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Climate change has been identified as a major challenge in the achievement of sustainable development especially for developing countries like Kenya. There has been a wide acknowledgement that there is a need for long-term strategies for the industry players to reduce their contribution to climate change in line with other industries. Industries and societal sectors have sought ways of mitigating the causes of climate change. The Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism, held in Davos, Switzerland, on 3 October 2007, provided practical guidelines for the industry in response to climate change. This paper seeks to evaluate the adoption of the ‘Davos Declaration’ among selected Mombasa hotels in terms of water, energy and waste management. Results indicate that despite wide knowledge among hoteliers on the impacts of climate change and the role hotels can play in its mitigation, most hoteliers are slow in adopting the mitigation measures.

In late 2011 the South African government published a White Paper outlining climate change response policies for the coming decades. Among the main topics of the text were the socio-economic and climatic vulnerabilities of the country, including the situation of the poor. With the aim of analysing the argumentation regarding climate change and social justice we develop a combined linguistic and discursive approach, starting with occurrences of keywords pertaining to rights, equity and poverty. The White Paper's conceptualisation of climate change is explored as a narrative, at the level of the text as a whole. This combined analysis shows that the legal rights of the poor are hardly given any place in the argumentation, whereas less constricting political intentions are far more present. Furthermore, the text attributes a passive role to the poor, dependent on the benevolence of a government that attributes the role of hero to itself.

Situated among small Caribbean states existentially vulnerable to increasing CO2 emissions, Trinidad and Tobago emerges as a paradox: an island nation allied with other low‐lying countries pushing ...

S. Trivikrama Rao, Ph.D.There is scientific consensus that climate change has been contributing to rising surface temperatures, changing weather pattens, and extreme weather events leading to extre...

The battle between insurers and policyholders over coverage for climate change liability has already begun. Commentators have paid less attention to the positive role that insurers can play in coping with climate risk, or the negative impact should climate change liability create massive insurance insolvencies. The NAIC has now addressed these issues in its first White Paper on climate change. Everyone in the insurance industry must pay attention to the risks that the NAIC identifies, and the measures that it recommends.

If the warnings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 are to be heeded, then we cannot escape the evidence indicating that we are living lifestyles that are, in the long term, un...

(2008). Book Review: Jonathan Boston (ed.), Towards a New Global Climate Treaty: Looking Beyond 2012, (Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies and School of Government, 2007), pp. 336, paper $39.95. Political Science: Vol. 60, The Politics of Climate Change Issues for New Zealand and Small States of the Pacific, pp. 167-168.

Successful implementation of cooling strategies obviously depends on identifying effective interventions, but in industrial settings, it is equally important to consider feasibility and economic viability. Many cooling interventions are available, but the decision processes affecting adoption by end-users are not well elucidated. We therefore arranged two series of meetings with stakeholders to identify knowledge gaps, receive feedback on proposed cooling interventions, and discuss factors affecting implementation of heat-health interventions. This included four meetings attended by employers, employees, and health and safety officers (n = 41), and three meetings attended primarily by policy makers (n = 74), with feedback obtained via qualitative and quantitative questionnaires and focus group discussions. On a 10-point scale, both employers and employees valued worker safety (9.1 ± 1.8; mean±SD) and health (8.5 ± 1.9) as more important than protecting company profits (6.3 ± 2.3). Of the respondents, 41% were unaware of any cooling strategies at their company and of those who were aware, only 30% thought the interventions were effective. Following presentation of proposed interventions, the respondents rated “facilitated hydration”, “optimization of clothing/protective equipment”, and “rescheduling of work tasks” as the top-three preferred solutions. The main barriers for adopting cooling interventions were cost, feasibility, employer perceptions, and legislation. In conclusion, preventing negative health and safety effects was deemed to be more important than preventing productivity loss. Regardless of work sector or occupation, both health and wealth were emphasized as important parameters and considered as somewhat interrelated. However, a large fraction of the European worker force lacks information on effective measures to mitigate occupational heat stress. List of abbreviations: OH-Stress: Occupational heat stress; WBGT: Wet Bulb Globe Temperature

The Australian federal government white paper ‘Our north, our future’ projects that northern Australia’s population could reach 5,000,000 by 2060. This represents an almost four-fold increase in po...

The prospect of exhaustion of fossil fuels and climate change caused due to the extreme use of fossil fuel consequence shifting energy supply from fossil energy to renewable energy. India ranks the...

The impacts of climate change on human and ecological systems and the increasing volatility of life situations demand of scholars to critically evaluate governments' protection of the natural resource base and the interests that communities have in a safe, healthy and preserved environment. It begs the question what the South African government must do as national 'public trustee' to protect the environmental interests and rights of unborn generations of South Africans. The recently adopted United Nations Secretary-General's Report on Intergenerational Solidarity and the Needs of Future Generations reiterates the relevance of the focus on the environmental and other needs of future generations. This article considers how the government as public trustee ought to approach 'climate-resilient development' as provided for in the Climate Change Response White Paper to ensure a long-term response adequate to protecting the environmental interests and rights of the present and future generations.

A considerable number of papers produced by IPCC and others have outlined the science behind climate change predictions, probable impacts, mitigation measures and possible adaptation. In this short paper, we attempt to identify some of the key links between climate change and the building sector and then to suggest some possible responses for rapid reduction of greenhouse gases under emergency conditions.

We examined whether older individuals experience greater levels of hyperthermia and cardiovascular strain during an extreme heat exposure compared to young adults. During a 3-hour extreme heat exposure (44°C, 30% relative humidity), we compared body heat storage, core temperature (rectal, visceral) and cardiovascular (heart rate, cardiac output, mean arterial pressure, limb blood flow) responses of young adults (n = 30, 19–28 years) against those of older adults (n = 30, 55–73 years). Direct calorimetry measured whole-body evaporative and dry heat exchange. Body heat storage was calculated as the temporal summation of heat production (indirect calorimetry) and whole-body heat loss (direct calorimetry) over the exposure period. While both groups gained a similar amount of heat in the first hour, the older adults showed an attenuated increase in evaporative heat loss (p < 0.033) in the first 30-min. Thereafter, the older adults were unable to compensate for a greater rate of heat gain (11 ± 1 ; p < 0.05) with a corresponding increase in evaporative heat loss. Older adults stored more heat (358 ± 173 kJ) relative to their younger (202 ± 92 kJ; p < 0.001) counterparts at the end of the exposure leading to greater elevations in rectal (p = 0.043) and visceral (p = 0.05) temperatures, albeit not clinically significant (rise < 0.5°C). Older adults experienced a reduction in calf blood flow (p < 0.01) with heat stress, yet no differences in cardiac output, blood pressure or heart rate. We conclude, in healthy habitually active individuals, despite no clinically observable cardiovascular or temperature changes, older adults experience greater heat gain and decreased limb perfusion in response to 3-hour heat exposure.

The authors review the decision‐making since the Labour Government came into office (November 2007). The Australian Government’s ‘Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme’ White Paper (15 December 2008) proposes that an Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (AETS) be implemented in mid‐2010. Acknowledging that the scheme is comprehensive, the paper finds that in many cases, Australia will take a softer approach to climate change through the AETS than the European Union ETS (EUETS). The paper assesses key issues in the White Paper such as emissions reduction targets, GHG coverage, sectoral coverage, inclusion of unlimited quantities of offsets from Kyoto international markets and exclusion of deforestation activities.

This is an excellent evaluation of the status of REDD+ programmes and projects in Latin America. It explores the links between forests, conservation and climate change with an overview of the socia...

The climate and ecological crisis will constitute the defining public health challenge of the twenty-first century, posing an unprecedented global threat to all determinants of health, and to healthcare delivery systems. We believe that mental health professionals have a crucial role to play in responding to this crisis. Whilst responding to the mental health consequences of the climate crisis will remain a key role for us as mental health professionals, we argue that our remit goes beyond this, and should include advancing public understanding of the climate crisis, highlighting its impact on physical and mental wellbeing, and advocating for systemic changes to limit its impending harms. This paper is an urgent call to action for all mental health professionals to take up a role in the context of the climate and ecological crisis. This paper will describe the relationship between mental health and climate change, and frame it within wider systemic and conceptual frameworks. It will demonstrate that as mental health professionals we are well placed to act as leaders of change-arguing that we have a duty to do so-and suggest actions that can be implemented depending on interests, skill sets and opportunities.

It is commonly accepted that water insecurity, accelerated by climate change, is experienced by women in gender specific ways. Using a rapid review methodology this paper evaluates existing literature (2014–2021) on climate change adaptation in relation to water (SDG6) and gender (SDG5) in urban and peri-urban contexts. By analyzing water, gender, and adaptation literature a thematic mapping of SDG5 was done on the resulting 34 documents. Despite methodological limitations–time constraints, exclusion of gender-sustainable development literature, and narrow inclusion criteria–this paper finds a paucity of research in this space during the time period under study. Most literature focuses on low- and middle-income countries, primarily Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, to the exclusion of South America. Notably, evidence demonstrating interlinkages between SDG5 and climate change adaptations in the WaSH sector and gender sensitive dissemination of disaster warnings is lacking. Adaptation strategies resulting in negative impacts on women undermine SDG5 and maladaptive behaviours related to management of domestic water supply and disaster-risks are particularly concerning in this context. Subsequently, this paper establishes the need for practical research assessing the gendered dimensions of all adaptations, including research demonstrating interlinkages between adaptations, women-specific benefits, and strengthened legislation to promote gender equality and empowerment.

India is crucial to the future of the global energy system, and hence to efforts to mitigate climate change. However, projecting India���s energy future is challenging because of a number of structural uncertainties related to its still emergent development process ��� there are multiple ���future Indias���. This is particularly so given India���s unusual historical development pattern and economic structure. This paper reviews more than 40 energy system scenarios for India to 2050 including scenarios of different policy stringency. This analysis suggests that the task of drawing policy insights is hampered by widely divergent, often non-transparent and insufficiently discussed, assumptions about GDP and its structural attributes as implied by sectoral energy consumption, industrial intensity of GDP, and sectoral demand patterns. It is these assumptions that crucially drive the divergence in scenario results, even more than assumptions about energy and climate policy per se. While divergent results are important for exploring the range of possible future pathways, policy insights can only be generated if scenario producers adequately convey a sense of causality, probability and desirability underpinning their scenarios. This requires linking more detailed socio-economic scenario storylines with the input assumptions and output results of energy system scenarios. To improve modelling for policy insight, the paper proposes that more attention be devoted to developing overarching socio-economic development scenarios, linking these to sector dynamics, and unpacking and interpreting model results. Key policy insightsIndia���s development pathway is characterized by a relatively low level of industrialization, precocious growth of services, and low and slow urbanization compared to similar countries.The unusual features of India���s development pathway have a material impact on its energy system.There is a wide range of uncertainty pertaining both to India���s future rate of GDP growth, but also to the persistence or reversal of the aforementioned structural characteristics.Existing modelling studies do not adequately detail and contextualize assumptions about India���s macro-scale development pathway, and its links to micro-scale patterns of sectoral energy demand and supply, leading to a wide divergence of results and uncertainty over how to interpret them.Addressing these lacunae requires enhanced transparency and discussion of overarching socio-economic development scenarios for development, linking these to sector dynamics, and unpacking and interpreting model results. India���s development pathway is characterized by a relatively low level of industrialization, precocious growth of services, and low and slow urbanization compared to similar countries. The unusual features of India���s development pathway have a material impact on its energy system. There is a wide range of uncertainty pertaining both to India���s future rate of GDP growth, but also to the persistence or reversal of the aforementioned structural characteristics. Existing modelling studies do not adequately detail and contextualize assumptions about India���s macro-scale development pathway, and its links to micro-scale patterns of sectoral energy demand and supply, leading to a wide divergence of results and uncertainty over how to interpret them. Addressing these lacunae requires enhanced transparency and discussion of overarching socio-economic development scenarios for development, linking these to sector dynamics, and unpacking and interpreting model results.

Within the heritage sector there is widespread recognition that the accelerating effects of climate and other changes will necessitate reconsideration of the care of at-risk places and properties. Heritage organisations and agencies are developing new ways to identify and measure future threats, and to prioritise resources accordingly. For some designated assets, it is becoming clear, it may be necessary to manage processes of decline and transformation. Drawing on insights gathered from conversations with natural and historic environment practitioners and regulators, this paper highlights current practice and policy around managed decline, with a focus on the English context. In seeking to address some of the limitations of current approaches, this paper introduces a new conceptual framework: adaptive release. Adaptive release, as presented here, reflects a decision to accommodate the dynamic transformation of a heritage asset and its associated values and significance, with reference to wider landscape settings. The focus is on iterative management over extended timeframes, involving some relinquishment of control and a commitment to ongoing monitoring and interpretation. The concept of adaptive release is presented provisionally, rather than prescriptively, to expand the range of options available to natural and historic environment professionals in responding to inevitable change.

Youth-Creative Action Research (Y-CAR) is a variant of participatory action research specifically suited for exploring and developing evidence-informed innovations to address complex social challenges such as climate change. In this paper, we present an overview of Y-CAR and explore its core defining features, potential for application in research and action, and connection to other action-oriented research methodologies. We draw on a range of examples of this emergent methodology that illustrates its evolution and core principles in action and show how it has been implemented in research. We conclude the paper by examining key learnings, future leverage points, and limitations to applying Y-CAR in practice.

Tackling climate change has provided a key focus for the creation of what the editors of this special issue have termed ‘environmental intangibles.’ This paper focuses on the European Union Emissions Trading System (EUETS), a climate policy that revolves around the issuance and trading of environmental intangibles called emissions allowances. Set up in the mid-2000s, the cap and trade system has experienced many complications. We propose here to explore a particularly contentious issue: the allocation of free allowances. We will see that deciding on allocation rules leads to vivid debates about whether energy-intensive industries in Europe, such as the manufacturing of cement, can remain competitive in the global economy if climate policy is unilaterally enforced. These debates are focused on a phenomenon referred to as the risk of carbon leakage due to loss of competitiveness. Drawing on an empirical enquiry into the workings of policy-making, the paper examines the ways, in which this risk is framed and questioned through lobbying and evidential work. We suggest that the threat to competitiveness posed by the EUETS can neither be established, nor dismissed; a form of under-determination is maintained and carbon leakage as a never-quite-tangible possibility becomes a battleground for protecting European industry over the environment.

Scholars have been interested in examining what drives pro-environmental behavior. However, only a few scientific studies have been devoted to analyzing and understanding the pro-environmental behavior of those that are on vacation. Therefore, the current paper contributes to the existing literature by employing a text-mining approach to conduct a full-text analysis of 210 articles and (1) describes pro-environmental conceptualization, (2) presents the important topics and studies that have emerged from the literature, and (3) suggests directions for future research. The eight core topics that were uncovered contributed to discussion of the content of publications, related theories, core constructs, methodologies, main authors, and journals. The paper shows that the literature on pro-environmental behavior uses more quantitative than qualitative approaches and uses structural equations or regression analysis to explore the data. The findings also show that researchers tend to employ well-known theories arising from psychology, sociology, and biology. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

This paper shares findings from a detailed empirical analysis of seven development projects in Kenya that supported remote pastoral communities facing food insecurity and other difficulties linked to environmental degradation and climate change. The projects sought to address these challenges by trialing various livelihood innovations in partnership with communities. These project activities were assessed using a tailored cost–benefit analysis methodology to identify those offering the best use of scarce funds, thus informing future policy and programing for such areas. This evidence suggests that (a) the difficulties communities face are creating a desperate situation, and (b) some of the innovations trialed hold promise while others are problematic. The evidence presented includes an array of local voices that vividly convey community-level dynamics and prospects. This evidence is set in context using the literatures on human security and its wider impacts, notably migration from the Sahel. This analysis found the circumstances of pastoral communities can significantly impact neighboring regions, with ongoing instability posing a threat while smart interventions that create local opportunities offer more synergistic outcomes. The paper concludes by calling for greater recognition of the options facing such communities and their wider significance as a basis for scaled up support measures.

Literary works of fiction about climate change are becoming more common and more popular among critics and readers. While much research has indicated the persuasive effectiveness of narrative storytelling in general, empirical research has not yet tested the effects of reading climate fiction. This paper reports results from the first experimental study to test the immediate and delayed impacts of climate fiction on readers’ beliefs and attitudes about climate change. We found that reading climate fiction had small but significant positive effects on several important beliefs and attitudes about global warming – observed immediately after participants read the stories. However, these effects diminished to statistical nonsignificance after a one-month interval. In this paper, we review the relevant literature, present the design and results of this experiment, and discuss implications for future research and practice.

While many national and local governments in the world are placing their bets on smart city development in countering challenges such as climate change, air pollution, and congestion, few know exactly how to develop them in practice. A high and rising number of publications has appeared addressing the concept of “smart city,” but not many address its implementation. This paper aims at a conceptual understanding of the smart city by describing its various facets and using them to develop an Input-Output model helping policymakers and analysts make informed design choices. Using this model allows them to further their conceptual understanding of smart cities, envisage design choices they will face during planning and implementation, and help them to understand the impact of these choices. The model is illustrated by introducing the case of “Smart Dubai.” Overall, this paper provides enhanced understanding of smart city development processes. This can be used in decision-making processes.

It is becoming increasingly clear that deep and rapid transitions in technologies, infrastructures and ways of organising the economy are imperative if we are to live safely within planetary boundaries. But what historical precedents are there for such profound shifts within short spaces of time, and what were the enabling conditions? When have transitions in sectors such as energy, food, finance and transport come about before, and how would they be brought about again? Do these episodes shed any analogous light on our current collective predicament? This paper develops an account of the politics and prospects of deeper transitions towards sustainability based on a critical empirical, but theoretically informed, reading of previous socio-technical transitions. The scale and urgency of our current ecological predicament is daunting and can be disempowering in the absence of strategic thinking about when analogous challenges have been encountered before and how societies have sought to overcome them. Providing a combination of concrete empirical examples drawn both from academic literature and a series of public workshops reflecting on these themes, this paper seeks to provide a basis for understanding as well as engaging with the scope for accelerated transitions within and beyond capitalism.

Following on from an earlier paper that emphasized the importance of the concept of labour for understanding the relationship between capital and nature, in this paper I attempt to apply this understanding to the issue of climate change. I criticize approaches that regard climate change as a purely technical issue or economic issue or ecological issue, and distinguish four more broadly political positions, namely: green-growth capitalism, steady-state capitalism, eco-socialism, and open steady-statism. I evaluate each of these positions and show how the labour theory set out in the first paper can be used to arrive at a clearer position.

Actions needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change have often synergies and trade-offs with sectoral and sustainable development priorities, and the recent focus on SDGs and sustainable transitions highlights the need to integrate climate action into other policy spheres. This process is known as climate policy integration (CPI) or climate mainstreaming. Enhancing its understanding as a public policy making process can provide insights for its operationalization, which becomes relevant in the context of the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions in the global South. This paper aims to enhance the understanding of the how windows of opportunity for CPI are formed by drawing on elements from the multiple streams framework (MSF) developed by John Kingdon. This paper analyses grey literature regarding two cases of climate mainstreaming initiatives implemented by international cooperation organizations. The results show that relevant elements from the MSF, such as, attachment to other high-profile national issues, timing the integration with routine institutional procedures, and the presence of policy entrepreneurs, have been catalysing factors for CPI in the context of such initiatives. However, we can only assess the value of this analytical framework for CPI by testing it systematically through case studies in a variety of contexts.

In this paper, I contribute to the conversation of imagining the future of Social and Environmental Accounting (SEA) research for Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS). I focus on PSIDS as this region is arguably the most disadvantaged region given its low economic base, geographic isolation and environmental precarity. Initially, I conduct a literature review of accounting-related papers based on PSIDS and provide some suggestions for a research agenda of SEA for PSIDS. The literature review highlights that SEA research in the Pacific is an under-researched area and the few studies on SEA in the Pacific have largely been based on Fiji. For many countries in the Pacific, there is a vacuum of academic literature, however, there is a need to better understand the role of SEA in assisting these island nations address pertinent social and environmental issues, and no issue is as important as climate change. I make some inter-related suggestions for the future of SEA research for PSIDS. These suggestions emphasise the production of knowledge that draws on a diversity of perspectives from other disciplines and focuses on developing solutions based on the context of PSIDS and the lived realities of Pacific Island peoples.

Inspired by a street art image of a Balinese dancer wearing a gas mask, this paper maps climate change systems and their impacts on the Tropics. Beginning with global expanses of melting ice sheets, it rides the currents of oceanic and atmospheric systems, explores rainforests and coral reefs, wanders the seas of the Indonesian archipelago, until it comes to rest on the island of Bali. Complementing climate science with climate imagination, the paper draws on the classic elements and ecological images of thought to demonstrate tropical imaginary, jungle imaginary and archipelago imaginary as ways for perceiving the complexities of climate change. As it draws to a close, the paper pictures Slinat’s street art images, musing on how their Balinese cultural-environmental messages resonate globally and act as a poignant reminder of how humans are implicated within climate change.

This paper argues that the Trump administration’s position on climate change should be understood more in terms of continuity than disjuncture. It develops this argument in four principal ways. First, it situates Trump in the US’s paradoxical relationship to the UNFCCC, as a would-be leader that struggles to commit itself to substantive action, and the evolving geopolitics within the UNFCCC. Second, the paper focuses on an on-going struggle between pro-fossil fuel interests and a ‘decarbonising’ bloc, interpreting Trump (like George W. Bush) as a pro-fossil fuel backlash. Third, it explores the pattern of climate politics within the US, where stalemate in Congress has been often offset by action at the state, city, and corporate levels. Fourth, it should be understood in relation to the emergence of a ‘global climate governance complex’, where the UNFCCC has to be understood in relation to multilevel and transnational governance initiatives on climate change.

The paper discusses how anthropology contributes to climate change research and communication. Building on theoretical works that highlight the cultural framing of communication it investigates the signs and symbols that a Peruvian highland community creates and the imaginaries and identities it generates to interpret and communicate climate change and its environmental impact. To explore the community’s communicative repertoire the paper explores three climate voices that illuminate the conflicting ways the global discourse on climate change impacts the community’s future visions. Arguing that anthropogenic climate change poses a new challenge to the communication of urgent public issues the paper asks: Should the communication discuss climate change as a matter-of-fact issue? Or should it present climate change as a cultural phenomenon that is acknowledged as an issue in dispute? The paper concludes that climate change research is a post-normal science that not only must engage a range of scholarly traditions and methods but also listen to the voices that are affected by climate change in the real world. It encourages climate change communicators to recognize that climate communication is a dialogical relation based on the mutual interests of its experts and its users in providing as well as receiving knowledge.

Anthropogenic climate change poses risks to transport infrastructure that include disrupted operations, reduced lifespan and increased reconstruction and maintenance costs. Efforts to decrease the vulnerability of transport networks have been largely limited to understanding projected risks through governance and administrative efforts. Where physical adaptation measures have been implemented, these have typically aligned with a traditional “engineering resilience” approach of increasing the strength and rigidity of assets to withstand the impacts of climate change and maintain a stable operating state. Such systems have limited agility and are susceptible to failure from “surprise events”. Addressing these limitations, this paper considers an alternate approach to resilience, inspired by natural ecosystems that sense conditions in real-time, embrace multi-functionality and evolve in response to changing environmental conditions. Such systems embrace and thrive on unpredictability and instability. This paper synthesises key literature in climate adaptation and socio-ecological resilience theory to propose a shift in paradigm for transport infrastructure design, construction and operation, towards engineered systems that can transform, evolve and internally manage vulnerability. The authors discuss the opportunity for biomimicry (innovation inspired by nature) as an enabling discipline for supporting resilient and regenerative infrastructure, introducing three potential tools and frameworks. The authors conclude the importance of leveraging socio-ecological resilience theory, building on the achievements in engineering resilience over the past century. These findings have immediate practical applications in redefining resilience approaches for new transport infrastructure projects and transport infrastructure renewal.

In debates of climate action, low carbon development has been widely advocated as an opportunity arising from climate change. This paper problematizes low carbon development, arguing that there are undesirable, unintended or perverse effects that give rise to distinct and serious security concerns. The literature on climate security has addressed the effects of climate threats on conflict but there is a notable paucity of research analysing the security implications of responses to climate change in the form of low carbon development. The paper presents critical analysis of the ways low carbon development yields new security concerns as well as entrenching existing ones. Five dimensions of security are examined: spatially uneven effects of low carbon development; violent imaginaries of the global south and the production of ‘ungoverned spaces’; non-violent yet harmful instances of conflict; marginalization and dispossession; depoliticized, techno-managerial effects of resilience. The paper shows that climate (in)security manifests in variegated ways between different populations and spatial scales. Consequently, how, when for whom low carbon development becomes a threat or opportunity is socially constructed and deeply political.

Urban infrastructure investment needs in the developing world are immense, particularly when the additional costs associated with lower carbon, more climate-resilient options are considered. These cannot possibly be financed from fiscal sources and ODA flows alone; private financing will need to be accessed. Focusing on the ability of city governments and subnational urban utilities to mobilize private finance, this paper makes two core arguments. First, private investment in municipal infrastructure requires robust institutional, fiscal and regulatory systems that are often absent in developing countries. Establishing such systems often requires policy and institutional reform, much of which lies beyond the competence and control of city governments themselves. Second, while the marginal investment needs related to climate mitigation and adaptation complicate and aggravate the picture, they do not alter the fundamental requirements of private investors. Put simply, municipalities and utilities will need to satisfy the requirements of regular private finance before they can attract green private finance. This paper looks across the main avenues for city governments to mobilize private finance – municipal borrowing, public–private partnerships, and land value capture instruments – and identifies four broad factors that determine the potential size and scope of city leveraging activity. It then offers a new framework to understand where the most pressing constraints to private investment readiness lie and proposes priority measures that local and national governments, together with development partners and other stakeholders, can take to address them.

In 2017 the paper "The Sustainable Development Oxymoron: Quantifying and Modelling the Incompatibility of Sustainable Development Goals" (Spaiser et al. 2017) was published, showing that there is a conflict between socio-economic development goals and ecological sustainability goals using cross-country time-series data. The authors looked at production-based CO2 emissions to measure and model the 13th SDG goal addressing climate change. Their models showed that production-based CO2 emissions were stalling or even decreasing in rich countries, which suggests that other countries are also likely to see stalling and decrease in their CO2 emissions once they become rich. However, this conclusion can be challenged when accounting for consumption-based CO2 emissions rather than production-based CO2 emissions. In this follow-up paper, we re-run some of the analyses performed in the original paper making use of consumption-based CO2 emissions. The analysis confi rms the inherent SDG conflict between socio-economic and ecological SDGs. But, this new analysis demonstrates that from a consumption perspective the trend of stalling of decreasing CO2 emissions is reversed, with natural depletion costs being exported to poorer countries. Despite this new perspective on CO2 emissions, the conflict between SDG goals can still be avoided by making investments in public health, education and renewable energy, as suggested in the original paper.

Climate smart agriculture has enhanced the viability and sustainability of smallholder farming in Umguza District of Zimbabwe. This study documents how smallholder farmers in Umguza District have responded to the adverse effects of climate change by venturing into small grains production, conservation farming and small livestock production. This paper discusses the vulnerability of smallholder farmers in Umguza District to climate change induced risks. The vulnerability profile is followed by an exposition of the resilience strategies used by the farmers to mitigate the effects of climate change. Additionally, the paper considers how the government institutions and development agencies can mainstream the adoption of climate smart farming technologies. The study used qualitative and quantitative approaches as methods of data collection, data were gathered through five key informants, and 30 in-depth semi structured questionnaires. This study suggests that government institutions and development practitioners should intensify resilience-building programmes, conduct climate awareness programmes and avail funding to improve the acceptance of CSA practices among smallholder farmers in Umguza and the rest of Zimbabwe.

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. The first part diagnoses three limitations of current thought on the urban governance of climate change. First, current action emerges within a wave of urban optimism with limited historical sensitivity to previous climate change action. Second, the mobile nature of climate change policies is overlooked in studies that emphasize cities as the unit of analysis for climate action. Third, the focus on global cities or alternative locations that are constructed as exemplary sites takes attention away from the ordinary contexts of action where climate action is most needed. The second part of the paper uses this analysis as the main motivation for a call for studies of climate change governance to engage with the messiness of urban knowledge and action. Three theories of messiness are put forward. The first relates the idea of governance as messiness to postcolonial analyses of radical environmental action. The second emphasizes the messiness embedded in current methods of knowing the city, and the logic of situated knowledge. The third emphasizes messiness in the relations between the body, society and the emotions characterizing the interactions of everyday life.

This paper comes in two parts. Part I, published in the June 2018 issue of this journal, opened with an examination of the relationship between Marx’s characterization of the centrality of commodity production to capitalism as a system, its destructive results on Nature and the global scale of the climate crisis confronting the 21st century. Following a discussion of these issues, Part I moved on to critically examine three models of political economy: Hayekism, Keynesianism and State Socialism. Part II takes the argument further by critically examining a fourth model, Green Keynesianism, currently being manufactured in response to the crisis of climate change, in order to show the inability of all four models to resolve the existential threat posed to humanity in the 21st century and beyond. I then proceed to posit, as a thought experiment, a now-necessary fifth model of political economy, Green Socialism, along with the building blocks important to its evolution as a coherent system. The paper c...

This paper proposes an analytical framework to examine the application of performance management by city governments in the context of their policy response to climate change. Case studies of Copenhagen, Stockholm and Tokyo city governments highlight their performance-based climate policies. The findings have both theoretical and practical implications. The conclusions extend current research on issues associated with adopting performance management to climate change responses at the municipal level. The paper also provides guidance for city governments as they consider governance arrangements when responding to climate change.

This paper examines consequence evaluations and moral concerns about climate change across four European countries. Data from nationally representative samples (each n > 1000) were analysed in order to explore the relative importance of consequences versus morality in explaining public support for different climate policies. Most respondents expected climate change to have largely negative consequences for their respective country. Climate change consequences were viewed most negatively in Germany, followed by France, the U.K. and Norway. While the vast majority of respondents expressed at least some degree of moral concern about climate change, a notable minority in each sample stated that they have no such concerns. Moral concerns were highest in France, followed by the U.K. and Norway, and lowest in Germany. It was found that both judgements explain support for policies that aim to mitigate climate change or aim to adapt to the impacts of climate change. However, our results further suggest that moral concern was a stronger predictor of policy support than consequence evaluations. If at all, consequence evaluations were more likely to predict policy support in Germany and Norway than in the U.K. and France. Overall, policies that involved subsidies received the strongest support, where as policies involving individual costs received the least support. This research broadens our understanding of the intertwining between risk perception sand public support for climate policies, documenting variability acrossand within countries. Implications for policy-makers with an interest incommunicating climate change risks to the broader public audience are discussed. This paper examines consequence evaluations and moral concerns about climate change across four European countries. Data from nationally representative samples (each n > 1000) were analysed in order to explore the relative importance of consequences versus morality in explaining public support for different climate policies. Most respondents expected climate change to have largely negative consequences for their respective country. Climate change consequences were viewed most negatively in Germany, followed by France, the U.K. and Norway. While the vast majority of respondents expressed at least some degree of moral concern about climate change, a notable minority in each sample stated that they have no such concerns. Moral concerns were highest in France, followed by the U.K. and Norway, and lowest in Germany. It was found that both judgements explain support for policies that aim to mitigate climate change or aim to adapt to the impacts of climate change. However, our results further suggest that moral concern was a stronger predictor of policy support than consequence evaluations. If at all, consequence evaluations were more likely to predict policy support in Germany and Norway than in the U.K. and France. Overall, policies that involved subsidies received the strongest support, whereas policies involving individual costs received the least support. This research broadens our understanding of the intertwining between risk perceptions and public support for climate policies, documenting variability across and within countries. Implications for policy-makers with an interest in communicating climate change risks to the broader public audience are discussed.

Local reactions to climate change and sustainable development take various forms. The literature on grassroots innovation has grown recently, and it illustrates the myriad of initiatives that are actively working with the issues. The eco-village movement is one example of a grassroots innovation that reacts and adapts to its prerequisites, all striving for an alternative living with reduced environmental impact. This paper focuses on the development of eco-villages in Sweden, arguing that in recent years a fourth generation of initiatives has emerged, with ideals close to the pioneers of the first generation’s idealistic views and ambitions for alternative living as a way of reacting to global trends. The fourth generation is highly diverse in form and goals, but with an emphasis on outreach and networking as well as more focus on small-scale agriculture and permaculture. This paper presents, through literature reviews, database searches and interviews, how the eco-village idea has moved between initiatives and has taken various forms over the generations. In the first generation via books, reports and personal contacts, in the second and third also via contractors and professionals, and in the fourth via the internet and social media in order to attract members and have impact. Funding agencies: Swedish Research Council Formas (Svenska Forskningsradet Formas), JPI Climate Joint Call for Transnational Collaborative Research Projects, Societal Transformation in the Face of Climate Change [2014-2014-1715] This research has received funding from the Swedish Research Council Formas (Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas), grant number [2014-2014-1715], as part of the JPI Climate Joint Call for Transnational Collaborative Research Projects, Societal Transformation in the Face of Climate Change.

The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the present status and procedures related to surface precipitation observations at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). This work was done to support the ongoing renewal of observation systems and networks at the Meteorological Service of Canada. The paper focusses on selected parameters, namely, accumulated precipitation, precipitation intensity, precipitation type, rainfall, snowfall, and radar reflectivity. Application-specific user needs and requirements are defined and captured by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Expert Teams at the international level by Observing Systems Capability Analysis and Review (OSCAR) and WMO Integrated Global Observing System (WIGOS), and by ECCC user engagement initiatives within the Canadian context. The precipitation-related networks of ECCC are separated into those containing automatic instruments, those with human (manual) observers, and the radar network. The unique characteristics and d...

Greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policy-making has largely been conducted in isolation of development considerations. An emerging literature, bolstered by the “nationally determined” nature of the Paris Agreement, explores the identification and assessment of the co-impacts of mitigation actions. There is now a recognized need to consider mitigation an integral part of a multi-objective development challenge. However, the literature on how to practically and effectively apply this in policy-making, particularly in developing economies, is limited. This paper explores the potential for using approaches that fall under the umbrella of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) in guiding analyses and policy-making that relate to the climate mitigation–development interface. It categorizes three distinct types of decision problems in the broad area of climate and development policy-making, and presents lessons from three case studies, in India, Chile, and Peru and Colombia taken together, where aspects of MCDA approaches were explored. Based on these reviews, the paper concludes that MCDA approaches, despite certain limitations, can add substantive and procedural credibility to existing toolkits supporting climate and development decision-making. Key contributions of the approach are to structure the analyses, systematically include stakeholder deliberations, and provide tools to rigorously incorporate quantitative and qualitative co-impacts in multiple objective-based decisions.

This paper provides a detailed analysis of the Tokyo Metropolitan Emissions Trading Scheme (Tokyo ETS), Japan’s first emissions trading scheme with mandatory cap initiated by the government of Tokyo. Unlike trading schemes in other countries, the Tokyo ETS covers indirect emissions from the commercial sector. It is well known that a variety of market barriers impede full realization of energy efficiency opportunities, especially in the commercial sector. Experiences with the Tokyo ETS should therefore provide important lessons for the design of climate change mitigation policies, especially when targeting the commercial sector. The emissions from covered entities have been drastically reduced from those at the scheme’s outset, with an average 14% reduction as of the end of the first commitment period of five years (2010–2014) compared with 2009 levels. This paper shows that the Tokyo ETS alone did not cause these reductions; there were other drivers. Among them, the energy savings triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 were crucial. The contribution of credit trading, in contrast, was limited since most of the covered entities reduced emissions by themselves. Through an investigation of official reports, an assessment of the emissions data from the covered entities compared to those of uncovered entities and in-depth interviews with firms covered by the scheme, this paper confirms that the main drivers of emissions reductions by covered entities were separate from the ETS. In fact, the advisory aspect of the scheme seems to be much more important in encouraging energy-saving actions. Key policy insightsMost of the observed emission reductions were not caused by the Tokyo ETS alone.An advisory instrument was crucial to the effectiveness of the Tokyo ETS.The experience of the Tokyo ETS suggests that making full use of the advantages of emissions trading is difficult in the case of the commercial sector.Price signals have not provided a stimulus to climate change mitigation actions, which implies that establishing a cap to yield effective carbon prices poses a challenge. Most of the observed emission reductions were not caused by the Tokyo ETS alone. An advisory instrument was crucial to the effectiveness of the Tokyo ETS. The experience of the Tokyo ETS suggests that making full use of the advantages of emissions trading is difficult in the case of the commercial sector. Price signals have not provided a stimulus to climate change mitigation actions, which implies that establishing a cap to yield effective carbon prices poses a challenge.

This paper presents the findings of an exploratory study examining the values and attitudes of nature-based tourism entrepreneurs in relation to adaptation to climate change. The aim is to focus on tourism stakeholders’ values and ideas about tourism entrepreneurship, which may bring interesting new insights to the tourism and climate change research and support the industry in adaptation and mitigation processes. The data utilised in this paper consists of 19 thematic interviews conducted with nature-based tourism entrepreneurs in Finland between 2009 and 2013. Analysis of the data reveal issues concerning views on entrepreneurship in general, on the independence and individuality of the enterprises, on the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders in the processes of adaptation and on the attitudes towards innovations and actions in the changing climate. These issues, together with the rate and scale of the change, seem to affect decision-making by the enterprises, but their importance as predictors of action and behavioural intentions needs to be studied more thoroughly. Additionally, more information is required regarding the role of the surrounding social environment as a co-creator of these kinds of values. However, the study supports previous studies on entrepreneurship and its influence on survival and resilience.

This paper offers an example of global politics in action by attending to the modalities and outcomes of United Nations negotiations on global warming. More precisely, the paper ethnographically traces how the capacity of tropical forests to be carbon sinks is turned into a matter of global concern. The focus is on a negotiated policy called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) and its anchoring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo whose territory contains the second largest area of rainforest after Brazil. The paper proposes to discuss the importance of the promissory in climate actions, the multivalence of what is at stake and the porosity and resilience of national demarcation. To do so, it identifies three moments and sites of geopolitical re-composition: the formulation of international consensus, the work of preparatory agents, and the quest for metrological inclusiveness. These moments and sites point to the theatricality and semi-secrecy of United Nations negotiations, the mobilizing activity of expatriate consultants hired with overseas aid funding, and the unstable evidential grounds on which emission reduction efforts are based. The paper suggests that through this series of processes, the carbon stored by tropical forests becomes a matter of global exigency

The urgent need for clean innovative energy systems is widely recognized amidst increasing concerns over energy insecurity, climate change and other environmental impacts of a carbon-constrained economy. Several renewable energy technologies such as small hydropower (SHP) are poised to play a critical role in the transition to a low-carbon future in Nigeria. The technically exploitable small hydro capability in Nigeria is high but underutilized in spite of the recent power sector reform of the government. The main objective of this paper is to trace the evolution of small hydropower and determine what component of the interactive learning mechanisms would result in the most significant outcome. The paper also maps out the networks of actors and linkages among those involved in the development and deployment of SHP technology in Nigeria. The study assesses the innovation process of the key stakeholders on models of sustainable SHP in the country. In the final assessment, the study identifies four models wi...

Tourism is widely acknowledged as a key contributor to climate change, but it remains unclear how the tourism industry has been planning for climate change in practice. This paper conducts the most comprehensive critical review of Australia's tourism policy and planning documents to date. The paper explores the complex challenges posed by climate change to tourism and how tourism policy has been adapting over a 15-year period. Drawing on a longitudinal data-set of 477 Australian tourism policy and planning documents at the national, state, regional and local level, this research analyses the strategic discourse on climate change using content analysis and bibliometrics. The findings reveal opportunities, challenges and strategies for the tourism industry to contribute to the sustainable management of climate change. Opportunities include developing more “green” products, while strategies include establishing and/or participating in collaborative climate change schemes and strengthening dialogue surrounding climate change to aid the implementation of sustainable practices. Future research should consider the broader policy-making environment, such as the stakeholders, power and interest dynamics when analysing tourism strategies in relation to climate change.