Pub Date : 2025-01-21DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.102968
Marie Claire Brisbois , Roberto Cantoni
Decarbonisation is progressing rapidly and different actors respond to its impacts in different ways. Whether these responses seek to resist decarbonisation, adapt to new realities, or fundamentally transform the social and economic conditions that define decarbonisation contexts depends on the actor groups in question and the resources they are able to draw upon. This paper provides an overview of the kinds of “coping strategies” used by different actor groups in response to decarbonisation policy by inventorying these responses across eleven European carbon intensive regions in transitions. Using newspaper data, local level focus groups and elite interviews, a data set of 651 responses was created. Actions were grouped into 8 themes and 34 discrete strategies. These strategies reveal a wide range of responses. They demonstrate that resistance responses often reflect unaddressed injustices, that many governments are focused on decarbonisation strategies that substitute renewables for fossil fuels without changing wider socioeconomic conditions, and that there is broad appetite on the part of publics for more transformative strategies that allow deeper participation and representation, and reshape who benefits, and how, from the reorganisation of energy systems.
{"title":"Coping with decarbonisation: An inventory of strategies from resistance to transformation","authors":"Marie Claire Brisbois , Roberto Cantoni","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.102968","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.102968","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Decarbonisation is progressing rapidly and different actors respond to its impacts in different ways. Whether these responses seek to resist decarbonisation, adapt to new realities, or fundamentally transform the social and economic conditions that define decarbonisation contexts depends on the actor groups in question and the resources they are able to draw upon. This paper provides an overview of the kinds of “coping strategies” used by different actor groups in response to decarbonisation policy by inventorying these responses across eleven European carbon intensive regions in transitions. Using newspaper data, local level focus groups and elite interviews, a data set of 651 responses was created. Actions were grouped into 8 themes and 34 discrete strategies. These strategies reveal a wide range of responses. They demonstrate that resistance responses often reflect unaddressed injustices, that many governments are focused on decarbonisation strategies that substitute renewables for fossil fuels without changing wider socioeconomic conditions, and that there is broad appetite on the part of publics for more transformative strategies that allow deeper participation and representation, and reshape who benefits, and how, from the reorganisation of energy systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102968"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143180951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-19DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.102964
David C. Love , Mark Brown , Silvio Viglia , Frank Asche , Jillian Fry , Taryn M. Garlock , Lekelia D. Jenkins , Ly Nguyen , James Anderson , Elizabeth M. Nussbaumer , Roni Neff
Aquatic food systems support global food and nutrition security, livelihoods, and economies, but put significant environmental pressure on the planet. The United States (U.S.) is the world’s fourth largest consumer and the largest importer of aquatic food, which makes it a good case for studying aquatic food systems. Here, we estimate the energy use, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) and blue water use by species, production method, product form, and stage of the U.S. supply chain, while accounting for trade and food loss and waste. We identified wide variation across species for energy use (40.2 to 259.1 MJ/kg), GHGe (3.7 to 22.2 kg CO2 eq/kg), and blue water use (15.8 to 1,851 l/kg). Capture fisheries and aquaculture on average used similar amounts of energy per unit of edible aquatic food; however, aquaculture emitted 54 % more GHGe and consumed 784 % more blue water than capture fisheries, due to the high GHGe and blue water intensity of aquaculture feed. Products with the lowest energy use were canned, fresh, and frozen sockeye salmon, frozen pollock, and frozen catfish. Products with the lowest GHGe were canned, fresh, and frozen sockeye salmon, frozen pollock, canned and frozen tuna, and frozen Atlantic salmon, All wild caught species had significantly lower blue water use impacts than farmed products. The production stage had the largest environmental impacts, but measuring production alone would miss 64 % of the energy, 36 % of the GHGe, and 21 % of the blue water used in the remainder of the supply chain. The processing stage was an important contributor to resource use for species with energy and water efficient production practices. Aquatic food in the U.S. supply is lost and wasted at an overall rate of 23 %; lost and wasted seafood contains 22 % to 24 % of the embodied energy, GHGe, and blue water in aquatic food systems. Compared to findings identified in the literature, aquatic foods in this study were lower in GHGe than beef, had a range of GHGe that extended above and below pork and poultry, and had higher GHGe than most legumes, and nuts. Estimating the environmental impacts and food loss and waste in the U.S. aquatic food system can help identify opportunities to enhance sustainability and resilience and support science communication about lower-impact foods and dietary patterns.
{"title":"Environmental impacts and food loss and waste in the U.S. aquatic food system","authors":"David C. Love , Mark Brown , Silvio Viglia , Frank Asche , Jillian Fry , Taryn M. Garlock , Lekelia D. Jenkins , Ly Nguyen , James Anderson , Elizabeth M. Nussbaumer , Roni Neff","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.102964","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.102964","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Aquatic food systems support global food and nutrition security, livelihoods, and economies, but put significant environmental pressure on the planet. The United States (U.S.) is the world’s fourth largest consumer and the largest importer of aquatic food, which makes it a good case for studying aquatic food systems. Here, we estimate the energy use, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) and blue water use by species, production method, product form, and stage of the U.S. supply chain, while accounting for trade and food loss and waste. We identified wide variation across species for energy use (40.2 to 259.1 MJ/kg), GHGe (3.7 to 22.2 kg CO2 eq/kg), and blue water use (15.8 to 1,851 l/kg). Capture fisheries and aquaculture on average used similar amounts of energy per unit of edible aquatic food; however, aquaculture emitted 54 % more GHGe and consumed 784 % more blue water than capture fisheries, due to the high GHGe and blue water intensity of aquaculture feed. Products with the lowest energy use were canned, fresh, and frozen sockeye salmon, frozen pollock, and frozen catfish. Products with the lowest GHGe were canned, fresh, and frozen sockeye salmon, frozen pollock, canned and frozen tuna, and frozen Atlantic salmon, All wild caught species had significantly lower blue water use impacts than farmed products. The production stage had the largest environmental impacts, but measuring production alone would miss 64 % of the energy, 36 % of the GHGe, and 21 % of the blue water used in the remainder of the supply chain. The processing stage was an important contributor to resource use for species with energy and water efficient production practices. Aquatic food in the U.S. supply is lost and wasted at an overall rate of 23 %; lost and wasted seafood contains 22 % to 24 % of the embodied energy, GHGe, and blue water in aquatic food systems. Compared to findings identified in the literature, aquatic foods in this study were lower in GHGe than beef, had a range of GHGe that extended above and below pork and poultry, and had higher GHGe than most legumes, and nuts. Estimating the environmental impacts and food loss and waste in the U.S. aquatic food system can help identify opportunities to enhance sustainability and resilience and support science communication about lower-impact foods and dietary patterns.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102964"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143180950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-10DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102962
Stew Motta , Isabella Böck , Johanna Koehler , Aaron T. Wolf , Philipp Pattberg
The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a key carbon offset scheme that underpins the global carbon market. This mechanism leaves out many other non-carbon considerations, including the impacts of the CDM on water governance. The CDM produces credits primarily through energy projects and CDM funded hydropower is one of the most significant outcomes of nearly two decades of carbon financing with funding subsidizing over 1,000 large-scale dams. This research maps these rapidly built infrastructure projects in transboundary river systems, which has shown to have direct links to increasing hydropolitical tensions. The Mekong Region’s Irrawaddy, Bei Jiang/Hsi, Red, and Salween rivers are all considered to be amongst the world’s river basins considered ‘very high risk’ for conflict. Our research shows that these ‘very high risk’ rivers were the top four river basins to receive CDM funded large-scale hydropower. These four basins at ‘very high risk’ along with the Mekong River were the top five recipient rivers of 274 CDM subsidized large-scale dams. These dams were rapidly financed and constructed in the upstream catchments in the name of carbon reduction claims in China and Europe. This response to climate change enhances power imbalances and raises the risk of hydropolitical tensions as Mekong communities shoulder the costs of increasing insecurities in the name of distant carbon reduction claims in Europe and Beijing.
{"title":"The financialization of rivers: Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) subsidized hydropower in the Mekong Region’s basins at risk","authors":"Stew Motta , Isabella Böck , Johanna Koehler , Aaron T. Wolf , Philipp Pattberg","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102962","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102962","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a key carbon offset scheme that underpins the global carbon market. This mechanism leaves out many other non-carbon considerations, including the impacts of the CDM on water governance. The CDM produces credits primarily through energy projects and CDM funded hydropower is one of the most significant outcomes of nearly two decades of carbon financing with funding subsidizing over 1,000 large-scale dams. This research maps these rapidly built infrastructure projects in transboundary river systems, which has shown to have direct links to increasing hydropolitical tensions. The Mekong Region’s Irrawaddy, Bei Jiang/Hsi, Red, and Salween rivers are all considered to be amongst the world’s river basins considered ‘very high risk’ for conflict. Our research shows that these ‘very high risk’ rivers were the top four river basins to receive CDM funded large-scale hydropower. These four basins at ‘very high risk’ along with the Mekong River were the top five recipient rivers of 274 CDM subsidized large-scale dams. These dams were rapidly financed and constructed in the upstream catchments in the name of carbon reduction claims in China and Europe. This response to climate change enhances power imbalances and raises the risk of hydropolitical tensions as Mekong communities shoulder the costs of increasing insecurities in the name of distant carbon reduction claims in Europe and Beijing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102962"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143180949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-02DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102949
Gretchen L. Stokes , Samuel J. Smidt , Emily L. Tucker , Matteo Cleary , Simon Funge-Smith , John Valbo‐Jørgensen , Benjamin S. Lowe , Abigail J. Lynch
Inland fisheries face multiple, intensifying threats (i.e., proximate human pressures causing degraded ecological attributes) from land development, climate change, resource extraction, and competing demands for water resources. Planning for resiliency amidst these pressures requires understanding the factors that influence an inland fishery’s capacity to adapt to system changes under multiple threats. Incorporating expert knowledge can illuminate priority fisheries and provide important insights where data are otherwise limited. Using data from a global survey of 536 fishery professionals, this study examines perceptions of threats and adaptive capacity (i.e., ability to mitigate or respond to change) in major inland fisheries. We assessed associations across 29 different perceived threats and their ranked influence scores, tested agreement among five adaptive capacity domains (i.e., agency, assets, flexibility, learning, organization), and examined relationships between threats and adaptive capacity domains. Results provide quantitative evidence that the greatest threats to inland fisheries come from outside the fishing sector and that most inland fisheries face multiple threats. Results also support the five domains as a collective measure of adaptive capacity and illuminate a negative association between the threats to a fishery and a fishery’s adaptive capacity. These findings highlight the need for fishery managers to engage in decision making with non-fishery sectors (e.g., multi-sectoral management) and the prioritization of habitat and watershed-scale conservation and rehabilitation efforts for improved adaptability amidst ecological transformation.
{"title":"Adaptive capacities of inland fisheries facing anthropogenic pressures","authors":"Gretchen L. Stokes , Samuel J. Smidt , Emily L. Tucker , Matteo Cleary , Simon Funge-Smith , John Valbo‐Jørgensen , Benjamin S. Lowe , Abigail J. Lynch","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102949","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102949","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Inland fisheries face multiple, intensifying threats (i.e., proximate human pressures causing degraded ecological attributes) from land development, climate change, resource extraction, and competing demands for water resources. Planning for resiliency amidst these pressures requires understanding the factors that influence an inland fishery’s capacity to adapt to system changes under multiple threats. Incorporating expert knowledge can illuminate priority fisheries and provide important insights where data are otherwise limited. Using data from a global survey of 536 fishery professionals, this study examines perceptions of threats and adaptive capacity (i.e., ability to mitigate or respond to change) in major inland fisheries. We assessed associations across 29 different perceived threats and their ranked influence scores, tested agreement among five adaptive capacity domains (i.e., agency, assets, flexibility, learning, organization), and examined relationships between threats and adaptive capacity domains. Results provide quantitative evidence that the greatest threats to inland fisheries come from outside the fishing sector and that most inland fisheries face multiple threats. Results also support the five domains as a collective measure of adaptive capacity and illuminate a negative association between the threats to a fishery and a fishery’s adaptive capacity. These findings highlight the need for fishery managers to engage in decision making with non-fishery sectors (e.g., multi-sectoral management) and the prioritization of habitat and watershed-scale conservation and rehabilitation efforts for improved adaptability amidst ecological transformation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102949"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142759507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-12-01DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102912
Lotsmart Fonjong , Frank Matose , David A. Sonnenfeld
African countries have been among the least historic producers of global carbon emissions, yet they are among the most vulnerable to and impacted by global climate change. Climate change is profoundly impacting African countries in a multitude of ways including exacerbating water stress, damaging agricultural harvests, affecting lifestyles, and amplifying gender and other dimensions of inequality. Beyond such direct impacts, socio-economic consequences of climate change are impacting governance on the continent, as well. With current levels of external debt, rapid urbanization, social inequality, and pressures on agricultural land, the number of people living in rural poverty and informal urban settlements continues to rise. Many of the latter, in turn, are in constant danger of floods, and lack access to sustainable livelihoods, potable water, adequate food, health care, electricity, sanitary and solid waste disposal, and other fundamental services. Climate change exacerbates internal and external human mobility across the continent; endangers families and communities; and threatens African ecologies, economies, and political stability. How are policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders responding and adapting to climate-related threats in Africa today? This Special Issue highlights the work of African scholars and others in examining and interrogating current trends, dynamics, policies, and developments in response to climate change in Africa. The seven papers utilize multiple levels of analysis, draw from various disciplinary perspectives, and examine climate change related accomplishments and challenges of diverse countries across the continent. While these contributions generally interrogate the policy response to the climate crisis, most are specific in their framing and analysis. This introduction characterizes the impact of climate change on Africa; highlights each article’s key contributions and discusses implications of their findings in the context of electoral dynamics and climate policy discourse in Africa; and discusses some possible future directions for scholarship and policymaking on climate change in Africa.
{"title":"Climate change in Africa: Impacts, adaptation, and policy responses","authors":"Lotsmart Fonjong , Frank Matose , David A. Sonnenfeld","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102912","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102912","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>African countries have been among the least historic producers of global carbon emissions, yet they are among the most vulnerable to and impacted by global climate change. Climate change is profoundly impacting African countries in a multitude of ways including exacerbating water stress, damaging agricultural harvests, affecting lifestyles, and amplifying gender and other dimensions of inequality. Beyond such direct impacts, socio-economic consequences of climate change are impacting governance on the continent, as well. With current levels of external debt, rapid urbanization, social inequality, and pressures on agricultural land, the number of people living in rural poverty and informal urban settlements continues to rise. Many of the latter, in turn, are in constant danger of floods, and lack access to sustainable livelihoods, potable water, adequate food, health care, electricity, sanitary and solid waste disposal, and other fundamental services. Climate change exacerbates internal and external human mobility across the continent; endangers families and communities; and threatens African ecologies, economies, and political stability. How are policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders responding and adapting to climate-related threats in Africa today? This Special Issue highlights the work of African scholars and others in examining and interrogating current trends, dynamics, policies, and developments in response to climate change in Africa. The seven papers utilize multiple levels of analysis, draw from various disciplinary perspectives, and examine climate change related accomplishments and challenges of diverse countries across the continent. While these contributions generally interrogate the policy response to the climate crisis, most are specific in their framing and analysis. This introduction characterizes the impact of climate change on Africa; highlights each article’s key contributions and discusses implications of their findings in the context of electoral dynamics and climate policy discourse in Africa; and discusses some possible future directions for scholarship and policymaking on climate change in Africa.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102912"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142757668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-11-28DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102954
Michelle Ann Miller
Large volumes of organic carbon are stored in wetland ecosystems such as mangrove forests, peatlands, salt marshes and seagrass meadows. Efforts to mitigate anthropogenic climate change are transforming the governance of these naturally saturated carbon sinks. Scientific and market valuations of wetlands as carbon have prompted diverse experimentation with carbon sequestration projects and offset programs. These activities may displace wetland-reliant communities and add to societal equalities. This perspective paper develops the concept of carbon territoriality to explore emerging spaces of climate governance in wetlands. It moves beyond terra-centric policy debates tied to fixed and flat landscapes by integrating literature on the dynamic (sub)surface and atmospheric territorial dimensions of carbon. It posits that combining scientific knowledge of fixed carbon stocks with the inherited knowledge of coastal and riparian communities about fluid land–water connections could foster more inclusive and equitable forms of climate stewardship within biogeophysically relevant boundaries.
{"title":"Carbon territoriality at the land-water interface","authors":"Michelle Ann Miller","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102954","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102954","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Large volumes of organic carbon are stored in wetland ecosystems such as mangrove forests, peatlands, salt marshes and seagrass meadows. Efforts to mitigate anthropogenic climate change are transforming the governance of these naturally saturated carbon sinks. Scientific and market valuations of wetlands as carbon have prompted diverse experimentation with carbon sequestration projects and offset programs. These activities may displace wetland-reliant communities and add to societal equalities. This perspective paper develops the concept of carbon territoriality to explore emerging spaces of climate governance in wetlands. It moves beyond terra-centric policy debates tied to fixed and flat landscapes by integrating literature on the dynamic (sub)surface and atmospheric territorial dimensions of carbon. It posits that combining scientific knowledge of fixed carbon stocks with the inherited knowledge of coastal and riparian communities about fluid land–water connections could foster more inclusive and equitable forms of climate stewardship within biogeophysically relevant boundaries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102954"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142721115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-11-26DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102951
Matthew T. Ballew , Laura Thomas-Walters , Matthew H. Goldberg , Marija Verner , Jessica Lu , John Marshall , Seth A. Rosenthal , Anthony Leiserowitz
Climate change communication campaigns can reach many audiences cost-effectively. However, some climate messages may not work universally as there may be heterogeneity in message effects across audiences. An online experiment (N = 57,968) across 23 countries found that three climate messages had modest positive effects on support for climate action. An “Urgency & Generational” message had the strongest effect overall and had, on average, stronger effects in countries with lower baseline support for climate action (e.g., developed countries, democratic countries). While the size of this message’s positive effects varied across countries, effects were positive across all audience subgroups investigated and there was no evidence of backfire effects. For instance, this message had positive effects across the political spectrum and effects were marginally stronger among the political Right. Although the average message effects were small, the results indicate that, when deployed at a large scale, climate change messages have the potential to strengthen public support for climate action.
{"title":"Climate change messages can promote support for climate action globally","authors":"Matthew T. Ballew , Laura Thomas-Walters , Matthew H. Goldberg , Marija Verner , Jessica Lu , John Marshall , Seth A. Rosenthal , Anthony Leiserowitz","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102951","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102951","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Climate change communication campaigns can reach many audiences cost-effectively. However, some climate messages may not work universally as there may be heterogeneity in message effects across audiences. An online experiment (<em>N</em> = 57,968) across 23 countries found that three climate messages had modest positive effects on support for climate action. An “Urgency & Generational” message had the strongest effect overall and had, on average, stronger effects in countries with lower baseline support for climate action (e.g., developed countries, democratic countries). While the size of this message’s positive effects varied across countries, effects were positive across all audience subgroups investigated and there was no evidence of backfire effects. For instance, this message had positive effects across the political spectrum and effects were marginally stronger among the political Right. Although the average message effects were small, the results indicate that, when deployed at a large scale, climate change messages have the potential to strengthen public support for climate action.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102951"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142698108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-11-23DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102953
Harald Sterly , Marion Borderon , Patrick Sakdapolrak , Neil Adger , Ayansina Ayanlade , Alassane Bah , Julia Blocher , Suzy Blondin , Sidy Boly , Timothée Brochier , Loïc Brüning , Simon Bunchuay-Peth , David O’Byrne , Ricardo Safra De Campos , Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe , Florian Debève , Adrien Detges , Maria Franco-Gavonel , Claire Hathaway , Nikki Funke , Caroline Zickgraf
As global climate change intensifies, the question of what makes a place habitable or uninhabitable is critical, particularly in the context of a potential future climate outside the realm of lived experience, and the possible concurrent redistribution of populations partly associated with such climatic shifts. The concept of habitability holds the potential for advancing the understanding of the societal consequences of climate change, as well as for integrating systemic understandings and rights-based approaches. However, most ways of analyzing habitability have shortcomings in terms of in-depth integration of socio-cultural aspects and human agency in shaping habitability, in failing to address spatial inequalities and power dynamics, and in an underemphasis of the connectedness of places. Here we elaborate habitability as an emergent property of the relations between people and a given place that results from people’s interactions with the material and immaterial properties of a place. From this, we identify four axes that are necessary to go beyond environmental changes, and to encompass socio-cultural, economic, and political dynamics: First the processes that influence habitability require a systemic approach, viewing habitability as an outcome of ecological, economic, and political processes. Second, the role of socio-cultural dimensions of habitability requires special consideration, given their own operational logics and functioning of social systems. Third, habitability is not the same for everyone, thus a comprehensive understanding of habitability requires an intersectionally differentiated view on social inequalities. Forth, the influence of external factors necessitates a spatially relational perspective on places in the context of their connections to distant places across scales. We identify key principles that should guide an equitable and responsible research agenda on habitability. Analysis should be based on disciplinary and methodological pluralism and the inclusion of local perspectives. Habitability action should integrate local perspectives with measures that go beyond purely subjective assessments. And habitability should consider the role of powerful actors, while staying engaged with ethical questions of who defines and enacts the future of any given place.
{"title":"Habitability for a connected, unequal and changing world","authors":"Harald Sterly , Marion Borderon , Patrick Sakdapolrak , Neil Adger , Ayansina Ayanlade , Alassane Bah , Julia Blocher , Suzy Blondin , Sidy Boly , Timothée Brochier , Loïc Brüning , Simon Bunchuay-Peth , David O’Byrne , Ricardo Safra De Campos , Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe , Florian Debève , Adrien Detges , Maria Franco-Gavonel , Claire Hathaway , Nikki Funke , Caroline Zickgraf","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102953","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102953","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As global climate change intensifies, the question of what makes a place habitable or uninhabitable is critical, particularly in the context of a potential future climate outside the realm of lived experience, and the possible concurrent redistribution of populations partly associated with such climatic shifts. The concept of habitability holds the potential for advancing the understanding of the societal consequences of climate change, as well as for integrating systemic understandings and rights-based approaches. However, most ways of analyzing habitability have shortcomings in terms of in-depth integration of socio-cultural aspects and human agency in shaping habitability, in failing to address spatial inequalities and power dynamics, and in an underemphasis of the connectedness of places. Here we elaborate habitability as an emergent property of the relations between people and a given place that results from people’s interactions with the material and immaterial properties of a place. From this, we identify four axes that are necessary to go beyond environmental changes, and to encompass socio-cultural, economic, and political dynamics: First the processes that influence habitability require a systemic approach, viewing habitability as an outcome of ecological, economic, and political processes. Second, the role of socio-cultural dimensions of habitability requires special consideration, given their own operational logics and functioning of social systems. Third, habitability is not the same for everyone, thus a comprehensive understanding of habitability requires an intersectionally differentiated view on social inequalities. Forth, the influence of external factors necessitates a spatially relational perspective on places in the context of their connections to distant places across scales. We identify key principles that should guide an equitable and responsible research agenda on habitability. Analysis should be based on disciplinary and methodological pluralism and the inclusion of local perspectives. Habitability action should integrate local perspectives with measures that go beyond purely subjective assessments. And habitability should consider the role of powerful actors, while staying engaged with ethical questions of who defines and enacts the future of any given place.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102953"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142698109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-11-09DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102947
Jessica O’Reilly , Michael Oppenheimer
Drawing from a multiyear series of interviews with sea level rise assessors during the development of IPCC’s Working Group I volume of the Sixth Assessment Report—the first time access had been granted to researchers to observe the IPCC process—this article analyzes the social and epistemic challenges and tools (both technical and social) involved in assessing complex, uncertain science questions. This study shows that “the curve”, a representation of future sea level rise, is an example of the human dimensions of the science/policy interaction in three ways. First, IPCC authors’ experiences demonstrate that it is not just the communicative outcomes or political feedback from assessment reports that matter, but also the social and expert processes that produce these assessments. Attempting new assessment techniques to improve understandings of climate science can also improve broader society’s understanding of climate science, impacts and solutions. Second, the human side of global environmental assessments influences the credibility of these organizations. Expert authors accept these volunteer jobs for multiple reasons but their perception of the social experience of assessment influences their buy-in, and ultimately, the legitimacy of the organization. Third, the IPCC is increasingly formalizing its procedures for figure design and generally supports author experimentation with figures. However, less is known about how the social dynamics of chapter teams influences figure design and other assessment elements: we demonstrate this through our ethnographic analysis of the creation of curve figure and text box. The IPCC is a living, breathing organization: assessment work is not formulaic. To understand the science decisions in the report, we must understand how these decisions were made.
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Globally, researchers and policymakers are calling for transformative climate adaptation (TCA) to fundamentally change the attributes of social, economic, and ecological systems to deal with climate risks. However, attempts to conceptualize, assess, and implement TCA are limited and often result in vague and diffuse meanings, hindering transformative action. This study synthesizes existing literature to introduce a framework consisting of six dimensions for evaluating transformative climate adaptation actions: (1) depth, (2) scope, (3) scale, (4) speed, (5) social vulnerability, and (6) ecological vulnerability. We applied this framework to 51 climate change adaptation cases in the Netherlands. Our results show that no single case scored high on all dimensions, suggesting there are trade-offs between the six dimensions. Most trade-offs exist between depth, speed, and scale; however, they sometimes extend to the interplay between social and ecological vulnerability. We identify multiple clusters of cases that display varying degrees and characteristics of transformative change. Our results strengthen the call for a multidimensional and continuous change perspective of TCA to address the gap between transformative theory and transformative actions. The framework proposed here could guide future empirical research on the drivers of TCA and help governance actors work towards building more socially and environmentally resilient futures.
{"title":"Between theory and action: Assessing the transformative character of climate change adaptation in 51 cases in the Netherlands","authors":"Dore Engbersen, Robbert Biesbroek, Catrien J.A.M. Termeer","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102948","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102948","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Globally, researchers and policymakers are calling for transformative climate adaptation (TCA) to fundamentally change the attributes of social, economic, and ecological systems to deal with climate risks. However, attempts to conceptualize, assess, and implement TCA are limited and often result in vague and diffuse meanings, hindering transformative action. This study synthesizes existing literature to introduce a framework consisting of six dimensions for evaluating transformative climate adaptation actions: (1) depth, (2) scope, (3) scale, (4) speed, (5) social vulnerability, and (6) ecological vulnerability. We applied this framework to 51 climate change adaptation cases in the Netherlands. Our results show that no single case scored high on all dimensions, suggesting there are trade-offs between the six dimensions. Most trade-offs exist between depth, speed, and scale; however, they sometimes extend to the interplay between social and ecological vulnerability. We identify multiple clusters of cases that display varying degrees and characteristics of transformative change. Our results strengthen the call for a multidimensional and continuous change perspective of TCA to address the gap between transformative theory and transformative actions. The framework proposed here could guide future empirical research on the drivers of TCA and help governance actors work towards building more socially and environmentally resilient futures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102948"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142593945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}