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Climate change will stress urban sanitation systems. Although urban sanitation uses various infrastructure types and service systems, current research appears skewed toward a small subset of cases. We conducted a systematic literature review to critically appraise the evidence for climate change impacts on all urban sanitation system types. We included road-based transport networks, an essential part of fecal sludge management systems. We combined the evidence on climate change impacts with the existing knowledge about modes of urban sanitation failures. We found a predominance of studies that assess climate impacts on centralized sewerage in high-income contexts. The implications of climate change for urban nonsewered and complex, fragmented, and (partially) decentralized sanitation systems remain under-researched. In addition, the understanding of the impacts of climate change on urban sanitation systems fails to take a comprehensive citywide perspective considering interdependencies with other sectors and combinations of climate effects. We conclude that the evidence for climate change impacts on urban sanitation systems is weak. To date, research neither adequately represents the variety of urban sanitation infrastructure and service systems nor reflects the operational and management challenges of already stressed systems.

Climate change mitigation has two main characteristics that interact to make it an extremely demanding challenge of governance: the complexity of the socio-technical systems that must be transformed to avoid climate change and the presence of profound uncertainties. A number of tools and approaches exist, which aim to help manage these challenges and support long-term decision making. However, most tools and approaches assume that there is one decision maker with clearly defined objectives. The interaction between decision makers with differing perspectives and agency is an additional uncertainty that is rarely addressed, despite the wide recognition that action is required at multiple scales and by multiple actors. This article draws inspiration from dynamic adaptive policy pathways to build on current decision support methods, extending analysis to include the perspectives and agency of multiple actors through a case study of the UK construction sector. The findings demonstrate the importance of considering alignment between perspectives, agency and potential actions when developing plans; the need for mobilizing and advocacy actions to build momentum for radical change; and the crucial influence of interaction between actors. The decision support approach presented could improve decision making by reflecting the diversity and interaction of actors; identifying short-term actions that connect to long-term goals and keeping future options open. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meat consumption behaviours contribute significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions. Interventions to enable meat consumption reductions need to consider the psychological barriers preventing behavioural changes. Our aims were twofold; (1) to explore the psychological barriers to reducing meat consumption and how they can be overcome through a Rapid Evidence Review; and (2) to explore the usefulness of integrating the Kollmuss and Agyeman (K&A) model of pro-environmental behaviour and psychological distance, which provides the analytical framework. This review utilised three databases, focussing on empirical studies since 2010, which returned 277 results with seven eligible studies. We found that habit is the most significant psychological barrier to change, however, values and attitudes could act as moderating variables. We found gaps in the behavioural mechanism, indicating the presence of direct and indirect psychological barriers. We identified several actionable policy recommendations, such as utilising co-benefits, the importance of values in messaging, and targeting repeated behaviours. We found that study outcomes did not always translate into policy recommendations, and they were limited by existing policy paradigms. Psychological distance provides additional explanatory power, when combined with the K&A model, therefore, integrating psychological distance across pro-environmental behavioural research and policy could improve the effectiveness of interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global GHG emissions continue to rise, with nearly a quarter of it due to trade that is not currently captured within global climate policy. In the context of current trade patterns and limited global cooperation on climate change, the feasibility of consumption-based emissions accounting to contribute to a more comprehensive (national) policy framework in the UK is investigated. Consumption-based emissions results for the UK from a range of models are presented, their technical robustness is assessed, and their potential application in national climate policy is examined using examples of policies designed to reduce carbon leakage and to address high levels of consumption. It is shown that there is a need to include consumption-based emissions as a complementary indicator to the current approach of measuring territorial emissions. Methods are shown to be robust enough to measure progress on climate change and develop and inform mitigation policy. Finally, some suggestions are made for future policy-oriented research in the area of consumption-based accounting that will facilitate its application to policy. Policy relevance Emissions embodied in trade are rapidly increasing and there is thus a growing gap between production emissions and the emissions associated with consumption. This is a growing concern due to the absence of a global cap and significant variation in country-level mitigation ambitions. Robust measurements of consumption-based emissions are possible and provide new insights into policy options. This includes trade-related policy (e.g. border carbon adjustments) and domestic policies (e.g. resource efficiency strategies). As climate policy targets deepen, there is a need for a broad range of policy options in addition to production and technological solutions. Consumption-based emissions are complementary to production-based emissions inventories, which are still the most accurate estimate for aggregated emissions at the global level. However, without consumption-based approaches, territorial emissions alone will not provide a complete picture of progress in regional and national emissions reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]