of the units as well as decreasing the cost of regeneration which leads to reduction in capital and operating costs. A process flow diagram using a mop fan for capture of CO2 from buildings is proposed. In addition, a new flow diagram is proposed for using loop reactor technology to capture CO2 from large point sources, and finally a new process diagram using rotating packed bed absorber combined with sono‐assisted regenerator is presented for improved performance of CO2 capture technology. Recommendations on these diagrams are made to help ensure transition toward the net zero target. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).

The impact of natural resource endowment and transportation infrastructure on China's regional green economic performance in the context of COP26

In the context of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), this paper proposes at COP26 that to address climate change and promote world economic recovery, it is necessary to maintain a multilateral consensus, focus on pragmatic actions and accelerate green transformation. Therefore, the improvement in green economic performance has become the focus of academic attention, but existing research mainly measures its value, there are few studies carried out in the context of COP26, and this study is a supplement and extension to the existing research field. This paper explores the impact of transportation infrastructure and natural resource endowment on the green economic performance (GEP). The study selects the slacks-based measure (SBM) model to measure China's regional green economic performance from 2007 to 2020, analyze the temporal and spatial differences in the GEP in each region, and then uses the system Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to verify the relationship among the three. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The annual overall average of the national green economic performance was 0.538, the overall level was not high, and there were significant differences between regions, showing a gradually decreasing trend from east to west. (2) Natural resource endowment had a negative impact on the GEP of the whole country and the central and western regions; the eastern region showed significant positive characteristics on the “U”-shaped features of the transportation infrastructure on the GEP across the country and the west. The impact on the green economic performance in the eastern region had an obvious inhibitory effect and negative impact on the GEP in the central region. (3) The first-order coefficients of the intensity of the environmental regulations at the national level and in the three regions were significantly negative and showed U-shaped characteristics; foreign direct investment can improve GEP at the national level and have the same effect in eastern and western China but will not be significant in the central region. Industrial structure's impacts on GEP at the national level and in the three regions were all negative, which hindered the improvement of green economic performance. Urbanization had an obvious inhibitory effect on GEP at the national level and in central and western China, but urbanization promote eastern GEP. The research in this paper has important significance as a reference for improving the performance of China's regional green economic performance and achieving the Sustainable Development and COP26 goals.

COP27 Climate Change Conference: urgent action needed for Africa and the world

COP27 Climate Change Conference: urgent action needed for Africa and the world

Cutting carbon, cutting costs: a quality improvement project increasing volatile anaesthetic efficiency

Background: As the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow highlighted, the world is battling a climate crisis and urgent action is required to turn the tide. Anaesthesia has a direct impact on the environment, and more specifically anaesthetic gases, with 5% of a hospital’s carbon footprint attributable to them.1–3 Indeed, 42% of carbon emissions generated during a surgical procedure are from anaesthetic gases. The aim of this quality improvement project was to improve the efficiency of volatile anaesthetic usage, by comparing our anaesthetic consumption levels, to patient uptake over a period of months after regular departmental educational interventions.

Климатический пакт Глазго 2021 года: основные положения

Introduction: the paper describes the Glasgow Climate Pact, adopted as part of the Paris Agreement at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in late 2021. The provisions of the Glasgow Pact apply to all countries participating in the Paris Agreement. The pact was supposed to solve the problem of coordinating the countries’ efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Pact has established new procedures to stimulate the countries’ ambitions for climate protection – a work program, an annual round table and an annual report, which will be discussed for the first time at COP27 in November 2022. The Pact has also focused on CO2-free gases, fossil fuels, nature and ecosystems, and a fair transition. But the Pact provisions have turned out to be much softer than originally planned. It is unclear whether the measures outlined in the Glasgow Pact will be sufficient to overcome political obstacles to the implementation of the goals of the Paris Agreement. The national commitments on climate and financing are still far from what is needed to address the climate problem.

What’s on the agenda? UN climate change negotiation agendas since 1995

ABSTRACT Our understanding of climate change has expanded to include issues beyond reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, we do not have a sound empirical understanding of how negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations have evolved to address an increasingly wide range of issues relevant to climate change. To understand what the climate talks have focused on and how the volume of work has changed, the authors create a Climate Negotiations Database that categorizes negotiation agenda items starting from the first Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1995. Overall, the volume of work in the negotiations is shown to have steadily increased over time but it is not necessarily tied to the negotiation of new rules enshrined in major agreements or outcomes. While the negotiations have broadened to include a wider range of issues, we demonstrate that transparency and mitigation matters traditionally dominate the agendas. This finding lends support to the call for greater balance among issues. Transparency and mitigation show different patterns. While mitigation issues are more negotiations-intensive, and often about markets, the transparency discussions tend to be more implementation-focused. The database provides an empirical base for further research on various aspects of global climate governance.

Climate Justice and Biodiversity

Global climate change is affecting both natural environment and human society. National governments engage in climate mitigation actions. Transnational agreements such as Paris Agreement and recent UN Climate change conference (COP 26) intend to foster global collaboration on tackling climate change. However, activities and policies aiming to address the problem may either undermine integrity of the natural environment and human society or can contribute to sustainable development. Here climate justice plays the central role. Pursuing climate justice paradigm, may environmental organizations to prove central role of forest conservation in mitigation of climate change. This is likely to allow avoiding trade-offs between clime, economic development and biodiversity conservation objectives. Multiple real live examples demonstrate the potential of climate justice as a central principle of climate actions to allow finding win-win solutions. The central principle of climate actions and policies should be avoiding harm to biodiversity and indigenous peoples. The approach is likely to ensure sustainable development and success in addressing climate change.

What can the Glasgow Declaration on Forests bring to global emission reduction?

What can the Glasgow Declaration on Forests bring to global emission reduction?

Decarbonising short sea shipping operations: examining the efforts and outcomes of a Finnish shipping line’s relevant initiatives

Decarbonisation of maritime transport operations has become a main priority for shipping companies around the world, especially after the adoption of the Initial International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Strategy on Reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions from Ships in 2018 that sets the goal of reducing the global shipping emissions by 50% by 2050, as compared to 2008. In a similar direction, the European Union’s (EU) Green Deal initiative was adopted in December 2019 and proposed, among others, the inclusion of shipping in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) as an additional tool for the achievement of climate neutrality in Europe by 2050. The most recent UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) that was held in Glasgow also increased the momentum for global decarbonisation efforts highlighting the important role and contribution of maritime transport in these overall efforts. This paper discusses the efforts and initiatives undertaken by a Finnish shipping line (Viking Line) for the improvement of its fleet energy efficiency, along with the decarbonization of its operations; initiatives that encompass various technical and operational measures along with the employment of alternative fuels and/or energy sources (such as wind power). According to the findings, significant energy consumption reductions can be achieved at the company level from the implementation of a number of energy efficiency initiatives that presuppose a company organization model focused on sustainable development. Global and regional regulations/ guidelines definitely initiate the introduction of energy efficiency measures, but their effective implementation depends largely on the organizational structure and priorities of individual shipping companies.

Tourism under climate crisis in Asia: impacts and implications

Study of the implications of Asian tourism for climate change is critical to fulfilling the terms of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) and reaching the Sustainable Development Goals. Research has only recently begun to cover these topics. This paper examines climate risks, adaptation response, carbon emission, and mitigation in Asian tourism by reviewing the state-of-the-art and identifying gaps in previous research and future directions. More work has been done on East, Southeast, and South Asia than on Central, West, and North Asia, but great differences exist among needed research topics in these subregions. While some progress has been made on impact assessments of climate change and carbon emissions estimations, analysis and action remain mismatched. Often, one tourism sector is analyzed in isolation and only general suggestions are given for climate change adaptation and mitigation. This therefore highlights research that can facilitate the integrated analysis of climate change to inform policymakers and the public.