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This paper aims to explore how the principles of participatory action research (PAR) articulate with questions of climate justice. Drawing on three qualitative case studies in Brazil, Fiji and Kenya, the paper explores university institutional capabilities, asking how the principles of mobilising PAR to support transformative outcomes can further climate justice. The paper argues that for participatory action research to become a pathway to build universities' capabilities, key considerations are needed. PAR needs to: (a) move beyond change in individual behaviour to respond to climate change and affect institutional norms, procedures and practices; (b) recognise and partner with marginalised groups whose voice and experiences are at the periphery of climate debate, enabling reciprocal flows of impact and knowledge between universities and wider societies; and (c) foster "relationships of equivalence" with actors within as well as outside university to influence university governance and wider climate-related policy-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terrestrial biosphere is an important global carbon (C) sink, with the potential to drive large positive climate feedbacks. Thus a better understanding of interactions between land use change, climate change and the terrestrial biosphere is crucial in planning future land management options. Climate change has the potential to alter terrestrial C storage since changes in temperature, precipitation and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations could affect net primary production (NPP), C inputs to soil, and soil C decomposition rates. Climate change could also act as a driver for land use change, thus further altering terrestrial C fluxes. The net balance of these different effects varies considerably between regions and hence the case studies presented in this paper (the GEFSOC project countries Kenya, Jordan, Brazil, and India) provide a unique opportunity to study climate impacts on terrestrial C storage. This paper first presents predicted changes in climate for the four case study countries from a coupled climate-C cycle Global Circulation Model (HadCM3LC), followed by predicted changes in vegetation type, NPP and soil C storage. These very coarse assessments provide an initial estimate of large-scale effects. A more detailed study of climate impacts on soil C storage in the Brazilian Amazon is provided as an example application of the GEFSOC system. Interestingly in the four cases studied here precipitation seems to control the sign of the soil C changes under climate change with wetter conditions resulting in higher soil C stocks and drier conditions in lower soil C stocks, presumably because increased NPP in wetter conditions here will override any increase in respiration. In contrast, globally, it seems to be temperature that controls changes in C stocks under climate change. Even if there is a slight increase in precipitation globally, a decrease in C stocks is predicted—in other words, the regional response to precipitation differs from the global response. The reason for this may be that whilst temperature increases under climate change were predicted everywhere, the nature of precipitation changes varies greatly between regions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]