A new approach for evaluating climate change communication

Many scholars study when climate change communication increases citizen engagement. Yet, past work has largely used public opinion-based measures of engagement to evaluate alternative frames. In this paper, we argue for a new approach to evaluation, which is premised on research on the policy-making process showing that space on the political agenda and, ultimately, policy change are more likely to arise in response to changes in both public opinion and collective political action. Thus, we argue that alternative frames should be evaluated based on their consequences for both. This is especially critical given that frames can have divergent effects on attitudes and behavior. Using a combination of field and survey experiments, we apply our approach to evaluate two frames related to climate change risks. We find that they heighten people’s concern about climate change yet decrease their rate of political action to express that concern. Our results suggest caution with regard to these frames in particular and that, more generally, frames that might seem advantageous when examining public opinion may not be when political behavior is analyzed.

     

Developing a model of climate change behavior among adolescents

Research on adolescent climate change perceptions has uncovered key insights about how knowledge, concern, and hope might relate to behavior and the potential for educational interventions to influence these factors. However, few of these studies have employed treatment/control designs that might address causality and none have addressed how these factors might interact to influence behavior. We developed a model of behavior change where a climate education treatment impacted knowledge, knowledge impacted hope and concern, and hope and concern together impacted behavior. We empirically tested the utility of this model and the causal relationships within it using a pre/post, treatment/control evaluation of climate education among adolescents in North Carolina, USA (n?=?1041). We found support for a causal relationship between the treatment and gains in knowledge, but not between treatment and behavior. However, we did find support for a path model in which climate change knowledge positively relates to increased climate change concern and hope, and increases in concern and hope predict changes in pro-environmental behavior. Low SES was related to smaller gains in knowledge, concern, and behavior. Our results contribute to a theoretical understanding of climate change behaviors among adolescents and suggest that climate education aiming to change behavior should focus on building hope and concern.     

Atmospheric circulation epochs and climate changes

The atmospheric circulation studies allow climate changes to be diagnosed and forecasted. Variations in occurrence frequencies of the atmospheric circulation forms W, E, and C (by the Vangengeim classification) and Z, M ₁, and M ₂ (by the Girs classification), which characterize climatic conditions in most of the Northern Hemisphere, are analyzed over a period of more than 100 years. It is shown that the occurrence frequency of the forms W, C, and M ₁ continually decreased, while that of the forms E and Z increased, which indicates a significant change in atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere during the last century. The occurrence frequency of the forms C and Z demonstrates specific features at inter-decade time scales. Correlations are found between accumulated sums of anomalies of occurrence frequencies of the atmospheric circulation forms C, (W + E), Z, and (M ₁ + M ₂) and inter-decade variations of the Earth’s rotation. The causes of these relationships are discussed along with possibilities of their use for diagnosis of climatic variations in the Northern Hemisphere.     

Budgeting for climate change: obstacles and opportunities at the US state level

State governments in the United States are well placed to identify opportunities for mitigation and the needs for adaptation to climate change. However, the cost of these efforts can have important implications for budgets that already face pressures from diverse areas such as unfunded pensions and growing health care costs. In this work, the current level of spending on climate-related activities at the state level are evaluated and policy recommendations are developed to improve financial management practices as they relate to climate risk. An examination of state budgets reveals that climate mitigation and adaptation activities represent less than 1% of spending in most states. The data collection highlights the obstacles to collecting accurate spending data and the lack of budgetary and accounting procedures in place. More importantly, the difficulty in benchmarking these activities poses challenges for the analysis of state-level policies as well as planning and modelling future climate-related spending. Other policy contexts, including public pensions and infrastructure, can provide guidance on budgetary and accounting tools that may help states prepare for and more efficiently manage climate-related expenditures.

Key policy insights

• Climate change mitigation and adaptation will require substantial investments across many levels of government on a wide range of activities.

• Currently, US states are not clearly demarcating climate expenditures, hindering the identification of climate-related budgetary risks.

• In the absence of guidelines, these longer term fiscal outlays may remain chronically underfunded in favour of more near-term spending priorities.

• Establishing appropriate financial management and data collection practices is important for more sophisticated cost-effectiveness and policy analyses.

     

Simulation of leaf blast infection in tropical rice agro-ecology under climate change scenario

Assessing disease risk has become an important component in the development of climate change adaptation strategies. Here, the infection ability of leaf blast (Magnaporthe oryzae) was modeled based on the epidemiological parameters of minimum (T _min), optimum (T _opt), and maximum (T _max) temperatures for sporulation and lesion development. An infection ability response curve was used to assess the impact of rising temperature on the disease. The simulated spatial pattern of the infection ability index (IAI) corresponded with observed leaf blast occurrence in Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP). The IAI for leaf blast is projected to increase during the winter season (December–March) in 2020 (2010–2039) and 2050 (2040–2069) climate scenarios due to temperature rise, particularly in lower latitudes. However, during monsoon season (July–October), the IAI is projected to remain unchanged or even reduce across the IGP. The results show that the response curve may be successfully used to assess the impact of climate change on leaf blast in rice. The model could be further extended with a crop model to assess yield loss.     

Effects of local drought condition on public opinions about water supply and future climate change

A growing body of research indicates that opinions about long-term climate change and other natural resource issues can be significantly affected by current weather conditions (e.g., outside air temperature) and other highly contingent environmental cues. Although increased severity and frequency of droughts is regarded as a likely consequence of anthropogenic climate change, little previous research has attempted to relate the experience of drought with public attitudes about water supply or water-related climate change issues. For this study, a large set (n?=?3,163) of public survey data collected across nine states of the southern United States was spatio-temporally linked with records of short-term (~12 weeks) and long-term (~5 years) drought condition at the level of each respondent’s zip code. Multivariate ordinal logistic regression models that included numerous other independent variables (environmental ideology, age, gender, education, community size, residency duration, and local annual precipitation) indicated highly significant interactions with long-term drought condition, but showed no significant effect from short-term drought condition. Conversely, attitudes about water-related climate change showed highly significant interactions with short-term drought, with weaker to no effects from long-term drought. While the finding of significant effects from short-term drought condition on opinions about future drought is broadly consistent with previous public opinion research on climate change, the finding of water supply attitudes being more responsive to longer term drought condition is, to our knowledge, a novel result. This study more generally demonstrates the methodological feasibility and applied importance of accounting for local drought condition when public opinion information is used to evaluate outreach programs for water conservation and climate change.     

Message framing influences perceived climate change competence, engagement, and behavioral intentions

The effect of motivational versus sacrifice message framing on perceived climate change competence, engagement, and 15 mitigative behavioral intentions was examined in a large Canadian community sample (n = 1038). Perceived competence, engagement, and several behavioral intentions were significantly greater after exposure to motivational framing than after sacrifice framing. Gender, age, income, and educational level moderated some results, and moral engagement and agentic language also played a role. The results support the use of motivational frames rather than sacrifice frames to increase the climate-related engagement and activation of community members.     

Satellite bulk tropospheric temperatures as a metric for climate sensitivity

We identify and remove the main natural perturbations (e.g. volcanic activity, ENSOs) from the global mean lower tropospheric temperatures (T _LT ) over January 1979 - June 2017 to estimate the underlying, potentially human-forced trend. The unaltered value is +0.155 K dec^?1 while the adjusted trend is +0.096 K dec^?1, related primarily to the removal of volcanic cooling in the early part of the record. This is essentially the same value we determined in 1994 (+0.09 K dec^?1, Christy and McNider, 1994) using only 15 years of data. If the warming rate of +0.096 K dec^?1 represents the net T _LT response to increasing greenhouse radiative forcings, this implies that the T _LT tropospheric transient climate response (ΔT _LT at the time CO₂ doubles) is +1.10 ± 0.26 K which is about half of the average of the IPCC AR5 climate models of 2.31 ± 0.20 K. Assuming that the net remaining unknown internal and external natural forcing over this period is near zero, the mismatch since 1979 between observations and CMIP-5 model values suggests that excessive sensitivity to enhanced radiative forcing in the models can be appreciable. The tropical region is mainly responsible for this discrepancy suggesting processes that are the likely sources of the extra sensitivity are (a) the parameterized hydrology of the deep atmosphere, (b) the parameterized heat-partitioning at the oceanatmosphere interface and/or (c) unknown natural variations.     

应对气候变化进程中纳入性别考虑的进展与启示

女性在应对气候变化中处于不利地位,也是应对气候变化中不可忽视的力量。国际社会已逐渐认识到在应对气候变化进程中纳入性别考虑的重要意义,性别议题在气候谈判中的主流化趋势明显,《联合国气候变化框架公约》执行层面纳入性别考虑取得了长足的进展,以全球环境基金、绿色气候基金为代表的《联合国气候变化框架公约》资金机制已将性别政策纳入机构政策体系,并积极在项目层面推动性别政策的实施。虽然国际气候变化领域的性别主流化工作取得了较大进展,但仍存在女性参与气候变化决策的程度不足、减缓领域纳入性别考虑的程度不足等问题。目前中国气候变化领域对性别的关注不足,建议加强气候变化领域的性别问题研究,为履约工作提供支撑;在应对气候变化相关的政策体系中纳入性别考虑,加强与性别领域的沟通协作;加强气候变化相关机构性别主流化能力建设,明确职责安排;加强气候变化领域国内项目、“一带一路”项目和“南南合作”项目的性别主流化;切实加强中国女性应对气候变化能力,提高女性对气候行动的参与度。     

气候变化感知和适应行为研究的可视化计量分析

基于Web of Science（WOS）核心数据库中2007—2019年发表的2075篇以“气候变化”“感知”和“适应”为研究主题的文献,利用CiteSpace软件的网络可视化分析功能,并结合WOS的相关统计工具,对气候变化感知和适应行为领域的文献特征与演进历程进行研究,以期明确该领域的历史研究特征、知识基础和热点演变,并指出未来的研究趋势,为发展创新提供参考。结果表明：除气候变化、适应和感知外,脆弱性、影响、风险、管理、变化性、适应能力、恢复力、农业、风险感知、政策、干旱和农民也是气候变化感知和适应行为领域的热点词汇;在研究中不断涌现新的词汇,且越来越重视沿海地区和小农问题;公众的个体经验不断受到重视,同时气候变化敏感区将是本领域未来的热点研究地区;中国仍处于气候变化感知和适应行为领域研究的起步阶段。     

Climates of urbanization: local experiences of water security,conflict and cooperation in peri-urban South-Asia

ABSTRACT

This article explores changing water (in)securities in a context of urbanization and climate change in the peri-urban spaces of four South-Asian cities: Khulna (Bangladesh), Gurugram and Hyderabad (India), and Kathmandu (Nepal). As awareness of water challenges like intensifying use, deteriorating quality and climate change is growing, water security gets more scientific and policy attention. However, in peri-urban areas, the dynamic zones between the urban and the rural, it remains under-researched, despite the specific characteristics of these spaces: intensifying flows of goods, resources, people, and technologies; diversifying uses of, and growing pressures on land and water; and complex and often contradictory governance and jurisdictional institutions. This article analyses local experiences of water (in-)security, conflict and cooperation in relation to existing policies. It uses insights from the analysis of the case studies as a point of departure for a critical reflection on whether a ‘community resilience’ discourse contributes to better understanding these cases of water insecurity and conflict, and to better policy solutions. The authors argue that a community resilience focus risks neglecting important insights about how peri-urban water insecurity problems are experienced by peri-urban populations and produced or reproduced in specific socio-economic, political and policy contexts. Unless supported by in-depth hydro-social research, such a focus may depoliticize basically political questions of water (re) allocation, prioritization, and access for marginalized groups. Therefore, the authors plead for more critical awareness among researchers and policy-makers of the consequences of using a ‘community resilience’ discourse for making sense of peri-urban water (in-)security.

Key policy insights

• There is an urgent need for more (critical) policy and scientific attention to peri-urban water insecurity, conflict, and climate change.

• Although a changing climate will likely play a role, more attention is needed to how water insecurities and vulnerabilities in South Asia are socially produced.

• Researchers and policy-makers should avoid using depoliticized (community) resilience approaches for basically socio-political problems.

     

The polarization of public concern about climate change in Norway

This article contributes to the existing literature by investigating the importance of value orientations for the Norwegian public's climate change concern, by analysing data from a national Gallup Poll from 2003 to 2011. Logistic regressions were conducted to investigate the importance of individualistic and egalitarian values for climate concern, and whether the groups of different value orientations have polarized in their climate concern over time. Respondents who hold less individualistic values and those holding egalitarian values are found more likely to be concerned about climate change than are those holding individualistic and less egalitarian values. Furthermore, the analyses find polarization in climate concern in the period for both value orientations. Increased focus on policy instruments in the political debate may be one explanation for values being increasingly salient. Future research should focus on studying ways to formulate policies given variations in values. One way would be to develop solutions that have co-benefits across groups of different value orientations. However, not all mitigation policies have immediate co-benefits for everyone. Research on how changes in the institutional setting may enhance the logic of social responsibility seems crucial.

Policy relevance

It is an important social science contribution to increase our understanding of public positions on climate change for developing effective responses to this vexing problem. This study identifies polarization over time between subgroups of different value orientations in their climate change concern. This may have implications for policies, as political solutions may be increasingly dependent on the composition of political leadership. Society and politicians should look for mitigation policies that have co-benefits across groups of different value orientations when possible. However, not all mitigation policies have immediate co-benefits for everyone. One option then is to change the institutional settings from enhancing the logic of individual benefits to enhancing the logic of social benefits for behaviour crucial for mitigating climate change. Finally, narratives about a low-emitting society that are attractive for all groups of value orientations should be emphasized.     

Spatial modelling of rice yield losses in Tanzania due to bacterial leaf blight and leaf blast in a changing climate

Rice is the most rapidly growing staple food in Africa and although rice production is steadily increasing, the consumption is still out-pacing the production. In Tanzania, two important diseases in rice production are leaf blast caused by Magnaporthe oryzae and bacterial leaf blight caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. The objective of this study was to quantify rice yield losses due to these two important diseases under a changing climate. We found that bacterial leaf blight is predicted to increase causing greater losses than leaf blast in the future, with losses due to leaf blast declining. The results of this study indicate that the effects of climate change on plant disease can not only be expected to be uneven across diseases but also across geographies, as in some geographic areas losses increase but decrease in others for the same disease.     

Scepticism and uncertainty about climate change: Dimensions, determinants and change over time

While scientific consensus and political and media messages appear to be increasingly certain, public attitudes and action towards the issue do not appear to be following suit. Popular and academic debate often assumes this is due to ignorance or misunderstanding on the part of the public, but some studies have suggested political beliefs and values may play a more important role in determining belief versus scepticism about climate change. The current research used two representative postal surveys of the UK public to: measure scepticism and uncertainty about climate change; determine how scepticism varies according to individual characteristics, knowledge and values; and examine how scepticism has changed over time. Findings show denial of climate change is less common than the perception that the issue has been exaggerated. Scepticism was found to be strongly determined by individuals’ environmental and political values (and indirectly by age, gender, location and lifestyle) rather than by education or knowledge. Between 2003 and 2008, public uncertainty about climate change has remained remarkably constant, although belief that claims about the issue are exaggerated has doubled over that period. These results are interpreted with reference to psychological concepts of motivated reasoning, confirmation bias and ‘finite pool of worry’. Implications for communication and policy are discussed.     

The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation

We present a set of indicators of vulnerability and capacity to adapt to climate variability, and by extension climate change, derived using a novel empirical analysis of data aggregated at the national level on a decadal timescale. The analysis is based on a conceptual framework in which risk is viewed in terms of outcome, and is a function of physically defined climate hazards and socially constructed vulnerability. Climate outcomes are represented by mortality from climate-related disasters, using the emergency events database data set, statistical relationships between mortality and a shortlist of potential proxies for vulnerability are used to identify key vulnerability indicators. We find that 11 key indicators exhibit a strong relationship with decadally aggregated mortality associated with climate-related disasters. Validation of indicators, relationships between vulnerability and adaptive capacity, and the sensitivity of subsequent vulnerability assessments to different sets of weightings are explored using expert judgement data, collected through a focus group exercise. The data are used to provide a robust assessment of vulnerability to climate-related mortality at the national level, and represent an entry point to more detailed explorations of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. They indicate that the most vulnerable nations are those situated in sub-Saharan Africa and those that have recently experienced conflict. Adaptive capacity—one element of vulnerability—is associated predominantly with governance, civil and political rights, and literacy.     

Historicizing climate change—engaging new approaches to climate and history

This introduction to a special issue of Climatic Change argues that it is timely and welcome to intensify historical research into climate change and climate as factors of history. This is also already an ongoing trend in many disciplines. The article identifies two main strands in historical work on climate change, both multi-disciplinary: one that looks for it as a driver of historical change in human societies, the other that analyzes the intellectual and scientific roots of the climate system and its changes. In presenting the five papers in this special issue the introduction argues that it is becoming increasingly important to also situate “historicizing climate change” within the history of thought and practice in wider fields, as a matter of intellectual, political, and social history and theory. The five papers all serve as examples of intellectual, political, and social responses to climate-related phenomena and their consequences (ones that have manifested themselves relatively recently and are predominantly attributable to anthropogenic climate change). The historicizing work that these papers perform lies in the analysis of issues that are rising in societies related to climate change in its modern anthropogenic version. The history here is not so much about past climates, although climate change itself is always directly or indirectly present in the story, but rather about history as the social space where encounters take place and where new conditions for humans and societies and their companion species and their life worlds in natures and environments are unfolding and negotiated. With climate change as a growing phenomenon historicizing climate change in this version will become increasingly relevant.     

A co-evolutionary approach to climate change impact assessment: Part I. Integrating socio-economic and climate change scenarios

Climate change policies currently pay disproportionately greater attention to the mitigation of climate change through emission reductions strategies than to adaptation measures. Realising that the world is already committed to some global warming, policy makers are beginning to turn their attention to the challenge of preparing society to adapt to the unfolding impacts at the local level. This two-part article presents an integrated, or `co-evolutionary', approach to using scenarios in adaptation and vulnerability assessment. Part I explains how climate and social scenarios can be integrated to better understand the inter-relationships between a changing climate and the dynamic evolution of social, economic and political systems. The integrated scenarios are then calibrated so that they can be applied `bottom up’ to local stakeholders in vulnerable sectors of the economy. Part I concludes that a co-evolutionary approach (1) produces a more sophisticated and dynamic account of the potential feedbacks between natural and human systems; (2) suggests that sustainability indicators are both a potentially valuable input to and an output of integrated scenario formulation and application. Part II describes how a broadly representative sample of public, private and voluntary organisations in the East Anglian region of the UK responded to the scenarios, and identifies future research priorities.     

Measuring and modeling Russian newspaper coverage of climate change

As a significant emitter of greenhouse gases and a country rich in fossil fuels, Russia plays a crucial role in achieving a comprehensive solution to climate-related challenges. Yet, Russia's official position on climate change has varied considerably since the beginning of global negotiations, with the country playing everything from policy leader to laggard. While there are a number factors that shape domestic policy positions, this study offers a comprehensive investigation of newspaper coverage on climate change in Russia. How have Russian newspapers discussed the issue since the Yeltsin era? We approach this question by compiling the largest data set of Russian newspaper coverage to date, which includes 11,131 climate-related articles from 65 papers over a roughly 35 year period. After introducing a “computer assisted” approach to measure the core themes running through climate change coverage, we statistically evaluate the national- and newspaper-level factors associated with how coverage is framed, focusing attention on 23 high circulation papers over the period from 2000 to 2014. We find that national-level predictors—particularly economic conditions—are highly influential in determining whether climate change is covered and how the issue is framed, while paper-level factors such as the presence of an energy interest and ownership structure also have notable effects. Overall, this study offers a rich data set and useful methods to better understand the drivers of climate communication in Russia.     

Effects of climate change on the phenology of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Osmia cornifrons</Emphasis>: implications for population management

The phenology of many ecological processes including pollination service is modulated by surface air temperature, making them potentially sensitive to climatic change. The Japanese hornfaced bee, Osmia cornifrons (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae), was introduced into the USA in the 1970s and has been used as a key pollinator of spring blooming fruit crops such as apple and blueberry. This study examined the effects of future climate change on three key phenological events of O. cornifrons: date for adult emergence (female and male) in spring, date for completion of egg and larval development, and duration for the development in the Eastern USA. We used daily temperature data obtained from 21 models in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 for 2006–2100 under the two future climate scenarios of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5). We estimated the Julian dates (JDs) of spring emergence and development of O. cornifrons using the phenological parameters derived from temperature-dependent biophysical models. The JDs for the bee emergence and development are projected to be significantly advanced in the Eastern USA under the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. The number of days for bee development is projected to be longer in the southern region (+?0.57 days/decade) and shorter in the central (??0.27 days/decade) and northern (??0.65 days/decade) regions of the Eastern USA (all the p values <?0.01). The significantly longer duration of bee development under future climate change could pose a risk to the bee due to the longer period of being exposed to its pests. Implications for management of O. cornifrons population were discussed in this article.     

Difficulties in accounting for private finance in international climate policy

It is widely acknowledged that private finance has a key role to play in achieving low-carbon development and resilience to climate change. However, while there have been several studies that have closely examined the data on public climate finance, there have been few such studies of the private climate-related finance data. There is a political dimension to accounting for ‘private finance’ given the commitment of industrialized countries – enshrined in the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun Agreements – to mobilize US$100 billion of public and private finance for developing countries by 2020, on an annual basis. The availability and quality of data for different types of private climate finance flows with climate benefits (investments, carbon market payments, and voluntary funding) are analysed, and these flows are assessed according to various criteria for inclusion in the $100 billion figure. While existing data suggest that private climate finance invested in developing countries and mobilized by industrialized countries might currently be in the range of $27–123 billion per year, this number is a questionable point of reference. Existing data are limited and of very poor quality: definitions of ‘private climate finance’ are missing and data are hardly verified. Therefore, policy makers will first have to clearly define ‘private climate finance’ and develop systems for measuring, reporting, and verifying it, before using private finance numbers in international climate agreements.