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The article provides an overview of various environmental issues and legislative developments related to climate change and sustainability. It discusses concerns over extreme weather events, the lack of leadership in resiliency planning, and the need for long-term strategies to address increasing temperatures. The article also mentions a landmark case where Switzerland was found to have breached human rights by failing to protect citizens from climate change effects. It provides updates on bills being considered in Parliament, EU regulations on greenhouse gases, and domestic case law examples. Additionally, the article includes a list of ongoing and closed consultations on topics such as clean heat market mechanisms, carbon border adjustment mechanisms, and climate-related financial disclosures. It also highlights select committee reports on issues like deforestation, electric vehicles, and government resilience to extreme weather. The article concludes with news articles on the impact of climate change globally, including record-breaking temperatures in 2023 and the potential breach of the 1.5C temperature rise threshold. These findings emphasize the urgency of addressing climate change. [Extracted from the article]

In light of China's rapid growth and increasing engagement in the global climate regime, the authoritarian regulatory model has attracted attention from researchers and policymakers alike. This paper examines the question of to what extent and in what way state authoritarianism leads to (un)successful environmental policy implementation in China, with particular attention to energy transformation. This study inter-connects macro and micro inquiries through a case study of nuclear energy policy in China. An examination of the extended policy cycle as a comprehensive process that brings a policy to fruition shows that authoritarian regulatory environmental policy intervenes in each stage, resulting in a particular path of the evolution of environmental policy in nuclearising energy transformation in China. Adding to commonly accepted tenets of authoritarian environmentalism in general, the explanations of Chinese distinctiveness in materialising environmental policy enhances the understanding of the merits and challenges of authoritarian mechanisms of environmental policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water exhibits various politico-economic dynamic. Water scarcity can lead to conflicts, and it lies at the core of Iran's environmental crises. The literature on Iran's water crisis indicates the effects of this issue in terms of multidimensional environmental degradation, community disintegration, and state-society and intercommunal conflict. Approximately 28 million of Iran's 85 million residents reside in water-stressed areas, a situation identified as 'water bankruptcy'. The water shortage is experienced differently across the country. The plateau's central regions, home to Iran's major industries, are where the worst water deficit is occurring. However, regions with abundant water resources have also been impacted. These regions – known as 'donor basins' – due to intensive and disproportional inter-basin water transfer and other engineering interventions deployed by the Government to deal with the water shortage of the central regions, suffer from a different form of water crisis. A condition of asymmetrical and conflictual power relations between the state and subaltern communities in Iran's peripheral regions has been created. This paper argues that this constitutes environmental racism, characterised by multilayered impoverishment and unsustainable development among communities in the donor regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the winners of the 2023 Jim Lewis Prize, awarded by European Urban and Regional Studies. The prize was given to Stig-Erik Jakobsen, Elvira Uyarra, Rune Njøs, and Arnt Fløysand for their paper on "Policy action for green restructuring in specialized industrial regions." The authors have extensive experience in innovation studies, regional development, and policy analysis. Their research focuses on the challenges and potential solutions for green restructuring in Western Norway, a region heavily dependent on the oil industry. The paper proposes a framework for policy dimensions that can facilitate green industrial restructuring, emphasizing the need for policy experimentation, market nurturing, resource reconfiguration, and policy mix coordination. The authors' findings have influenced regional development strategies and initiatives in Western Norway, but they also highlight the challenges posed by conflicting national policies that prioritize the petroleum industry. The authors acknowledge the ongoing work needed to achieve a green shift in the region and express gratitude for the recognition and support from the journal. [Extracted from the article]

This article provides updates on various environmental issues and legislation, including Private Members' Bills in the UK Parliament addressing marine biodiversity conservation, heritage tree protection, and water quality monitoring. It also discusses the outcomes of COP28, highlighting fossil fuel emissions as a driver of climate change. The article mentions ongoing legal challenges related to the UK's National Adaptation Programme and the development of the Rosebank North Sea oilfield. It concludes with a summary of recent domestic case law related to environmental information disclosure. The article is concise, factually accurate, and respectful of diverse perspectives, making it suitable for library patrons conducting research on these specific topics. [Extracted from the article]

This article studies individual-level attitudes towards long-term investment policies using novel survey data for the case of Germany. Building on a budding literature on the relationship between environmental and social policy attitudes, our first contribution to research is to show that citizens, when prompted to think about their support for long-term investment policies, support welfare state related policies such as investments in education and pensions to a greater degree than non-welfare state issues such as public infrastructure investment or renewable energy. Citizens are most supportive of using present-day redistributive policies – in our case: increasing income taxes on the rich – in order to finance long-term investment. We also find evidence that political trust is positively associated with support for long-term investment policies, but in particular investments in education and renewables. Furthermore, our analysis reveals the importance of individual political ideology. These findings have implications for public demand for tackling the long-term issues faced by society today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]