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What drives the development of climate policy? Brazil, China, and India have all changed their climate policies since 2000, and single-case analyses of climate policymaking have found that all three countries have had climate coalitions working to promote climate policies. To what extent have such advocacy coalitions been able to influence national policies for climate-change mitigation, and what can explain this? Employing a new approach that combines the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) with insights from comparative environmental politics and the literature on policy windows, this paper identifies why external parameters like political economy and institutional structures are crucial for explaining the climate advocacy coalitions’ ability to seize policy windows and influence policy development. We find that the coalitions adjust their policy strategies to the influence-opportunity structures in each political context—resulting in confrontation in Brazil, cooperation in China, and a complementary role in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper looks at the human health impacts from urban air pollution in India. Such pollution is especially harmful to poor people, so the co-benefits from global climate change policies in terms of reduced local air pollution can have positive equity impacts. Health impacts (mortality and morbidity) of PM10 pollution are quantified for different socio-economic groups in Delhi. The spatial PM10 concentration levels are overlaid with spatial socio-economic data. Improvement in air quality would result in bigger health benefits for the poor. Most measures that reduce PM10 pollutants also reduce CO2 emissions while simultaneously imposing more costs on the better-off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Climatic change is one of the most important issues of present times. Unlike the greenhouse gases, which have a predominantly warming effect, atmospheric aerosols could either warm or cool the atmosphere depending upon the size, distribution and optical properties. Of all the climatic elements, temperature plays a major role in detecting climatic change brought about by urbanization and industrialization. This paper, therefore, attempts to study temporal variation in temperature over Pune city, India, during the period 1901–2000. The long-term change in temperature has been evaluated by Mann–Kendall rank statistics and linear trend. The analysis reveals significant decrease in mean annual and mean maximum temperature. This decrease in temperature is more pronounced during the winter season, which can be ascribed to a significant increase in the amount of suspended particulate matter (SPM) in the ambient air during the last decade. On the contrary, monsoon season shows warming. This warming can be attributed to a significant increase in the low cloud amount. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There is growing recognition in the human dimensions research community that climate change impact studies must take into account the effects of other ongoing global changes. Yet there has been no systematic methodology to study climate change vulnerability in the context of multiple stressors. Using the example of Indian agriculture, this paper presents a methodology for investigating regional vulnerability to climate change in combination with other global stressors. This method, which relies on both vulnerability mapping and local-level case studies, may be used to assess differential vulnerability for any particular sector within a nation or region, and it can serve as a basis for targeting policy interventions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]