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The current data on climate change and environmental degradation are dramatic. The consequences of these changes are already having a significant impact on people's health. Physicians - as advocates of the patients, but also as citizens - have an ethical obligation to be involved in efforts to stop these changes. The European Federation of Internal Medicine (EFIM) strongly encourages the Internal Medicine societies and internists across Europe to play an active role in matters related to climate change and environmental degradation. At a national level, this includes advocating the adoption of measures that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and environmental degradation and contributing to policy decisions related to these issues. At a hospital level and in clinical practice, supporting actions by the health sector to reduce its ecological footprint is vital. At the level of EFIM and its associated internal societies, promoting educational activities and developing a toolkit to prepare internists to better care for citizens who suffer from the consequences of climate change. In addition to advocating and implementing effective actions to reduce the ecological footprint of the health industry, recommending the introduction of these themes in scientific programs of Internal Medicine meetings and congresses and the pre- and postgraduate medical training. At a personal level, internists must be active agents in advocating sustainable practices for the environment, increasing the awareness of the community about the health risks of climate change and environmental degradation, and being role models in the adoption of environmentally friendly behaviour.

Large volumes of engineered wood products (EWPs) and paper are routinely placed in landfills in Australia, where they are assumed to decay. However, the extent of decay for EWPs is not well-known. This study reports carbon loss from EWPs and paper buried in landfills in Sydney, Brisbane and Cairns in Australia, located in temperate, subtropical and tropical climates, respectively. The influence of pulp type (mechanical and chemical) and landfill type (municipal solid waste - MSW and construction and demolition - CD) on decay levels were investigated. Carbon loss for EWPs ranged from 0.6 to 9.0%; though there is some uncertainty in these values due to limitations associated with sourcing appropriate controls. Carbon loss for paper products ranged from 0 to 58.9%. Papers produced from predominantly mechanical pulps generally had lower levels of decay than those produced via chemical or partly chemical processes. Typically, decay levels for paper products were highest for the tropical Cairns landfill, suggesting that climate may be a significant factor to be considered when estimating emissions from paper in landfills. For EWPs, regardless of the landfill type and climate, carbon losses were low, confirming results from previous laboratory studies. Lower carbon losses were observed for EWP and paper excavated from the Sydney CD landfill, compared with the Sydney MSW landfill, confirming the hypothesis that conditions in CD landfills are less favourable for decay. These results have implications for greenhouse gas inventory estimations, as carbon losses for EWPs were lower than the commonly assumed values of 23% (US EPA) and 50% (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). For paper types, we suggest that separate decay factors should be used for papers dominated by mechanical pulp and those produced from mostly chemical pulps, and also for papers buried in tropical or more temperate climates.

Different chroniclers of the history of the Byzantine Empire have noted various economic data gleamed from historical documents and accounts of the empire at different periods of time. Research for this paper has not uncovered any estimates of long term, annual macroeconomic data (gross domestic product (GDP), national income (NI), etc.) for the empire during its existence. Such data has been estimated to one extent or another for other nations and societies that have existed during the middle ages. This paper attempts to provide conjectures on approximate real GDP per capita trends for the empire over its existence from AD 300 to 1453. Finally, some hypotheses on factors that would have affected Byzantine economic performance are tested using climate/environmental factors. The results of this paper appear to confirm some findings on how the Byzantine economy might have been affected by periods of regional climate change. [enter Abstract Body]

In life cycle assessment (LCA) of paper products, it is common to either assume that the carbon impacts of forestry are neutral (i.e. no net emissions) or to credit harvested wood products as a carbon store. When comparing virgin and recycled materials, this means that forest carbon flows are either shown as nil or a net sequestration credit. However, harvested wood products typically account for less than half of the carbon stored in a forest, with additional stores in below ground biomass, deadwood, litter and soils. Each of these stores may be affected by changes in demand for virgin pulp and paper. In this study the countries likely to provide pulp displaced by moving to recyclate, or used when switching from recyclate were identified for both the UK and China (the largest export market for UK-derived recyclate). Changes in forest carbon stores in each country were then assessed and attributed to the extraction of a unit of timber in each country where demand for pulp and paper was identified as a driver for change. The analysis shows that when switching from virgin to recycled content within the UK and China, no additional biogenic CO 2 emissions are avoided with the exception of Canadian pulp, where the data suggests that forests are being degraded, with associated carbon losses. When switching from recycled to virgin content, net biogenic CO 2 emissions are seen from most relevant countries. In the example of newsprint, this is equivalent to 2–23 tonnes CO 2 per tonne of newsprint. The exceptions to this are Chile and Russia, where demand for virgin fibre does not appear to be associated with deforestation. Despite limitations, the research highlights that biogenic carbon is a significant issue which may dominate the outcome of LCAs assessing the climate change impact of switching between virgin and recycled pulp.

In a move toward the integration of social and ecological goals in land management, landscape approaches are now a part of mainstream conservation and development policy discourses worldwide. Policies for integrated landscape management in Mesoamerica have long promoted biological corridors as a way to enhance biodiversity conservation and habitat connectivity while improving livelihoods in the surrounding landscape matrix. Recently, though, the policy focus throughout the region has shifted toward landscape restoration, which subsumes and expands upon the former approach to respond more explicitly to concerns about climate change. However, the limited success and challenges of translating corridors from paper into practice raise questions about the potential of landscape restoration policies to achieve intended outcomes. Centering on the experience of El Salvador, this paper draws on policy and document analysis and interviews with professionals to compare the two approaches and explore the implications of the transition toward landscape restoration based on lessons learned from past corridor implementation challenges. The paper argues that while the two approaches share many core components and objectives, landscape restoration has different spatial and distributional implications in terms of priority-setting, distribution of resources and benefits, and the promotion of conservation management strategies and alternatives. Nevertheless, unresolved challenges of integrated landscape management revealed by decades of unsuccessful corridor implementation must be addressed if restoration policies are to make headway. Through a critical analysis of shifting policy frameworks in El Salvador, the research offers crucial insight into the limitations and possibilities of integrated landscape management in Mesoamerica and globally.

In the era of climate change, life cycle analysis (LCA) has been acknowledged as a useful method for examining carbon footprints of products or services., Once captured and stored by trees and other plants, biogenic CO 2 would re-enter the atmosphere sooner or later after the use phase of the product. And many LCA studies did not calculate the temporary carbon storage in biogenic carbon. Thus, this paper proposed a hybrid LCA approach to provide a structured methodology for evaluating carbon footprint of copying paper in consideration of temporary carbon storage. The developed method was then applied to a paper mill of China. It is indicated that the hybrid LCA method could provide a comprehensive methodology for accounting carbon footprints as well as assessing effects of delaying GHG emissions. The results shows that the carbon footprint of 1000 kg copying paper was 647.89 kg CO 2 under scenario 1 and -5094 kg CO 2 under scenario 2. Concurrently, the effect of delaying the emission of the temporarily stored carbon in copying paper was 7.67%, 15.52%, or 23.58% for a certain period of time (i.e., 10, 25, or 30 years).

Changes in material use, energy use and emissions profiles of industry are the result of complex interrelationships among a multitude of technological and economic drivers. To better understand and guide such changes requires that attention is paid to the time-varying consequences that technology and economic influences have on an industry's choice of inputs and its associated (desired and undesired) outputs. This paper lays out an approach to improving our understanding of the dynamics of large industrial systems. The approach combines engineering and econometric analysis with a detailed representation of an industry's capital stock structure. A transparent dynamic computer modeling approach is chosen to integrate information from these analyses in ways that foster participation of stakeholders from industry and government agencies in all stages of the modeling process-from problem definition and determination of system boundaries to generation of scenarios and interpretation of results. Three case studies of industrial energy use in the USA are presented-one each for the iron and steel, pulp and paper, and ethylene industry. Dynamic models of these industries are described and then used to investigate alternative carbon emissions and investment-led policies. A comparison of results clearly points towards two key issues: the need for industry specific policy approaches in order to effectively influence industrial energy use, fuel mix and carbon emissions, and the need for longer time horizons than have typically been chosen for the analysis of industrial responses to climate change policies.

Much of the policy debates on climate issues have centered on the optimal level and timing of policy interventions that cost-effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We briefly review the range of policy issues in our paper and assess the impact that climate-change policies may have on energy use and carbon emissions in the US pulp and paper industry. We then present results from time series-based analyses of changes in technologies and fuel mix, and compare the results with engineering-based technology analyses of US pulp and paper production (for a copy of the model and software send e-mail to mruth@bu.edu.). Projections, based on information for eight paper and paperboard categories, are presented for the years 1995–2020. The findings indicate that, under a wide range of specifications and policy assumptions, carbon emissions from fossil fuel use per ton of product are likely to decline. When combined with investment incentives, an additional cost-effective reduction in carbon emissions per ton of product will be realized. However, expected increases in output from the industry are likely to be higher than the reductions in energy and carbon intensities. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Residues of veterinary medicines are a food safety issue regulated by European legislation. The occurrence of animal diseases necessitating application of veterinary medicines is significantly affected by global and local climate changes. This review assesses potential impacts of climate change on residues in food produced on the island of Ireland. Use of various classes of veterinary drugs in light of predicted local climate change is reviewed with particular emphasis on anthelmintic drugs and consideration is given to residues accumulating in the environment. Veterinary medicine use is predicted to increase as disease burdens increase due to varied climate effects. Locally relevant mitigation and adaptation strategies are suggested to ensure climate change does not adversely affect food safety via increasing drug residues.

The Agri-Food and aquaculture industries are vital to the economy of the island of Ireland with a gross annual output that is expected to double in the future. Identifying and understanding the potential influences of the anticipated climate variables on microorganisms that cause foodborne diseases, and their impact on these local industries, are essential. Investigating and monitoring foodborne pathogens and factors that influence their growth, transmission, pathogenesis and survival will facilitate assessment of the stability, security and vulnerability of the continuously evolving and increasing complex local food supply chain.

Climate and other environmental change presents a number of challenges for effective food safety. Food production, distribution and consumption takes place within functioning ecosystems but this backdrop is often ignored or treated as static and unchanging. The risks presented by environmental change include novel pests and diseases, often caused by problem species expanding their spatial distributions as they track changing conditions, toxin generation in crops, direct effects on crop and animal production, consequences for trade networks driven by shifting economic viability of production methods in changing environments and finally, wholesale transformation of ecosystems as they respond to novel climatic regimes.

Coalbed methane (CBM) or coal seam gas (CSG) as it is known in Australia is becoming an increasingly important source of energy around the world. Many countries such as United States, Canada, Australia and China are investing in the CSG industry. A rise in the cost of conventional natural gas and many other energy resources, along with a decline in these conventional resources and issues such as climate change have encouraged a global interest in alternative sources of energy like CSG. The estimated quantity of CSG worldwide is around 1.4×1014 m3, it is clear that coal seam gas is a significant source of energy. The first section of this paper will discuss the production size of CSG worldwide and the future of the industry. The usage of the coal bed seam for the sequestration of CO2 is also an added benefit. The reduction of CO2 released to the environment may help in the future mitigation of global warming. In addition, the re-injecting of the co-produced CO2 enhances the commercial recovery and production of CSG wells. In the second section, the impact of the CSG industry's by-products on the environment, the freshwater ecosystem and human health are analysed. The second section includes issues associated with the large volume of co-produced water with undesirable composition in the CSG industry. The management of this enormous amount of water requires cost effective technologies and methods. Many methods for dealing with water problems are discussed and analysed in this paper.

The paper industry's climate change gas emissions are growing. This article considers how to reduce emissions from cut-size office paper by bypassing stages in its life cycle. The options considered are: incineration, which cuts out landfill; localisation, which cuts out transport; annual fibre, which cuts out forestry and reduces pulping; fibre recycling, which cuts out landfill, forestry and pulping; un-printing, which cuts out all stages except printing; electronic-paper, which cuts out all stages. Un-printing may offer the greatest climate change emission reduction. There are uncertainties in this result, particularly in estimating the proportion of waste office paper would be suitable for un-printing.

The aim of this discussion paper is to begin a conversation with institutional investors about the potential synergies that exist between Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment frameworks and the principles of climate justice. Climate justice works at the intersection of climate change, development and human rights to achieve a people centred, developmental approach to addressing the climate crisis. It recognises that those least responsible for the emissions contributing to climate change are often the most vulnerable to its impacts. The finance sector presides over a large pool of capital that potentially could be steered towards more low carbon, climate resilient activities that take into account issues related to climate justice. In aggregate the value of the assets that the finance sector represents, as measured by the value of equity-market capitalization, corporate and government bonds, and loans, was estimated to be worth US$225 trillion in 2012 . While more investors are addressing climate change as part of a broader approach to ESG investing, the notion of climate justice has not yet entered the narrative. This paper shows that there is overlap between climate justice and some of the existing ESG criteria, in particular the climate change metrics and criteria related to human rights, community engagement and gender equality. The paper also proposes a number of additional metrics that might be developed to specifically evaluate climate justice and provides some examples of how this might be reflected across existing ESG investment frameworks and processes.

This paper is a commentary on Lyons, K. and Westoby, P. (2014) Carbon colonialism and the new land grab: Plantation forestry in Uganda and its livelihood impacts, Journal of Rural Studies, 36, 13-21.

Australians are amongst the highest per capita emitters of carbon on Earth. The evidence is now clear that climate change will terribly impact all living things. As the window of opportunity to prevent this closes the country prevaricates on the need to act, rather deferring the cost to future generations.

The climate change policy debate and ensuing discussions about industrial energy use and carbon emissions have highlighted the need to: (a) aggregate engineering information to a level relevant for economic policy analysis while maintaining sufficient detail so that results are meaningful for industry decision makers, (b) properly represent an industry’s capital vintage structure to better understand inertia associated with changes in aggregate industrial emissions profiles, and (c) identify policy instruments that leverage an industry’s potential for technological change such that carbon emissions can be noticeably reduced. This paper presents an econometric analysis of energy use and emissions profiles of the US Pulp and Paper Industry and uses the resulting set of equations to specify a dynamic model for the analysis of select climate change policies. Scenarios of cost of carbon, energy tax, and investment-led policies indicate that a combination of cost of carbon and investment-led policies can achieve the desired result of rapidly improving overall efficiency of the industry and promoting changes in fuel mix, which together can result in drastic reductions of carbon emissions.

The 17th European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (ERSCP 2014) is being built upon successful previous ERSCP conferences, such as the ones in Istanbul (Turkey), Bregenz (Austria), and Delft (Netherlands). The objective of the 17th ERSCP is to provide a platform to stimulate, develop, and disseminate information about new initiatives aimed at fostering the implementation of sustainable consumption and productionwithin local and regional sustainable development initiatives. The Roundtable will have a special focus upon the urgency for developing serious efforts to speed up the transition to post fossil carbon societies in light of numerous climate change challenges.

Whereas the implementation of the Tourism Protocol of the Alpine Convention seems far from its completion, the Alpine Convention fourth report on the state of the Alps "Sustainable Tourism in the Alps" is under preparation and it is expected by the end of 2012. One of the main critical challenges that Alpine tourism needs to face in the quest for sustainability is climate change. In recent years several research and cooperation projects focusing on the Alpine region have been dealing with the issue of climate change. In particular the Alpine Space Programme, starting with ClimChAlp (2006-2008), focused on the issue of adaptation to climate change in the following call (2008-2011) through several projects: CLISP, ClimAlpTour, Manfred, AdaptAlp, AlpWaterScarce, ParaMount, PermaNet, SILMAS, AlpFFIRS. These projects led to a capitalization project named C3Alps that recently started. At the same time, the Alpstar project, which also started recently, will focus on climate change mitigation and on making the Alps a carbon neutral environment. The Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC) contributed to several of these Alpine Space projects (ClimChAlp, AdaptAlp, ClimAlpTour and C3Alps). Other non Alpine Space projects have also contributed to this research and cooperation issue, such as CC.ALPS (by CIPRA), KLIWA (by various German and Bavarian institutions), Histalp (Austrian weather service), etc. However, ClimAlpTour is the only project that explicitly focused on tourism. This paper builds on these projects’ findings, especially for what concerns the implications for the tourism sector, and on the existing relevant literature.

Paper covers personal experiences relating to the relevant science, publications, negotiations, policies, measures, business responses, and sleight-of-hand which has gone around the author over many years.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been identified as one of the CO2 emissions reduction mechanisms that could assist South Africa to meet its emissions reduction targets. The technology is part of the various South Africa’s emission reduction plans such as the Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) and National Development Plan (NDP). CCS is further identified as one of the National Flagship Priority Programme in the National Climate Change Response White Paper. The initial focus for CCS in South Africa was on geological storage. Without safe and permanent storage, CCS would not be a viable option to mitigate CO2 emissions. Following the publication of the Atlas on Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide in South Africa, the South African government through SANEDI/SACCCS initiated a Pilot CO2 Storage Project (PCSP). The project commenced by analysing existing onshore geological data in Zululand and Algoa Basins. The decision was subsequently made to focus on the Zululand Basin. This decision was informed by time, cost, and geology considerations. The PCSP is currently delayed for various reasons. Consequently, the opportunity arose to use that time to apply new techniques, previously not available, to analyse the existing geological data in the KZN Basin, the outcome of which was the identification of two prospective injection sites. The current work is directed to characterising these two sites. With the PCSP well advanced, SANEDI is now incorporating other aspects of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) into the programme, such as carbon capture, carbon utilisation and mineral carbonisation. The updated Roadmap will be presented as well as details of the PCSP. More recently, the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy has approved the transfer of the CCUS Programme from SANEDI to the Council for Geosciences (CGS).

The health of smallholder farmers is crucial for ensuring food and nutritional security for two billion people. However, their health is in jeopardy for several reasons including challenges from climate change impacts. Using a narrative literature review supported by field observations and informal interviews with key informants in India, Bangladesh and Malawi, this paper identifies and discusses the health impacts of climate change under four categories: (i) communicable diseases, (ii) non-communicable diseases, (iii) mental health, and (iv) occupational health, safety and other health issues. The health impacts of climate change on smallholder farmers will hamper the realization of many of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, and a series of recommendations are made to regional and country governments to address the increasing health impacts of accelerating climate change among smallholder farmers.

This study evaluates the life cycle environmental sustainability of cheddar cheese with energy recovery from cheese whey via anaerobic digestion. Environmental hotspots and improvement opportunities along the supply chain are also identified. The cheddar cheese production process has been simulated by using Aspen Plus. The environmental impacts have been estimated through life cycle assessment (LCA) using the outputs from process simulation. The LCA data for the rest of the life cycle have been sourced from databases and literature. The results reveal that the total primary energy consumed in the whole life cycle of cheddar cheese is 347 MJ, with the carbon footprint equal to 14 kg CO 2 eq. per kg of cheddar. Energy recovered from anaerobic digestion of whey reduces the total life cycle primary energy demand and the carbon footprint by only 2%. Much greater reductions could be achieved by targeting milk production and storage of cheese. However, anaerobic digestion of whey makes the cheese production process energy self-sufficient and reduces the production costs. It also makes the production process carbon negative, reducing its carbon footprint from 0.12 to -0.12 kg CO 2 eq./kg due to the credits for electricity and heat produced from biogas.

International audience; The potential of psychological and fiscal framing interventions in motivating environmentally responsible behavior is explored in a context of long distance leisure travel. A series of discrete choice experiments is conducted with 789 participants. Framing conditions like information on CO2 emissions, an injunctive and a descriptive norm, fiscal incentives such as a carbon tax, a bonus-malus and a personal carbon trading scheme are tested while controlling the usual travel price-duration tradeoff. Pricing (including internalization of social cost of CO2 through fiscal incentives) has the expected effect of reducing the choice of travelling and hence CO2 emissions. Providing information on CO2 emissions of each transport alternative significantly reduces preferences for the most emitting modes (air) and favors a less emitting mode (train). Framing the fiscal incentive as personal carbon trading adds a moderate incentive to the price effect in reducing air choice.

The European Marine Board recently published a position paper on linking oceans and human health as a strategic research priority for Europe. With this position paper as a reference, the March 2014 Cornwall Oceans and Human Health Workshop brought together key scientists, policy makers, funders, business, and non governmental organisations from Europe and the US to review the recent interdisciplinary and cutting edge research in oceans and human health specifically the growing evidence of the impacts of oceans and seas on human health and wellbeing (and the effects of humans on the oceans). These impacts are a complex mixture of negative influences (e.g. from climate change and extreme weather to harmful algal blooms and chemical pollution) and beneficial factors (e.g. from natural products including seafood to marine renewable energy and wellbeing from interactions with coastal environments). Integrated approaches across disciplines, institutions, and nations in science and policy are needed to protect both the oceans and human health and wellbeing now and in the future.

Thirty years ago, Adams (1981) depicted a future UK where everyone was a millionaire lorry driver, simply by extrapolating from contemporary official transport growth assumptions. These assumptions underpinned the ‘predict and provide’ approach which then characterised transport planning. Twenty years later, the New Deal for Transport White Paper (1998) abandoned ‘predict and provide’ as unsustainable. This paper argues that the same growth assumptions that Adams took to their logical (absurd) conclusion have re-emerged to define both transport and the drivers of transport demand. While non-aviation transport is supposed to be carbon-neutral by 2050, the implied reductions in emissions rely on an absolute decoupling of transport demand and its drivers for which there is no evidence in current planning. Targets rely on optimistic, narrowly framed technology forecasts and behaviour change assumptions which appear highly unlikely in the present socio-political climate. Moreover, such is the cost of mitigating these tensions between economic growth and other concerns, it is argued that the targeted outcomes of current policy are as undesirable as they are unlikely. The paper concludes by calling for a transport policy which considers mobility in an integrated, holistic fashion, rather than merely as a dimension of economic growth.

Highlights • The spring of 2013 was extreme with record low temperatures and snow cover. • Arrival of migrant birds in Arctic was significantly delayed in 2013 compared to 3 other years. • Body condition was negatively affected in white-crowned sparrows and Lapland longspurs. • Stress physiology was increased in Lapland longspurs but not white-crowned sparrows. • Extreme events have the capacity to affect phenology, body condition and stress physiology., Climate change is causing rapid shifts in temperature while also increasing the frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme weather. In the northern hemisphere, the spring of 2013 was characterized as extreme due to record high snow cover and low temperatures. Studies that describe the effects of extreme weather on phenology across taxa are limited while morphological and physiological responses remain poorly understood. Stress physiology, as measured through baseline and stress-induced concentrations of cortisol or corticosterone, has often been studied to understand how organisms respond to environmental stressors. We compared body condition and stress physiology of two long-distance migrants breeding in low arctic Alaska – the white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) and Lapland longspur (Calcarius lapponicus) – in 2013, an extreme weather year, with three more typical years (2011, 2012, and 2014). The extended snow cover in spring 2013 caused measureable changes in phenology, body condition and physiology. Arrival timing for both species was delayed 4–5 days compared to the other three years. Lapland longspurs had reduced fat stores, pectoralis muscle profiles, body mass, and hematocrit levels, while stress-induced concentrations of corticosterone were increased. Similarly, white-crowned sparrows had reduced pectoralis muscle profiles and hematocrit levels, but in contrast to Lapland longspurs, had elevated fat stores and no difference in mass or stress physiology relative to other study years. An understanding of physiological mechanisms that regulate coping strategies is of critical importance for predicting how species will respond to the occurrence of extreme events in the future due to global climate change.

Wood is a sustainable resource and building material. It provides an excellent response to climate change and has excellent insulation performance. However, structural defects may occur due to decay from moisture, resulting in poor dimensional stability. The rich organic substances contained in wood can lead to mold when the moisture content is consistently high, adversely affecting the health of occupants. Therefore, we attempted to compensate for the disadvantages of wood in regard to water stability while maintaining the high thermal insulation performance and carbon dioxide storage capacity, using biochar from thermally decomposed spruce under oxygen limiting conditions. A wood-derived biocomposite was prepared by mixing biochar and soft wood-based chips using the hot-press method, and the thermal conductivity, specific heat, water vapor resistance factor, moisture adsorption, and moisture desorption performances were analyzed. The thermal conductivity of WB10 with 10 wt% biochar content was 0.09301 W/mK. This is a 7.98% decrease from 0.10108 W/mK, the thermal conductivity of WB0 without biochar. The water vapor resistance factor tended to increase when the biochar ratio increased. As the proportion of biochar increased, the equilibrium moisture content in high relative humidity tended to decrease, and it was found that the moisture adsorption and desorption performances were affected by the ratio of the biochar. Therefore, wood-derived biocomposites using biochar can be used in environmentally friendly materials, with improved thermal insulation performance and water stability.

Introduction Climate change and rapid population ageing are significant public health challenges. Understanding which health problems are affected by temperature is important for preventing heat and cold-related deaths and illnesses, particularly in the elderly. Here we present a systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of ambient hot and cold temperature (excluding heat/cold wave only studies) on elderly (65 + years) mortality and morbidity. Methods Time-series or case-crossover studies comprising cause-specific cases of elderly mortality (n = 3,933,398) or morbidity (n = 12,157,782) were pooled to obtain a percent change (%) in risk for temperature exposure on cause-specific disease outcomes using a random-effects meta-analysis. Results A 1 °C temperature rise increased cardiovascular (3.44%, 95% CI 3.10–3.78), respiratory (3.60%, 3.18–4.02), and cerebrovascular (1.40%, 0.06–2.75) mortality. A 1 °C temperature reduction increased respiratory (2.90%, 1.84–3.97) and cardiovascular (1.66%, 1.19–2.14) mortality. The greatest risk was associated with cold-induced pneumonia (6.89%, 20–12.99) and respiratory morbidity (4.93% 1.54–8.44). A 1 °C temperature rise increased cardiovascular, respiratory, diabetes mellitus, genitourinary, infectious disease and heat-related morbidity. Discussion Elevated risks for the elderly were prominent for temperature-induced cerebrovascular, cardiovascular, diabetes, genitourinary, infectious disease, heat-related, and respiratory outcomes. These risks will likely increase with climate change and global ageing., Highlights • Heat and cold exposure elevates elderly risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular deaths and respiratory deaths and morbidity. • Climate change and ageing will likely increase the risk of diabetes, renal, infectious disease and heat-induced morbidity. • Temperature risks for elderly populations in Africa, Middle East, Asia and South America are under-represented. We applied a rigorous search strategy on three relevant databases following the PRISMA protocol. The search retrieved 18 mortality, and 30 morbidity publications eligible for meta-analysis, representing 3,933,398 deaths and 12,157,782 morbidity cases. Robust risk estimates were calculated for a wide range of temperature-sensitive health outcomes in the elderly. Temperature was found to significantly elevate cerebrovascular, cardiovascular, diabetes, genitourinary, and especially respiratory mortality or morbidity risks in the elderly. This study highlights considerable adverse health risks from temperature exposure in a large vulnerable population and provides impetus for climate change policy to address these risks.

A ground-breaking new research report has been released today by the analysts at Meteo Protect demonstrating that despite the best efforts of government leaders and international organizations to lead the response to climate change, their efforts have not been able to galvanize the key players who can make a difference. In fact, not only are they not engaged, they do not even know they are already at risk.A new White Paper from Meteo Protect modelling the impact of climate variability on the private sector finds that climate change is already making a significant impact in the profits of companies operating in sectors exposed to weather. Directly challenging the direction of present empirical research, and the consensus of how to respond to climate change, it identifies how and why private industry, including companies and investors, must act immediately to manage the consequences of climate change.Indeed, the extent to which the vast majority of companies are presently exposed to climate variability is likely to be a revelation for many analysts, investors and even companies executives themselves. Demonstrating that billions of dollars are at risk each quarter, continuing to go unreported and unmanaged, the researchers call for the provision of actionable and objective indicators to measure the exposure to climate risk and the implementation of mitigating weather hedging strategies to protect financial performance.A must-read for finance executives, investors, asset managers and business analysts, the White Paper takes a new approach to tackling a long-standing and unresolved problem, making it understandable, relevant and manageable.

This paper argues that imprecise probability can be used to describe uncertainty about scenarios. Scenarios are conceptualized as written descriptions of potential future worlds that are based on assessments of economic, political, social, technological, and environmental trends [This description of scenarios follows that provided by Peter Schwartz. P. Schwartz [9] , The Art of the Long View, Doubleday, New York, 1991 [9]. Because written, qualitative scenarios are beginning to find application in important policy contexts, such as with respect to global climate change [N. Nakicenovic, R. Swart [5] , Emission Scenarios: Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2000 [5], where uncertainty estimates are of some importance to policy makers, there is a growing need to address the question of whether uncertainty estimates can be assessed over qualitative scenarios. Section 1 of this short paper contrasts imprecise probability with standard classical (or precise) probability. Section 2 provides a technique for assessing the amount of information (referred to as ‘determinateness’) expressed by imprecise (i.e. lower and upper) probabilities over a set of scenarios. Section 3 discusses how to assess to what degree the scenarios may represent the whole space of potential futures. Section 4 brings all the pieces together to show how scenario developers can use measures of determinateness and the coverage of a set of scenarios over all potential possible futures to improve the development and use of scenarios.

Declining forest health attributed to associations between extensive bark beetle-caused tree mortality, accumulations of hazardous fuels, wildfire, and climate change have catalyzed changes in forest health and wildfire protection policies of land management agencies. These changes subsequently prompted research to investigate the extent to which bark beetle-altered fuel complexes affect fire behavior. Although not yet rigorously quantified, the results of the investigations, in addition to a growing body of operational experience, indicate that predictable changes in surface, ladder and canopy fuel character- istics do occur over the course of a bark beetle rotation. Input of these changes in fuel characteristics into conventional fire behavior modeling systems can readily provide predictions of potential fire behavior, including the likelihood of crowning. However, several factors limit the direct application of these mod- eling systems in their current form and consequently, they may largely under predict fire potential in such stands. This presents a concern where extreme fire behavior involving both crowning and spotting coupled with flammable fuel conditions can pose serious challenges to incident management and threa- ten the safety of firefighters and the general public alike. In this paper, we review the nature and char- acteristics of bark beetle-altered fuel complexes in the conifer forests of the Interior West and the challenges of understanding the effects on extreme fire behavior, including the initiation and spread of crown fires. We also discuss how emerging fire management plans in the U.S. have begun to integrate wildfire management and other forest health objectives with the specific goal of achieving biodiversity and ecosystem resiliency while simultaneously reducing the existence of hazardous fuel complexes.

ObjectiveTo determine key points of intervention in urban food systems to improve the climate resilience, equity and healthfulness of the whole system.DesignThe paper brings together evidence from a 3-year, Australia-based mixed-methods research project focused on climate change adaptation, cities, food systems and health. In an integrated analysis of the three research domains – encompassing the production, distribution and consumption sectors of the food chain – the paper examines the efficacy of various food subsystems (industrial, alternative commercial and civic) in achieving climate resilience and good nutrition.SettingGreater Western Sydney, Australia.SubjectsPrimary producers, retailers and consumers in Western Sydney.ResultsThis overarching analysis of the tripartite study found that: (i) industrial food production systems can be more environmentally sustainable than alternative systems, indicating the importance of multiple food subsystems for food security; (ii) a variety of food distributors stocking healthy and sustainable items is required to ensure that these items are accessible, affordable and available to all; and (iii) it is not enough that healthy and sustainable foods are produced or sold, consumers must also want to consume them. In summary, a resilient urban food system requires that healthy and sustainable food items are produced, that consumers can attain them and that they actually wish to purchase them.ConclusionsThis capstone paper found that the interconnected nature of the different sectors in the food system means that to improve environmental sustainability, equity and population health outcomes, action should focus on the system as a whole and not just on any one sector.

Climate risk disclosure from insurance and reinsurance companies has been controversial in terms of what it can accomplish and whether it can influence private sector adaptation behavior. This white paper details findings and makes recommendations about government policies requiring climate risk disclosure from insurance companies and their effectiveness. The findings and recommendations are based on a multi-disciplinary workshop involving academics, government, and the private sector, co-hosted by UNC Law's Center for Law, Environment, Adaptation, and Resources (CLEAR), the Georgetown Climate Center (GCC), UCLA Law's Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites - North Carolina.

Following the growth in car ownership and use in the UK, and associated concerns with traffic levels and vehicle emissions, the Government published the Integrated Transport White Paper (ITWP) in 1998, setting out a fully integrated policy to tackle the ‘twin pillars’ of congestion and pollution. Since the publication of the ITWP, congestion has emerged as a more salient concern, while a combination of increasing public dissatisfaction over progress on transport, a number of political shocks (a national fuel duty protest, in particular) and institutional change have combined to effect an apparent shift away from the original ‘joined-up’ philosophy. It is argued that the Government is now focusing on investing in transport infrastructure and has been slow to promote policies to manage demand for road use such as congestion charging. The short-lived marriage of transport and environmental policy is facing a stern test. Although, local air pollution has been falling due to improved engine technology, it is argued that CO 2 emissions from road traffic will increase in the future, jeopardising the UK’s ability to hit its climate change targets. In conclusion, it is argued that greater integration of policy is required (possibly through a Ministerial Committee, but not through further departmental restructuring), while the introduction of a national road charging scheme would reduce CO 2 and further reduce local air pollution.

The Endangered Species Act was designed to protect species that had been rendered more vulnerable to extinction as a result of human activity. As such, its implementation has traditionally focused on keeping human beings away from such species and giving the species space to heal on their own. Climate change is altering the landscape everywhere on the globe, rendering the hands-off approach no longer sufficient. Active interventions will become more necessary as we get further into the changing climate. This paper/presentation will review the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and the sort of management approaches that will become more appropriate in the new climate world. It will then discuss the relationship between the ESA and both mitigation (which is not an ideal area for ESA application) and adaptation (where the most work is needed). While there are many provisions in the ESA that will prove useful to supporting the new strategies for species preservation, utilizing them properly will require a shift in implementation priorities and greater acceptance of the demise of what once was. This is a short paper prepared for CLE purposes.

Current approaches to discounting in climate policy present a seemingly intractable problem and stalemate. While it is widely recognized that choice of discount rate in climate models can easily dwarf the effect of other parameter inputs, there is at present a very wide disagreement, both in law and in economics, about the appropriate discount rate to use. This paper provides a framework for achieving a workable consensus range for acceptable discount rates in climate models. It does so by emphasizing three factors previously ignored in the literature. First, it demonstrates that the choice of discount rate should be tailored to the type of climate model at issue, distinguishing particularly between policy evaluation models versus optimization models. Second, it suggests that some disagreement in these debates is fundamental (because reflecting deep unbridgeable differences in views about the proper scope of the market) while some disagreement is not. By focusing attention on the non-fundamental sorts of disagreement it becomes possible to shrink the consensus range of plausible discount rates. Third, the paper argues that some of the current disagreement about the choice of discount rate for modeling purposes on the front-end can actually be better addressed through elements of program design on the back-end.

Nowadays, as stressed by important strategic documents like for instance the 2009 EU White Paper on Adaptation or the recent 2009 “Copenhagen Accord”, it is amply recognized that both mitigation and adaptation strategies are necessary to combat climate change. This paper enriches the rapidly expanding literature trying to devise normative indications on the optimal combination of the two introducing the role of catastrophic and spatial uncertainty related to climate change damages. Applying a modified version of the Nordhaus’ Regional Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy it is shown that in both cases uncertainty works in the direction to make mitigation a more attractive strategy than adaptation. When catastrophic uncertainty is concerned mitigation becomes relatively more important as, by curbing emissions, it helps to reduce temperature increase and hence the probability of the occurrence of the event. Adaptation on the contrary has no impact on this. It is also shown that optimal mitigation responses are much less sensitive than adaptation responses to spatial uncertainty. Mitigation responds to global damages, while adaptation to local damages. The first, being aggregated, change less than the second in the presence of spatial uncertainty as higher expected losses in some regions are compensated by lower expected losses in other. Accordingly, mitigation changes less than adaptation. Thus if it cannot be really claimed that spatial uncertainty increases the weight of mitigation respect to that of adaptation, however its presence makes mitigation a “safer” or more robust strategy to a policy decision maker than adaptation.

EU climate policy based on GHG emissions reduction (mitigation) is coupled with measures aimed at responding efficiently to the unavoidable consequences of climate change (adaptation). However, as the European Commission stated recently in its Green Paper on adaptation in Europe, there is still need to develop an overall EU adaptation strategy. Moreover, such a strategy should take into consideration both efficiency and equity concerns. In this article we propose a framework for EU adaptation policy that addresses both concerns and which enables a transparent decision-making process. In the proposed scheme universal weightings of the individual policy objectives have to be agreed upon prior to actual decision-making.

Background Climate change constitutes a complex challenge posing an urgent threat to our planet and life and creating an entirely different way of conceptualising the world and our chances to provide safe food within it. There are currently numerous studies dealing with the potential effect of increased temperature, extreme weather events and cascading events on food safety and subsequently human health. In contrast to food safety, the available data on the impact of climate change on food quality, including food spoilage, are very limited. Scope and approach This paper presents an overview of the potential impact of climate change on both food safety and microbial spoilage at various stages of the food chain. Among the different hazards related to climate change, mycotoxin and marine biotoxin contamination, environmental residuals derived from various anthropogenic activities and zoonosis diseases are identified as climatic-driven emerging risks to human life and discussed further in this paper. Global warming is projected to affect all microorganisms, including spoilage bacteria and fungi. Hence, this paper also discusses the potential increased risk of microbial spoilage for bulk dried foods and non-refrigerated processed foods which could be high susceptible to climate change in relation to growth of spoilage organisms. Key-findings and conclusions The paper concludes that climate change requires multidisciplinary approaches to gain in-depth knowledge and identify potential emerging risks. In addition, this paper goes beyond food safety and addresses an overlooked aspect of climate change, namely the microbiological spoilage of foods that may require a high level of preparedness by both the food industry and policy makers.

The variability and dynamics of the Asian monsoon (AM, hereafter indicates both of the summer and winter monsoons.) at orbital and millennial timescales has attracted wide interest. Chinese loess deposits, covering an area of ~500 × 103 km2 and with a thickness of several tens to more than three hundred meters, is an ideal continental archive to reconstruct AM variations during the Quaternary epoch. Over the past thirty years, since the earliest paper published in an international journal that linked the Asian monsoon and Chinese loess deposits, many studies have been undertaken focusing on this research topic. These results have greatly deepened our understanding of the variations of the AM climate and their driving mechanisms during the past ~2.6 Myr. In this paper, we emphasize recent progress on the AM variability and dynamics revealed by Chinese loess records; in particular, we discuss the reliability and precision of the timescale and the monsoon proxy indicators for the loess-paleosol sequences, which are two fundamental aspects for understanding AM behavior. We analyze what we know and discuss what we do not know about the AM. We refine the timescale for the typical loess-paleosol sequence in the central Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP), which can be used as a new timescale to study palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironmental changes in the monsoonal Asia. We conclude that low-latitude insolation changes induced by precession, and global ice volume, temperature at high-latitudes, as well as sea-level changes forced variations of the AM at orbital time scales. High-latitude cooling events and low-latitude hydroclimate process at millennial time scales, such as climate changes associated with Heinrich events and Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles in Northern Atlantic and Greenland, have also modulated AM variability. We suggest that high-latitude forcing of AM variations occurs through ocean and atmospheric circulation linkages, although the roles of atmospheric CO2, ocean and vegetation feedbacks need further investigation. In future study, high-resolution independent dating, novel proxy indices and transient numerical simulations are still basic tools to understand the loess deposition and AM variations that require considerably more work. Issues such as reliable spatial comparison and regional linkages of records (dependent on precise and accurate numerical chronologies), and quantitative reconstruction of the AM variations, should be given priority in the study the past climate change in Asia, and low-latitude hydroclimate process.

Monthly rainfall data for Blue Nile Basin (BNB) were obtained from the Ethiopian Meteorological Authority (1950–2018). Long-term trends in the BNB annual and monthly rainfall are investigated in this study. The challenges of the paper were to explore the impact of climate change on the study area using sound practical methods. The paper used the widely used statistical methods to find precisely the significance of the impact of climate change rainfall variability and distribution both spatially and temporally in the BNB. The statistical significance of the trend in the study is calculated by the Mann-Kendall (MK) test. Data were analyzed using the coefficient of variation, anomaly index, and precipitation concentration index. The coefficient of variation is high in Kiremt rainfall which implies more inter-annual variability of Bega rainfall than Kiremt (Coefficient of Variation (CV): Bega˃ Belg˃ Kiremt season). Based on Precipitation Concentration Index (PCI) value, the number of moderate concentration years (89.9%) has been increasing through time and the study area has encountered successive years of drought. The results showed that the annual, Bega, Belg, and Kiremt precipitation over the whole of BNB is significantly decreasing except Bega season with a magnitude of 36.38, 3.8, 7.8, and 24.7 mm per decade respectively. The rainfall in the study area is characterized by a high CV. Moreover, prolonged droughts have become common which adversely affects the agricultural system. It was also found that very low values of rainfall anomalies that correspond to severe droughts were associated with El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events.

Developing knowledge-based and usable climate change policies requires establishing science-policy interfaces through which knowledge producers and policymakers cooperate. Current research reveals that co-production-based interfaces dominated neither by knowledge producers nor policymakers succeed in facilitating the transformation of knowledge into politics. From this point of view, this paper explores how Izmir Development Agency (IZKA), a regional development agency in Turkey, utilizes scientific knowledge and science-policy interfaces in its activities on climate change. Based on the analysis of agency documents and semi-structured interviews with experts from and outside IZKA, the findings indicate that IZKA thrives in integrating scientific knowledge on climate change in its activities drawing from multi-stakeholder and multi-level science-policy interfaces that have significant similarities with the co-production model. In these interfaces, international, national, regional, and local stakeholders share their resources, knowledge, and experience on climate change. Although legal, geographical, and demographic conditions also have an impact, the main reason behind IZKA’s success is the agency’s climate-focused vision that shapes decisions, strategies, organizational structure, and activities. In parallel to the indicated finding, this paper also discloses that the perspective of not prioritizing climate change and considering the potential benefits as only “co-benefit” does not yield results with the desired efficiency. Another finding is that even though the national government is the main actor on climate in Turkey, development agencies are capable of carrying out transformative activities in their regions, albeit limited.

Tropical cyclones represent one of India's toughest natural threats. This paper lists the challenges and mitigation efforts to resolve significant disasters in the coastal areas of eastern India in particular. Humans must learn to counter and live with the effects of such natural disasters as they are unavoidable . The construction of natural hazard structures has always been supported by various national and international disaster mitigation organisations. New building design standards are proposed, as planning and growth to reduce the possibility of potential structural damage. Damage is caused to the roof, walls, openings, and foundation of a building due to the use of non-disaster proof construction practices. A brief introduction on the damaging effects of noteworthy cyclones is provided. It has been highlighted the increasing frequency of cyclones since the start of the 21st century due to climate change. A focus is maintained on the challenges faced by rural regions of India for the eastern coastline especially in the housing sector. Climate change and further cyclones have caused the loss of crops and thus livelihood, which is the main concern for the rural people. A section on the challenges to the housing reconstruction provisions for the rural community, as provided by the Government of India is depicted. Lastly, the paper provides various solutions for a cyclone-resistant structure and disaster prevention as per the challenges faced by the rural community.

Climate change has become a major global challenge. At present, few studies have reviewed the application practices and theoretical research of carbon neutrality. This paper summarizes the practical progress of carbon neutrality, the realization path of carbon neutrality, and the carbon neutrality research in typical fields, and concludes that the previous research has made some progress in the carbon neutrality goal domestic and overseas, the pathways to carbon neutrality, and the carbon neutrality issues in various fields. However, this paper also points out existing problems. Firstly, more studies should be carried out on the quantitative evaluation of carbon neutrality by adopting empircal datas and tools in various fields; Secondly, the correlation between paths and industries should be taken more attention; Additionally, how to measure carbon neutral capability, d potential and costis of great significance in subsequent studies.

Development processes and action on climate change are closely interlinked. This is recognised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fifth assessment report, which reports on climate-resilient pathways, understood as development trajectories towards sustainable development which include adaptation and mitigation. The upcoming sixth assessment report dedicates a chapter to climate resilient development pathways. In this context, this paper asks what conceptual and empirical advances on climate resilient development pathways were made since the fifth assessment report. Through a literature review, this paper analyses goals and approaches for climate resilient development pathways, and discusses what conceptual advances have and could still be made. We find little evidence of dedicated concept development. Rather, we observe conceptual ambiguity. Literature showed four non-exclusive clusters of approaches: (a) climate action oriented, (b) social-learning and co-creation oriented, (c) mainstreaming oriented and (d) transformation oriented. We recommend operationalising climate resilient development pathways as the process of consolidating climate action and development decisions towards long-term sustainable development. This process requires explicit engagement with aspirations of actors, and connecting past developments with future aspirations and understandings of risk. Working with multiple pathways allows us to embed flexibility, anticipation and learning in planning. A greater focus is needed on issues linked to justice and equity as climate resilient development pathways will inevitably involve trade-offs. Substantiating the concept of climate resilient development pathways has the potential to bridge climate and development perspectives, which may otherwise remain separated in development and climate policy, practice and science.