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The Paris Agreement created an institutionalized role for non-state actors through voluntary cooperation. Many international NGOs (INGOs) are particularly active in these "Paris partnerships," often working with multinational corporations to reduce emissions and promote decarbonization. Though there is ample work on both the effectiveness of the Paris partnerships and on the role of INGOs in the global climate regime, much of this work focuses "outward" – on how INGOs contribute to climate mitigation and adaptation, or influence norms, discourse and policy. Yet, there is considerably less work that focuses "inward" – examining who INGOs work with in order to achieve their policy goals. This paper provides a descriptive analysis of key INGOs in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, as a first step in a larger research agenda to understand the incentives and opportunities that drive INGO behavior. Specifically, it uses network analysis to identify the "climate establishment" – which I define as the insider INGOs working within the multilateral process and with large corporations to influence rulemaking, soft law and firm behavior. Measures of network centrality demonstrate that two INGOs – WWF and the World Resources Institute – are by far, the most authoritative members of the climate establishment. They participate in the largest number of partnerships, and have "important" friends, as measured by eigenvector centrality. The data also indicate that the climate establishment sees carbon pricing as a key strategy, and it often cooperates with banks that are large funders of fossil fuel projects. The descriptive analysis of the climate establishment and its partners raises important questions for future research about why INGOs choose to partner with F100 companies, and how such cooperation might influence INGO behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and development (R&D) investments foster green innovation, which is key to decarbonize the energy system and attain long-term climate goals. In this paper, we link three integrated assessment models that possess a macroeconomic framework—WITCH, MERGE-ETL, and GEM-E3—with the bottom-up technology-rich energy system model TIAM-ECN, in order to quantitatively explore how investments in R&D can support deep decarbonization pathways. We take advantage of the endogenous technological learning feature of the first three models to derive R&D-induced capital cost reductions for strategic clusters of low-carbon technologies: solar energy, on- and offshore wind energy, carbon capture and storage, advanced fuels, and batteries for electric vehicles. We examine scenarios with different assumptions on CO2 mitigation and R&D policy. These assumptions are harmonized among our four models, and capital cost reductions driven by R&D are exogenously incorporated in TIAM-ECN, which enables a detailed assessment of the required energy transition. Our results show that the stringency of climate change mitigation policy remains the key factor influencing the diffusion of low-carbon technologies, while R&D can support mitigation goals and influence the contribution of different types of technologies. If implemented effectively and without worldwide barriers to knowledge spill-overs, R&D facilitates the deployment of mature technologies such as solar, wind, and electric vehicles, and enables lower overall energy system costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing focus on the economics of adaptation as policy moves from theory to practice. However, the techniques commonly used in economic appraisal have limitations in coping with climate change uncertainty. While decision making under uncertainty has gained prominence, economic appraisal of adaptation still uses approaches such as deterministic cost-benefit analysis. Against this background, this paper provides a critical review and assessment of existing economic decision support tools (cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis) an uncertainty framework (iterative risk management) and alternative tools that more fully incorporate uncertainty (real options analysis, robust decision making and portfolio analysis). The paper summarises each method, provides examples, and assesses their strengths and weaknesses for adaptation. The tools are then compared to identify key differences, and to identify when these approaches might be appropriate for specific applications in adaptation decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current nationally determined contributions, pledged by the countries under the Paris Agreement, are far from limiting climate change to below 2 ∘C temperature increase by the end of the century. The necessary ratcheting up of climate policy is projected to come with a wide array of additional benefits, in particular a reduction of today's 4.5 million annual premature deaths due to poor air quality. This paper therefore addresses the question how climate policy and air pollution–related health impacts interplay until 2050 by developing a comprehensive global modeling framework along the cause and effect chain of air pollution–induced social costs. We find that ratcheting up climate policy to a 2 ∘ compliant pathway results in welfare benefits through reduced air pollution that are larger than mitigation costs, even with avoided climate change damages neglected. The regional analysis demonstrates that the 2 ∘C pathway is therefore, from a social cost perspective, a "no-regret option" in the global aggregate, but in particular for China and India due to high air quality benefits, and also for developed regions due to net negative mitigation costs. Energy and resource exporting regions, on the other hand, face higher mitigation cost than benefits. Our analysis further shows that the result of higher health benefits than mitigation costs is robust across various air pollution control scenarios. However, although climate mitigation results in substantial air pollution emission reductions overall, we find significant remaining emissions in the transport and industry sectors even in a 2 ∘C world. We therefore call for further research in how to optimally exploit climate policy and air pollution control, deriving climate change mitigation pathways that maximize co-benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal wetlands are significant components of the coastal landscape with important roles in ecosystem service provision and mitigation of climate change. They are also likely to be the system most impacted by climate change, feeling the effects of sea levels rise, temperature increases and rainfall regime changes. Climate change impacts on estuarine coastal wetlands (mangroves, saltmarsh) have been thoroughly investigated; however, the impacts on coastal freshwater wetlands (CFWs) are relatively unknown. To explore the current knowledge of the impacts of climate change on CFWs globally, we undertook a systematic quantitative literature review of peer-reviewed published literature. We found surprisingly little research (110 papers of an initial 678), the majority of which was conducted in the USA, focusing on the effects of sea level rise (SLR) on CFW vegetation or sediment accretion processes. From this research, we know that SLR will lead to reduced productivity, reduced regeneration, and increased mortality in CFW vegetation but little is known regarding the effects of other climate change drivers. Sediment accretion is also not sufficient to keep pace with SLR in many CFWs and again the effects of other climate drivers have not been investigated. The combination of unhealthy vegetation communities and minimal gain in vertical elevation can result in a transition towards a vegetation community of salt-tolerant species but more research is required to understand this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the consequences of different policy assumptions and the derivation of globally consistent, national low-carbon development pathways for the seven largest greenhouse gas (GHG)–emitting countries (EU28 as a bloc) in the world, covering approximately 70% of global CO2 emissions, in line with their contributions to limiting global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C as compared with pre-industrial levels. We introduce the methodology for developing these pathways by initially discussing the process by which global integrated assessment model (IAM) teams interacted and derived boundary conditions in the form of carbon budgets for the different countries. Carbon budgets so derived for the 2011–2050 period were then used in eleven different national energy-economy models and IAMs for producing low-carbon pathways for the seven countries in line with a well below 2 °C world up to 2050. We present a comparative assessment of the resulting pathways and of the challenges and opportunities associated with them. Our results indicate quite different mitigation pathways for the different countries, shown by the way emission reductions are split between different sectors of their economies and technological alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transitioning from a carbon-intensive development path to a low-carbon economy requires understanding of emission sources and its drivers. To achieve Nationally Determined Contribution targets discussed under the Paris Agreement, countries must project emission baselines considering different levels of ambition and sectoral performances and monitor government policies and mitigation actions. This study develops a Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) framework based on energy use and carbon emission scenarios for Brazil up to 2030, focusing on transport. Three scenarios are developed based on different political commitments. All scenarios and mitigation actions are discussed under the Brazilian Forum on Climate Change, which is recognized as one of the most important institutional instruments of the National Policy on Climate Change. Results reveal a 41% abatement in CO2e emissions when comparing the most ambitious scenario to the conservative one. MRV framework indicates that Brazil is on track to a low carbon economic transition, although joint action is needed. This is mainly due to the increasing penetration of bioenergy into the transport energy matrix, while electromobility does not expand in Brazil at the pace of major international players such as Europe and China. Special contribution of this paper is on the role of bioenergy in prospective carbon emission scenarios, which is a lack in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's commitment to Paris Climate Change Agreement through its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) will require the energy system to gradually move away from fossil fuels. The current energy system is witnessing a transformation to achieve these through renewable energy targets and enhanced energy efficiency (EE) actions in all sectors. More stringent global GHG mitigation targets of 2 °C and well below 2 °C regimes would impose further challenges and uncertainties for the Indian energy systems. This paper provides a quantitative assessment using bottom-up optimization model (AIM/Enduse) to assess these until 2050 for meeting carbon mitigation commitments while achieving the national sustainable development goals. Energy transformation trajectories under five scenarios synchronized with climate mitigation regimes are explored—Business As Usual scenario (BAU), NDC scenario, 2 °C scenarios (early and late actions), and well below 2 °C scenario. The key results from the study include (a) coal-based power plants older than 30 years under NDC and older than 20 years for deeper CO2 mitigation will be stranded before their lifetime, (b) increase in renewables of up to 225–280 GW by 2050 will require battery storage with improved integrated smart grid infrastructure, (c) growth in nuclear to 27–32 GW by 2050 is dependent on nuclear supply availability, (d) gradual shift towards electrification in industry, building, and transport sectors, and (e) installation of CCS technologies in power and industry sectors. Cumulative investments of up to 6–8 trillion USD (approximately) will be required during 2015–2030 to implement the actions required to transform the current energy systems in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While international cooperation to facilitate the transfer and uptake of climate technologies in developing countries is an ongoing part of climate policy conversations, international collaborative R&D has received comparatively little attention. Collaborative R&D, however, could be a potentially important contributor to facilitating the transfer and uptake of climate technologies in developing countries. But the complexities of international collaborative R&D options and their distributional consequences have been given little attention to date. This paper develops a systematic approach to informing future empirical research and policy analysis on this topic. Building on insights from relevant literature and analysis of empirical data based on a sample of existing international climate technology R&D initiatives, three contributions are made. First, the paper analyses the coverage of existing collaborative R&D efforts in relation to climate technologies, highlighting some important concerns, such as a lack of coverage of lower-income countries or adaptation technologies. Second, it provides a starting point for further systematic research and policy thinking via the development of a taxonomic approach for analysing collaborative designs. Finally, it matches characteristics of R&D collaborations against developing countries' climate technology needs to provide policymakers with guidance on how to Configure R&D collaborations to meet these needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to carbon dioxide, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are numerous other potent agents of anthropogenic forcing (e.g. methane, ozone, black carbon) at work in the climate system today. The typical ethical framing of climate change has not yet accommodated this complexity. In addition, geoengineering has often been presented as a Plan B that would simply counter unintentional (and positive) anthropogenic forcing with intentional (and negative) anthropogenic forcing. This paper attempts to better address the complexity by outlining an ethical framework for reducing all anthropogenic forcing, a position it labels the 'climate imperative.' The paper considers geoengineering alongside various other anthropogenic forcing activities and discusses what the climate imperative would say about each of them. On this analysis, GHG and black carbon reductions remain a priority. At the same time, the framing reveals a significant ethical difference between geoengineering through solar radiation management and through carbon dioxide removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impacts from climate change will significantly affect local governance, and efforts to develop adaptation and mitigation policies will require widespread public support. However, public engagement, and discussions of climate change, remains limited. A new approach to public engagement titled, deliberative framing, can help bridge political divides and provide opportunities to discover innovative policy options. This paper reviews deliberative democracy and framing where they have been applied to examine public engagement on climate change. Integrating insights from these fields can help develop a practice of deliberative framing for managing climate change mitigation and adaptation actions at local scales, to complement national and international efforts. This could assist with community-based agenda setting toward greater justice and the public good. Challenges include building capacity for reflexivity, communication, and public engagement among government actors, recognizing there are different ways to frame climate change and designing deliberative forums that are more inclusive of disparate groups and often underrepresented minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, instigated by the Paris agreement and United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COP22 and COP23), the efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels are expanding. The required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions imply a massive decarbonization worldwide with much involvement of regions, cities, businesses, and individuals in addition to the commitments at the national levels. Improving end-use efficiency is emphasized in previous IPCC reports (IPCC 2014). Serving as the primary 'agents of change' in the transformative process towards green economies, households have a key role in global emission reduction. Individual actions, especially when amplified through social dynamics, shape green energy demand and affect investments in new energy technologies that collectively can curb regional and national emissions. However, most energy-economics models—usually based on equilibrium and optimization assumptions—have a very limited representation of household heterogeneity and treat households as purely rational economic actors. This paper illustrates how computational social science models can complement traditional models by addressing this limitation. We demonstrate the usefulness of behaviorally rich agent-based computational models by simulating various behavioral and climate scenarios for residential electricity demand and compare them with the business as usual (SSP2) scenario. Our results show that residential energy demand is strongly linked to personal and social norms. Empirical evidence from surveys reveals that social norms have an essential role in shaping personal norms. When assessing the cumulative impacts of these behavioral processes, we quantify individual and combined effects of social dynamics and of carbon pricing on individual energy efficiency and on the aggregated regional energy demand and emissions. The intensity of social interactions and learning plays an equally important role for the uptake of green technologies as economic considerations, and therefore in addition to carbon-price policies (top-down approach), implementing policies on education, social and cultural practices can significantly reduce residential carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scenarios exist so that decision makers and those who provide them with information can make statements about the future that claim less confidence than do predictions, projections, and forecasts. Despite their prevalence, fundamental questions remain about how scenarios should best be developed and used. This paper proposes a particular conceptualization of scenarios that aims to address many of the challenges faced when using scenarios to inform contentious policy debates. The concept envisions scenarios as illuminating the vulnerabilities of proposed policies, that is, as concise summaries of the future states of the world in which a proposed policy would fail to meet its goals. Such scenarios emerge from a decision support process that begins with a proposed policy, seeks to understand the conditions under which it would fail, and then uses this information to identify and evaluate potential alternative policies that are robust over a wide range of future conditions. Statistical cluster analyses applied to databases of simulation model results can help identify scenarios as part of this process. Drawing on themes from the decision support literature, this paper first reviews difficulties faced when using scenarios to inform climate-related decisions, describes the proposed approach to address these challenges, illustrates the approach with applications for three different types of users, and concludes with some thoughts on implications for the provision of climate information and for future scenario processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critical review of modeling practice in the field of integrated assessment of climate change and ways forward. Past efforts in integrated assessment have concentrated on developing baseline trajectories of emissions and mitigation scenario analyses. A key missing component in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) is the representation of climate impacts and adaptation responses. In this paper, we identify key biases that are introduced when climate impacts and adaptation responses are omitted from the analysis and review the state of modeling studies that attempt to capture these feedbacks. A common problem in these IAM studies is the lack of connection with empirical studies. We therefore also review the state of the empirical work on climate impacts and identify ways that this connection could be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dealing with the threat of anthropogenic climate change has been a challenge for policy makers for a long time. In recent years, the problems posed by climate change and solutions proposed to mitigate its effects have been framed by lexical 'carbon compounds', such as carbon footprint or carbon trading and by one dominant metaphor, the market metaphor. Through a detailed content analysis of industry and press coverage from 1985 to the present, this paper examines the fate of one important lexical compound in this context, namely low carbon, which can be used as an adjective or a noun. Over the last two decades this lexical compound moved across and between three discourses, the steel industry, the car industry and what one might call the climate change industry. Using insights from ecolinguistics and the sociology of expectations, the paper discusses how the lexical compound low carbon in general and the metaphor low carbon future in particular came to prominence in policy discourses, especially in the UK, and how they were used to frame expectations of a prosperous low carbon future, while sidelining deeper social and cultural reflections on climate change mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-carbon transitions are often assumed as positive phenomena, because they supposedly reduce carbon emissions, yet without vigilance, there is evidence that they can in fact create new injustices and vulnerabilities, while also failing to address pre-existing structural drivers of injustice in energy markets and the wider socio-economy. With this in mind, we examine four European low-carbon transitions from an unusual normative perspective: that of energy justice. Because a multitude of studies looks at the co-benefits of renewable energy, low-carbon mobility, or climate change mitigation, we instead ask in this paper what are the types of injustices associated with low-carbon transitions? Relatedly, in what ways do low-carbon transitions worsen social risks or vulnerabilities? Lastly, what policies might be deployed to make these transitions more just? We answer these questions by first elaborating an "energy justice" framework consisting of four distinct dimensions—distributive justice (costs and benefits), procedural justice (due process), cosmopolitan justice (global externalities), and recognition justice (vulnerable groups). We then examine four European low-carbon transitions—nuclear power in France, smart meters in Great Britain, electric vehicles in Norway, and solar energy in Germany—through this critical justice lens. In doing so, we draw from original data collected from 64 semi-structured interviews with expert participants as well as five public focus groups and the monitoring of twelve large internet forums. We document 120 distinct energy injustices across these four transitions, including 19 commonly recurring injustices. We aim to show how when low-carbon transitions unfold, deeper injustices related to equity, distribution, and fairness invariably arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reduction of carbon emissions and climate-resilience in cities are becoming important objectives to be achieved in order to ensure sustainable urban development pathways. Traditionally, cities have treated climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in isolation, without addressing their potential synergies, conflicts or trade-offs. Recent studies have shown that this can lead to inefficiencies in urban planning, conflicting policy objectives and lost opportunities for synergistic actions. However, in the last few years, we have observed that cities are increasingly moving towards addressing both mitigation and adaptation in urban planning. Cities need to pay particular attention and understand the rationale of both policy objectives whilst considering the integration of the two policies in urban planning and decision-making. This study presents an analytical framework to evaluate the level of integration of climate mitigation and adaptation in cities' local climate action plans. We tested this framework in nine selected major cities, representatives from all inhabited continents, which are frontrunners in climate action both in their regions and globally. We applied the framework in order to evaluate the level of mitigation and adaptation integration in cities' CCAPs and further explored the different types of mitigation—adaptation interrelationships that have been considered. A scoring system was also devised in order to allow comparing and ranking of the different CCAPs for their level of integration of adaptation and mitigation. The paper draws good practices to support cities in developing climate change action plans in an integrated way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plan quality has become an established framework for analyzing the contents of plans and assessing their strengths and deficiencies. The research presented in this paper contributes to academic scholarship on plan quality by evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of climate change plans in 63 of the most populous communities across Canada. Plans were evaluated using a coding protocol consisting of 46 indicators based on eight plan quality characteristics: fact base, goals, policies, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, inter-organizational coordination, participation, and plan organization and presentation. The analysis revealed three key findings that are important for policy and practice. First, Canadian municipal climate change plans prioritize climate change mitigation over adaptation. Second, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation are relatively weak aspects of municipal climate change plans in Canada. Finally, despite the importance that scholars and practitioners ascribe to stakeholder engagement, Canadian municipalities appear to have given insufficient consideration to this element of the climate change plan-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2006 the scientific community in California, in cooperation with resource managers, has been conducting periodic statewide studies about the potential impacts of climate change on natural and managed systems. This Special Issue is a compilation of revised papers that originate from the most recent assessment that concluded in 2009. As with the 2006 studies that influenced the passage of California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), these papers have informed policy formulation at the state level, helping bring climate adaptation as a complementary measure to mitigation. We provide here a brief introduction to the papers included in this Special Issue focusing on how they are coordinated and support each other. We describe the common set of downscaled climate and sea-level rise scenarios used in this assessment that came from six different global climate models (GCMs) run under two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios: B1 (low emissions) and A2 (a medium-high emissions). Recommendations for future state assessments, some of which are being implemented in an on-going new assessment that will be completed in 2012, are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on relocation, retreat, zoning, insurance, and subsidy as major dimensions of coastal hazard mitigation measures that have resurfaced as potent forces for combating coastal inundation and climate change. It reviews the issues surrounding the practice of these measures and discusses compatibilities of policies, engineering measures, and natural defense. Property rights, development interest, and distorted financial incentives pose as main barriers to coastal relocation and retreat policies in hazard-prone areas. To understand and propose coastal adaptation solutions, the paper recommends place-based studies of local coastal adaptation strategies. Place-based studies offer an in-depth knowledge of local conditions specifically regarding the level of implementation of hazard mitigation policies, and shed light on important trade-offs and synergies of various hazard policies. In addition, coupling existing hazard mitigation policies with coastal management and community management can better inform long-term and comprehensive planning of coastal adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major transformation of the global energy system is required for climate change mitigation. However, energy demand patterns and supply systems are themselves subject to climate change impacts. These impacts will variously help and hinder mitigation and adaptation efforts, so it is vital they are well understood and incorporated into models used to study energy system decarbonisation pathways. To assess the current state of understanding of this topic and identify research priorities, this paper critically reviews the literature on the impacts of climate change on the energy supply system, summarising the regional coverage of studies, trends in their results and sources of disagreement. We then examine the ways in which these impacts have been represented in integrated assessment models of the electricity or energy system.Studies tend to agree broadly on impacts for wind, solar and thermal power stations. Projections for impacts on hydropower and bioenergy resources are more varied. Key uncertainties and gaps remain due to the variation between climate projections, modelling limitations and the regional bias of research interests. Priorities for future research include the following: further regional impact studies for developing countries; studies examining impacts of the changing variability of renewable resources, extreme weather events and combined hazards; inclusion of multiple climate feedback mechanisms in IAMs, accounting for adaptation options and climate model uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the implications of recent extreme rainfall and flood events in the Sahel and the wider West African region for climate change adaptation. Are these events merely a temporal nuisance as suggested by the lingering desertification discourse or will more climatic extremes characterize the region over the next century? After reviewing incidences of severe rainfall and projected future climate variability, the paper examines local flood knowledge and decision-making, drawing upon a case study in Ghana. The data demonstrate that a variety of response strategies to flooding exist; yet, knowledge of and access to climate forecasts and other learning tools are essentially absent. So far, floods have not triggered mass displacement although cumulative environmental deterioration is likely to cause environmental refugees. The paper recommends to lay to rest the desertification narrative, consider the possibility of both floods and droughts, and mobilize local memory for anticipatory learning and practical adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical climatology is the use of documentary evidence for the reconstruction of past climate. This paper gives a brief personal view of the development of the discipline from early times to the present day. Although several papers have been published on the importance of carefully analysing and evaluating all historical sources before they are used in climate reconstructions, several of them in Climatic Change, the use of unreliable, unanalysed data still persists. This may lead to false impressions of the climate of the past. In these times, when climate data are being used for political, as well as purely scientific ends, the cause of accuracy, as championed by Climatic Change, will best be served by emphasising, yet again, the importance of using only reliable data. A number of examples are given which illustrate these points. These include discussions on wine growing in England in medieval times, the Norse settlement of Greenland, and comments on the climate history of the past thousand years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shift away from coal is at the heart of the global low-carbon transition. Can governments of coal-producing countries help facilitate this transition and benefit from it? This paper analyses the case for coal taxes as supply-side climate policy implemented by large coal exporting countries. Coal taxes can reduce global carbon dioxide emissions and benefit coal-rich countries through improved terms-of-trade and tax revenue. We employ a multi-period equilibrium model of the international steam coal market to study a tax on steam coal levied by Australia alone, by a coalition of major exporting countries, by all exporters, and by all producers. A unilateral export tax has little impact on global emissions and global coal prices as other countries compensate for reduced export volumes from the taxing country. By contrast, a tax jointly levied by a coalition of major coal exporters would significantly reduce global emissions from steam coal and leave them with a net sector level welfare gain, approximated by the sum of producer surplus, consumer surplus, and tax revenue. Production taxes consistently yield higher tax revenues and have greater effects on global coal consumption with smaller rates of carbon leakages. Questions remain whether coal taxes by major suppliers would be politically feasible, even if they could yield economic benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a model for the distribution of the Global Carbon Budget between the countries of the world is presented. The model is based on the criteria of equity while also taking into account the different historical responsibilities. The Global Carbon Budget corresponds to the quantity of carbon dioxide emissions that can still be released into the atmosphere while maintaining the increase in the average earth surface temperature below 2 °C, and it is therefore compatible with the long-term objective defined in the Paris Agreement. The results of applying the model are shown both for the 15 emitters that currently top the ranking for world emissions as well as for the other countries, which are grouped together in three main groups: Other African, Other Latin American and Caribbean, and the Rest of the World. Mitigation curves compatible with the carbon budget allocated to the different countries are presented. When comparing each emitter’s historical emissions for the period 1971-2010 with the proposed distribution for the period 2011-2050 obtained using the model, it can be seen that developed countries must face the future with a greatly reduced carbon budget, whereas developing countries can make use of a carbon budget that is higher than their cumulative historical emissions. Finally, there is a discussion about how a model with these characteristics could be useful when implementing the Paris Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses the effects of deep electricity decarbonisation and shifts in the choice of power plant cooling technologies on global electricity water demand, using a suite of five integrated assessment models. We find that electricity sector decarbonisation results in co-benefits for water resources primarily due to the phase-out of water-intensive coal-based thermoelectric power generation, although these co-benefits vary substantially across decarbonisation scenarios. Wind and solar photovoltaic power represent a win-win option for both climate and water resources, but further expansion of nuclear or fossil- and biomass-fuelled power plants with carbon capture and storage may result in increased pressures on the water environment. Further to these results, the paper provides insights on the most crucial factors of uncertainty with regards to future estimates of water demand. These estimates varied substantially across models in scenarios where the effects of decarbonisation on the electricity mix were less clear-cut. Future thermal and water efficiency improvements of power generation technologies and demand-side energy efficiency improvements were also identified to be important factors of uncertainty. We conclude that in order to ensure positive effects of decarbonisation on water resources, climate policy should be combined with technology-specific energy and/or water policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paris Agreement solidified the participation of subnational governments in global mitigation efforts, continuing the shift towards a polycentric landscape of climate action. Many scholars have suggested that the success of this emergent regime will depend, at least in part, on its ability to integrate climate action from non-state and subnational entities. Vertical alignment, the linking and coordination of policies between different levels of government, and horizontal alignment, the connection of peer cities and regions through networks of transnational climate governance, can help facilitate needed coherence. But, how do multiple actors link or interact at multiple scales and domains? In this article, we develop an analytical framework for examining different modes of vertical and horizontal alignment that subnational actors have employed to address climate change mitigation. We identify key elements in nine case studies of subnational climate action to examine the intersectionalities of alignment mechanisms that catalyze subnational climate actions. The paper concludes with a discussion about how vertical and horizontal alignment pathways overlap, intersect, and exhibit trade-offs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-benefits are seen as a key factor for overcoming the problems of collective action and extended time horizons holding back mitigation of global warming. The mechanism behind this hypothesis is that public acceptance of mitigation policies constitutes a crucial limiting factor, necessitating ancillary gains such as clean air for mitigation policy to be politically robust. However, the public's preference for local pollution mitigation and concomitant failure to appreciate the benefits of global warming mitigation is assumed rather than demonstrated. In this paper, we show, first, that people distinguish between the physical manifestations of air pollution and global warming, and second, that they see both phenomena as arising from the same causes as well as having negative impacts on humans. Specifically, using a survey experimental design with open-ended questions in an urban Chinese setting, we demonstrate that citizens relate glacier melt and sea-level rise to global warming, while linking the local phenomenon of smog almost exclusively to air pollution. At the same time, respondents link impacts on humans and vehicle/industrial pollution topics with both air pollution and global warming. These findings are relevant to decision-makers as they suggest that the public values mitigation of global warming in its own right. Our novel method may shed new light on a range of issues relating to energy, the economy, and environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How large a risk is society prepared to run with the climate system? This is a question of the utmost difficulty and it admits a variety of perspectives. In this paper we draw an analogy with the management and regulation of insurance companies, which are required to hold capital against the risk of their own financial ruin. Accordingly, we suggest that discussions about how much to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases could be framed in terms of managing the risk of 'climate ruin'. This shifts the focus towards deciding upon an acceptable risk of the very worst-case scenario, and away from how 'avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system' has come to be framed politically. Moreover it leads to the conclusion that, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions today and in the future, the world is running a higher risk with the climate system than insurance companies run with their own solvency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing impacts of climate change, many people in Bangladesh are being forced to move their homes and/or change their jobs. Unfortunately, little is known about how people jointly decide on their jobs and residential location changes in association with the influence of climate change disasters. The main purpose of this paper is to examine how residents in coastal and inland areas may change their jobs and/or residential location under different scenarios of potential impacts of floods and cyclones by comparing socioeconomic and experiential factors. A stated preference survey was conducted in 14 coastal and inland areas of Bangladesh. As a result, 788 respondents provided 3152 valid samples (1948 from coastal areas and 1204 from inland areas). Analysis results based on a cross-nested logit model indicate that flood has no obvious impact on choices of inland people, and flood and cyclone have limited effects on people's choices in coastal areas, except for cyclone intensity. Income is not significant in the decisions of the coastal people, but it does matter to the inland people. The inland people are more likely to depend on government help during disasters. However, the coastal people's decisions are driven by different factors in a complicated way. The inland people prefer changing their jobs to changing their residential locations, but the coastal people are slightly more aggressive in deciding to change their residential location in response to flood. Structural differences of choice behaviors under flood and cyclone are also revealed. Finally, policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing countries face substantial vulnerabilities to the current and projected health risks of climate change. The paper explores some key elements for health care system preparedness and adaptation planning for heatwaves, flooding and cyclones, illustrating the constraints faced in the Indian context, by analyzing data from a field study. The barriers are not insurmountable and many opportunities exist in building climate resilient infrastructure, improving intersectoral organization, resource planning, and framing health policies and programmes that mainstream climate risks. This is the first comprehensive attempt to collect and analyse data on morbidity, mortality, and extreme events, supported by intensive primary survey based data on the preparedness of the health care system to manage risks in India. Recognizing the importance of specific climatic events such as heatwaves, systematic documentation and assessment of risks with associated morbidity and mortality, and collaboration across relevant departments are instrumental in framing an appropriate adaptation plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public fear over environmental and health impacts of CO storage, or over potential leakage of CO from geological reservoirs, is among the reasons why over the past decade CCS has not yet been deployed on a scale large enough so as to meaningfully contribute to mitigate climate change. Storage of CO under the seabed moves this climate mitigation option away from inhabited areas and could thereby take away some of the opposition towards this technology. Given that in the event of CO leakage through the overburden in the case of sub-seabed CCS, the ocean could function as buffer for receiving this greenhouse gas, instead of it directly being emitted into the atmosphere, offshore CCS could also address concerns over the climatic impacts of CO seepage. We point out that recent geological studies provide evidence that to date CO has been safely stored under the seabed. Leakage for individual offshore CCS operations could thus be unlikely from a technical point of view, if storage sites are well chosen, well managed and well monitored. But we argue that on a global longterm scale, for an ensemble of thousands or millions of storage sites, leakage of CO could take place in certain cases and/or countries for e.g. economic, institutional, legal or safety-cultural reasons. In this paper we investigate what the impact could be in terms of temperature increase and ocean acidification if leakage occurs at a global level, and address the question what the relative roles could be of on- and offshore CCS if mankind desires to divert the damages resulting from climate change. For this purpose, we constructed a top-down energy-environment-economy model, with which we performed a probabilistic Monte-Carlo cost-benefit analysis of climate change mitigation with on- and offshore CCS as specific CO abatement options. One of our main conclusions is that, even under conditions with non-zero (permille/year) leakage for CCS activity globally, both onshore and offshore CCS should probably - on economic grounds at least - still account for anywhere between 20 % and 80 % of all future CO abatement efforts under a broad range of CCS cost assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing scientific and political interest in the links between urbanization and human vulnerability to climate change. However, our literature review shows that the existing scholarship has largely focused on exposure resulting from urbanization, while other dimensions of urban vulnerability such as sensitivity or capacity to cope and adapt have been insufficiently represented or understood. Furthermore, most attention has been given to the negative effects of urbanization, while opportunities for vulnerability reduction have been underemphasized. Therefore, this paper takes a broader perspective to explore key relationships between urbanization, economic development and socio-economic vulnerability on a global scale. Using data with national resolution, we applied a clustering approach to identify ten country groups sharing similar patterns of urbanization and national income. We then explored associations between these country groups and selected indicators of exposure, sensitivity, coping capacity, and adaptive capacity drawing upon data from the World Risk Index. Our findings suggest that countries with rapid urbanization and economic transformation face significant challenges with respect to sensitivity and the lack of capacities. Additionally, these challenges tend to be greater the lower the income of the respective country. Yet, at the same time, urbanization can be a main driver for enhancing response capacity. The analysis suggests that urbanization can, hence, have nuanced effects on overall vulnerability. We argue that climate change science needs to be more balanced in terms of acknowledging and examining the different possible pathways of vulnerability effects related to urbanization. The country group analysis can provide a first entry point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has recently been highlighted that the economic value of climate change mitigation depends sensitively on the slim possibility of extreme warming. This insight has been obtained through a focus on the fat upper tail of the climate sensitivity probability distribution. However, while climate sensitivity is undoubtedly important, what ultimately matters is transient temperature change. A focus on transient temperature change stresses the interplay of climate sensitivity with other physical uncertainties, notably effective heat capacity. In this paper we present a conceptual analysis of the physical uncertainties in economic models of climate mitigation, leading to an empirical application of the DICE model, which investigates the interaction of uncertainty in climate sensitivity and the effective heat capacity. We expand on previous results exploring the sensitivity of economic evaluations to the tail of the climate sensitivity distribution alone, and demonstrate that uncertainty about the system's effective heat capacity also plays a very important role. We go on to discuss complementary avenues of economic and scientific research that may help provide a better combined understanding of the physical and economic processes associated with a rapidly warming world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerating the international use of climate mitigation technologies is key if efforts to curb climate change are to succeed, especially in developing countries, where weak domestic technological innovation systems constrain the uptake of climate change mitigation technologies. Several intergovernmental agencies have set up specific programmes to support the diffusion of climate mitigation technologies. Using a simplified technological innovation system-based framework, this paper aims to systematically review these programmes, with the dual aim of assessing their collective success in promoting technological innovation, and identifying opportunities for the newly formed UNFCCC Technology Mechanism. We conclude that, while all programmes reviewed have promoted technology transfer, they have given limited attention to innovation capabilities with users, government and universities. Functions that could be further developed include knowledge development, legitimation and market formation. These could be focal areas for the UNFCCC Technology Mechanism. We recommend that, in future programmes, part of the funding is dedicated to programmes doing research and development as well as capability development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strong focus in climate negotiations on the transfer and diffusion of technologies as a means to mitigate and adapt to climate change has entailed various programs to promote the transfer and diffusion of climate technologies, including the Technology Needs Assessment project (TNA). Despite the technology focus in the project, practice shows that the questions of what a technology is and how the key concepts of technology transfer and diffusion should be understood and operationalized remain diffuse. This paper explores the reasons for this by analysing the experience of the TNA project in using a framework for categorizing technologies according to the types of markets and non-markets in which they are diffused. While the framework has contributed to a higher degree of 'market literacy' among national stakeholders, four challenges in categorizing technologies have been identified: i) technologies comprising varying degrees of software, orgware and hardware; ii) technologies appearing as whole systems of production; iii) technologies covering different application markets; and iv) technologies situated on a continuum between research, development and diffusion. These challenges are proxies for the challenges in formulating plans of actions for technologies. If, due to a lack of conceptual clarity, it is not clear to countries whether the diffusion of a specific technology should be implemented by a project or by means of an enabling framework, the measures proposed in the action plans may be misleading. We therefore call for an increased focus on clarifying the technology concept in the training for the next generation of TNAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and applies methods to quantify and monetize projected impacts on terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage and areas burned by wildfires in the contiguous United States under scenarios with and without global greenhouse gas mitigation. The MC1 dynamic global vegetation model is used to develop physical impact projections using three climate models that project a range of future conditions. We also investigate the sensitivity of future climates to different initial conditions of the climate model. Our analysis reveals that mitigation, where global radiative forcing is stabilized at 3.7 W/m in 2100, would consistently reduce areas burned from 2001 to 2100 by tens of millions of hectares. Monetized, these impacts are equivalent to potentially avoiding billions of dollars (discounted) in wildfire response costs. Impacts to terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage are less uniform, but changes are on the order of billions of tons over this time period. The equivalent social value of these changes in carbon storage ranges from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars (discounted). The magnitude of these results highlights their importance when evaluating climate policy options. However, our results also show national outcomes are driven by a few regions and results are not uniform across regions, time periods, or models. Differences in the results based on the modeling approach and across initializing conditions also raise important questions about how variability in projected climates is accounted for, especially when considering impacts where extreme or threshold conditions are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Platform for Regional Integrated Modeling and Analysis (PRIMA) is an innovative modeling system developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to simulate interactions among natural and human systems at scales relevant to regional decision making. PRIMA brings together state-of-the-art models of regional climate, hydrology, agriculture and land use, socioeconomics, and energy systems using a flexible coupling approach. Stakeholder decision support needs underpin the application of the platform to regional issues, and an uncertainty characterization process is used to identify robust decisions. The platform can be customized to inform a variety of complex questions, such as how a policy in one sector might affect the ability to meet climate mitigation targets or adaptation goals in another sector. Current numerical experiments focus on the eastern United States, but the framework is designed to be regionally flexible. This paper provides a high-level overview of PRIMA's functional capabilities and describes some key challenges and opportunities associated with integrated regional modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cap-and-trade, a regulatory instrument widely used to constrain greenhouse gas and other pollution, has recently been criticized for producing only small amounts of intended emission reductions. This paper looks at the empirical record of cap-and-trade since the beginning in 1995, and shows that emission targets have almost always been easier and cheaper to reach than expected. The five main reasons are generous targets, changes in economic output, fuel price movements, innovation, and complementary emission reduction policies. Overall, this failure to predict mitigation potentials may relate to a psychological 'end of history bias,' whereby policymakers, industry, and analysts think that less change will happen in the future than has demonstrably happened in the past. Consequently, more abatement is possible and at lower costs than generally thought, rendering the prices of emission permits hard to predict. For climate research, the findings imply that emission scenarios assuming ever-increasing pollution prices may benefit from integrating recent experience with cap-and-trade regulations. In policy terms, mechanisms such as floor prices need to be considered to guarantee emission reductions under uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviewing the existing studies of public perception and drawing analogies from other risk technologies, this paper explores the public positions on research and implementation of geoengineering as a means to combat climate change. Existing studies on geoengineering perceptions show low levels of awareness and a lack of knowledge. Hence, existing attitudes on geoengineering can be judged instable and stimulus-dependent. When judged in isolation, at least one third favors the use of geoengineering technologies preferring CDR over SRM technologies; when judged in comparison to other climate mitigation options, approval rates lose considerably support. Moreover, people seem to cautiously support research but oppose deployment while attitude formation depends on personal values and belief systems. The results of the empirical studies were fed into a Delphi workshop with experts for reflecting on the future development of public opinion and for designing a communication and public involvement process that corresponds to the empirical insights gained from the perception studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning about the causes and consequences of climate change can be an important avenue for supporting mitigation policy and efficient adaptation. This paper uses internet search activity data, a distinctly revealed preference approach, to examine if local weather fluctuations cause people to seek information about climate change. The results suggest that weather fluctuations do have an effect on climate change related search behavior, however not always in ways that are consistent with the projected impacts of climate change. While search activity increases with extreme heat in summer and extended periods of no rainfall and declines in extreme cold in winter, search activity also increases with colder winter and spring average temperatures. Some of the surprising results are magnified when heterogeneity by political ideology and educational attainment in responsiveness is modeled, which could suggest that different people have different perceptions about what types of weather define climate change or that climate science deniers seek information through Google. However, the results also indicate that for all groups in the political and educational spectrum, there exist weather events consistent with the predicted impacts of climate change that elicit increased information seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific community is now developing a new set of scenarios, referred to as Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) that will be contrasted along two axes: challenges to mitigation, and challenges to adaptation. This paper proposes a methodology to develop SSPs with a 'backwards' approach based on (i) an a priori identification of potential drivers of mitigation and adaptation challenges; (ii) a modelling exercise to transform these drivers into a large set of scenarios; (iii) an a posteriori selection of a few SSPs among these scenarios using statistical cluster-finding algorithms. This backwards approach could help inform the development of SSPs to ensure the storylines focus on the driving forces most relevant to distinguishing between the SSPs. In this illustrative analysis, we find that energy sobriety, equity and convergence prove most important towards explaining future difference in challenges to adaptation and mitigation. The results also demonstrate the difficulty in finding explanatory drivers for a middle scenario (SSP2). We argue that methodologies such as that used here are useful for broad questions such as the definition of SSPs, and could also be applied to any specific decisions faced by decision-makers in the field of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the extent to which efforts to improve productivity of smallholder agriculture through a new 'Green Revolution' in Sub Saharan Africa are likely to enhance the capacity of smallholder farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Drawing on empirical material from Malawi and Kenya, the paper finds more conflicts than synergies between the pursuit of higher productivity through the promotion of hybrid maize adoption and crop diversification as a strategy for climate change adaptation. This is despite an oft-assumed causal link between escape from the 'low maize productivity trap' and progression towards crop diversification as an adaptive strategy. In both countries, a convergence of interests between governments, donors and seed companies, combined with a historical preference for, and dependence on maize as the primary staple, has led to a narrowing of options for smallholder farmers, undermining the development of adaptive capacities in the longer term. This dynamic is linked to the conflation of market-based variety of agricultural technologies, as viewed 'from the top down', with diversity-in-context, as represented by site-specific and locally derived and adapted technologies and institutions that can only be developed 'from the bottom up'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02951-8 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combined influences of a change in climate patterns and the increased concentration of property and economic activity in hazard-prone areas has the potential of restricting the availability and affordability of insurance. This paper evaluates the premiums that private insurers are likely to charge and their ability to cover residential losses against hurricane risk in Florida as a function of (a) recent projections on future hurricane activity in 2020 and 2040; (b) insurance market conditions (i.e., soft or hard market); (c) the availability of reinsurance; and (d) the adoption of adaptation measures (i.e., implementation of physical risk reduction measures to reduce wind damage to the structure and buildings). We find that uncertainties in climate projections translate into a divergent picture for insurance in Florida. Under dynamic climate models, the total price of insurance for Florida (assuming constant exposure) could increase significantly by 2040, from $12.9 billion (in 1990) to $14.2 billion, under hard market conditions. Under lower bound projections, premiums could decline to $9.4 billion by 2040. Taking a broader range of climate change scenarios, including several statistical ones, prices could be between $4.7 and $32.1 billion by 2040. The upper end of this range suggests that insurance could be unaffordable for many people in Florida. The adoption of most recent building codes for all residences in the state could reduce by nearly half the expected price of insurance so that even under high climate change scenarios, insurance premiums would be lower than under the 1990 baseline climate scenario. Under a full adaptation scenario, if insurers can obtain reinsurance, they will be able to cover 100 % of the loss if they allocated 10 % of their surplus to cover a 100-year return hurricane, and 63 % and 55 % of losses from a 250-year hurricane in 2020 and 2040. Property-level adaptation and the maintenance of strong and competitive reinsurance markets will thus be essential to maintain the affordability and availability of insurance in the new era of catastrophe risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A favoured method of assimilating information from state-of-the-art climate models into integrated assessment models of climate impacts is to use the transient climate response (TCR) of the climate models as an input, sometimes accompanied by a pattern matching approach to provide spatial information. More recent approaches to the problem use TCR with another independent piece of climate model output: the land-sea surface warming ratio ( φ). In this paper we show why the use of φ in addition to TCR has such utility. Multiple linear regressions of surface temperature change onto TCR and φ in 22 climate models from the CMIP3 multi-model database show that the inclusion of φ explains a much greater fraction of the inter-model variance than using TCR alone. The improvement is particularly pronounced in North America and Eurasia in the boreal summer season, and in the Amazon all year round. The use of φ as the second metric is beneficial for three reasons: firstly it is uncorrelated with TCR in state-of-the-art climate models and can therefore be considered as an independent metric; secondly, because of its projected time-invariance, the magnitude of φ is better constrained than TCR in the immediate future; thirdly, the use of two variables is much simpler than approaches such as pattern scaling from climate models. Finally we show how using the latest estimates of φ from climate models with a mean value of 1.6-as opposed to previously reported values of 1.4-can significantly increase the mean time-integrated discounted damage projections in a state-of-the-art integrated assessment model by about 15 %. When compared to damages calculated without the inclusion of the land-sea warming ratio, this figure rises to 65 %, equivalent to almost 200 trillion dollars over 200 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effects of mitigation and adaptation on coastal flood impacts. We focus on a scenario that stabilizes concentrations at 450 ppm-CO-eq leading to 42 cm of global mean sea-level rise in 1995-2100 (GMSLR) and an unmitigated one leading to 63 cm of GMSLR. We also consider sensitivity scenarios reflecting increased tropical cyclone activity and a GMSLR of 126 cm. The only adaptation considered is upgrading and maintaining dikes. Under the unmitigated scenario and without adaptation, the number of people flooded reaches 168 million per year in 2100. Mitigation reduces this number by factor 1.4, adaptation by factor 461 and both options together by factor 540. The global annual flood cost (including dike upgrade cost, maintenance cost and residual damage cost) reaches US$ 210 billion per year in 2100 under the unmitigated scenario without adaptation. Mitigation reduces this number by factor 1.3, adaptation by factor 5.2 and both options together by factor 7.8. When assuming adaptation, the global annual flood cost relative to GDP falls throughout the century from about 0.06 % to 0.01-0.03 % under all scenarios including the sensitivity ones. From this perspective, adaptation to coastal flood impacts is meaningful to be widely applied irrespective of the level of mitigation. From the perspective of a some less-wealthy and small island countries, however, annual flood cost can amount to several percent of national GDP and mitigation can lower these costs significantly. We conclude that adaptation and mitigation are complimentary policies in coastal areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The small but stubbornly unyielding possibility of a very large long-term response of global temperature to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide can be termed the fat tail of high climate sensitivity. Recent economic analyses suggest that the fat tail should dominate a rational policy strategy if the damages associated with such high temperatures are large enough. The conclusions of such analyses, however, depend on how economic growth, temperature changes, and climate damages unfold and interact over time. In this paper we focus on the role of two robust physical properties of the climate system: the enormous thermal inertia of the ocean, and the long timescales associated with high climate sensitivity. Economic models that include a climate component, and particularly those that focus on the tails of the probability distributions, should properly represent the physics of this slow response to high climate sensitivity, including the correlated uncertainty between present forcing and climate sensitivity, and the global energetics of the present climate state. If climate sensitivity in fact proves to be high, these considerations prevent the high temperatures in the fat tail from being reached for many centuries. A failure to include these factors risks distorting the resulting economic analyses. For example, we conclude that fat-tail considerations will not strongly influence economic analyses when these analyses follow the common-albeit controversial-practices of assigning large damages only to outcomes with very high temperature changes and of assuming a significant baseline level of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing appropriate climate change adaptations to protect biodiversity requires taking into account the dynamics of agro-ecological and socio-economic change. A framework for approaching this problem was proposed, but not applied in detail, as part of a major biodiversity and climate change report prepared in Australia. This paper describes the first trial application of the method. It was applied across Vietnam as the Government is interested in identifying adaptation options and detailed data are readily available for its 65 provinces. The process involves identifying ecoregions and collating information for each region based on the current conditions and trends in biodiversity, population, income and agricultural production. Climate change scenarios are identified for each region, together with governance options. Educational needs and key adaptation actions are then identified for each region taking into account the agro-ecological and socio-economic input data. It is concluded that the framework could easily be applied in other countries and should assist the development of strategic adaptation options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]