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The saltmarsh carbon storage potential is a key topic in blue carbon research and climate policy. Ecosystem service valuations provide valuable information to policymakers for habitat management and climate change mitigation policies. Yet, only few saltmarsh valuation studies have included the carbon storage service in the UK context. This paper investigates how the public values saltmarsh ecosystem services, focussing on the carbon storage service. We used a choice experiment to elicit the willingness to pay (WTP) of a representative sample of the Scottish public to support interventions that would maintain or improve the provision of these services. Furthermore, we tested the effect of information on individuals' preferences and WTP with a split sample approach where one group received a treatment in the form of additional information. We found that (i) all attributes had a significant influence on individuals' choices; (ii) both groups had, on average, a positive marginal WTP for all presented ecosystem services; (iii) the treated sample had, on average, no significantly different marginal WTP for carbon storage than the control group. This paper adds to the limited literature on the saltmarsh carbon storage ecosystem service and demonstrates a developed nation's public's openness to nature-based climate change mitigation solutions. [Display omitted] • The Scottish public on average prefers saltmarsh management over the status quo. • Providing additional information reduced heterogeneity in WTP for carbon storage. • Most respondents preferred an improvement of all saltmarsh ecosystem services. • Therefore management should focus on both climate change mitigation and adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically explores the linkage between the economic opportunities and climate adaptation and other antecedents in cities. Our dependent variable includes the economic opportunities identified by the cities; our independent variables are the adaptation plans, adaptation actions, climate change risks, incentive types, and incentivized stakeholders. To explore the effects of climate change risks, adaptation plans, adaptation actions, incentive types, and incentivized stakeholders, we used polychoric factor analysis and logistic regression analysis. The results show that a city's climate change adaptation plan and GDP have significant positive relationships with the economic opportunities present in the cities. Meanwhile, climate change risks also have a positive relationship with economic opportunities. Furthermore, economic opportunities present in cities have a negative relationship with three variables: one group of climate actions and two groups of stakeholders. This paper also further discusses the possible effects of incentives in the case of climate change in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate policy is often described by economists as an intertemporal consumption trade-off: consume all you want today and face climate damages in the future, or sacrifice consumption today to implement costly climate policies that will bring future benefits through avoided climate damages. If one assumes enduring technological progress, a society that is more averse to intertemporal inequalities should postpone climate policies and let future, richer generations pay more. Growing evidence however suggests that the trade-off is more complex: abrupt, extreme, irreversible changes to the climate may cause discontinuities to socio-economic systems, possibly leading to a sharp decline of human population and consumption per capita. In this paper, we show that, when accounting for a very small risk of catastrophic climate change, it is optimal to pursue stringent climate policies to postpone the catastrophe. Our results conform with the well-known conclusion that tight carbon budgets are preferred when aversion towards inequalities between generations is low. However, by contrast with previous studies, we show that stringent policies are also optimal when inequality aversion is high. The non-monotonicity of the influence of inequality aversion is due to the fact that, for a given investment in abatement, a higher inequality aversion gives a smaller weight to avoided future non-catastrophic damages, but a larger weight to the catastrophic outcome. We also explore the role of population ethics, and show that the size of the optimal carbon budget decreases with the social preference for large populations, although this parameter plays almost no role at extreme levels of inequality aversion. Our result demonstrates that views from opposite sides of the ethical spectrum in terms of inequality aversion converge in terms of climate policy recommendations, warranting immediate climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rational choice model of voluntary public good provision predicts that an individual's contribution to climate change mitigation responds negatively to larger contributions by others whereas social norm theory maintains that one's own contribution is positively related to that of others. This paper tests the competing hypotheses empirically using representative data for about 30,000 individuals from 23 European countries. The paper finds that, up to a threshold percentage of others perceived to engage in mitigation, individuals' willingness to engage in mitigation themselves is lower the more other individuals are perceived to engage in such behavior, whereas the relationship is positive when the threshold is passed. Since the actual percentage of others perceived to engage in mitigation is lower than the estimated threshold (30 to 56%) in a number of countries, marginal increases in the percentage of others perceived to behave in a climate-friendly way may backfire by enhancing free-rider behavior. For the social norm to take grip, policy-induced non-marginal increases of perceptions may be required to shift the system past the tipping point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ambitious goals to limit global warming can only be reached with a broad acceptance and participation of the general public. This paper relies on surveys among citizens in China, Germany and the U.S. and investigates the determinants of the acceptance of national and international adaptation and mitigation efforts. The empirical findings indicate that specific beliefs and environmental awareness are important drivers in all three countries, while political attitudes and socio-economic characteristics are the main sources of cross-country heterogeneity. The study thereby points at important starting points and target groups for raising the acceptance of national and international climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes a new model, Climate and Regional Economics of Development (CRED), which is designed to analyze the economics of climate and development choices. Its principal innovations are the treatment of global equity, calculation of the optimum interregional flows of resources, and use of McKinsey marginal abatement cost curves to project the cost of mitigation. The unconstrained, optimal climate policy in CRED involves very large capital flows from high-income to developing countries, to an extent that might be considered politically unrealistic. Under more realistic constraints, climate outcomes are generally worse; climate stabilization requires either moderate capital flows to developing countries, or a very low discount rate. In CRED, more equitable scenarios have better climate outcomes; the challenge of climate policy is to persuade high-income countries to accept the need for both international equity and climate protection. The paper ends with an agenda for further model development. A technical appendix describes the model relationships and parameters in greater detail. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Activists and scholars increasingly blame neoliberalism for the failure to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but there is insufficient research that investigates the theoretical link between neoliberalism and climate paralysis. This paper seeks to fill that gap by presenting a coherent account of how neoliberal ideology has constrained policies to address climate change in the United States. As motivation, we first present evidence suggesting more neoliberal countries perform worse in addressing climate change. We then analyze how three tenets of neoliberal ideology—to decentralize democracy, defund public investment, and deregulate the economy—have stymied climate action in the United States. Finally, we discuss the Green New Deal as a decisively anti-neoliberal framework that seeks to wield the power of the federal government to pursue large-scale public investments and binding climate regulations for rapid decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the interplay between international trade, regional adaptation to climate change and financial transfers for funding adaptation. It combines insights from a theoretical model of North-to-South transfers with the findings of a calibrated dynamic multi-region multi-sector computable general equilibrium model that takes into account the impacts of climate change and the adaptation to it. Assessing the effects of adaptation funding indicates that funding of adaptation in developing regions can be Pareto-improving. Not only will developing regions, which do not own sufficient resources for adapting optimally, profit from receiving adaptation funding. Terms-of-trade improvements in the high and middle income donor countries can dominate transfer costs and hence lead to a net-welfare gain in almost any developed region except North America. As such our consideration adds a new argument for financially supporting adaptation in the developing world besides the well-known ones such as fairness and incentives for participation in a global climate treaty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergovernmental organisations have developed into important sites of normative contestation where increasingly non-state actors participate. A common puzzle is however whether engaged non-state actors represent already strong and established interests or if they also bring forth marginalised voices. This concern raises the pertinent question of what views non-state actors actually represent and if this adds to the perspectives voiced by state actors. This paper examines the views held and voiced by state and a range of non-state participants at the United Nation's climate change conferences. Specifically, questions on what types of climate change solutions are favoured and to what extent these solutions are discussed are addressed. Through statistical analyses of questionnaire data and a content analysis of abstracts of side-events to the conferences, we find that while non-state actors help in broadening the discursive space, some perspectives remain marginalised. We conclude that while non-state actors represent a pluralising force, greater non-state actor participation in intergovernmental organisations is on its own unlikely to lead to democratic global governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the epistemological basis for economic prognostications of climate change activists arising from, arguably, the most important scientific problem confronting modern society: the facts, beliefs and theories associated with the measurement, causes, impact and mitigation of climate change. This facilitates identification of the role that rhetoric plays in activist claims associated with the economics of global warming and climate change. Following a rudimentary discussion of ancient views on rhetoric, the connection of rhetoric with anti-foundational epistemology and language is identified. Criteria for determining when language is rhetorical are specified. Exploiting this philosophical background, mitigation proposals of climate change activists derived from models of climate change economics are critiqued. • Clarifies the role of rhetoric in climate change mitigation proposals. • Provides background on the historical development of rhetoric that is absent for available literature in ecological economics. • Critiques prognostications of economic models for climate change mitigation proposals. • Explores the connection between rhetoric, epistemology and language in the context of climate change activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic theory has invoked moral motivation as an explanation for the voluntary provision of public goods but is vague with regard to the specific moral concerns involved. Focusing on climate change as a case study, this paper relates morally-motivated public good provision to the six moral foundations (MFs) identified by moral psychologists: Care, Fairness and Liberty (individual-focused), and Loyalty, Authority and Sanctity (group-focused). Using data from the European Social Surveys it is found that using the MFs in addition to standard explanatory variables improves the explanation of climate-friendly behaviors and endorsement of climate-friendly regulations. While the Fairness and Care foundations are strong and robust predictors of the dependent variables, the Loyalty foundation contributes positively only when neglecting the nature of climate change mitigation as a global public good. More generally, in contrast to the individual-focused MFs (that apply to all individuals), the group-focused MFs are of little direct relevance to climate change mitigation – consistent with the benefit from mitigation extending beyond the in-group (family, neighborhood, region, or nation) to which these MFs refer. Group-focused MFs are only of indirect relevance as their endorsement fosters general environmental concern. • Voluntary public good provision is frequently explained by moral motivation, • Moral psychologists have identified six fundamental moral concerns potentially relevant to public good provision. • Using the six moral foundations (MFs) improves the explanation of climate-friendly behaviors. • Individual-focused (universalist) MFs, not group-focused MFs, are positively related to climate-friendly behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]