Do bilateral trade relationships influence the distribution of CDM projects?

The use of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is increasingly widespread in developing countries. However, CDM projects are still far from being an effective development activity due to the uneven distribution of these projects in a few relatively well-off economies. One potential cause of this imbalance is analysed in terms of the trade relationships between developed and developing countries. By applying a gravity model to a panel dataset, well-established export flows from developed economies towards developing countries are shown to explain why a large proportion of CDM projects are unevenly geographically distributed. This kind of lock-in effect regarding the CDM between developed and developing countries could be avoided by both enhancing the institutional framework in developing countries that host CDM projects and reinforcing compulsory rules for CDM destinations in the least-developed economies.     

Sensitivity of the CRCM atmospheric and the Gulf of St. Lawrence Ocean‐Ice models to each other

Abstract

The sensitivity of the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM), developed at the Université du Québec à Montréal, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence Ocean Model (GOM), developed at the Institut Maurice‐ Lamontagne, to each other is tested with an ensemble of simulations over eastern Canada from 1 November 1989 to 31 March 1990. The goal of this study is to investigate the interaction of the CRCM and GOM with respect to each other's forcing fields. In the first part of the experiment, a series of simulations were performed using an iterative strategy, where both models run separately and alternately, using variables from the other model to supply the needed forcing fields for the computation of surface fluxes. The runs are iterated several times over the same period from the output of the previous run to allow the atmosphere and the ocean to interact several times with each other and to study the evolution of the solutions from one iteration to the next. In the second part of the experiment, a two‐way coupled simulation is performed over the same period. The results indicate that on a monthly or longer timescale, the CRCM is not very sensitive to the details of the oceanic fields from GOM, except locally over the Gulf of St. Lawrence (GSL). However, GOM is quite sensitive to the differences in atmospheric fields from the CRCM. The results of several iterations converge to a unique solution, suggesting that the CRCM and GOM reach equilibrium with respect to each other's forcing fields. Furthermore, the results of the coupled run also converge to this same solution.     

Do we prioritize floodplains for development and farming? Mapping global dependence and exposure to inundation

Global wetlands and floodplains offer benefits and perils alike for human society. For example, humans rely on natural flood cycles for fisheries and agriculture, yet flooding also caused nearly one trillion USD in damage in the past 30 years and impacts millions of people every year. Looking forward, altered flow regimes or increased drought conditions are expected to affect the natural inundation cycle and its ecosystem services. The current and potential future impacts of flooding and drying events warrant increasing efforts to quantify our dependence and exposure within flooded areas, since any change from current inundation patterns is expected to have consequences for those who rely on regular flood occurrences. This paper provides a baseline global assessment of the dependence and exposure of human populations, urban areas, roads, and agriculture on current inundation patterns. The analysis uses a spatially explicit inundation map at ∼500 m resolution (GIEMS-D15) derived from satellite remote sensing to represent flooding extents and overlays it with current population and land use maps. We find that 35% of the analyzed population, or 2.0 billion people, live inside areas that are prone to inland flooding, which comprise only 12% of the land surface area (excluding marine coastal areas), confirming that population densities within inundation zones are about three-times above global average. Likewise, 35% of urban areas potentially experience regular, seasonal, or infrequent flooding. Agriculture shows a similar pattern with 24% of the world’s cropland in areas of recurring inundation. Finally, we estimate that 18% of the global road network is exposed to inundation during high water periods. These global estimates demonstrate a preferential tendency of human populations, infrastructure, and agriculture to be co-located within inundation areas, making related anthropogenic activities highly susceptible to future changes in flood regimes. The results are intended to offer a suite of first-order estimates as partial input to more holistic risk and vulnerability assessments and to ultimately improve environmental planning and policy at large scales.     

Maladaptation and development as usual? Investigating climate change mitigation and adaptation projects in Cambodia

ABSTRACT

Based on research into multiple types of climate change mitigation and adaptation (CCMA) projects and policies in Cambodia, this paper documents intersecting social and environmental conflicts that bear striking resemblance to well-documented issues in the history of development projects. Using data from three case studies, we highlight the ways that industrial development and CCMA initiatives are intertwined in both policy and project creation, and how this confluence is creating potentials for maladaptive outcomes. Each case study involves partnerships between international institutions and the national government, each deploys CCMA as either a primary or supporting legitimation, and each failed to adhere to institutional and/or internationally recognized standards of justice. In Cambodia, mismanaged projects are typically blamed on the kleptocratic and patrimonial governance system. We show how such blame obscures the collusion of international partners, who also sidestep their own safeguards, and ignores the potential for maladaptation at the project level and the adverse social and environmental impacts of the policies themselves.

Key policy insights

• Initiatives to mitigate or adapt to climate change look very much like the development projects that caused climate change: Extreme caution must be exercised to ensure policies and projects do not exacerbate the conditions driving climate change.

• Safeguards ‘on paper’ are insufficient to avoid negative impacts and strict accountability mechanisms must be put in place.

• Academic researchers can be part of that accountability mechanism through case study reports, policy briefs, technical facilitation to help ensure community needs are met and safeguards are executed as written.

• Impacts beyond the project scale must be assessed to avoid negative consequences for social and ecological systems at the landscape level.

     

Who and what are carbon markets for? Politics and the development of climate policy

Why have carbon markets been rapidly adopted as policy solutions to climate change in the last decade? Perhaps surprisingly, this question has attracted virtually no attention in the large literature on such markets. The standard arguments given for why carbon markets are good ways to respond to climate change do not explain why such markets have flourished as governance mechanisms in relation to climate. Carbon markets have spread and become taken-for-granted because of the potential they give to certain powerful actors (financiers, specifically) to create new cycles of investment, profits and growth. As a consequence, they make possible a political coalition combining financiers with environmentalists. This coalition has considerable potential to legitimize substantial cuts in carbon emissions in the face of continued opposition from other interests. It is the combination of these two elements – the promotion of specific growth sectors and the construction of a political coalition – that constitutes the principal political virtue of carbon markets. In order to demonstrate this claim, the history of emissions trading is traced and the implication of this analysis is explored for the further building of climate governance centred on carbon markets.     

Climate change adaptation cost in the US: what do we know?

Researchers and policy makers increasingly recognize the need to adapt to future changes in climate, given that past emissions of greenhouse gases have already committed the world to some level of climate change. However, the current understanding of the costs and benefits of adaptation measures is still fairly rudimentary, and far from comprehensive. An assessment is presented of the current state of knowledge on the magnitude of adaptation costs in the United States. While incomplete, the studies suggest that adaptation cost could be as high as tens or hundreds of billions of dollars per year by the middle of this century. Key studies are identified in each sector, and the cost estimates and approaches to cost estimation are surveyed. Methodological issues are highlighted in interpreting, comparing, and aggregating adaptation cost estimates. Policy recommendations are made along with appropriate steps to make future adaptation cost studies more comparable within and across sectors and more accessible and relevant to policy and decision makers.

Policy relevance

Designing and implementing climate change adaptation policy requires good information about the effectiveness and cost of available adaptive options. The current state of knowledge on adaptation costs in the United States is assessed and significant gaps in the literature are highlighted – particularly in terms of sectoral and geographic coverage – as well as inconsistencies in methodologies and assumptions that hamper comparison across studies. Critical steps are identified that can be taken to make adaptation cost studies more accessible and useful to decision makers. The findings and recommendations are relevant to adaptation cost studies globally, not just in the United States.     

What drives the success of reforestation projects in tropical developing countries? The case of the Philippines

In response to substantial deforestation over many decades, large scale reforestation programs are being implemented across many tropical developing countries. Examples include the United Nations Billion Trees Campaign, the National Greening Program in the Philippines, and the 5 million ha reforestation program in Vietnam. However, while substantial investments are being made in reforestation, little information exists on the drivers influencing reforestation success and how these interact to determine environmental and socio-economic outcomes. In this study we surveyed 43 reforestation projects on Leyte Island, The Philippines to identify the drivers that most influence reforestation success as measured by key indicators drawn from the literature, including interactions between drivers and between drivers and indicators. We investigated 98 potential success drivers, including technical and biophysical factors; socio-economic factors; institutional, policy and management factors; and reforestation project characteristics. We also measured 12 success indicators, including forest establishment, forest growth, environmental and socio-economic success indicators. Stepwise multiple regressions were used to identify significant relationships among drivers and indicators and this analysis was used to develop a system of driver and indicator relationships. Based on this we found that revegetation method, funding source, education and awareness campaigns, the dependence of local people on forests, reforestation incentives, project objectives, forest protection mechanisms and the condition of road infrastructure were highly connected drivers that influenced multiple success indicators either directly or indirectly. We conclude that policies targeting revegetation methods, socioeconomic incentives, forest protection mechanisms, sustainable livelihoods, diversification of funding and partnerships, technical support, and infrastructure development are likely to have a broad systemic and beneficial effect on the success of reforestation programs in tropical developing countries.     

Do international factors influence the passage of climate change legislation?

The number of climate change laws in major economies has grown from less than 40 in 1997 to almost 500 at the end of 2013. The passage of these laws is influenced by both domestic and international factors. This article reviews the main international factors, drawing on a powerful new dataset of climate legislation in 66 national jurisdictions. We find that the propensity to legislate on climate change is heavily influenced by the passage of similar laws elsewhere, suggesting a strong and so far under-appreciated role for international policy diffusion. International treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol work in two ways. The impact of the Kyoto Protocol itself is limited to countries with formal obligations under the treaty. In addition, the prestige of hosting an international climate summit is associated with a subsequent boost in legislation. Legislators seem to respond to the expectations of climate leadership that these events bestow on their host.

Policy relevance

A global solution to climate change will ultimately have to be anchored in domestic legislation, which creates the legal basis for countries to take action. Countries are passing climate legislation in a growing number. This article asks to what extent they are motivated to do so by international factors, such as existing treaty obligations. We find that the Kyoto Protocol has been a less important factor in explaining climate legislation outside Annex I than the passage of similar laws elsewhere. This suggests that international policy diffusion plays an important and so far under-appreciated role in global climate policy, complementing formal treaty obligations.     

A review of the relevance of the ‘CLOUD’ results and other recent observations to the possible effect of cosmic rays on the terrestrial climate

The problem of the contribution of cosmic rays to climate change is a continuing one and one of importance. In principle, at least, the recent results from the CLOUD project at CERN provide information about the role of ionizing particles in ’sensitizing’ atmospheric aerosols which might, later, give rise to cloud droplets. Our analysis shows that, although important in cloud physics the results do not lead to the conclusion that cosmic rays affect atmospheric clouds significantly, at least if H₂SO₄ is the dominant source of aerosols in the atmosphere. An analysis of the very recent studies of stratospheric aerosol changes following a giant solar energetic particles event shows a similar negligible effect. Recent measurements of the cosmic ray intensity show that a former decrease with time has been reversed. Thus, even if cosmic rays enhanced cloud production, there would be a small global cooling, not warming.     

How does framing affect policy support for emissions mitigation? Testing the effects of ocean acidification and other carbon emissions frames

Public support for carbon emissions mitigation is crucial to motivate action to address global issues like climate change and ocean acidification (OA). Yet in the public sphere, carbon emissions mitigation policies are typically discussed in the context of climate change and rarely in the context of OA or other global change outcomes. In this paper, we advance research on OA and climate change perceptions and communication, by (i) examining causal beliefs about ocean acidification, and (ii) measuring support for mitigation policies from individuals presented with one of five different policy frames (climate change, global warming, carbon pollution, air pollution, and ocean acidification). Knowledge about OA causes and consequences is more widespread than we anticipated, though still generally low. Somewhat surprisingly, an “air pollution” mitigation frame elicits the highest degree of policy support overall, while “carbon pollution” performs no better than “climate change” or “global warming.” Framing effects are in part contingent on prior knowledge and attitudes, and mediated by concern. Perhaps due to a lack of OA awareness, the OA frame generates the least support overall, although it seems to close the gap in support associated with political orientation: the OA frame increases support among those (few) conservatives who report having heard of OA before the survey. These findings complement previous work on climate change communication and suggest the need for further research into OA as an effective way to engage conservatives in carbon emissions mitigation policy. Potentially even more promising is the air pollution framing.     

Do we need to include soil evolution module in models for prediction of future climate change?

Climate change induce increases in precipitation in Northern Europe that may in turn affect soil evolution by increasing the amounts of water flowing through soils. However, there is a general lack of consideration of the impact of climate change on soil evolution. We propose here to use agricultural soil drainage—that also increases the amount of water flowing through soils—as an analogy to climate change. We thus studied the impact of 16 years of agricultural drainage in one cropped plot of the most common type of soils of Northern Europe. To estimate the importance of the soil evolution induced by drainage, we compared it to the long term natural evolution of that soil. The recent increase in water fluxes by agricultural drainage (16 years) has resulted in an increase in the intensity and velocity of the natural pedological processes. The increased amount of water flowing thorough soils due to drainage is of same order of magnitude than that that would be induced by climate change in the next 50–100 years in northern Europe. Our results demonstrated thus that climate change will significantly affect soil evolution. This evolution induces losses of the finest particles involved in organic carbon sequestration and thus has a feedback effect on climate change. Therefore we consider that soil evolution in response to climate change has to be explicitly studied and included in models predicting global climate change.     

Climate change and infectious diseases: Can we meet the needs for better prediction?

The next generation of climate-driven, disease prediction models will most likely require a mechanistically based, dynamical framework that parameterizes key processes at a variety of locations. Over the next two decades, consensus climate predictions make it possible to produce forecasts for a number of important infectious diseases that are largely independent of the uncertainty of longer-term emissions scenarios. In particular, the role of climate in the modulation of seasonal disease transmission needs to be unravelled from the complex dynamics resulting from the interaction of transmission with herd immunity and intervention measures that depend upon previous burdens of infection. Progress is also needed to solve the mismatch between climate projections and disease projections at the scale of public health interventions. In the time horizon of seasons to years, early warning systems should benefit from current developments on multi-model ensemble climate prediction systems, particularly in areas where high skill levels of climate models coincide with regions where large epidemics take place. A better understanding of the role of climate extremes on infectious diseases is urgently needed.     

The economic impacts of introducing CCER trading and offset mechanism into the national carbon market of China北大核心CSCD

基于中国风电及光伏国家核证自愿减排量(CCER)现状及发展趋势,针对CCER供给、抵销和价格形成等关键机制问题,运用电力部门细分的递推动态可计算一般均衡(CGE)模型,模拟了在取消电价补贴的背景下全国碳市场引入风电及光伏CCER交易及抵销机制的经济影响。研究发现:引入CCER交易及抵销机制会降低碳配额交易价格,并缓解取消电价补贴对风电和光伏电力的负面影响,但也会削弱全国碳市场的碳减排效果,且随着CCER供给总量增加这些作用更明显;全国碳市场引入CCER交易及抵销机制后,碳排放强度较高的控排行业将选择购买更多的CCER,其中火电行业是主要的CCER需求方;未来我国如果不放开CCER项目备案审批则风电行业将是主要受益方,而未来适度放开CCER项目备案审批则风电和光伏行业都将从中受益。因此,全国碳市场在引入CCER交易及抵销机制的同时需从紧设置初始碳配额发放量,并可考虑适时重启CCER项目备案审批工作以更好地促进风电和光伏电力的发展,但允许的CCER清缴比例上限应结合碳减排目标合理设定,以避免对全国碳市场产生较大冲击。     

Individual contribution of insolation and CO2 to the interglacial climates of the past 800,000?years

The individual contributions of insolation and greenhouse gases (GHG) to the interglacial climates of the past 800,000?years are quantified through simulations with a model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM and using the factor separation technique. The interglacials are compared in terms of their forcings and responses of surface air temperature, vegetation and sea ice. The results show that the relative magnitude of the simulated interglacials is in reasonable agreement with proxy data. GHG plays a dominant role on the variations of the annual mean temperature of both the Globe and the southern high latitudes, whereas, insolation plays a dominant role on the variations of tree fraction, precipitation and of the northern high latitude temperature and sea ice. The Mid-Brunhes Event (MBE) appears to be significant only in GHG and climate variables dominated by it. The results also show that the relative importance of GHG and insolation on the warmth intensity varies from one interglacial to another. For the warmest (MIS-9 and MIS-5) and coolest (MIS-17 and MIS-13) interglacials, GHG and insolation reinforce each other. MIS-11 (MIS-15) is a warm (cool) interglacial due to its high (low) GHG concentration, its insolation contributing to a cooling (warming). MIS-7, although with high GHG concentrations, can not be classified as a warm interglacial due to it large insolation-induced cooling. Related to these two forcings, MIS-19 appears to be the best analogue for MIS-1. In the response to insolation, the annual mean temperatures averaged over the globe and over southern high latitudes are highly linearly correlated with obliquity. However, precession becomes important in the temperature of the northern high latitudes and controls the tree fraction globally. Over the polar oceans, the response during the local winters, although the available energy is small, is larger than during the local summers due to the summer remnant effect. The sensitivity to double CO₂ is the highest for the coolest interglacial.     

Tropical cyclones,climate change,and scientific uncertainty: what do we know,what does it mean,and what should be done?

The question of whether and to what extent global warming may be changing tropical cyclone (TC) activity is of great interest to decision makers. The presence of a possible climate change signal in TC activity is difficult to detect because interannual variability necessitates analysis over longer time periods than available data allow. Projections of future TC activity are hindered by computational limitations and uncertainties about changes in regional climate, large scale patterns, and TC response. This review discusses the state of the field in terms of theory, modeling studies and data. While Atlantic TCs have recently become more intense, evidence for changes in other basins is not persuasive, and changes in the Atlantic cannot be clearly attributed to either natural variability or climate change. However, whatever the actual role of climatic change, these concerns have opened a “policy window” that, if used appropriately, could lead to improved protection against TCs.     

Can national policy blockages accelerate the development of polycentric governance? Evidence from climate change policy in the United Kingdom

Many factors can conspire to limit the scope for policy development at the national level. In this paper, we consider whether blockages in national policy processes − resulting for example from austerity or small state political philosophies − might be overcome by the development of more polycentric governance arrangements. Drawing on evidence from three stakeholder workshops and fifteen interviews, we address this question by exploring the United Kingdom’s recent retrenchment in the area of climate change policy, and the ways in which its policy community have responded. We identify two broad strategies based on polycentric principles: ‘working with gatekeepers’ to unlock political capital and ‘collaborate to innovate’ to develop policy outputs. We then empirically examine the advantages that these actions bring, analysing coordination across overlapping sites of authority, such as those associated with international regimes, devolved administrations and civic and private initiatives that operate in conjunction with, and sometimes independently of, the state. Despite constraining political and economic factors, which are by no means unique to the UK, we find that a polycentric climate policy network can create opportunities for overcoming central government blockages. However, we also argue that the ambiguous role of the state in empowering but also in constraining such a network will determine whether a polycentric approach to climate policy and governance is genuinely additional and innovative, or whether it is merely a temporary ‘sticking plaster’ for the retreat of the state and policy retrenchment during austere times.