Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability最新文献

Annual global coffee consumption growth (1–2%) has been largely met (>50%) mainly by Brazil and Vietnam through high-input monocrop system adoption. Smallholders account for >80% of global producers and >60% of global supply despite limited farm sizes (<2 ha), yields, and input usage. Production concentration in areas with high-yielding systems has fulfilled global demand growth while keeping coffee prices low. However, climate shocks demonstrate the vulnerability of all supply models, strengthening the voice of those advocating more resilient and diversified systems. We review current agroforestry knowledge to identify key trade-offs and synergies between sustainability/performance indicators (i.e. economic, environmental, and social) and explore pathways for a more sustainable coffee future with three examples representative of global coffee production system diversity.

This piece engages with strands from the literature on the ‘everyday’ [8,9], and also McGregor’s [10] point that climate change impacts can be recorded and victims can be counted. Some of the main strands in the literature are explored by way of critique and some (re)positioning of these ideas as we move into the future. The notion of ‘performativity’ as developed by Butler [11–13], is explored. I offer insights into utilising the notion of acknowledging experience [18] and its connection with giving voice to the silenced in the climate debate. The current debate focuses on the language of risk and calculability [19]. I explore how this might be shifted to focus more positively on opportunities rather than risk [20]. Finally, the notions of futures [21,22], anticipation [23] and agency [24], which might advance and enhance our understanding by being reflective and reflexive with regard to climate change, are presented.

Open system analysis is prone to the oversimplification of dynamics due to tightly coupled variables and their nonlinear, complex, and often unpredictable behavior. By assessing the combination of different ecosystem variables (structural, chemical, and biological) and their dynamic states in time and space, individual complexity measurements can capture phase changes of ecosystem stability and enhance efficiency, disease detection, and ecosystem understanding. This article summarizes the latest developments in complexity research and investigates the potential of metrics to assess and predict the sustainability and resilience of ecosystems, with a particular focus on farming systems. It provides an outlook on improving machine learning approaches by considering the system’s complexity and the necessary data requirements. A GitHub repository [1] is presented that enables practitioners to use complexity applications (e.g. entropy metrics and reconstructed phase spaces). This research provides a deeper understanding of the connections between data complexity, machine learning algorithms, and environmental modeling.

The climate change debate in South Asia is deeply embedded in the broader frameworks of colonialism, technonationalist pride, national sovereignty, and distributive justice. The highly diverse and climate-vulnerable geographies that stretch between the Himalayas and tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, alongside the irreconcilable geopolitical rivalries in this region, make it a critical site of inquiry into concepts of resilience, development, and climate security in the Anthropocene. The article reviews the major debates and arguments surrounding the Anthropocene and its conceptual implications for the developing world. It highlights the role of colonialism, asymmetric power, and postcolonial developmentalism in shaping the politics and negotiating tactics of climate change in South Asia. Furthermore, it maps the emergent scholarship on resilience and climate security in the region that is engaging with the Anthropocene in the global South and foregrounding issues on the right to development, security, marginalisation of the poor, and climate vulnerability.

Food systems are intricate and diverse and face unprecedented challenges owing to rising food demand and resource competition. Recent studies have highlighted that the nexus approach can unveil synergies and trade-offs among sectors, making it useful for sustainable food system studies. Our study reviews the nexus research, addresses knowledge gaps and critiques and explores innovations in nexus concepts from 2020 to 2022. Many studies have overlooked resource-intensive food processing and consumption phases while neglecting inter-regional interactions. Few studies have considered the interlinks between socioeconomic, resource and eco-environmental indicators, hindering the comprehensive and accurate quantification of the impacts of food systems on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We emphasise the need for a comprehensive framework that embraces multi-sector, multi-scale and multi-regional perspectives, covers a series of indicators of resource use efficiency and depletion, environmental pollution and protection and socioeconomic development and achieves a sustainable food system and the achievement of SDGs.

This review considers climate-related vulnerability and the key issues linking gender equality and social inclusion to scaling and mainstreaming climate-smart agriculture (CSA) toward achieving transformative, inclusive, and sustainable food systems, to reduce climate-related vulnerability. Recent literature continues to highlight structural barriers, biases, inequalities, and power relations impeding the contribution of CSA to reducing climate-related vulnerability. We review the role of CSA solutions toward achieving gender equality and transformation outcomes to enable food system transformation for climate change resilience. Effective food system transformation requires gender-responsive interventions, social and youth inclusion, intersectionality, and cognizance of how global social and environmental changes affect the transformation process. In the context of food system transformation, gender transformation requires scalable, enabling mechanisms.

The current literature documents significant effects of climate change on the cost of sovereign debt and debt levels. These effects are due to a complex nexus of climate change systemic effects on the economy, characterized by deep uncertainty, fat tails, feedback loops, and uncertain fiscal costs of climate policies. Investors believe that climate risks have begun to materialize but are underpriced. I give an overview of the multichannels and review the evidence on fiscal costs from climate change, climate premia for sovereign debt, and climate risk assessments of sovereign bond portfolios. Recent advances integrate forward-looking climate scenarios in debt sustainability analysis and credit ratings. The findings suggest several mechanisms may activate a doom loop between climate change and sovereign debt.

This essay delves into the evolving role of audit engagements in assuring sustainability reports. While traditional and contemporary auditing focus primarily on evaluating financial data and governance structures to foster investors’ trust and ensure financial market stability, the recent push for sustainability assurance stretches the auditors’ role much further, requiring them to guide numerous stakeholders in navigating long-term (climate) risks and opportunities. We identify three pitfalls and overpromises in applying contemporary auditing principles to provide sustainability assurance: the feasibility of existing methodologies, the tension between social aspirations and economic realities, and the illusion of pseudo-assurance. These findings offer guidance to auditors and underscore the further need to revisit the paradigmatic foundation of auditing.

Climate change challenges are formidable, and especially so for the insurance sector for the economy-wide risk management role it plays. Extreme events, depicted by acute climate risk, and steady deterioration in climate elements, captured as chronic climate risk, pose specific challenges to different segments of the insurance sector. We review these challenges and mitigation, adaptation, and innovation responses being developed, as well as highlight the need for future research and advances to support a resilient global insurance sector.