United Nations Climate Change Conference Research Articles

Counterbalancing global media frames with nationally colored narratives: A comparative study of news narratives and news framing in the climate change coverage of five countries

This study disentangles national and transnational influences on international journalism by distinguishing convergent issue framing from nationally specific narrative in news texts. In a comparative quantitative content analysis of the newspaper coverage in five democratic countries (Brazil, Germany, India, South Africa, and United States) during four United Nations climate change conferences from 2010 to 2013, both textual-visual framing and narrative features were studied simultaneously for the first time. The narrative dimension consisted of variables that gauge (1) the degree of narrativity in an article, (2) the type of narrative (i.e. stories of catastrophe, conflict, success etc.), and (3) narrative roles of victims, villains, and heroes. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to identify both the prevailing issue frame in an article and its dominant narrative. Results show that issue frames converge more strongly across countries while narratives are more closely related to the cultural context and political particularities of each country. Investigating issue frames and narratives concurrently helps to reveal country-specific patterns of narrative coloring even for the same issue frame.

Sustainable Energy Transitions in China: Renewable Options and Impacts on the Electricity System

Chinese energy consumption has been dominated by coal for decades, but this needs to change to protect the environment and mitigate anthropogenic climate change. Renewable energy development is needed to fulfil the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) for the post-2020 period, as stated on the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. This paper reviews the potential of renewable energy in China and how it could be utilised to meet the INDC goals. A business-as-usual case and eight alternative scenarios with 40% renewable electricity are explored using the EnergyPLAN model to visualise out to the year 2030. Five criteria (total cost, total capacity, excess electricity, CO2 emissions, and direct job creation) are used to assess the sustainability of the scenarios. The results indicate that renewables can meet the goal of a 20% share of non-fossil energy in primary energy and 40%–50% share of non-fossil energy in electricity power. The low nuclear-hydro power scenario is the most optimal scenario based on the used evaluation criteria. The Chinese government should implement new policies aimed at promoting integrated development of wind power and solar PV.

Global Warming: The Juggernaut Interpretation

<em>Sincere and profound pessimism about the prospects of implementation success for the COP21 project is warranted. The setting up of the Super Fund is a necessity for avoiding collective choice and decision paradoxes like PD games, sub-optimization and second best solutions. Without massive financial assistance, there will occur widespread reneging on the COP21 objectives (Goal I-III). The system of United Nations Climate Change Conferences, i.e., the yearly conferences held in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), does not offer an organization that is up to the coordination tasks involved in halting climate change. Massive new management is required in each country to fulfill the COP21 objectives.</em>

Land’s complex role in climate change

To mitigate climate change at local, regional, and global scales, we must begin to think beyond greenhouse gases.

광명역 고속철도 역사를 활용한 1.5MW급 태양광발전시스템 설계 연구

In the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, held in Paris, France, in December 2015, the “Paris Agreement” was negotiated; this is a new global agreement on the reduction of climate change, which encourages every country to participate in countermeasures for global climate change. Along with such movements, the electric railway sector has also been actively engaged in low carbon technology. This paper studied the building of a 1.5MW photovoltaic power generation system using the rooftop of the Gwangmyeong Station Building, which is the largest roof among the high-speed railway station buildings in Korea; this station has passenger traffic that reached about 7 million in 2014. For this study, we configured an optimized photovoltaic (PV) power generation system and then estimated the expected annual energy production by using PV system software; we also calculated the expected revenue that could be obtained by linking this source to the power distribution system. The obtained data were used to analyze the contribution of low-carbon energy that could be obtained by introducing a PV power generation system on the roof of an electric railway station building.

Sweden—the world´s most sustainable country: Political statements and goals for a sustainable society

Sweden, a small country with almost 10 million inhabitants, is the world’s most sustainable country according to some reports that compare environmental, social, and governance components between nations. Sweden plays a significant role in the European Union’s work for a sustainable society in the European Union. Strict environmental policies and governmental initiatives that encourage all members of the society to invest in climate change projects are among the reasons that put Sweden on top of sustainable ranking lists. During the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, a number of goals were agreed upon and formalized as the Paris Agreement. One important aspect of the Paris Agreement is that there has to be collaboration between nations in the work against global warming. Sweden is already taking steps to achieve many of the goals set out in the 2015 UN Climate Conference as its government has established robust environmental policies. One such agency, Naturvårdsverket (the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency), is responsible for monitoring the state of the environment. Naturvårdsverket’s work is largely influenced by Sweden’s national environmental objectives. One generational goal, sixteen environmental quality objectives and 24 milestone targets define the direction of environmental work in Sweden, within the EU, and internationally. It is with frameworks like the national environmental objectives and governmental initiatives that encourage members of the society to actively participate in the work for climate change, that the Swedish government develops and implements its environmental policy.

Is Global Warming All about Technological Issues?

<p><em>When the COP21 project is analysed with economic and social science models, then one arrives at profound pessimism about the prospects of implementation success. The basic Wildavsky gulf between policy promises and real life implementation outcomes is bound to plague the efforts at coordination to halt the climate change process. The natural sciences have dominated the global warming debate, but it is time to start examining the problematic of delivering great transformation of energy systems to stem the anthropogenic causes of global warming through the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). The erection of the Super Fund is a necessity for avoiding decision paradoxes like PD games, sub-optimisation and second best solutions. Without massive financial assistance, there will occur widespread reneging on the COP21 objectives (Goal I-III). The system of United Nations Climate Change Conferences, yearly conferences held in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), does not offer an organization that is up to the coordination tasks involved in halting climate change.</em></p>

Global Multimodal News Frames on Climate Change

This paper presents the first fully integrated analysis of multimodal news frames. A standardized content analysis of text and images in newspaper articles from Brazil, Germany, India, South Africa, and the United States covering the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conferences 2010–2013 was conducted using a subset of photo-illustrated articles ( n = 432) as well as the entire conference coverage ( n = 1,311). In the photo-illustrated articles, four overarching multimodal frames were identified: global warming victims, civil society demands, political negotiations, and sustainable energy frames. The distribution of these global frames across the five countries is relatively similar, and a comparison of frames emerging from the national subsets also reveals a strong element of cross-national frame convergence. This is explained by the news production context at global staged political events, which features uniform media access rules and similar information supplies, as well as strong interaction between journalists from different countries and between journalists and other actors. Event-related frame convergence across vastly different contexts is interpreted as one mechanism by which truly transnational media debate can be facilitated that can potentially serve to legitimize global political decisions. In conclusion, perspectives for future qualitative and quantitative multimodal framing research are discussed.

Social Climate Science

The recent Paris Agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, adopted by 195 nations at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, signaled unprecedented commitment by world leaders to address the human social aspects of climate change. Indeed, climate change increasingly is recognized by scientists and policymakers as a social issue requiring social solutions. However, whereas psychological research on intrapersonal and some group-level processes (e.g., political polarization of climate beliefs) has flourished, research into other social processes—such as an understanding of how nonpartisan social identities, cultural ideologies, and group hierarchies shape public engagement on climate change—has received substantially less attention. In this article, we take stock of current psychological approaches to the study of climate change to explore what is “social” about climate change from the perspective of psychology. Drawing from current interdisciplinary perspectives and emerging empirical findings within psychology, we identify four distinct features of climate change and three sets of psychological processes evoked by these features that are fundamentally social and shape both individual and group responses to climate change. Finally, we consider how a more nuanced understanding of the social underpinnings of climate change can stimulate new questions and advance theory within psychology.

Normative arguments for non-state actor participation in international policymaking processes: Functionalism, neocorporatism or democratic pluralism?

The participation of non-state actors in multilateral institutions is often portrayed as one way of decreasing the perceived legitimacy deficit in global governance. The literature on non-state actors has identified several ways in which these actors can enhance the legitimacy of intergovernmental organisations and global governance arrangements. Three partially competing normative arguments, or rationales, for the inclusion of non-state actors in international policymaking — functionalism, neocorporatism and democratic pluralism — have been identified. Whereas functionalism highlights the contribution of non-state actors to output legitimacy in terms of expertise, neocorporatism emphasises the inclusion of affected interests, and democratic pluralism claims that non-state actors increase input legitimacy through procedural values. These three normative arguments thus offer different understandings of the motives for the inclusion and representation of non-state actors in international negotiations and diplomacy. Through a single case study of United Nations climate diplomacy, we analyse the extent to which the three rationales for non-state actor inclusion are found in views held by state and non-state actors participating in the annual United Nations climate change conferences. Our results show that different actor groups place varying degrees of emphasis on the different rationales for non-state actor inclusion, even though the neocorporatist rationale remains most favoured overall. We discuss the implications of our findings for the democratic legitimacy of increasing participation of non-state actors in intergovernmental affairs and recent trends in the participation of non-state actors in the international climate change policymaking process.

Necessity of Fisheries Products Processing & Marketing Center -Based on Sea Farm Project Using Co-Location in Offshore Wind Farms-

2015년 유엔 기후변화회의(COP21: 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference)에서 세계 196개국이 지구온난화 문제를 극복하기 위한 신기후체제 방안에 합의함에 따라 각국은 온실가스 감축목표를 설정하고 이를 달성하기 위한 방안을 제시하고 있다. 박근혜 정부에서도 2030년 국가 온실가스 감축목표를 배출전망치(BAU) 대비 37% 감축하기로 하고 이를 달성하기 위해 다양한 대책을 마련하고 있다. 이러한 시대적 흐름에 따라 신ㆍ재생에너지 기술에 대한 투자가 활발하게 이루어지고 있으며, 본 연구는 서남해안에서 추진되고 있는 해상풍력발전을 이용한 공존형 시설 구축으로 인한 어업생산량 증가를 효율적으로 활용하기 위한 수산물 유통센터 설립에 대하여 논의하였다. 이를 위하여 기존 문현연구를 통하여 서남해안 해상풍력단지에 대하여 살펴보고, 해상풍력단지 조성으로 인한 환경적 영향을 알아보았다. 이와 함께 해상풍력단지 조성예정지역인 고창과 부안의 어업 및 가공, 판매현황을 살펴보고 마지막으로 수산물유통센터의 효율적인 활용방안에 대하여 논의하였다.The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the necessity of fisheries products processing & marketing center. In the pursuit of this purpose, We investigate to developing offshore wind farms and environmental issues, therefore the importance of co-location is continuously growing in offshore wind farms is for food production. In this context, we suggest necessity and improvement directions of fisheries products processing & marketing center.

Green communications and computing networks [Series Editorial

Under the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Conferences of the Parties (COPs), the United Nations Climate Change Conferences have been held yearly to evaluate the progress in dealing with climate change since 1995, when COP 1 was held in Berlin, Germany. COP20, in Lima, Peru in December 2014, reached an agreement that urged all countries to achieve their greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets by 31 March 2015. This information is called an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). With the deadline of 31 March 2015 already passed, only 35 of the 193 countries had published their INDCs. After solid and united global efforts, from 30 November to 12 December 2015, COP 21 was held in Paris, France, when, in a historical breakthrough and milestone toward securing the future Earth, a global agreement on the reduction of climate change was agreed upon by representatives of more than 193 countries in attendance. According to the COP21 Organizing Committee, the agreement was to limit global warming to well below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels. By 12 December 2015, 160 INDCs had been submitted, and on February 04, 2016, Nepal confirmed the 161st INDC, which together represented 188 countries. The requirement that the agreement would become legally binding is that at least 55 countries, which jointly represent at least 55 percent of global greenhouse emissions, have to sign the agreement in New York between 22 April 2016 (Earth Day) and 21 April 2017, and also adopt it within their own legal systems. Readers may find some detailed information from the sixth United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report, which was available in 2015 [1].

Teaching About Climate Change in Medical Education: An Opportunity.

Climate change threatens many of the gains in development and health over the last century. However, it could also be a catalyst for a necessary societal transformation to a sustainable and healthy future. Doctors have a crucial role in climate change mitigation and health system adaptation to prepare for emergent health threats and a carbon-constrained future. This paper argues that climate change should be integrated into medical education for three reasons: first, to prepare students for clinical practice in a climate-changing world; secondly, to promote public health and eco-health literacy; and finally, to deepen existing learning and strengthen graduate attributes. This paper builds on existing literature and the authors’ experience to outline potential learning objectives, teaching methods and assessment tasks. In the wake of recent progress at the United Nations climate change conference, COP-21, it is hoped that this paper will assist universities to integrate teaching about climate change into medical education.Significance for public healthThere is a strong case for teaching about climate change in medical education. Anthropogenic climate change is accepted by scientists, governments and health authorities internationally. Given the dire implications for human health, climate change is of fundamental relevance to future doctors. Integrating climate change into medical education offers an opportunity for future doctors to develop skills and insights essential for clinical practice and a public health role in a climate-changing world. This echoes a broader call for improved public health literacy among medical graduates. This paper provides medical schools with a rationale and an outline for teaching on climate change.

Climate Change and Fish

AFS Policy Director Thomas E. Bigford tbigford@fisheries.orgThe 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference recently concluded in Paris, and developed countries are now charged with implementing ...

Who Prevails in the Visual Framing Contest about the United Nations Climate Change Conferences?

The annual Climate Change Conferences (Conferences of the Parties, COPs) held under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are global staged political media events that regularly provide occasions for contesting the framing of global warming in media coverage around the globe. This study assesses which professional group involved in communicating the COPs—journalists, government spokespeople, and representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—is most successful in seeing their visual framing conceptions represented in mainstream print media coverage. Our analysis combines data from 44 semi-structured interviews with actors from these groups conducted on-site at the COPs in Doha, Qatar (2012) and Warsaw, Poland (2013) with a content analysis of climate change news published in newspapers from five democratic countries around the world. Results show a relative prevalence of NGO-preferred visual framing in COP coverage. Through providing powerful pictures of symbolic actions, civil society actors can prevail in the visual framing contest under certain conditions, but it is much harder for them to circumvent the usually strong statist orientation of mainstream news media in sourcing textual messages.

THE SEARCH FOR CONSENSUS AND UNANIMITY WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Consensus is a process of non-violent conflict resolution. Everyone works together to make the best possible decision for the group. All concerns are raised and addressed, until all voices are heard. Since proposals are not the property of the presenter, a solution can be made cooperatively. Reaching consensus on a proposal does not mean that, everyone is in agreement. Consensus decision making is a creative and dynamic way of reaching agreement between all members of a group. Instead of simply voting for an item and having the majority of the group getting their way, a group using consensus is committed to finding solutions that, everyone actively supports, or at least can live with. At the heart of consensus is a respectful dialogue between equals. It is about helping groups to work together to meet both the individual’s and the group’s needs. Consensus is looking for “win-win” solutions that are acceptable to all, with the direct benefit that everyone agrees with the final decision, resulting in a greater commitment to actually turning it into reality. Consensus seeks to synthesize the wisdom of the group unity: everyone has a piece of the truth. The recent adoption by 195 States of the “Paris Agreement” in the context of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference is a “good example” of consensus.

Roadmap towards justice in urban climate adaptation research

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) highlighted the importance of cities to climate action, as well as the unjust burdens borne by the world's most disadvantaged peoples in addressing climate impacts. Few studies have documented the barriers to redressing the drivers of social vulnerability as part of urban local climate change adaptation efforts, or evaluated how emerging adaptation plans impact marginalized groups. Here, we present a roadmap to reorient research on the social dimensions of urban climate adaptation around four issues of equity and justice: (1) broadening participation in adaptation planning; (2) expanding adaptation to rapidly growing cities and those with low financial or institutional capacity; (3) adopting a multilevel and multi-scalar approach to adaptation planning; and (4) integrating justice into infrastructure and urban design processes. Responding to these empirical and theoretical research needs is the first step towards identifying pathways to more transformative adaptation policies.

Editorship at REES

It gives me a great pleasure to introduce our new open access journal Renewable Energy and Environmental Sustainability (REES), teaming with the well-known major publisher – EDP Sciences, which publishes more than 70 journals and many books, owned by learned societies the as French Physical Society, French Chemical Society, etc. I continue to be passionately interested in the communication of all fields of renewable energy research and development. To this end following much discussion, I have agreed to become the Editor-in-Chief of this new journal. During the last 26 years and since the establishment of the “World Renewable Energy Congress in the UK”, renewable energy has become increasingly important as a vital source of clean and affordable energy. In this period, the immeasurable damage to the environment and health from the excessive use of fossil fuels as the major energy source has at last been recognized by most scientists and policy makers. Thus last December (2015), representatives of 190 countries met in Paris at the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) where declared that: –

The Paris Agreement and Global Climate Governance: China’s Role and Contribution

The United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris in late 2015 is regarded as a milestone in the progress of global climate governance. Adopting the approach of “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) plus Periodic Review”, the Paris Climate Agreement reached at the conference has rejuvenated the multilateral negotiation process and established a hybrid governance structure as the basic framework of the post-2020 climate regime. The Agreement also sends a clear and strong signal regarding the sustainable transformation of the world economy. Through low-carbon economic transformation and international climate diplomacy, China played a leadership role in achieving the Paris Agreement, which ushered in a new era for the international community to combat climate change. The future of global climate governance will depend on the follow-up measures of all contracting parties, and China should continue to show climate leadership in the post-Paris era.

EUROPEAN UNION IN GLOBAL CLIMATE GOVERNANCE: TO PARIS AND BEYOND

Since the 1990s, the European Union is aspiring global leadership in the area of climate change, which is refl ected in its active participation in the negotiations on the international climate change regime. However, those ambitions have not always turned out to be appropriate or justifi ed. Despite the fact that the European Union was able to achieve certain results during the Kyoto Protocol negotiations and even more signifi cant results in the process of its ratifi cation, for the most part EU negotiation strategy based on normative considerations, had not been successful, it was especially evident during the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Partly the disappointing results of EU performance during the Copenhagen negotiations are to be blamed on some of the key features of EU functioning logic, for example, the overall tendency to rely on scientifi c evidence in policy-making, which did not allow the EU to assess other parties’ interests adequately. As the results of the negotiations of parties to the UNFCCC in December 2015 in Paris have shown, the European Union did manage to work out its previous mistakes and build a broad informal international coalition. Contrary to the pessimistic expectations, the agreement was adopted and it took into account quite a few of the EU proposals. However, the Paris Treaty has a number of fl aws and inaccuracies, so the ability to eliminate them in a timely manner by the international community and the EU in particular, will determine the future of the new international climate change regime.