Climatic Change最新文献

Meeting future demand for coffee under climate change is a challenge. Approaches that can inform where coffee may grow best under current and future climate scenarios are needed. Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora P.) is planted in many tropical areas and makes up around 40% of the world’s coffee supply. However, as the climate shifts, current robusta areas may become less productive, while in other areas new growing regions for robusta may emerge. Colombia is one of the world’s most important Arabica coffee producer, famous for its high-quality coffee. Although robusta coffee is not yet a commercial crop in Colombia, it could be one of the future bastions for robusta coffee in South America contributing to meeting the increasing demand, but this remains unexplored. We aimed to identify areas with highest biophysical and socio-economic potential to grow robusta coffee in Colombia. An integrated modelling approach was used, combining climate suitability and crop-yield modelling for current and future climate scenarios, soil constraints, pest risk assessment and socio-economic constraints to identify the regions with the highest potential productivity and the lowest pest and climate change risks with good market access and low security risks which don’t further expand the agricultural frontier. Our results showed that parts of the foothills along the eastern Andean Mountain ranges, the high plains of the Orinoquía region and the wet parts of the Caribbean region are the best candidates for the potential development of robusta coffee plantations in Colombia. The crop-yield model indicated highest yields of green coffee on the foothills of the eastern Andean Mountain range with an estimated average yield of 2.6 t ha⁻¹ (under rain-fed conditions) which is projected to occur at elevations below 600 m avoiding interference with the traditional and established Arabica coffee regions in Colombia. Under a 2 °C global warming scenario climate change is projected to have the largest impacts on the Caribbean region. Therefore, larger scale irrigated production system could be an appropriate option in the Caribbean region, while diversified smallholder robusta coffee agroforestry systems are considered more favourable in the Orinoquía region.

Previous research has demonstrated that the wealthy harm the environment to a much greater extent than those with lesser means. According to recent estimates, the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population emit 50% more CO2 than the bottom half of the income distribution. The reason for this inequality is clear: affluence boosts consumption, which in turn increases the ecological footprint. Although the phenomenon seems intuitive, little is known as to whether the layperson notices it. The current study assesses the extent to which individuals recognize or fail to notice such massive ecological footprint inequality and why misperceptions may arise. Across four preregistered studies (N = 1,188) conducted in a highly unequal socio-economic environment (Brazil), we show that people often fail to accurately perceive the meaningful ecological footprint inequality that surrounds them. These misperceptions are explained by people’s (a) failure to properly incorporate the impact of income-based differences in consumption in their ecological footprint assessments and (b) tendency to associate wealth with superior environmental education, greater resources to act sustainably, and better local infrastructure (e.g., cleaner paved streets and proper waste collection). Emphasizing the lack of infrastructure in deprived neighborhoods further exacerbates the misperceptions, whereas highlighting key differences in consumption habits across the socio-economic spectrum increases accuracy. This research, thus, identifies the factors that magnify existing misperceptions in ecological footprint inequality and provides avenues for policymakers to reduce such mistakes.

Some argue that complementing climate change mitigation measures with solar radiation management (SRM) might prove a last resort to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. To make a socially responsible decision on whether to use SRM, it is important to consider also public opinion, across the globe and particularly in the Global South, which would face the greatest risks from both global warming and SRM. However, most research on public opinion about SRM stems from the Global North. We report findings from the first large-scale, cross-cultural study on the public opinion about SRM among the general public (N = 2,248) and students (N = 4,583) in 20 countries covering all inhabited continents, including five countries from the Global South and five ‘non-WEIRD’ (i.e. not Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) countries from the Global North. As public awareness of SRM is usually low, we provided participants with information on SRM, including key arguments in favour of and against SRM that appear in the scientific debate. On average, acceptability of SRM was significantly higher in the Global South than in the ‘non-WEIRD’ Global North, while acceptability in the ‘WEIRD’ Global North was in between. However, we found substantial variation within these clusters, especially in the ‘non-WEIRD’ Global North, suggesting that countries do not form homogenous clusters and should thus be considered individually. Moreover, the average participants’ views, while generally neither strong nor polarised, differed from some expert views in important ways, including that participants perceived SRM as only slightly effective in limiting global warming. Still, our data suggests overall a conditional, reluctant acceptance. That is, while on average, people think SRM would have mostly negative consequences, they may still be willing to tolerate it as a potential last resort to fight global warming, particularly if they think SRM has only minor negative (or even positive) impacts on humans and nature.

Graduate students can face difficulties collaborating across disciplines and outside of academia. Stakeholder-engaged research (i.e., research involving partners outside of academia) presents challenges for developing a project, finding collaborators, and co-creating knowledge. Past reflections on how to navigate stakeholder-engaged research assume a faculty member leads the project and do not often address implementation from a student-led approach. In this paper, we provide insight on our team science process from an applied, graduate student perspective. We reflect on the formation of our student team and the implementation of a tourism planning research project with community partners. We discuss challenges and focus on practical tips to overcome these challenges. Specifically, we include reflections on co-developing a research project, building authentic partnerships, negotiating power dynamics, and the role of institutional support. Lessons learned from this project can guide other graduate student teams working with stakeholders, as well as faculty seeking to train graduate students in stakeholder-engaged research.

Gender norms and the experiences of women play a pivotal role in shaping the sustainable outcomes of climate change mitigation and food security efforts, particularly in ecologically sensitive areas like the Himalayas. Despite their significance, these dimensions often remain marginalized in policy formulation processes. This research article aims to address this gap by conducting a cross-sectional study in ten villages within the Himalayan region. The study seeks to achieve two primary objectives: (i) assess the impact of climate-induced emergencies on women, and (ii) analyse the gendered norms influencing food choices, with the intent of identifying gender-inclusive measures for climate adaptation and food security. The research employs a mixed-methodology approach, combining quantitative analysis through household surveys (N = 210) with factor analysis, and qualitative insights derived from thematic analysis. The theoretical framework draws on Bourdieu's concept of "field," enabling a nuanced understanding of varied responses to climate change and their underlying rationales. Findings highlight that gender norms exacerbate the vulnerability of women to the impacts of climate change. Additionally, the research underscores the pivotal role of women's traditional knowledge in fostering sustainable food practices and climate adaptation strategies. This study sheds light on the necessity of integrating gender perspectives into policy formation for effective and equitable climate change adaptation and food security strategies in Himalayan communities. Current research underscores the imperative of recognizing and harnessing the experiences and knowledge of women to create holistic and enduring solutions to climate challenges.

The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased concentrations of greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost, and alterations in the key high latitude physical systems spurred many authors, and more recently international agencies and supra-state actors, to investigate “emergency measures” that might help conserve the frozen North. However, the efficacy and feasibility of many of these ideas remains highly uncertain, and some might come with significant risks, or could be even outright dangerous to the ecosystems and people of the North. To date, no review has evaluated all suggested schemes. The objectives of this first phase literature survey (which can be found in a separate compendium (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10602506), are to consider all proposed interventions in a common evaluation space, and identify knowledge gaps in active conservation proposals. We found 61 interventions with a high latitude focus, across atmosphere, land, oceans, ice and industry domains. We grade them on a simple three-point evaluation system across 12 different categories. From this initial review we can identify which ideas scored low marks on most categories and are therefore likely not worthwhile pursuing; some groups of interventions, like traditional land-based mitigation efforts, score relatively highly while ocean-based and sea ice measures, score lower and have higher uncertainties overall. This review will provide the basis for a further in-depth expert assessment that will form phase two of the project over the next few years sponsored by University of the Arctic.

Abstract

Decarbonization policies are frequently combined with other policies to increase public support or address related societal issues. To investigate the consequences of policy bundling, we conducted a survey experiment with 2,521 U.S. adults. We examined the effects of bundling decarbonization with policies favored by liberals (social justice and economic redistribution), broad bipartisan coalitions (infrastructure), and conservatives (pausing EPA regulations) on public support and polarization. Bundling with pausing EPA regulations decreased support and polarization by reducing liberal supportwithout significantly increasing conservative support. Bundling with social justice decreased support while increasing polarization by reducing conservative support without significantly increasing liberal support. Bundling with economic redistribution and infrastructure did not significantly change support or polarization. Policy bundling thus risks decreasing public support for decarbonization policies by alienating one ideological side of the electorate without gaining support from the other side. This risk exists even when policy bundling reduces polarization.

Abstract

Climate change has remarkable global impacts on hydrological systems, prompting the need to attribute past changes for better future risk estimation and adaptation planning. This study evaluates the differences in simulated discharge from hydrological models when driven by a set of factual and counterfactual climate data, obtained using the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project's recommended data and detrending method, for quantification of climate change impact attribution. The results reveal that climate change has substantially amplified streamflow trends in the Upper Yangtze and Upper Yellow basins from 1961 to 2019, aligning with precipitation patterns. Notably, decreasing trends of river flows under counterfactual climate have been reversed, resulting in significant increases. Climate change contributes to 13%, 15% and 8% increases of long-term mean annual discharge, Q10, and Q90 in the Upper Yangtze at Pingshan, and 11%, 10%, 10% in the Upper Yellow at Tangnaihai. The impact are more pronounced at headwater stations, particularly in the Upper Yangtze, where they are twice as high as at the Pingshan outlet. Climate change has a greater impact on Q10 than on Q90 in the Upper Yangtze, while the difference is smaller in the Upper Yellow. The impact of climate change on these flows has accelerated in the recent 30 years compared to the previous 29 years. The attribution of detected differences to climate change is more obvious for the Upper Yangtze than for the Upper Yellow.

How do economic shocks affect pressure by the mass public for pro-environmental political action? If democratic systems are to develop and sustain ambitious environmental policy over several decades, this question is important to answer. Theoretically, we argue to look beyond changes in attitudes such as environmental concern, and trace whether and how citizen's policy preferences, and the political importance they attach to environment-related issues change when experiencing a deterioration of their personal economic situation. Empirically, we draw on high-quality population-representative panel survey data for an affluent country, Switzerland, combining tailored survey measures for quasi-random Corona-related employment and income losses, nuanced measures of environmental attitudes and policy preferences, and recently developed measures for issue importance. We neither find a decline of environmental policy support among economically affected individuals compared to the rest of the population (a population wide drop, however), nor lower importance given to environment related relative to economic issues in voting decisions. While this suggests that politicians need not fear electoral losses when pursuing environmental policies in times of economic crisis, we note that the severe extent of the Covid-induced recession, coupled with a rapid recovery, is peculiar to this economic crisis and warrants further research regarding the generalizability of our findings to economic shocks of longer duration.

We conduct a contingent valuation survey in Spain and the UK to elicit information about the Willingness to Pay (WTP) for heat wave watch and response programs. We find that people are willing to pay for such programs, and that the WTP (€ 50 for each of 10 years; 2019 PPP euro) is virtually the same across the two countries and across respondents that received two alternate presentations of the mortality risks with and without the programs. The responses to the WTP questions are internally consistent. Persons who re-assessed their own risks as “very high” after reading the questionnaire’s information about the health effects of excessive heat are prepared to pay more for these programs. These persons are in poor health and less highly educated, and thus an important priority for outreach and education efforts by heat wave watch and response programs. That people value saving lives during heat waves as important is confirmed by the results of person tradeoffs, which show that avoiding a fatality during heat waves is comparable to avoiding a cancer fatality, is slightly more valuable than an avoiding a cardiovascular fatality, and definitely more valuable than an avoided road traffic fatality. The Value per Statistical Life implied by the WTP for the programs is € 1.1 million to € 4.7 million (2019 PPP euro), depending on the size of the mortality risk reduction valued by the respondent, for an average of € 1.6 million.