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Sudden events of crisis ('focusing events') trigger intense media reporting, which in turn can prompt political decision-makers to respond with an adjustment of existing policies. As such, focusing events can potentially lead to long-term policy change on a certain issue. This article explores the sudden and intense period of air pollution in Beijing in January 2013 as a focusing event. The episode, which international media referred to as 'Airpocalypse', triggered widespread discussion and policy adjustments that can be assumed to have accelerated the control of air pollution in China. The 'Airpocalypse' was not the first event of intense air pollution in Beijing, but the only one which seemingly caused lasting sociopolitical changes. The aim of this article is to explore the underlying situational factors that enabled the 'Airpocalypse' to be more relevant than other events of severe air pollution. This paper argues that a combination of historically high pollution, improved access to information, increasing government willingness to address the issue, and the ability of media to more openly discuss air pollution created a public pressure situation to which the government was prompted to respond in a stronger way than during previous events of heavy air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT People change the climate. Ethnography, however, tends to look past these perpetrators and see only victims. In such accounts, parties vulnerable to climate change suffer, adapt, or do both. To varying degrees, their societies are resilient and may soon make themselves more so. These comparatively cheerful keywords overlook an entire moral field of responsibility, complicity, and culpability. High emitters of carbon dioxide bear the bulk of responsibility for the unfolding catastrophe. How do such people interpret and justify their actions? What ethics and mentalities with respect to the environment are high emitters, their firms, and their governments fabricating? In this article, I address these questions in the context of a society both complicit and vulnerable: the petrostate of Trinidad and Tobago. There, an overlapping set of environmental policymakers and environmentally minded industrialists consider Trinidad-including its oil industry-to be only vulnerable. Their 'victim slot' relies on cultural constructions of insular geography, performances in diplomatic fora, and planning rubrics for hazards. In each instance, the slot allows Trinidadian institutions and corporations-including oil firms-to skirt accountability for carbon emissions. Nevertheless, some Trinidadian public figures are beginning to reconsider hydrocarbons in ways both painful and humane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reaching the economic, environmental and sustainability objectives of all societies requires overcoming several major energy challenges; it necessitates rapid progress in multiple areas. The scenario pathways presented in this paper describe transformative changes toward these goals, taking a broad view of the four main energy challenges faced by society in the 21st century: providing universal access to modern energy for all; reducing the impacts of energy production on human health and the environment; avoiding dangerous climate change; and enhancing energy security. The overarching objective of the paper is to provide policy guidance on how to facilitate the transformation of the energy system to achieve these multiple energy objectives. Particular focus is given to the required pace of the transformation at both the global and regional levels, and to the types of financial and policy measures that will be needed to ensure a successful transition. Synergies and trade-offs between the objectives are identified, and co-benefits quantified. The paper makes an important contribution to the scenario literature by approaching the global transition toward sustainable development in a more integrated, holistic manner than is common in other studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why would countries invest resources to protect the global atmosphere, a global common-pool resource? After all, this is an open-access resource with no restrictions on appropriating its benefits. Furthermore, why would they do so under the aegis of a weak global regime (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC) that has virtually no provisions for sanctioning noncompliance and when the largest contributor to the problem is not participating in the regime? This article examines why a number of countries have implemented the UNFCCC. I hypothesize that countries implement UNFCCC because they corner domestic environmental benefits, namely reduction in local pollution. In my empirical analysis of 127 countries, employing an ordinal logistic regression model, I find that local air pollution is associated with higher levels of implementation of the UNFCCC. Thus, I conclude that the incentives to implement a relatively weak global regime can be found in the domestic political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the viewpoints from experts in response to the question about the prospects for an effective global implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. One expert says that the Protocol still places a gap between current emissions of greenhouse gases and Japan's Kyoto target. Another implies that the prospects of the Kyoto Protocol being implemented are not important. Another also states that proposing technology programs in the late stages is an insult to all involved.