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The concept of knowledge-based urban development has first come to the urban planning and development agenda during the very last years of the 20th century as a promising paradigm to support the transformation process of cities into knowledge cities and their societies into knowledge societies. However, soon after the exponentially rapid advancements experienced, during the first decade of the 21st century, particularly in the domains of economy, society, management and technology along with the severe impacts of climate change, have made the redefinition of the term a necessity. This paper, first, reports the findings of the review of the relatively short but dynamic history of urbanisation experiences of our cities around the globe. The paper, then, focuses on the 21st century urbanisation context and discusses the conceptual base of the knowledge-based development of cities and how this concept found application ground in many parts of the world. Following this, the paper speculates development of futu...

[EN] The objective of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the scientific knowledge in global warming, as well as to investigate the evolution of the research knowledge through the published papers included in Web of Science database. A bibliometric and social network analyses was performed to obtain indicators of scientific productivity, impact and collaboration between researchers, institutions and countries. A subject analysis was also carried out taking into account the key words assigned to papers and subject areas of journals. A number of 1,672 articles were analysed since 2005 until 2014. The most productive journals were Journal of Climate (n = 95) and the most frequent keyword have been climate change (n = 722). The network of collaboration between countries shows the central position of the USA. Papers on the topic are published in a vast amount of journals from several subject categories. Keywords

In order to explore the impact of climate change on manufacturing outputs in Nanjing, China, this paper first adopts a polynomial function to retrieve trend values of manufacturing output, and then elaborates to manipulate the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filtering to isolate the parts of manufacturing outputs that are caused by the climate factors. Subsequently, the paper attempts to construct a partial least squares regression (PLSR) model covering meteorological factors (e.g., average annual temperature, precipitation, sunshine hours and four quarters' average temperatures) and manufacturing meteorological outputs. The results show that an increased average temperature and average precipitation yield negative impacts on manufacturing and production; while in winter, higher temperature offers benefits to manufacturing on the contrary. Finally, this paper studied the changes of manufacturing outputs in Nanjing for different climate scenarios.

Public acceptance and positive media image are the key features of any technology market deployment. This paper analyses the media image of wind power and the link between the media image of a technology, public acceptance and thus, successful market deployment. Indeed, the increase in wind power plants has been influenced by increased off-shore technology developments as well as subsidies and greater acceptance of the technology. This paper focuses on the latter by undertaking opinion mining approach with machine learning-based media analysis. For the paper, media sentiment analysis of both editorial and social media was conducted using an M-Adaptive tool for media monitoring. The results indicate that the sentiment toward wind power is primarily positive in both editorial publications and social media (SoMe), and also at the project level of offshore projects. The role of SoMe seems to be increasing for public acceptance issues. When considering the effect of global climate negotiations, namely, Paris COP21, the United Nations conference on climate change, the effect on wind power was mostly negative in terms of the communication quantity and overall media sentiment.

Tourism's contribution to India's economy is growing significantly. Its development in northeast region is perceived crucial for livelihood diversification and security in an otherwise agriculture-based economy. As tourism is climate-sensitive, and its potential depends on climate-induced seasonality, it is crucial to prioritise sustainable tourism. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the potential of tourism sector based on the climate-induced seasonality of tourism in Northeast India by using the tourism climatic index (TCI). Recognition of sustainable tourism by state tourism policies provides the impetus for the proposed research. Uniqueness of the study is that findings of TCI were matched with field survey. Further, perceptions of tourism service providers on climate change were gathered. Among the states considered, Meghalaya and Sikkim were found to have suitable climatic conditions throughout the year, while Assam has only five months. The paper concludes that capturing state-specific climate-tourism interaction is crucial for planning sustainable tourism.

Fundamental impacts of climate change due to global warming reveal undeniable consequences on planning for future. Taking the question 'have we cognised to incorporate the effects of climate change in planning yet?' into account, this paper brings up the factors of human activities precipitating climate change and its probable impacts on the hierarchy of settlements to the agenda in order to stimulate planners, policy makers, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders to be ready for different possibilities with flexible approaches and efficient adaptation policies. In this context, two main projected scenarios stated by the UNFCCC (2001) and IPCC's (2013) reports are predicted and discussed on the future characteristics of settlement system to undergo a change in the case of Goksu Basin from Turkey. Therefore, reminding river basin (scale) concept as a planning unit to mitigate the impacts of climate change is identified as another useful aim of this paper. Meanwhile, climate change points out the necessity for more and varied, but purpose-focused data to be studied thoroughly by the planners.

The impetus for addressing climate change is real and present, yet its translation into action lacks immediacy and severity. While there are a number of existing solutions, there has been an over-reliance on technological responses with minimal attention paid to the role of social solutions. This paper highlights the importance of such approaches and argues that, following the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015, there has been an increase in public engagement with (addressing) climate change that has accorded the issue a higher importance. This transition to higher levels of 'climate engagement' provides an opportunity for social solutions to demonstrate their potential as effective approaches for addressing climate change and the multitude of benefits that can result. The paper concludes with recommendations for sustaining public engagement with social solutions to addressing climate change.

This paper looks at the positioning of climate policy, particularly climate change adaptation (CCA), as part of the burgeoning resilience policy of New Orleans, Louisiana. In contrast to the other papers in this special issue this contribution is forward looking and in the limited space attempts to coalesce the lessons from Katrina with managing Social-Ecological Systems in an uncertain future affected by climate change. The contribution from New Orleans can provide some insights as to the complementary nature of climate policy and resilience while galvanising the city against future extreme events.

Global concerns about climate change, as confirmed at COP21, have led to lower carbon emissions environmental policies, particularly in the road transport sector. Through an empirical analysis of low carbon vehicle (LCV) policies in California, this paper contrasts the findings from diverse distribution theories between income quintiles - used as a proxy for societal groups - to address vertical equity concerns and offer an overview of impact distribution to policy makers. Thus, it contributes in operationalising ethical theories within transport cost benefit analysis and revisiting impact distribution when promoting low carbon vehicles. Findings indicate that manufacturer penalties are the most effective policy measure to avoid cost transfer between stakeholders. Yet, the analysis shows that those purchasing small LCVs may face disproportional vehicle purchase cost increases which needs to be considered by policy makers. Thus, this paper makes a methodological contribution regarding CBA in practice as well as providing policy relevant recommendations.

The factors that drive the international economic system are changing in scale and magnitude in a way that affects the competitiveness of multi–national organisations. In addition to the internal complexities, the competitiveness of many sectors is being challenged with external transformations (such as climate change) that affect policy formulation and resource utilisation. However, the examination of the impacts of climate change continued to be approached through the use of microeconomic analysis that focus on analysing the impact of carbon trading strategies on productivity and profitability in certain sectors such as energy. Such analysis (despite its importance) seems to be of a limited focus to provide a clear understanding and guidelines for large scale interventions and innovations required to create and maintain competitiveness in the era of climate change. This paper examined the context of competitiveness in the era of climate change using a decision–making oriented approach with emphasis on the impacts of climate change on competitiveness and information systems. The paper examined the potential information system 'overheating' concerns and recommended some 'warming' measures.

In view of the literature to date as well as anecdotal conversations with practitioners and consultants in various sectors of the built environment industry, it is observed that the term ‘obsolescence’ is scarcely used or comprehended with its diverse implications. In the context of climate change impacts this term is even more uncommon. This paper describes implications of the term in the form of definitions and types of obsolescence from various perspectives, including the built environment and climate change. This study also briefly explains that obsolescence is a multi-faceted entity and the comprehension of its concept and implications can help to effectively manage the built environment in a sustainable manner, particularly to the face of climate change. This paper can stimulate both debate as well as further research in industry and academe, respectively.

The blackout which left over 600 million people without power in India have correctly highlighted the pitfalls of depending on a carbon centric energy source. In fact, the entire South Asia has been experiencing the social, economic, and environmental effects of fossil fuel dependence including energy crisis, dramatic fluctuations in oil price, polluted atmosphere and finally the documented consequences of climate change. The climate concern has propelled renewable energy technologies into the mainstream to a greater extent than ever before, due to their ability to provide an alternative energy path. This paper contends that climate change is not merely an environmental issue but a social and human right issue of equity between generations. This paper critically looks at how far the concept of intergenerational equity has been made part of international climate law and policy. This paper discusses how dissemination of solar energy has the potential to advance intergenerational equity and mitigate the climate change affects in South Asia.

This paper describes a study on the vulnerability of farmers and fishermen to climate change and the conflict arises between farmers and herdsmen, in Nigeria. A random sampling survey was carried out in some selected rural communities where 200 farmers and fishermen were interviewed and discussions with community focus groups to ascertain the level of their understanding of climate change issues. The study observed that the majority of the farmers had a good understanding of the changes in the climate through their personal observation, intervention of some research institutes and discussion in various cooperative society meetings. However, climate change has greatly impacted crop production with more than 50% reduction in produce, but not very much change has occurred to fish production. This study further noted that the respondents are faced with increased variations in rainfall and temperature patterns and are yet to have good adaptive measures to the current and expected changes. This paper has recommended the use of agroforestry programme, or tree cropping system, which is a potential strategy to help farmers reduce their vulnerability to climate-related hazards and sustainable fish farming to minimising the vulnerability of fishermen to climate disasters.

This paper examines the proposition that the climatic shift has been responsible for creating adverse effects on economic growth, and the authors have analysed this situation for India. They consider the number of oceanic storms in the Indian Ocean and the annual mean temperature of India for the 1971–2010 periods. Using vector error correction and causality analysis, they have tried to identify the impact of India’s fossil fuel-based energy consumption on climatic shift, and have found significant unidirectional and bidirectional causal associations between parameters of climatic shift and drivers of economic growth. The links identified in this paper largely address the missing feedback link issue in the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis.

Transformation towards more sustainable food systems, including combating climate change, has been a persistent political goal. As dairy is responsible for a large share of greenhouse gas emissions its substitution by plant-based milk products becomes an ecologically grounded but economically and culturally challenging vision. This paper looks into the imaginative transformation of the food system, analysing emerging sustainable solutions to ecological problems as discursive constructs. The paper explored food expert focus groups’ discussions about greenhouse gas emission information regarding three animal-based and two plant-based milk products. ‘Market discourse’ looked for individually perceived benefits and presented rather weak coordination towards sustainability. ‘Sustainability discourse’ highlighted the systemic change by extensive coordination of heterogeneous mobilised networks. ‘Bioregion discourse’ focused foremost on justification of regional food production. The results suggest that some support exists for determined ‘sustainabilisation’. However, considering the discursive orientations’ mutual alignment in policy formulations may best promote sustainability.

Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. This paper describes a decision-making framework created to develop long term adaptive water supply and demand strategies to respond to future contextual uncertainties, such as climate change and urbanisation. Whilst there are various theoretical methods for decision making under uncertainty, they generally have not been applied to the water sector. Nor have they been brought together in an integrated, practically-grounded process to guide strategic planning and project level decisions, such as the approach proposed in this paper. This approach avoids predictions of the future or modelling intensive analysis, rather it integrates the fundamental characteristics of uncertain system influences (trends and shocks) with two additional thinking tools: The use of scenarios based on a number of uncertainties to describe potential futures, and the focus on investment approaches to guide the packaging of potential response measures.

Based on the hypothesised-country assumption, this paper chooses South Korea’s technical coefficients as those of China’s imports. Using the input-output tables of both China and South Korea, this paper calculates China’s trade-embodied carbon emissions and its sectoral breakdown between 2001 and 2010. Some interesting results are obtained. First, if China’s technical coefficients are used to calculate carbon emissions avoided through imports, China is found to be a net importer of trade-embodied carbon from 2001 to 2005 and a net exporter of trade-embodied carbon from 2006 and 2009, and in 2010 it became a net importer of embodied carbon once again. If Korea’s technical coefficients are used to calculate embodied carbon in China’s imports, China is found to be always a net exporter of trade-embodied carbon. The sectoral breakdown of trade-embodied carbon shows that manufacturing industries are the decisive factor on embodied carbon. The rapid expansion of export increases total CO2 emissions in China. Both China and its trade partners have benefited from these CO2 emissions and all of them should be held responsible for climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions.

As the largest export sector and a major employer for Fiji, tourism is probably highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to the sector’s dependence on environment and climate. This paper evaluates the conduciveness of Fiji’s policy environment for tourism adaptation to climate change. It analyses how Fiji’s policies (both explicit and implicit) in climate change, tourism, environmental and disaster management address tourism adaptation types as well as characteristics of Small Island Developing States and Territories (SIDST) that make them especially vulnerable to climate change. The paper concludes that Fiji does provide a reasonably conducive policy environment for its tourism to adapt, but some important adaptation issues still remain as policy gaps. The Fijian government shows an intention to integrate climate change into sectoral policies, but it is yet to be mainstreamed into the tourism sector. Most of the initiatives are policy-level adaptation with research and education the second adaptation type relatively well addressed. Other aspects of adaptation, particularly technical, business management and behavioural adaptations, need to be more comprehensively addressed in Fiji. Based on these identified policy gaps, the paper recommends that the tourism sector in Fiji needs to deal with challenges in raising awareness of climate change issues, building financial and human resources capacities and ensuring policy implementation.

The aim of this paper is to survey the game theory modelling of the behaviour of global players in mitigation and adaptation related to climate change. Three main fields are applied for the specific aspects of temperature rise: behaviour games, CPR problem and negotiation games. The game theory instruments are useful in analyzing strategies in uncertain circumstances, such as the occurrence and impacts of climate change. To analyze the international players’ relations, actions, attitude toward carbon emission, negotiation power and motives, several games are applied for the climate change in this paper. The solution is surveyed, too, for externality problem.

This paper analyses the different ways in which both distance and conventional universities engage with learning and teaching. It argues that rather than seeing their roles as institutionally compartmentalised, there is much benefit in delivering online education through an institutional collaboration which develops synergies with a potential to contribute to citizen and professional practitioner empowerment, in this case, for debates about climate change. The example the paper draws on is that of a European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (Erasmus) project ‘The Lived experience of climate change (LECH-e): interdisciplinary e-module development and virtual mobility’. The project brings together five distance and three conventional universities across six EU countries, plus the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU), to create a Master’s curriculum in the area of climate change. It argues that universities across Europe have complementary strengths, both in terms of their disciplinary expertise and the ways in which they engage with students. Understanding the complex, real-world challenge of climate change requires a holistic approach which draws on these complementary strengths through collaborative work.

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes have been successfully applied in many countries. This paper argues that such schemes, to be effective must be applied holistically, otherwise if applied narrowly might exacerbate the problem, both globally and locally. This paper gathers data from two sites in Colombia, each of which has implemented a PES, one holistically and the other not, and compares the two.

This paper discusses some of the economic issues likely to be encountered when establishing an emission trading scheme and highlights some economic instruments that can be used to battle carbon emissions. A summary of the current initiatives to climate change management is presented in this paper, including a review of the different types of schemes proposed under carbon trading. The various stages in developing emissions trading scheme is discussed in detail. The pricing of carbon credits and some of the limitations in implementing an emissions trading scheme are also analysed at length.

Situated in eastern Sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia has one of the highest diaspora populations in Africa. There are several challenging issues (political and socio-economical) causing fluctuating migration patterns in the country, which hinder economic progress. The aim of this paper is to present these issues, focusing on common factors such as war, famine, drought, and government intervention. It also seeks to address the implications of the brain drain in respect of economic progress. The loss of skilled workers aggravates the stagnation of Ethiopia’s economic development. In addition, the paper will also question the role of climate change in economic development critically examining the Gilgel Gibe III project. Finally, the paper will conclude by suggesting solutions to these problems.

Economies and diseconomies of ship size express the change of shipping costs as a function of ship size. In an earlier publication by one of the authors the impact of increasing containership size on unit shipping costs up to 20,000 TEU was elaborated. This paper expands in two directions. The first is to include ship design parameters to support statements on future containership particulars with respect to size, dimensions, speed and engine power, rather than just extrapolating them either explicitly or implicitly. The second is to include external costs related to the effects of CO 2 emissions on climate change. Discussions on the monetary value of these emissions are in full swing. This paper therefore applies a plausible bandwidth. Results of the analysis show that economies of ships size continue to exist for ships up to 25,000 TEU, but those technical limitations with respect to propulsion, engine power and cavitations put the maximum size of a single propeller ship at a lower level.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) by means of its "Strategy Note on Governance for Human Development" defines governance as the system of values, policies and institutions by which a society manages its economic, political and social affairs through interactions within and among the state, civil society and private sector. This paper discusses the concept of Climate Change Governance (CCG), outlining the current state of affairs and, by means of some examples of good practice, documents some of the ongoing initiatives in this field. The paper shows that despite its value, much action is needed to allow the principles of CCG to be implemented into practice.

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is changing due to primarily human-induced activities. Emission of greenhouse gases from the energy and construction sectors is one of the main human induced causes. Most legislative and policy initiatives by countries to deal with climate change will have a significant impact on the energy and construction sectors. In proposing the appropriate sustainability lessons for Singapore's construction industry, this paper briefly examines the international framework for dealing with climate change and the key legislative and policy initiatives in the USA and Australia, two of the largest GHG emitters in the world. This paper argues that the relevant mechanism introduced in all three countries is insufficient to deal with the impacts of climate change, as their main focus is on mitigation. The most rigorous mitigation efforts currently might not be able to prevent climate changes in the near future; hence, adaptation to climate change should become an integral part of the planning process, especially in the construction sector.

This paper reviews extant evidence and offers a conceptual framework for the investigation of complex dynamics among human population growth, environmental degradation, poverty, and climate change. The paper introduces theories relating to population growth, environmental degradation, the impact on human well-being, and potential relations with climate change. Poverty is discussed in detail as both a contributing factor to and consequence of population growth and environmental change. The empirical literature on land cover change and environmental change in coastal and marine resources and potential relations with climate change are examined. Despite notable limitations to current knowledge on links among population growth, ecosystems, climate, and poverty, implications for further research and policy application are rich.

The ecosystem, all over the world, is under severe stress because of unprecedented population growth and increase in economic activity, which have pushed the world to limits that it could not handle. The cost of inaction, that is the business-as-usual path, could be huge and in fact, globally destabilising. The likely effect of inaction is global warming, which will affect food production, access to water, ecosystem functioning, extreme weather events like typhoons and hurricanes. Although modest in its ambition, the Kyoto Protocol was the first step towards mitigating global warming impacts. This paper aims at discussing climate change and its impact with focus on Kyoto Protocol. It also suggests a few points for post Kyoto Protocol agreement. The paper briefly outlines the Indian experience of disasters, discusses infrastructural, institutional and financial arrangements for disaster management, and proposes post disaster strategic measures in order to promise safer environment for the country.

In many regions of the world, and particularly in the eastern Mediterranean region, there is a general precipitation decrease tendency according to the global circulation model (GCM) and the regional climate change models (RegCM). Dry spells and their temporal occurrences as droughts affect water resources, and hence, agriculture and food securities may be endangered in such region. It is, therefore, necessary to foresee the future drought characteristics based on the historical records. Although the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) provides dryness classifications, it cannot reflect the basic drought characteristics in the original hydro-meteorological records. The main purpose of this paper is to propose improved SPI (ISPI) approach for quantitative drought characteristics calculations. In order to support the insufficiencies in the classical SPI, a comparative study is presented with the ISPI method on the bases of drought duration, amount and intensity concepts. It is shown that especially the risk calculations have wide discrepancies, but the ISPI provides actual results. The application with objective results is presented for Istanbul European side, Turkey, meteorology station monthly precipitation records.

This paper introduces this special issue on the 'Economics of climate change' and describes contemporary policy attitudes in the economics of climate change, it explores features and differences in some examples from a variety of economic policy approaches in the run up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference. These include market based incentives, technological innovations, de-carbonisation and natural resource accounting as well as proposing that life style changes are necessary. The paper explains the significance of reaching agreement at the Copenhagen Conference and critiques some of the policies being suggested, (mainly in Europe) and some neo-liberal approaches to the economics of climate change. It puts forward a set of Green Economics policy ideas which are holistic, complex and multi-disciplinary and take a longer term perspective.

The Great Plains blankets eight states. It is dotted with oil patches, public utilities, farms, ranches, feed lots, meat-packing plants, medium size cities, military bases and tiny towns feeding on agricultural activity. The question is: what can leaders do for a desperate and aging population in a global warming environment to bring full employment to the region. This paper explores opportunities to capitalise upon environmentally friendly farming practices and agricultural waste to produce jobs, money, commercial opportunities, marketable sod, fertilisers, methane, electricity and securities (from the Chicago Climate Exchange) as answers for this question. The paper recounts the use of man made wetlands to sequester CO2; by-products from coal fired power plants; landfill methane; methane digesters and soil carbon projects to arrest heat and contribute to the campaign against global warming.

This paper outlines a range of scenarios describing what the world's energy system might look like in the middle of the century, and what nuclear energy's role might be. The starting point is the 40 non-greenhouse-gas-mitigation scenarios in the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Four illustrative marker scenarios are selected and include growing but varying contributions from nuclear power to electricity supply, while in some scenarios nuclear energy also supplements hydrogen supply by 2050. For each marker scenario, the paper analyses the generic design features of future nuclear power technologies and fuel cycles consistent with the underlying scenario storylines.

Climate variability has been observed over a long period of time and is considered a natural process occurring on Earth. Climate change, however, is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere in addition to natural phenomena. Global climate governance requires a broad area of measures and policies to be implemented worldwide to tackle this problem. The following paper gives a brief overview of the existing climate mitigation instruments and policies. It delivers an analysis of the three main groups of policy instruments – mandatory regulation, economic instruments and voluntary approach. The study argues that no instrument can be chosen as a single mechanism to solve environmental problems. It also points out several conditions and circumstances that need to be taken into consideration to obtain a successful implementation of those policy instruments. The paper critically investigates traditional instruments. It discusses issues such as design, political and social acceptability, provision of incentives for improvements in environmental performance and (cost) effectiveness. Finally, the study concludes that the process of policy implementation should take into account the problems and obstacles that may stand in the way of the planned solutions and without a deep analysis of which the (cost) effectiveness of a policy will never be achieved.

This paper aims at quantifying the impact of government policy and clean development mechanism (CDM) on wind power development in China. Firstly we review the background of Chinese wind power development and policy, as well as literature of climate change and CDM. We then present methodology, scenarios and data of a case study for the development of a large-scale grid-connected wind farm. We undertake project financial analysis under three scenarios. Our analysis results show that the project FIRR is 8.31% if CDM benefit is not taken into account, 8.72% if CDM benefit is considered with the price of the certified emission reduction (CER) at US$4, and 10.28% if both the CDM benefit and government policy on cutting value added tax (VAT) by 50% are taken into account. This paper concludes that CDM and government preferential policy on value added tax will make wind power development financially viable in China.

This paper reports experiments on the possibility of formulating operational models of adaptive/evolutionary non-convex general equilibrium systems to be adoptable as a framework for social choice to implement a socially optimal growth and climate change program. To perform this task, this paper develops and implements a growth model which includes climate change and the adaptive process of endogenous technical progress in a new growth modelling non-convex framework named ADICE-ADAPTIVE as a framework for social choice and welfare optimisation in a knowledge economy. Literature in this area is not well developed and the present study has advanced knowledge in this field. A numerical implementation of an optimisation climate change and growth model with the adaptive processes of endogenous technical progress encounters difficulties of non-existence of an optimum solution. The feasible endogenous model results show an absolute reduction in GHG emissions and only a slower rise in GDP growth implying sustainability of social welfare both in economic and environmental terms. The present experiments show the limitations of climate change policies implied by known integrated climate change and economic growth optimisation models and the problems and prospects for formulating an optimal growth program in a knowledge economy including the climate sector. The findings of the study have implications for the need for and the possibility of optimal social choice and economic equilibrium in a non-convex intertemporal knowledge economy, taking into account the climate sector. Policy implications of the result emphasise research and development to foster technical progress which can have a positive effect on sustainability.

This paper attempts to draw the links between climate change, energy-use, gender relations and the subsequent impacts on the every-day lives of poor women in Africa. The approach is one of broad-brush strokes in an attempt to provide an overview of the breadth and complexity of factors to consider in such an analysis. It is anticipated that climate change will result in aridification, decreased runoff, increased air temperatures and increased extreme weather conditions such as floods, droughts and high winds. Water resources, agriculture, human health, forestry, rangelands, biodiversity, fishing, forestry and tourism are all sectors that women are engaged in and that will be affected. Gender, the socially constructed relationships between men and women, plays a part in vulnerability. The paper highlights the difference in energy use in developed and developing countries and between men and women and goes on to explore the impact of energy use on climate change. The most vulnerable energy sub-sector is biomass fuels, which are used by the largest and most vulnerable category of consumers - poor women. The paper examines women's susceptibility to changes in the sectors mentioned and concludes with some recommendations on preparations which should be made towards sustainability.

According to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed countries should take the lead in combating climate change. This paper highlights development patterns that could gradually transform Northern societies in low-emission countries. Given that the environmental space available to an industrial country is limited by both ecology and equity, such a transition would imply reducing fossil energy use by 80-90%, roughly a factor of 10. Envisaging much higher levels of resource productivity, the paper sketches two wide-ranging strategies. First, system-wide increases in resource efficiency may result in decoupling economic output from resource flows. Second, new models of wealth may result in decoupling quality of life from resource flows.

Despite the provisions of the UNFCCC, some developed countries, the United States in particular, are insistent that their actions are contingent on "meaningful participation" by developing countries. This paper explores the developments - social and economic - in the South that would influence GHG emissions and identifies those developments that are essential to a long-term solution of the climate change problem. The paper argues that participation in project based activities, such as those defined by the CDM, may bring about short-term reductions in the rate of growth of GHG emissions. However, building the social infrastructure of developing economies is an essential precondition to facilitate their transition towards a situation wherein they could also undertake quantitative commitments towards climate-friendly development. Paradoxically, Official Development Assistance that would facilitate such a transition is on the decline.

This paper examines the implications of alternative approaches to intertemporal social choice in a numerically calibrated model of interactions between global climate change and the world economy. Under cost-benefit analysis, relatively modest steps towards greenhouse gas emissions abatement are justified as economically efficient. Under classical utilitarianism and the precautionary principle, in contrast, aggressive steps towards climate stabilization emerge as socially optimal. The paper reviews the value judgements that support each of these normative approaches, arguing that the precautionary principle is most closely tied to the goals and objectives of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This paper stresses that the impacts of climate change would be distributed unevenly over future generations in a yet unknown way. It also discusses the limitations of mainstream economics to deal with issues of intergenerational equity, noting the possibilities of different ways to select an appropriate discount rate. Given these limitations, great care must be applied in using tools from economics on the problems considered. The paper looks into ways that international law defines intergenerational equity and considers the application of Weiss' three basic principles conservation of options, conservation of quality, and conservation of access, to the implementation of a system of "planetary rights". Finally, five different operational models are applied to ethical consideration of the concept of common, but differentiated responsibilities - utilitarian, realist (power relations), equitable commons, fiduciary trust, and earthrights.

Numerous articles and studies have pointed to a divergence of opinion between economists and ecologists on environmental matters. This paper examines these differences as they apply to the debate over climate change. In particular, the paper examines the models that economists use for making decisions regarding climate change policy: cost–benefit analysis; utility theory; time-discounting; and integrated computer models. For each of these types of model, the paper examines how ecologists might criticise the model structure, or its assumptions, or its results. The paper concludes that, although economic models are of great use in guiding decision-makers on some aspects of the problem, they provide an incomplete picture of the fundamental decision of when and how much to act to avoid climate change.

This paper describes an advanced bottom-up approach for modelling the energy-environment sector to study greenhouse gas abatement. Three new features are described that give significant new capabilities to this class of models. These are endogenisation of end-use demands, which allows computation of partial equilibria in energy markets; modelling future uncertainties using multi-stage stochastic programming; and combining several bottom-up models as a multi-region model to explore issues of cooperation and burden-sharing. Each of these new features is illustrated by results taken from large-scale extended MARKAL models of Quebec and Ontario. The focus of the paper is on the nature of issues that can be addressed by this methodology, rather than on specific conclusions drawn from the discussed examples. We believe that a very promising avenue of research lies in exploring the role of multiple advanced bottom-up models in the integrated assessment of climate change.

This paper questions the assumption that public participation in integrated assessment (IA) means finding (better) ways to make the public engage with IA. Following other studies about public perceptions of expert/scientific knowledge, it is unclear why the public should - or even want to - approach issues (such as climate change) from the epistemologically privileged expert-framed perspectives of IA. The objective of this paper is to reverse the order and re-centre the problematique of public participation and IA toward a public-centred perspective, toward a "folk integrated assessment". In order to undertake this task, illustrations of how groups of lay members of the public perceive and think about issues such as climate change are presented and analysed. They reveal the already existing, always context-dependent complexity, diversity, richness and ambiguity of lay knowledge and "integration" skills.

A sustainable bioeconomy based on production and consumption of food, products, and materials within healthy ecosystems is considered a promising response to global challenges like climate change and environmental degradation combined with a growing population. However, ultimately, it is the public as consumers and citizens who provide the market and governance for bioeconomic development. In this paper, we explore lay perspectives on a bioeconomic transition based on eight focus group interviews with lay people in Norway. Overall, we find that the public appears quite positive towards the idea of a bioeconomic transition due not only to expected global gains, but also to individual gains. The findings are relevant for the design of further bioeconomy-related policies aiming to achieve wide public acceptance.

This paper presents a narrative review on the utilisation of urban trees and vegetation to reduce air pollution in urban areas. The results show that trees act as a barrier between sources of pollu...

The main anthropogenic cause of global warming is the emission of CO2. China is one of the biggest emitters with vast territory, and there are significant differences in population size, industrial structure and economic development among county administrative units, leading to large differences in energy consumption and associated carbon emissions. The comprehensive classification of counties based on economic development and carbon emission can provide a basis for targeted emission reduction measures. Using the energy consumption method combined with allocation by population density, this paper estimated the carbon emissions of China's 2,170 county administrative units in 2015. Then, we used cluster analysis to classify county units, obtaining 12 types. At this stage, the most common type in city municipal districts is low carbon emission-relatively low GDP, with medium emission intensity, while most county-level cities and counties belong to the low carbon emission-low GDP category with relatively high emission intensity. Then, five development paths were obtained by the linear fitting. Counties with extremely high carbon emission intensity may show a reduction in emission intensity and an increase in economic level. Regarding counties with relatively low emission intensity, there are two different paths in future economic development.

This study investigates carbon monoxide (CO) gas, to identify the impact it has on atmospheric anomalies (ATMAs). A variety of experimental tests were carried out with the heat, and pressure. Data obtained was analysed with the purpose of establishing clues to verify the fundamental characteristics of CO, highlighting it as being the most environmentally unfriendly gas in the atmosphere (ATM). This paper explores weather cycles, to connect the influence of CO, to extreme ATMAs, such as hurricanes, excessive rainfall, and high volumes of humidity on hot cloudless days. Observations of thunderstorms were explored to determine the effect of the sound given off by thunder, and its influence on the water vapour it comes into contact with. Our comprehension of climate change, leaves us, concluding that the volume of carbon dioxide (CO2) is way above natures required amount in the ATM, resulting in the warming of our planet. The purpose of this study is to highlight the characteristics of CO, and discuss how we should be addressing these issues, establishing a plan of action for combating global warming.

The aim of this study is to analyse spatially the economic impacts of climate change on cereal yield in Greece. The paper employs the geographically weighted regression (GWR) method to determine the spatially varying relationships between geophysical, soil, climatic and social variables and their effects on crop yield based on both historical climate observations and a future climate emission scenario. In order to achieve this analysis, a high spatial analysis of 10 × 10 km grid cells is utilised. The results indicate that crop yield is influenced by several spatial agrophysical and climate variables. The future climate emission scenario, predicts an average decrease in rainfall, a rise in temperature and an increase in severe weather events. Moreover, these effects are highly region-specific.

The Durban Conference of Parties (COP17) has approved a deal to negotiate and arrange by 2015, a global commitment to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) starting from 2020 onwards. COP17 confirmed the Cancun (COP16) agreement concluding that future global warming should be limited to below 2°C post-industrial. This report investigates scenarios of gradually stringent remaining emissions quotas (REQ) resulting to increased probabilities to limit temperature rise below 2°C. REQ are applied as cumulative bounds in the combined TIMES-MACRO model of the USA with the MERGE Integrated Assessment Model both able to analyse technological change. The study summarises the main findings and conclusions of this parametric analysis where all world regions accept a binding protocol or Accord starting in 2020 mitigating global warming. The mathematical description of the combined model that integrates in one set of equations and one objective function two hybrid top-down and bottom-up models with complementary regional representation is described in this paper.

This paper aims to examine variables that influence willingness to adaptation, besides to estimate production loss due to climate change. Specific goals can be split into three parts: the first step was to do mapping by geographic information systems (GIS). The second step was to assess economic losses by using production loss tools. Finally, the last step was identify the factors that affect farmers' decisions to adapt the climate changes risk. The research method used was a quantitative method by surveying areas classified as vulnerable to crop failure. There were 380 householders involved in this research. The approach used was the contingent valuation method (CVM). The results indicated that 128,154 hectares of agricultural land were vulnerable to natural disasters; whereas 41,704 hectares were vulnerable to drought. The estimated loss in these areas was more than 207 billion IDR, derived from the vulnerable agricultural land area to flooding or drought, and then multiplied by the potential loss of production. One policy to overcome injuries included crop insurance. However, the results revealed that 93% of respondents were not willing to pay premium of crop insurance. The willingness to pay for premium rate was less than 50,000 IDR per harvest period. It implies that the implementation of crop insurance in Indonesia still requires government subsidies.