Search

The Review of Radical Political Economics is calling for papers for a special issue on climate change and capitalism. The journal is seeking manuscripts that provide a range of critical political economic perspectives on the topic, as well as a variety of methods, approaches, and geographic focuses. They particularly encourage submissions from climate activists, scholars in the Global South, early career researchers, and scholars from historically excluded groups. The journal provides a list of possible subjects for the special issue, including theoretical and empirical interventions, historical or contemporary analyses, critiques of economic analysis, and models of climate justice and anti-capitalist struggles. Submissions must adhere to the journal's guidelines and will undergo peer review. [Extracted from the article]

Healthcare contributes to environmental harm. Trainee-led Research and Audit in Anaesthesia for Sustainable Healthcare (TRA2SH) is an Australasian network focused on sustainable anaesthesia practice. TRA2SH hypothesised that trainee-led audits alongside education presented on a scheduled national day, called Operation Clean Up, can improve engagement with sustainability initiatives. This paper aims to describe the first two years of Operation Clean Up in terms of goals, achievements and data collected so far. Environmental themes for Operation Clean Up were chosen based on available evidence (life cycle analyses and observational studies). The first Operation Clean Up (OCU 2020) focused on reducing the unnecessary use of single-use disposable absorbent pads (known as 'blueys' in Australia, 'greenies' in New Zealand). OCU 2021 included: refuse desflurane, reduce bluey use, reuse drug trays, and recycle paper and cardboard. TRA2SH provided an information pack to trainees who presented educational material to their department and fed back procurement figures to quantify each item. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse de-identified pooled data submitted to a centralised database. Eight departments submitted data for OCU 2020 and six provided follow-up data. Bluey use was reduced from a median of 37 to 34 blueys per ten surgical encounters. Fifteen departments submitted pre-campaign data for OCU 2021 with follow-up data to be collected during OCU 2022. Baseline data showed a median bluey use of 31 per ten surgical encounters. Volatile-related emissions were calculated; desflurane's proportion was 70% of these emissions yet was 11% of volatile procurement. Two participating departments removed desflurane from their formulary following OCU 2021. Operation Clean Up is a practical model for implementing sustainability initiatives using trainees as eco-leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When asked what "type" of manuscript you are submitting, please check the box that says, "Climate Change and Capitalism." All submissions will undergo I RRPE i 's regular peer review procedures and must not be under review with any other publication. [Extracted from the article]

Neoliberal capitalism has extended the use of markets to address climate and energy issues. Carbon trading characteristically exemplifies the neoliberalization of climate policy. This paper discusses the workings of the European Union's Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) in the European Union (EU) with a focus on its application in crisis-ridden Greece. Beyond environmental effectiveness and distributional effects, the paper explores the interactions of the EU ETS with crisis, austerity programs, energy poverty, and uneven development. Despite adjustments and changes, the EU ETS continues to indicate limited environmental effectiveness and unjust distributional effects. Moreover, by forging a centralized neoliberal transition to a low-carbon economy without consideration of the issues faced by unevenly developed and crisis-stricken EU members such as Greece, the EU ETS leads to additional disturbances and problems for the Greek economy as a whole, its pauperized working people, and its energy and climate options to reduce emissions on its own potential, needs, and priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on the concept of 'attachment' to examine pro-coal sentiment in Whitehaven – an English town at the centre of global political controversy because of a plan to open a coal mine in the area. Drawing on fieldwork data, I show that pro-mine persuasions among some residents are underpinned by a process of 're-attaching' to coal. I argue that the case of the Whitehaven mine is a warning about how fossil fuels might re-emerge as promissory objects in other parts of the world, even when a transition away from fossil fuels has been completed. Paradoxically, the very disorientations and deepening traumas that climate change is causing threaten to spur on the rise of fossil fuel (re-)attachments. The paper also examines how pro-coal discourses linked to wider vested interests are received in a context where coal exists as 'afterlife'. Consequently, local actors construct narratives that legitimise new coal extraction by (re)articulating discourses of delay. My findings are thus a reminder of the need to guard against over-valorising 'the grassroots', arguably a risk in environmental justice scholarship. I conclude by calling for further empirical research on the way attachments to high-carbon objects are (re/de)composed, an urgent task given the need for rapid societal decarbonisation – one which has received very little attention to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on witnessing several interconnected global crises creating havoc on communities around the globe. Topics include COVID-19 pandemic still looming despite national efforts to vaccinate all citizens and the long-term damage of the pandemic; and climate change posing a particular threat to low-lying Pacific Island nations being the subject to poverty in some cases.

Marketing systems, while being pivotal to contemporary progress, have been linked to multifaceted global challenges, notably increasing inequalities and accelerated climate change repercussions. These challenges are not natural phenomena, but rather, human-induced crises, emerging predominantly from flawed systems of perception and action. Unfortunately, these flawed perspectives are also embedded within research and theoretical practices, leading to overly simplistic and disjointed results. This paper champions the introduction and application of corrective metatheories, specifically targeting these tendencies of reductionism, to bring coherence to the various domains of existence – be they subjective, intersubjective, interobjective, or objective. Using Roy Bhaskar's philosophy of critical realism, this paper elucidates how this particular metatheoretical approach can address the complexities inherent to marketing systems. Through Critical Realism, the paper aims to challenge reductionist narratives, critique societal shortcomings, and promotes both individual and collective potentials to support overall flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnitude of water-induced disasters is projected to increase in the coming decades. Yet, there is a substantial gap in the understanding of how local knowledge and Indigenous knowledge are employed to respond to climate change water-induced disasters. We examine this gap through a meta-review of literature published between 2014 and 2019 yielding 39 scholarly papers. The meta-review indicates that the literature highlights that marginalized people are facing multiple risks that threaten their ability to produce enough food for consumption, secure water for irrigation, live in sustainable communities, and maintain their health and well-being. Responses are largely incremental, autonomous adjustments, such as livelihood diversification, flood-proofing homes, and soil moisture conservation. Our findings show that there is a clear need to more closely attend to the processes by which local knowledge and Indigenous knowledge can be meaningfully integrated into adaptation to move toward transformative change for long-term climate resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on research ethics in social sciences by focusing on the concept of vulnerability. We unpack the current conceptualisations of vulnerability and their limitations and argue for the need to reconceptualise vulnerability as multidimensional, consisting of both universal and contextual dimensions, as well as their dynamic interplay. Multidimensional vulnerability is inspired by and relevant to social science research during the pandemic but can also be useful in other contexts such as climate change or conflict. The paper puts forwards several considerations about how this revised concept of vulnerability may be useful when evaluating ethical dimensions of social science research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As communities around the world grapple with the impacts of climate change on the basic support systems of life, their future climate imaginaries both shape and are shaped by actions and material realities. This paper argues that the three globally dominant imaginaries of a climate changed future, which we call 'business as usual', 'techno-fix' and 'apocalypse' – fail to encourage actions that fundamentally challenge or transform the arrangements that underpin systemic injustices and extractive forms of life. And yet, to meet the challenges associated with food production, energy needs, and the destruction of ecosystems, people are coming together, not only to take transformative action, but in doing so, to create and nurture alternative imaginaries. This paper presents empirical findings about how communities in north and south India and south-east Australia are pre-figuring alternative futures, locally and in most cases in the absence of broader state support. An analysis of communities' actions and reflections indicates that their praxes are altering their future imaginaries, and we consider how these local shifts might contribute to broader changes in climate imaginaries. At the heart of the emerging imaginaries are a set of transformations in the relational fabric within which communities are embedded and how they attend to those relations: relations within community, with the more-than-human, and with time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes a climate justice perspective to examine municipal green bonds (MGBs), a green-labelled debt instrument issued by subnational governmental entities, such as municipalities or cities, that determines financial, social and environmental redistributions in the context of climate change. This analysis focuses on the origins and financial construction of MGBs as the "descendant" of US municipal bonds and provides data on their recent diffusion in Africa and Latin America. It then draws connections with the lessons learned from critical analyses of US municipal bonds. The case study section explores one wastewater MGB of San Francisco (California) and creates material and theoretical connections with MGBs issued to finance water infrastructure in Mexico City (Mexico) and Cape Town (South Africa). The article concludes that the analysis and implementation of municipal green bonds needs a climate justice approach in order to recognize and address the production and reproduction of climate injustices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the exclusion of Vanessa Nakate, a Ugandan climate activist, from a group photo published by the Associated Press (AP) during the 2020 World Economic Forum. Using the muted group theory, it explores the implications of Nakate's omission as the sole Black individual in the image, shedding light on the broader issue of symbolic annihilation faced by Black women activists in Western media. Through visual and textual analysis, the study reveals the power dynamics and biases behind AP's decision to crop Nakate, fueling subsequent controversy. Furthermore, the paper examines AP's response to the backlash, analyzing their strategies to rebuild their reputation, including issuing an apology and releasing the original photograph. Plain language summary: Erasure of Black women activists from media: A review This paper looks at a photo from the 2020 World Economic Forum where a Ugandan climate activist named Vanessa Nakate was cropped out. The paper uses "muted group theory" to explain how this might have happened and what it means. It argues that Nakate was left out because she's a Black woman and that this is part of a bigger problem where the media often ignores or overlooks Black women activists. The focus is on the broader issue of symbolic annihilation experienced by Black women activists in Western media. Using visual and textual analysis, the study uncovers the power dynamics and biases influencing AP's decision to crop Nakate, sparking subsequent controversy. Additionally, the paper scrutinizes AP's response to the criticism, examining their strategies to rebuild their reputation, which include issuing an apology and releasing the original photograph. Overall, the paper is about how powerful media organizations can be and how important it is to be aware of the biases they might have. It is also about the importance of giving Black women activists a voice and making sure their stories are heard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stories about the end of the world continue to pile up daily. There isn't any sense of respite from the litany of horrors we are presented with. The eerie atmosphere of ecological catastrophe colonises our political imaginations. Understanding how we collectively imagine the end of the world, and thus how we understand what is happening, why and how, as well as what we must and can do, is politically crucial. The vast tapestry of environmental crises makes the role of the imagination central; not only in terms of being able to know the crises, but in setting out what is concretely possible and what is cruel fantasy. This paper sets out to map the imaginary of ecological catastrophe as drawn from the body of non-fiction literature that fuels much contemporary environmental activism in the Global North. Taking up the work of a series of environmental writer-activists in order to outline the various refrains that comprise the core of the eco-catastrophic imaginary, I aim to sketch how the slow violence of the present is being narrated as a political event, and what possibilities for averting disaster appear possible. It is the argument of this paper that how we collectively imagine the cacophony of environmental disasters presently unfolding shapes the field of political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian west coast is under constant threat from climate change-induced hazards. Various social, economic, and infrastructural disparities along the coast cause significant variations in climate vulnerability. Current literature assesses vulnerability either over (1) a large area with poor spatial resolution or (2) a local area with better spatial resolution. The former assessments provide more comprehensive and broad insights into large spatial trends of vulnerability, while the latter provide more accurate and specific inputs needed by the local governments for effective intervention. However, there is a lack of studies that assess vulnerability simultaneously at a high-resolution and over a large geographic area, due to inadequacies in existing methodologies and difficulty in data management and analysis. This is a key gap that we address in our paper. We assess climate vulnerability of the entire Indian west coast at the village level, and propose a novel machine-learning based methodology tailored for high-resolution assessment over large geographic areas. This helped us produce the first high-resolution (i.e. village-level) climate vulnerability map of the entire Indian west coast. We found that the state of Maharashtra has the highest number of vulnerable villages and the state of Kerala has the least number of vulnerable villages. We collate and utilize a large dataset of 112 indicators describing socioeconomic characteristics, infrastructure and availability of financial services, among other aspects, to obtain a comprehensive picture of vulnerability. We analyze geospatial trends and attribute high vulnerability to specific indicators, which will help in effective decision-making at the village level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Planning Education & Research is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Participatory forms of policy-making have often been criticized for insufficiently theorizing the coproduction of publics and matters of concern. This paper seeks to investigate this relationship further by analyzing how the concept of civic epistemologies (CEs) can provide insights for understanding how political contexts shape both publics and contestable debates. Presenting fieldwork on cyclone governance in Odisha, India, based on the analysis of interviews with vulnerable fishing communities and state actors, the article shows how CEs influence the interdependent formation of vulnerable fisher and state subjectivities on one hand with representations of risk located in external biophysical atmospheric gases on the other, thereby sustaining reductive roles and futures. At the same time, the paper develops the concept of CEs by examining them as performative acts carried out by marginalized communities and state actors at the subnational level of a nonindustrialized country, thereby indicating sites at which epistemic agency can be increased and governed. Participatory knowledge production needs to understand how it is affected by CEs if it is to generate effective expertise for transformative futures in the face of increasing climatic risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Communist Party and its supporters are increasingly using social media platforms to shape China's public image. This online image is a means of strengthening domestic nationalism and of projecting "soft power" abroad. This paper examines various forms of anti-Westernism that are central to this image-making. It analyzes several recent topics—the Belt and Road Initiative, climate change, the COVID-19 vaccine, the Beijing Olympics, and the conflict in Ukraine—on the r/Sino subreddit page of Reddit and compares them with two online news outlets, the South China Morning Post and China Daily. The paper focuses on how these media frame the contest between a rising China and a failing West, so creating a discourse that competes with the negative portrayals of China outside the country. The paper contrasts the aggressive strengthening of China's image against the West on social media with more sober accounts of the same topics in China's official media and in commercial news outlets. The contribution of the paper is to document an emerging online anti-Westernism that is playing an increasing role in the changing geopolitical landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the literature on state capacity in financialized political economies by studying the market-based investment setting for the Thames Tideway Tunnel, a £4.2 billion sewer, built underneath central London to prevent raw sewage from spilling into the River Thames. Most analyses conclude that financial statecraft undermines state capacities, as it empowers finance and exposes states to uncontrollable risks. This article moves beyond these accounts by arguing that public policy officials engage with finance instrumentally, taking on risks to solve the governing challenges they face. It demonstrates that state action can build islands of state capacity with financial statecraft in fragmented policy environments. Based on expert interviews and documentary analysis, the article traces how the UK's Ministry of the Environment experimented with a policy instrument and used investment capacities from different levels of government, to implement the Thames Tideway Tunnel through institutional equity investment and share risks in the privatized and financialized environmental sector. The paper concludes that under the current conjuncture, financial statecraft will play an important role in addressing the climate crisis. Therefore, further comparative research is required to explore its normative paradox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we highlight climate change pedagogies within the context of an Indigenous Summer Encounter for Latinx and Indigenous children led by Miakan-Band Elders, members of a Central Texas Coahuiltecan community. We focus on anticolonial cartographies activated through movement, sound and performance that enacted Indigenous fugitivity, futurity, and relationality; pedagogical attunements that remain undertheorized as approaches to climate change education. In engaging with these pedagogies as climate change education, we are interested in contributing to recent work that resists the disciplinary boundaries of what typically counts as climate education and invites expansive and interdisciplinary approaches to climate change education. This includes approaches that inquire into how climate change education can be a site to nurture reciprocal relations with the more than human world. In particular, we highlight the Summer Encounter as illustrating possibilities for anticolonial climate education that engages creative pedagogies in foregrounding Indigenous relational onto-epistemologies with young people. We discuss the potential of this work as climate change education that actualizes and dreams more livable futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing evidence shows cities' climate change efforts can worsen inequities and social injustices. This paper starts to formulate a normative conception of social justice for urban climate change planning. It identifies what dimensions of social justice are articulated and how they are defined in the literature on equity in urban planning for climate change. It shows at least five dimensions are pertinent: creating transformations, promoting the well-being of the socially marginalized, recognition, inclusion in decision-making, and distributive justice. The paper concludes by discussing where further developments are needed to generate a comprehensive account of equitable urban planning for climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methodological innovation is needed that actively engages a range of policy makers in policy learning to address the climate and biodiversity crises. We developed Walkable Floor Map Policy Workshops (WFMPWs) as a way of engaging policy makers in policy learning towards NBS innovation in their local context. This paper examines WFMPW methodology for NBS through an analysis of three WFMPWs in three European urban case study sites. We find that implementation of WFMPWs facilitated policy learning through group discussion and experience sharing amongst participating policy makers. The WFMPWs added greater spatial contextualisation and the futures workshop elements facilitated discussions of future opportunities and barriers, leading to questioning of common approaches and assumptions and 'thinking outside of the box'. The data provided in-depth, comparative, nuanced, and locally contextualised qualitative insights of interest across multiple disciplines. The findings provide a different way of understanding political and decision-making processes around NBS, including problem framing and shifting policy debates. The WFMPW approach enabled participating policy makers to describe and critique the current situation; imagine/visualise a preferable future situation; and explore ways of moving from the actual situation to the preferred one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In uncertain times in which we live, there is a need for responsible research scholarship that's academically robust and supports the Church's transformational mission in the world. This paper attempts to pinpoint critical issues that should be at the forefront of the Church's concern and research priorities. It first outlines three key features of life in our world today and three areas of observed weakness in a summary assessment of the state of the Church, before going on to introduce eight sets of critical issues that the Church needs to address: Racial & Ethnic Reconciliation; Patriarchy, Gender & Sexuality; Encounter with the World's Living Religions; Socio-economic Inequality & Injustice; Climate Change & Creation Care; Digital revolution, Metaverse & the Rise of AI; Metamodernism, Transhumanism & Posthumanism; and Embodied Apologetic Witness. The questions both highlight and illustrate the need for these issues to receive further reflection, research and scholarly attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the climate-development interface, research for development gained a strong interest in climate-smart agriculture and sustainable forms of intensification. Moreover, the urgency to respond to climate change stimulates a strong and sometimes exclusive focus on mitigation, driven by research-based agricultural practices. In the livestock sector, this materialises in strategies to lower emissions from livestock, which centralises the adoption question: what can we do to stimulate the use of best practices by smallholder farmers? This paper flags the risk that this outlook may overlooksmallholder farmers' capacities to navigate sub-optimal conditions of drought or scarcity. The paper applies an alternative lens for understanding 'agriculture-as-performance' and highlights smallholder cattle owners' agency and resourcefulness. It aims to create a conceptual space to examine how adaptive capacities are grounded in the rhythms of agriculture under suboptimal conditions. Empirically, the study focuses on the cattle-feeding practices of five farming households evolving through seasons and lifetimes in a sedentary agricultural system in Kenya. Our frame identifies diverse affordances, conceptualised as opportunities for actions, emerging and disappearing in the immediate material environment, and we portray cattle feeding as a networked response anchored in practices of giving, sharing, and receiving. We use our insights into the dynamics and performance of entangled socio-technical practices to sketch the contours of an alternative pathway for agriculture for development. We argue in favour of a shift from an exclusive focus on the adoption of predefined optimal solutions to a diagnostic and catalytic approach integrating situated adaptive performances through which farming households respond to action opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic sparked radical changes in the way life was lived around the globe. With the rapid reduction in human mobility, short-term environmental improvements were seen across the world. Work and social routines were altered, and political action to reduce case numbers seemed to open a window of opportunity for socio-environmental change in a post-pandemic world. Inspired by conversations around the "COVID-19 Anthropause," this paper probes the lived experiences and reflections that emerged in the pandemic pause. Three years after the onset of the pandemic, many initial environmental gains have been limited. Nonetheless, the COVID-19 Anthropause has brought human–environment relations into new light, sparking introspection and forms of broader social critique surrounding what kinds of socio-political courage and structural change is necessary to achieve new post-pandemic realities. Our research shows the heterogeneity of experiences of the Anthropause, highlighting the ways that uncritical engagement with the concept can obscure overlapping structural inequalities, and reinforce harmful binaries around the presence and absence of humans in nature. Drawing on longitudinal, qualitative data from Latin America and Europe, we enrich debates over the implications of the pandemic for human–environment relations and underscore the need to attend to radical forms of difference amid any global environmental concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Planning Education & Research is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As climate change (CC)-related adversity has become more evident, physical CC impacts and the need to respond to it are now a prominent topic in the political agenda in multiple countries. Accordingly, businesses have begun to adopt strategies to seeking to respond to CC. Recently, strategy and general management scholars have produced a growing number of articles examining the factors that increase the adoption of CC strategies, and, in a few cases, the environmental and financial performance implications of these strategies. Our review indicates that: (a) business research tends to dismiss CC-related adversity, with much of the research on drivers of responses highlighting a clear anthropocentric bias; (b) many papers discuss either adaptation or mitigation without much examination of synergies and tradeoffs between strategies; and (c) we know little about what and how physical climate conditions affect firms and their ability to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mosquito-borne diseases are a public health concern. Pharmacists are often a patient's first stop for health information and may be asked questions regarding transmission, symptoms, and treatment of mosquito borne viruses (MBVs). The objective of this paper is to review transmission, geographic location, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of MBVs. We discuss the following viruses with cases in the US in recent years: Dengue, West Nile, Chikungunya, LaCrosse Encephalitis, Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus, and Zika. Prevention, including vaccines, and the impact of climate change are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roles digital media-technologies play in raising public issues relating to emerging technologies and their potential for engaging publics with science and policy assessments is a lively field of inquiry in Science and Technology Studies (STS). This paper presents an analysis of controversies over proposals for the large-scale removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CDR). The study combines a digital method (web-querying) with document analysis to map debates about two CDR approaches: bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and afforestation. In the first step, we locate actors using the web to engage with BECCS and afforestation and map their alignments in relation to competing framings of CDR. In a second step, we examine the devices deployed by UK-based actors to evidence and contest the feasibility of BECCS and afforestation. Our analysis shows that policy distinctions between "natural" and "engineered" CDR are used flexibly in practice and do not map neatly onto actor engagement with BECCS and afforestation. We highlight the predominance of cross-cutting techno-economic expertise and argue that framings of CDR as a solution to governing climate change may contribute to public disengagement from climate policy processes. The paper reflects on methods for studying controversies, publics, and issues emerging around processes of technoscientific assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many parts of the world are experiencing extreme weather events, energy poverty, food insecurity, and lack of access to basic healthcare. Moreover, concerns over socioeconomic, gender, and racial inequalities are growing. These socially relevant issues are ripe for analysis and improvement using an operations management lens. In this paper, we review some of the relevant research advancements made in the last decade, and identify future research directions on these important topics. In particular, we focus on papers related to sustainable planet (renewable energy, environmentally and socially responsible operations, regulation‐driven operations), agriculture, and public health. For future research directions, we discuss the role of innovative business models and disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, in addressing these pressing issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, the level of electricity grid interconnectedness between neighboring countries varies depending on the level of regional cooperation enabled by institutions. As suggested by previous research, in transboundary river basins, this variation affects the environment and the management of transboundary waters. In regions where all electricity utilities are connected and function at a synchronized frequency, and where integrated electricity market mechanisms function, the stress on the shared water resources tends to be less. Turkey shares river basins and power transmission lines in Europe both with the members of the European Union (EU) and with non-member states. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature on the geopolitics of renewable energy by comparing the level of Turkey's electricity trade integrity with its EU-member European neighbors and with its non-EU-member neighbors and discuss the potential impacts of the transboundary electricity trade on the environment and the shared water resources. The main argument in this paper is that the higher level of electricity trade between Turkey and its EU-member neighbors is facilitated and boosted by Turkey's membership to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E). The higher level of electricity interconnection leads to a higher level of cooperation in water and environment issues in the shared river basins between Turkey and Europe through the facilitating role of established institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is offered about topics to be featured in the next issues of the periodical including climate change, urbanization, and food security.

This paper examines how global climate mitigation policies articulate with urban political–ecological transformations. It focuses on South African waste-to-value projects as case studies, exploring how local processes of urban ecological modernization combine with global climate finance through the now largely defunct Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Whilst it is generally recognized that waste-related CDM projects in South Africa (and elsewhere) have been an unmitigated failure in terms of climate and socio-economic benefits, we demonstrate that landfill-to-gas/energy projects have functioned effectively as geographical–discursive dispositifs through which particular knowledge systems are enrolled, specific 'solutions' are projected, and singular imaginaries of what is possible and desirable foregrounded, thereby crowding out alternative possibilities. This not only nurtures the commodification and marketization of non-human matter with an eye towards sustaining capital accumulation but, rather more importantly, successfully installs state-orchestrated private property relations around common resources, thereby deepening the dispossessing socio-ecological relations upon which expanded capitalist reproduction rests. We argue that whilst the formal outcome of the CDM is a failure, its success resides precisely in how it permitted local and global elites to create administrative and regulatory practices that solidify and naturalize a neoliberal market-based framework to approach the climate crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition ecologies, namely ecotones, are where life started. Deltas, estuaries, bayous, and wetlands are places where different ecosystems merge and evolutionary processes take place. This paper explores three time periods in four coastal cities to look at the relationship between environmental values and urban expansionist paradigms through reclamation projects. It argues that these thresholds, occurring contemporaneously in expanding metropolitan regions, correspond to changing conceptualizations of urban–nature relationships, in other words urban core's changing relationships to fringe ecosystems. The metropolitan regions used as case studies for this piece are Mumbai, Amsterdam, New York, and Tokyo. Each has used reclamation as a grand expansion strategy during political or economic transitions. During each grand alteration attempt in these regions, the developers, reclamation enthusiasts, or urban planners revisited the city's immediate ecological fringe for expansion, and following these revisitations, a new geographical order formed in their subsequent regions. The urban fringe has become the socio-spatial zone where new and experimental ideas about urban development encounter complex natural systems. The land-use negotiations and reclamation's role in shaping the urban–nature relationships are missing pieces of the planning field. Any future looking climate resiliency plan today should build on the reading of this palimpsest and understand how these environmental values were traded and how global expansion narratives transformed the urban–nature gradient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's organized struggles for housing challenge Brazil's exclusionary urbanization. Occupations of vacant buildings by social movements have been pressing municipalities to guarantee the right to the city. Climate change accentuates the risks associated with exclusionary urbanization, and responses to its impacts demand mitigation and adaptation measures that support transformations tackling inequalities and vulnerabilities. This paper highlights the dimensions of inequality, as well as the role of social movements in setting an agenda on climate justice while reducing vulnerability and creating housing alternatives in vacant central buildings of São Paulo and Natal. To this end, we conducted a review of relevant literature along with participatory action-research on insurgent practices of housing social movements in both cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the work of waste pickers advances urban sustainability, there has been little focus on how climate change impacts affect them. This paper reports on a pilot study with 61 waste pickers in Minas Gerais, Brazil to understand their perspectives on climate change impacts and actions. It explores how waste pickers experience climate change impacts at home and at work, their adaptive strategies and the specific actions and actors needed to address these impacts. Waste pickers have practical knowledge and experience of climate events. But due to precarious employment and lack of access to services, infrastructure and social support, their responses are improvised and inefficient. They require better institutional support and their proposals must be incorporated into a negotiated approach to urban resilience. Proposals such as the climate bonus – similar to the existing recycling bonus – may help address the structural drivers of vulnerability for waste pickers in Minas Gerais. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the fiscal impact of natural disasters in the U.S. states. The focus is on state spending, state revenues, and federal transfers for the period from 1970 to 2015. Results show that a broad definition based on dollar damages from all emergency events and major disasters has a small effect on state-level fiscal conditions, which stands in contrast to prior studies. On the other hand, a narrower definition based on the occurrence of major disasters is associated with increased spending and transfers alongside spending effects that grow with disaster severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we draw insights from a 15-year qualitative research program exploring catastrophe insurance and gaps in insurance protection as risks escalate within a world impacted by a climate emergency. We suggest that the ebb-and-flow of our research team's composition and activities through time was inextricably linked with our ability to have a sustained impact on such a large-scale societal issue. The essay situates itself within the research impact and team literature, narrates the trajectory of our research program and team development, and develops a framework for effectively managing impact-oriented qualitative research teams over time. Our framework illustrates key aspects of this process including team (re)forming, building team and individual stickability, performing, and managing team flux. We also present 10 practical takeaways for how these aspects can be managed effectively to produce long-term impact work to address grand challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the most pressing contemporary social problems result from the amalgamation of a mass of actions that are not intentionally coordinated. Although these essentially aggregative harms are foreseeable, it is unclear what moral duties individuals have with regards to them. This paper offers a new analysis of these problems and uses a nonideal contractualist approach to argue in favour of two kinds of duties for individuals. Collectivization duties that require individuals to act responsively with a view to ensuring that there are effective governance agents that reliably, fairly, and efficiently prevent these outcomes in the long-term and duties of restraint that require individuals to avoid action of a kind that is likely to come together with other actions to cause serious EAH in the immediate future when restraint with regards to actions of this kind could help prevent the outcome from occurring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I argue that we should radicalize managerial climate change education given that incremental and accommodative forms of responsible management learning and education (RMLE) are at odds with the urgency, nature, and magnitude of the climate crisis. I argue for three practices to radicalize RMLE, and illustrate them through examples from a degrowth context. First, management educators should engage in anti-paradigmatic performative politics to disrupt the reality-making of climate damaging theories, and "realize" better alternative theories. Second, as management educators, we should engage ourselves, our students, and wider stakeholders in anti-paradigmatic thought that transcends and challenges problematic mainstream management paradigms. Third, we should explore what and how we and our students can learn from radical climate movements' civil disobedience, in order to disrupt climate-damaging practices. In this paper, I aim to provoke and facilitate urgently needed discussions about the radicalization of RMLE for climate change education and beyond. Therefore, I close this essay with an invitation for rejoinders and suggest salient implications for educational practitioners and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to the climate crisis requires social and economic innovation—because climate change is a symptom of patriarchal capitalist systems that are concentrating—rather than distributing—wealth and power. Despite the need for social and economic innovation, technological innovation continues to be prioritized in climate policy and climate investments. This paper reviews the dangers of technological optimism in climate policy by exploring its links to patriarchal systems and masculinity. The disproportionate focus on science and technology emerges from and reinforces “climate isolationism,” a term that I use to refer to the common framing of climate change as an isolated discrete, scientific problem in need of technological solutions. This framing stems from assumptions of patriarchal white-male conceptions of privilege and power that evolve from a colonizing and controlling mindset. Masculine technological optimism is dangerous because it is exclusive, it minimizes the need for social change and social innovation, and it is ineffective in catalyzing inclusive societal transformation. This paper argues that embracing feminist, antiracist values is necessary for transformative climate policies, economic justice, and climate justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the debate surrounding the impact of adaptation to climate change on the incentives to abate greenhouse gases emissions. Using data from the World Development Indicators and various adaptation funds under the UNFCCC framework, this paper provides an empirical analysis of the relation between adaptation and emissions. We specifically test whether adaptation measures to climate change affect emissions of greenhouse gases in a world where adaptation funds are available. Using a staggered difference-in-differences approach and an event study analysis, we find that receiving adaptation funding significantly and negatively affects several CO2 emissions measures, providing preliminary evidence of the presence of a halo effect of adaptation funding. We do not find evidence of a significant change in the emissions of methane, nitrous dioxide and other greenhouse gases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out to achieve the ambitious goal of addressing all forms of poverty, fighting inequality, tackling climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind. Five years into the implementation of the SDGs, though progress has been recorded in some places, significant challenges persist globally. In 2019, the UN Secretary-General declared a "Decade of Action" commencing in 2020 until 2030. In the light of this campaign, it is important that all effort is garnered to accelerate action towards achieving the goals. The local government level is increasingly being recognized as the key locus of development effort, particularly because the SDGs are relevant to local jurisdictions and change can be tangibly measured at smaller scales. This paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on how best to localize the global goals. Reflecting on the Ghanaian context, the paper discusses guiding principles for effective communities of practice at the local government level. Overall, the paper underlines the advantages of coordination among stakeholders, which constitute essential ingredients for accelerating action towards the SDGs especially as we commence the "Decade of Action." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data on heating bills to study the distribution of energy efficiency outcomes in the German multi-apartment residential building stock. To uncover the underlying energy efficiency of buildings, we estimate the causal response of heat energy demand to variability in heating degree days. We examine the heterogeneity in temperature response using both fixed effects regressions and causal forests, and pay close attention to the regional socioeconomic distribution. Our results suggest that the distribution of energy efficiency is not equitable in the West of Germany. We show that although the newer and more energy-efficient buildings are located in the South of Germany, the older building stock in less prosperous East regions of Germany are surprisingly energy efficient, likely as a result of large investments in renovations post-reunification. Finally, we show that the regional distribution of energy efficiency reflects, in part, differences in heating needs - thus, the poorer energy standards of buildings in the North-West should be weighed against the warmer climatic zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many governments are failing to act sufficiently strongly on climate change. Given this, what should motivated affluent individuals in high-consumption societies do? This paper argues that social norms are a particularly valuable target for individual climate action. Within norm-promotion, the paper makes the case for a focus on anti-fossil fuel norms specifically. Section 1 outlines gaps in the existing literature on individuals' climate change obligations. Section 2 characterises social norms. Section 3 provides seven reasons why social norms are a particularly worthy target for individual climate actors. Section 4 asks which social norms individuals should emphasise, arguing that anti-fossil fuel norms have advantages over emissions reduction and offsetting norms. Section 5 outlines the pathways and mechanisms individuals might exploit to promote anti-fossil fuel norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the extent to which imaginaries of climate and ecological breakdown attend to the memories, knowledges, and experiences of communities already impacted by histories of racism, colonialism, and poverty. Drawing on insights from Black studies and decolonial thinking, the article reflects on how the causes and effects of anthropogenic climate change can be mapped onto geographies of racialised violence and social dispossession. Specific emphasis is given to Rio de Janeiro, notably its port area, a geographical space where future-oriented narratives remain oblivious to the city's history of anti-Black violence and Indigenous genocide. In parallel, the paper looks at the recently built Museum of Tomorrow and its public representations of the Anthropocene. Overall, the article contends that pluralising accounts of the Anthropocene might offer alternative epistemic entry points for understanding and interrupting the mounting ecological catastrophe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon neutrality is an important policy in the current global response to climate change and has been widely recognized by various industries. In the process of promoting carbon neutrality, new energy plays a pivotal role. In this study, the definition and connotation of new energy and its role and specific operation in the energy transition of carbon neutrality are firstly explained. Promoting new energy development requires significant green and low-carbon investments. Taking China as an example, this paper analyzes the opportunities brought by the carbon neutral process to the field of green finance and analyzes the main features and development trends of green finance in China at present. Then this paper proposes policy recommendations to strengthen the development of green finance in China in terms of improving the green financial policy system, enhancing the supply capacity of green financial services, and optimizing the supporting environment for green financial development. Finally, this paper analyzes the measures and experiences of the United States in promoting low-carbon development and proposes countermeasures for China's low-carbon development on the basis of the five major relationships that need attention in China's carbon-neutral process. That is, strengthen the top-level design and improve the regulatory policy system; optimize the energy structure and increase the proportion of clean energy; optimize the industrial structure and reduce energy consumption in key industries; build a complete low-carbon technology system and promote low-carbon technology research and development and demonstration applications, and encourage local conditions to explore low-carbon development paths. The development of green finance can contribute to the advancement of new energy technologies, thus contributing to the achievement of carbon neutrality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2015 release of Pope Francis's encyclical on the environment—Laudato Si'—was met with widespread praise by many who hoped this document would spur Catholics around the world to join movements struggling against climate change. Frequently, these hopes were accompanied by expectations that leaders in the Catholic Church would begin greening their churches and help integrate their parishioners into broader environmental movements. However, while there are strong theoretical rationales supporting Catholic environmental action, few studies have examined what—if anything—is actually happening. This paper responds to this gap by assessing how Catholic clergy in one U.S. diocese are engaging environmental concerns. Drawing upon 31 interviews with priests and deacons across the Diocese of Syracuse, N.Y., this study finds that few clergy are substantively engaging environmental issues. In addition, this paper identifies and discusses several personal and systemic barriers hampering Catholic clerical efforts to further green their churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s critical marketing scholars have called for systemic change to overcome the ethical problems generated by consumption, such as unsustainable resource use, industry-induced climate change, and social inequities. Mainstream marketing research has instead problematised the individual consumer and sought ways to diminish the so-called gap between ethics and consumption. The current conceptual paper follows Carrington et al. (2016) and other contemporary critical marketing scholars in redirecting attention away from individual (un)ethical consumers and toward the (im)moral market structures that inflect their decision-making. Its first contribution to this line of thinking is to propose an ethical consumption cap rather than an ethical consumption gap. This subtle but significant shift in emphasis suggests that contemporary capitalism creates conditions in which ethical consumption is costly in terms of money, time and effort. Rather than the responsibilising rhetoric of the 'gap', the 'cap' acknowledges the plethora of systemic pressures that make it difficult for consumers to consume ethically and invites researchers to look elsewhere for solutions. The second contribution of this paper is to follow Grayling (2019) in delineating the character of ethics from the concept of morality, which is more suggestive of obligations and duties. With this etymology in mind, it is argued that other market actors can do much more to remove problematic choices from the market and thus raise the mean market morality. Attending to the average morality of markets instead of emphasising capped ethical consumerism treads a difficult conceptual path between conflicting political positions, but may buy enough time for viable socioeconomic alternatives to neoliberalism to emerge and expand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several Arab countries face numerous environmental problems in addition to climate change, desertification, and water crisis. Multiple issues related to water and energy need to be resolved. In this paper, we examine the most important topics to be studied, and the research conducted to elucidate the importance of the water problem in the Arab region, including the gap between increased demand and a lack of resources. Water problems include leakage, pollution, and depletion of water resources. We also focus on climate change and the role of young people, software, educational institutions, and training centers in achieving water security and sustainable development objectives. The paper also investigates the idea of water harvesting, the relationship between water, food security, and energy, the role of stakeholders, and good governance in solving the water crisis by understanding the problems and framing research within a multi-year work program with financial, legislative, and scientific support. Providing incentives and the necessary research structure to coordinate all sectors and organizations concerned with water is also essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]