Search

The significance of environmental governance is increasing worldwide, and Georgia is no exception. This article uses wide-ranging sources to provide comprehensive qualitative and quantitative data to discuss the most important aspects of environmental policy directions in Georgia. The results of the study show that: (a) it is crucial to increase public awareness about the importance of climate change and environmental protection; (b) introducing environmental and climate-related goals and objectives and green budgeting principles in national priorities is as important as implementing them effectively into practice; and (c) the practice of regulatory impact assessment needs further development in Georgia, especially in the environment and climate-related areas. Finally, the paper concludes that the lack of historical data is the main limitation for the current research, and proposes that scientific and practical work continues in the future to further explore the relationships between the country’s environmental policies and aspects of sustainable development on both an individual and public level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media are essential actors in transmitting, contesting and embedding the attitudes towards climate change, yet media performance in post-communist countries has been relatively little researched. Informed by conceptual frameworks of strategic narratives, agenda-setting and framing, this paper investigates the media coverage of climate change and environment related issues in Latvia. The paper demonstrates the representation of climate change and environment related issues in Latvian and Russian-speaking traditional and online media, using quantitative data analysis of 3753 media articles, video and audio broadcasts from August 2020 till January 2021, as well as qualitative content analysis of seven peaks. The findings reveal a significant amount of climate change and environment related articles and broadcasts in Latvian media. News agencies and public broadcasters are the most important media segments in terms of publishing, whereas online media are prior in terms of the audiences reached. International efforts emerge as a dominant theme in the media coverage, while climate change per se receives a minor journalist attention. Both observations confirm a low level of climate change domestication in the Latvian media. Media reliance on political and government information sources and prepackaged material suggests a high potential for official political narratives to spread, yet the persuasive power of strategic narratives remains blurred as the perception side is highly underreported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Danube River mouth is a main source for fresh water used for water supply and irrigation purposes in the arid southern part of Ukraine. In addition, the water of the mouth is used for filling the Danube Lakes. Climate change and numerous social and economic factors reduce the area and the water level of the Danube Lakes and increase their salinity. Under these circumstances the water exchange between the Danube River and the lakes is a very important process which allows maintenance of the water-salt balance of the latter. Such water exchange massively depends on the Danube River regime. The paper presents research of temporal variation of typical water discharges in the lower course of the Danube River associated with assessment of natural and anthropogenic factors affecting river runoff fluctuations. Time series of annual average water discharge at the water gauging stations of such cities as Reni and Izmail were considered uniform for the selected periods. They cover the period of conventionally natural river runoff regime (1840-1920), the period of the least altered river runoff regime (1921-1960) and the most altered river runoff regime under a heavy anthropogenic influence (1961-1989). The analysis of the impact of climate changes on the river runoff allowed introduction of a new, modern period of the Danube River hydrological regime (1990-2015). It is established that the series of maximum and minimum water discharges are characterized by the lack of their uniformity from the beginning of the period of initial influence of hydraulic engineering structures on the hydrological regime (since 1961). The analysis of the aggregate multi-year series (1840-2015) of average annual, maximum and minimum water discharges of the Danube River across its length from Reni to Izmail showed the presence of positive trends. At the same time the period of climatic changes (after 1989) is characterized by a less intensive growth of maximum water discharges. The research resulted in establishing the periodicity and synchronism of water discharge fluctuations in the lower course of the Danube River from Reni to Izmail within the territory of Ukraine. In particular, the study showed for the first time that from the 2000s onwards the redistribution of river runoff between the Danube River branches led to unsynchronization of minimum river runoff in different parts of the Danube Delta. The research shows that comprehensive analysis of the Danube River hydrological regime under modern climatic conditions is required to ensure efficient engineering regulation of the Danube Lakes filling pattern. Such regulation, in its turn, will ensure that the water supply and irrigation purposes are achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous innovations, absence of fuel and fuel-related problems, excellent environmental characteristics and other economic and technical factors result in a permanent decline of PV systems cost and unprecedented growth of photovoltaic markets. Because of this, PV energy production technologies are becoming economically viable even in the Northern countries where the annual solar irradiation on the horizontal surface is around 900-1 100 kWh/m². New circumstances allow reconsideration of PV systems viability for electricity production in high latitude countries not excepting the Baltic States. This paper provides a review of broad data on global development trends for solar power plants, including countries where solar irradiations are moderate. Advantages of PV systems development are justified by taking into account electricity generation costs, external costs and positive impact on climate change mitigation. Further reduction of PV systems cost is reasoned by describing recent innovations that will have a major impact on a new decrease of PV modules prices. The paper also discusses possible ways that could allow minimizing of PV power plants integration costs by reduction of expenditures for power balancing. The provided data reflect that good results in integration costs reduction can be achieved by combining several renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydro in proper ratios. Finally, the presented data and their analysis indicate that PV power plants could definitely take a certain part in the future electricity generation mix in high latitude countries due to its wide accessibility, economic efficiency, maturity and environmental benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a methodological approach for identifying the resilience of interconnected EU critical infrastructures to climate change. The proposed approach tries to establish a consequence-based modelling framework for assessing climate-dependent causal relationships between CI operation and response to climate impacts with an aim to minimise disruptions to service flows under diverse conditions. The proposed study provides a description of the virtual city's forest fire and smoke reference scenario with their optional damages to the electricity transmission and distribution network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents analysis of the structure of hydrometeorologists' graduate works in Vilnius University in 1994-2013. It also discusses the climate change academic discourse. The structure of analyzed works themes and the status of the climate change concept during the analyzed period have changed for the informational and technological development impact. The indicators especially changed in the second half of the period. It is related to the changes in the general paradigm of hydrometeorological research in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Around 2003-2005 these works started analyzing meteorological-climatological issues (previously hydrological themes dominated). At the same time the use of regular monitoring measurements data began to increase and longer data series were examined. In recent years significantly more theses cited literature in English. The term "climate change" is mentioned 1.6 times more at the end of the research period than at the beginning of this period. Currently this term is increasingly used to describe the objectives and tasks of theses. The study indicates that the phrase "climate change" is often used in the introductions of works (because authors lack arguments). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current use of solid biomass for heating in Lithuania and further development opportunities as well as environmental impact are analyzed in this paper. The solid biomass potential in 2011 made 1 442 ktoe, and 50.8% of this potential was used in the heating sector. he solid biomass potential should increase 14.6% by 2020 and 67% of this potential should be used in order to achieve the national renewable energy targets (60% for district heating and 80% for heating of individual houses). Achievement of national targets would allow to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 6%. he changes in the emissions of the main pollutants would be different. SO2, NOx, solid particles emissions would decrease by 13.1, 3.2% and 28.4%, respectively, however, VOC and CO emissions would increase by 1.3 and 8.2%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]