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In 2019, New Zealand passed “The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act” which included establishing the Climate Change Commission, a Crown entity to provide independent advice to Government to help Aotearoa transition to a climate-resilient and low emissions future. The Climate Change Commission’s first draft advice was released in January 2021 and, amongst other things, highlighted the opportunity to transition away from fossil fuels for domestic space and water heating. Compared to natural gas or LPG the use of wood burners for domestic heating, while a carbon neutral heating option, has the disadvantage of contributing to the deterioration of local air quality. In order to improve winter air quality, Environment Canterbury (ECan) has introduced a pseudo real-life wood burner authorisation test method known as Canterbury Method One (CM1). Appliances passing the CM1 test method qualify as Ultra-low Emission Burners (ULEBs) and are the only wood burning appliances allowed to be installed into houses within clean air zones in Canterbury. This paper provides updated information on the numbers and design trends of ULEBs authorised to date, and comments on how manufacturers have achieved the ULEB performance limits. The ongoing improvement of ULEBs provides the opportunity to transition away from fossil fuels toward a carbon neutral fuel without generating adverse air pollution impacts. This paper provides a summary of the journey to-date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether and under what conditions a binding climate treaty can affect our individual moral obligations. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has argued that our sole moral obligation regarding climate change is to develop something like a binding treaty. On such an understanding, a binding agreement of the right type would absolve individuals of any further moral responsibilities to reduce carbon emissions. However, while something like this may be true in ideal circumstances of strict compliance, this paper argues that this is not the case in nonideal circumstances of partial compliance. The paper will proceed, first, by outlining the distinction between constitutive and nonconstitutive rules, or practice and summary rules, in Rawlsian terminology. I will then suggest that climate treaties, under the right circumstances, could fulfill the role of a practice with constitutive rules. If this is right, then the binding or nonbinding nature of a treaty (as well as the content of the treaty itself) could make it such that, under ideal circumstances, individuals have no obligation to reduce their carbon output beyond the requirements of the treaty. However, in the nonideal conditions of the actual world, the absence of full compliance to such institutions results in individual actions being subject to strict moral obligations. Consequently, it is in an individual's interest to enact such a binding treaty, at least insofar as they are at least somewhat concerned with fulfilling their moral obligations and would like to reduce the burdens of doing so. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e459. doi: 10.1002/wcc.459 For further resources related to this article, please visit the . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated how ozone pollution and climate change/variability have interactively affected net primary productivity (NPP) and net carbon exchange (NCE) across China's forest ecosystem in the past half century. Continental China. Using the dynamic land ecosystem model (DLEM) in conjunction with 10-km-resolution gridded historical data sets (tropospheric O concentrations, climate variability/change, and other environmental factors such as land-cover/land-use change (LCLUC), increasing CO and nitrogen deposition), we conducted nine simulation experiments to: (1) investigate the temporo-spatial patterns of NPP and NCE in China's forest ecosystems from 1961-2005; and (2) quantify the effects of tropospheric O pollution alone or in combination with climate variability and other environmental stresses on forests' NPP and NCE. China's forests acted as a carbon sink during 1961-2005 as a result of the combined effects of O, climate, CO, nitrogen deposition and LCLUC. However, simulated results indicated that elevated O caused a 7.7% decrease in national carbon storage, with O-induced reductions in NCE (Pg C year) ranging from 0.4-43.1% among different forest types. Sensitivity experiments showed that climate change was the dominant factor in controlling changes in temporo-spatial patterns of annual NPP. The combined negative effects of O pollution and climate change on NPP and NCE could be largely offset by the positive fertilization effects of nitrogen deposition and CO. In the future, tropospheric O should be taken into account in order to fully understand the variations of carbon sequestration capacity of forests and assess the vulnerability of forest ecosystems to climate change and air pollution. Reducing air pollution in China is likely to increase the resilience of forests to climate change. This paper offers the first estimate of how prevention of air pollution can help to increase forest productivity and carbon sequestration in China's forested ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between climate change awareness and household behavior by testing whether Al Gore''s documentary An Inconvenient Truth caused an increase in the purchase of voluntary carbon offsets. I find that in the two months following the film''s release, zip codes within a 10-mile radius of a zip code where the film was shown experienced a 50 percent relative increase in the purchase of voluntary carbon offsets. During other times, offset purchasing patterns for zip codes inside the 10-mile radius were similar to the patterns of zip codes outside the 10-mile radius. There is, however, little evidence that individuals who purchased an offset due to the film purchased them again a year later. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The historic Paris Agreement calls for limiting global temperature rise to "well below 2 °C." Because of uncertainties in emission scenarios, climate, and carbon cycle feedback, we interpret the Paris Agreement in terms of three climate risk categories and bring in considerations of low-probability (5%) highimpact (LPHI) warming in addition to the central (~50% probability) value. The current risk category of dangerous warming is extended to more categories, which are defined by us here as follows: >1.5 °C as dangerous; >3 °C as catastrophic; and >5 °C as unknown, implying beyond catastrophic, including existential threats. With unchecked emissions, the central warming can reach the dangerous level within three decades, with the LPHI warming becoming catastrophic by 2050. We outline a threelever strategy to limit the central warming below the dangerous level and the LPHI below the catastrophic level, both in the near term (<2050) and in the long term (2100): the carbon neutral (CN) lever to achieve zero net emissions of CO2, the super pollutant (SP) lever to mitigate short-lived climate pollutants, and the carbon extraction and sequestration (CES) lever to thin the atmospheric CO2 blanket. Pulling on both CN and SP levers and bending the emissions curve by 2020 can keep the central warming below dangerous levels. To limit the LPHI warming below dangerous levels, the CES lever must be pulled as well to extract as much as 1 trillion tons of CO2 before 2100 to both limit the preindustrial to 2100 cumulative net CO2 emissions to 2.2 trillion tons and bend the warming curve to a cooling trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global biomass potentials are considerable but unequally distributed over the world. Countries with Kyoto targets could import biomass to substitute for fossil fuels or invest in bio-energy projects in the country of biomass origin and buy the credits (Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI)). This study analyzes which of those options is optimal for transportation fuels and looks for the key variables that influence the result. In two case studies (Mozambique and Brazil), the two trading systems are compared for the amount of credits generated, land-use and associated costs. We found costs of 17–30 euro per ton of carbon for the Brazilian case and economic benefits of 11 to 60 euros per ton of carbon avoided in the Mozambique case. The impact of carbon changes related to direct land-use changes was found to be very significant (both positive and negative) and can currently only be included in emission credit trading, which can largely influence the results. In order to avoid indirect land-use changes (leakage) and consequent GHG emissions, it is crucial that bioenergy crop production is done in balance with improvements of management of agriculture and livestock management. Whatever trading option is economically most attractive depends mainly on the emission baseline in the exporting (emission credit trading) or importing (physical trading) country since both bio- and fossil fuel prices are world market prices in large scale trading systems where transportation costs are low. Physical trading could be preferential since besides the GHG reduction one could also benefit from the energy. It could also generate considerable income sources for exporting countries. This study could contribute to the development of a methodology to deal with bio fuels for transport, in Emission Trading (ET), CDM and the certification of traded bio fuels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three Kyoto flexible mechanisms-emissions trading, the clean development mechanism (CDM), and Joint Implementation (JI)-have always been controversial. Proponents saw the mechanisms as clever tools to ensure environmental outcomes were achieved at least cost. Reducing the costs of compliance, they argued, would make righter environmental targets possible, and certainly more politically feasible. Detractors have argued that the flexible mechanisms commoditize Earth's atmosphere in a manner that will allow dubious projects and the exchange of ‘hot air’ to substitute for serious engagement on climate change. This chapter reviews the Kyoto flexible mechanisms, which will become fully operative during the period 2008 to 2012. The review assesses their progress and success to date, examines the problems that have emerged, and considers suggestions for future developments in climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]