Catching air? Climate change policy in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan

Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan have each participated actively in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conferences of the Parties, and each is developing domestic rules and institutions to address UN obligations under the treaties. Russia and Ukraine are each Annex I/Annex B countries. Kazakhstan will become Annex I upon ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, but has not yet established itself as Annex B. Each state has evolved a distinct set of policies and priorities in the domestic and the international arena. Drawing largely on interviews in each country, this article presents brief histories of the evolution of climate policy, focusing on each state’s behavior in the international arena, the sources of domestic policy leadership, and the forces that led to change in each national approach. Current policies and practices are evaluated with an eye towards learning from the successes and failures in each state.     

Global socio-economic and climate change mitigation scenarios through the lens of structural change

This paper analyses structural change in the economy as a key but largely unexplored aspect of global socio-economic and climate change mitigation scenarios. Structural change can actually drive energy and land use as much as economic growth and influence mitigation opportunities and barriers. Conversely, stringent climate policy is bound to induce specific structural and socio-economic transformations that are still insufficiently understood. We introduce Multi-Sectoral macroeconomic Integrated Assessment Models as tools to capture the key drivers of structural change and we conduct a multi-model study to assess main structural effects – changes of the sectoral composition and intensity of trade of global and regional economies – in a baseline and 2°C policy scenario by 2050. First, the range of baseline projections across models, for which we identify the main drivers, illustrates the uncertainty on future economic pathways – in emerging economies especially – and inform on plausible alternative futures with implications for energy use and emissions. Second, in all models, climate policy in the 2°C scenario imposes only a second-order impact on the economic structure at the macro-sectoral level – agriculture, manufacturing and services - compared to changes modelled in the baseline. However, this hides more radical changes for individual industries – within the energy sector especially. The study, which adopts a top-down framing of global structural change, represents a starting point to kick-start a conversation and propose a new research agenda seeking to improve understanding of the structural change effects in socio-economic and mitigation scenarios, and better inform policy assessments.     

The climatic impacts of land surface change and carbon management, and the implications for climate-change mitigation policy

Strategies to mitigate anthropogenic climate change recognize that carbon sequestration in the terrestrial biosphere can reduce the build-up of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. However, climate mitigation policies do not generally incorporate the effects of these changes in the land surface on the surface albedo, the fluxes of sensible and latent heat to the atmosphere, and the distribution of energy within the climate system. Changes in these components of the surface energy budget can affect the local, regional, and global climate. Given the goal of mitigating climate change, it is important to consider all of the effects of changes in terrestrial vegetation and to work toward a better understanding of the full climate system. Acknowledging the importance of land surface change as a component of climate change makes it more challenging to create a system of credits and debits wherein emission or sequestration of carbon in the biosphere is equated with emission of carbon from fossil fuels. Recognition of the complexity of human-caused changes in climate does not, however, weaken the importance of actions that would seek to minimize our disturbance of the Earth’s environmental system and that would reduce societal and ecological vulnerability to environmental change and variability.     

Racing climate change: Collaboration and conflict in California's global climate change policy arena

Media accounts routinely refer to California's Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, as “landmark” climate change legislation. On its surface, this label is an accurate reflection of the state's forward-thinking stance across many environmental issues including pesticides, toxic substances, solid waste, and air quality. For all its promise, however, AB 32 can also be considered a low point in the landscape of conflict between state environmental regulators and California's environmental justice movement. While the legislation included several provisions to address the procedural and distributive dimensions of environmental justice, the implementation of AB 32 has been marked by heated conflict. The most intense conflicts over AB 32 revolve around the primacy of market mechanisms such as “cap and trade.” This article examines the drivers and the manifestations of these dynamics of collaboration and conflict between environmental justice advocates and state regulators, and pays particular attention to the scalar and racialized quality of the neoliberal discourse. The contentiousness of climate change politics in California offers scholars and practitioners around the world a cautionary tale of how the best intentions for integrating environmental justice principles into climate change policy do not necessarily translate into implementation and how underlying racialized fractures can upend collaboration between state and social movement actors.     

The use of scenarios as the basis for combined assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation

Scenarios are used to explore the consequences of different adaptation and mitigation strategies under uncertainty. In this paper, two scenarios are used to explore developments with (1) no mitigation leading to an increase of global mean temperature of 4 °C by 2100 and (2) an ambitious mitigation strategy leading to 2 °C increase by 2100. For the second scenario, uncertainties in the climate system imply that a global mean temperature increase of 3 °C or more cannot be ruled out. Our analysis shows that, in many cases, adaptation and mitigation are not trade-offs but supplements. For example, the number of people exposed to increased water resource stress due to climate change can be substantially reduced in the mitigation scenario, but adaptation will still be required for the remaining large numbers of people exposed to increased stress. Another example is sea level rise, for which, from a global and purely monetary perspective, adaptation (up to 2100) seems more effective than mitigation. From the perspective of poorer and small island countries, however, stringent mitigation is necessary to keep risks at manageable levels. For agriculture, only a scenario based on a combination of adaptation and mitigation is able to avoid serious climate change impacts.     

两种不同减排情景下21世纪气候变化的数值模拟

利用国家气候中心最新发展的气候系统模式BCC-CSM1.0模拟了相对于B1排放情景,两种不同减排情景(De90和De07,表示按照B1情景排放到2012年,之后线性递减,至2050年时CO_2排放水平分别达到1990和2007年排放水平一半的情景)对全球和中国区域气候变化的影响.结果表明:两种减排情景下模式模拟的全球平均地表气温在21世纪40年代以后明显低于Bl情景,比减排情景浓度低于B1的时间延迟了20年左右;尽管De90减排情景在2050年所达到的稳定排放水平低于De07情景,但De90情景下的全球增温在2070年以后才一致低于De07情景,这种滞后町能与耦合系统(主要足海洋)的惯性有关;至21世纪末,De90和De07情景下的全球增温幅度分别比B1情景降低了0.4和0.2℃;从全球分布来看,B1情景下21世纪后30年的增温幅度在北半球高纬度和极地地区最大,减排情景能够显著减少这些地区的增温幅度,减排程度越大,则减少越多;在中国区域,B1情景下21世纪末平均增温比全球平均高约1.2℃,减排情景De90和De07分别比B1情景降低了0.4和0.3℃,中国北方地区增温幅度高于南方及沿海地区,减排情景能够显著减小中国西部地区的增温幅度;B1情景下21世纪后30年伞球增温在冬季最高,De90和De07情景分别能够降低各个季节全球升温幅度的17%和10%左右.     

Integrated assessment of biomass supply and demand in climate change mitigation scenarios

Biomass is often seen as a key component of future energy systems as it can be used for heat and electricity production, as a transport fuel, and a feedstock for chemicals. Furthermore, it can be used in combination with carbon capture and storage to provide so-called “negative emissions”. At the same time, however, its production will require land, possibly impacting food security, land-based carbon stocks, and other environmental services. Thus, the strategies adopted in the supply, conversion, and use of biomass have a significant impact on its effectiveness as a climate change mitigation measure. We use the IMAGE 3.0 integrated assessment model to project three different global, long term scenarios spanning different socioeconomic futures with varying rates of population growth, economic growth, and technological change, and investigate the role of biomass in meeting strict climate targets. Using these scenarios we highlight different possibilities for biomass supply and demand, and provide insights on the requirements and challenges for the effective use of this resource as a climate change mitigation measure. The results show that in scenarios meeting the 1.5 °C target, biomass could exceed 20% of final energy consumption, or 115–180 EJ_Prim/yr in 2050. Such a supply of bioenergy can only be achieved without extreme levels land use change if agricultural yields improve significantly and effective land zoning is implemented. Furthermore, the results highlight that strict mitigation targets are contingent on the availability of advanced technologies such as lignocellulosic fuels and carbon capture and storage.     

Integrating agriculture and climate change mitigation at landscape scale: Implications from an Australian case study

Rural and regional hinterlands provide the ecosystem service needs for increasingly urbanised communities across the globe. These inter-related ecosystem services provide key opportunities in securing climate change mitigation and adaptation. Their integrated management in the face of climate change, however, can be confounded by fragmentation within the complex institutional arrangements concerned with natural resource management. This suggests the need for a more systemic approach to continuous improvement in the integrated and adaptive governance of natural resources.This paper explores the theoretical foundations for integrated natural resource management and reviews positive systemic improvements that have been emerging in the Australian context. In setting clear theoretical foundations, the paper explores both functional and structural aspects of natural resource governance systems. Functional considerations include issues of connectivity, knowledge use and capacity within the natural resource decision making environment. Structural considerations refer to the institutions and processes that undertake planning through to implementation, monitoring and evaluation.From this foundation, we review the last decade of emerging initiatives in governance regarding the integration of agriculture and forests across the entire Australian landscape. This includes the shift towards more devolved regional approaches to integrated natural resource management and recent progress towards the use of terrestrial carbon at landscape scale to assist in climate change mitigation and adaptation. These developments, however, have also been tempered by a significant raft of new landscape-scale regulations that have tended to be based on a more centralist philosophy that landowners should be providing ecosystem services for the wider public good without substantive reward.Given this background, we explore a case study of efforts taken to integrate the management of landscape-scale agro-ecological services in the Wet Tropics of tropical Queensland. This is being achieved primarily through the integration of regional natural resource management planning and the development of aggregated terrestrial carbon offset products at a whole of landscape scale via the Degree Celsius initiative. Finally, the paper teases out the barriers and opportunities being experienced, leading to discussion about the global implications for managing climate change, income generation and poverty reduction.     

Social impacts of climate change mitigation policies and their implications for inequality

The Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set ambitious targets for environmental, economic and social progress. Climate change mitigation policies play a central role in this process. To maximize the benefits and minimize the negative effects of climate change mitigation policies, policymakers need to be aware of the indirect and often complex social and inequality impacts that these policies may have and the pathways through which these impacts emerge. Better understanding of the distributional and inequality impacts is important to avoid negative social and distributional outcomes as countries ratchet up their climate policy ambition in the post-Paris context. This paper synthesizes evidence from the existing literature on social co-impacts of climate change mitigation policy and their implications for inequality. The analysis shows that most policies are linked to both co-benefits and adverse side-effects, and can compound or lessen inequalities depending on contextual factors, policy design and policy implementation. The risk of negative outcomes is greater in contexts characterized by high levels of poverty, corruption and economic and social inequalities, and where limited action is taken to identify and mitigate potentially adverse side-effects.

Key policy insights

• The risk of adverse social outcomes associated with climate change mitigation policies, including worsening inequality, increases as countries ratchet up their ambition to meet the Paris Agreement targets. Many policies that have so far only been piloted will need to be up-scaled.

• Negative inequality impacts of climate policies can be mitigated (and possibly even prevented), but this requires conscious effort, careful planning and multi-stakeholder engagement. Best results can be achieved when potential inequality impacts are taken into consideration in all stages of policy making, including policy planning, development and implementation.

• Climate change mitigation policies should take a pro-poor approach that, in best case scenarios, can also lead to a reduction of existing inequalities.

     

Four intermediate goals: a methodology for evaluation of climate mitigation policy packages

This study aimed to evaluate climate mitigation policy packages in various countries’ nationally determined contributions by introducing four intermediate policy goals: decarbonizing energy, improving energy efficiency, reducing demand for energy services, and enhancing carbon sinks and reducing emissions of non-CO₂ gases. The methodology was examined by using data of China, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US. Climate mitigation policies introduced between 1990 and 2015 in the five countries were categorized into four intermediate policy goals. Six indicators were introduced to measure actual outcomes, each representing one of the four intermediate policy goals. A comparison between the policy categorizations and the indicator outputs led to the conclusion that the number of policies implemented partially reflects the countries’ efforts to achieve specific policy goals, even though the stringency of each policy was not taken into account. This comparison was also useful in identifying key policies that were effective in achieving policy goals, even if there was a relatively small number of policies. The methodology was useful in generating policy recommendations to fulfil all the four intermediate goals in a balanced manner.

POLICY RELEVANCE

The Paris Agreement, adopted at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in December 2015, calls for all countries to prepare, communicate, and maintain successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and pursue domestic mitigation measures with the aim of achieving the objectives of such contributions (Article 4.2). Under this new regime, methodologies to assess policy implementation have become increasingly important, especially for the post-2020 period. The methodology developed in this study is simple enough for any country to use and was effective in grasping the overall characteristics of the climate mitigation policy package in each country or region studied. The study recommends that the UNFCCC create a rule requesting countries to submit estimates of population, GDP, total energy demand, share of renewables, and other relevant factors for the target year when they submit their successive intended NDCs.     

Including animal to plant protein shifts in climate change mitigation policy: a proposed three-step strategy

Strong and rapid greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, far beyond those currently committed to, are required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. This allows no sector to maintain business as usual practices, while application of the precautionary principle requires avoiding a reliance on negative emission technologies. Animal to plant-sourced protein shifts offer substantial potential for GHG emission reductions. Unabated, the livestock sector could take between 37% and 49% of the GHG budget allowable under the 2°C and 1.5°C targets, respectively, by 2030. Inaction in the livestock sector would require substantial GHG reductions, far beyond what are planned or realistic, from other sectors. This outlook article outlines why animal to plant-sourced protein shifts should be taken up by the Conference of the Parties (COP), and how they could feature as part of countries’ mitigation commitments under their updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to be adopted from 2020 onwards. The proposed framework includes an acknowledgment of ‘peak livestock’, followed by targets for large and rapid reductions in livestock numbers based on a combined ‘worst first’ and ‘best available food’ approach. Adequate support, including climate finance, is needed to facilitate countries in implementing animal to plant-sourced protein shifts.

Key policy insights

• Given the livestock sector’s significant contribution to global GHG emissions and methane dominance, animal to plant protein shifts make a necessary contribution to meeting the Paris temperature goals and reducing warming in the short term, while providing a suite of co-benefits.

• Without action, the livestock sector could take between 37% and 49% of the GHG budget allowable under the 2°C and 1.5°C targets, respectively, by 2030.

• Failure to implement animal to plant protein shifts increases the risk of exceeding temperate goals; requires additional GHG reductions from other sectors; and increases reliance on negative emissions technologies.

• COP 24 is an opportunity to bring animal to plant protein shifts to the climate mitigation table.

• Revised NDCs from 2020 should include animal to plant protein shifts, starting with a declaration of ‘peak livestock’, followed by a ‘worst first’ replacement approach, guided by ‘best available food’.

     

Potential impact of albedo incorporation in boreal forest sector climate change policy effectiveness

Forests have an important role to play in climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration and wood supply. However, the lower albedo of mature forests compared to bare land implies that focusing only on GHG accounting may lead to biased estimates of forestry's total climatic impacts. An economic model with a high degree of detail of the Norwegian forestry and forest industries is used to simulate GHG fluxes and albedo impacts for the next decades. Albedo is incorporated in a carbon tax/subsidy scheme in the Norwegian forest sector using a partial, spatial equilibrium model. While a price of EU€100/tCO₂e that targets GHG fluxes only results in reduced harvests, the same price including albedo leads to harvest levels that are five times higher in the first five years, with 39% of the national productive forest land base being cleared. The results suggest that policies that only consider GHG fluxes and ignore changes in albedo will not lead to an optimal use of the forest sector for climate change mitigation.

Policy relevance

Bare land reflects a larger share of incoming solar energy than dense forest and thus has higher albedo. Earlier research has suggested that changes in albedo caused by management of boreal forest may be as important as carbon fluxes for the forest's overall global warming impacts. The presented analysis is the first attempt to link albedo to national-scale forest climate policies. A policy with subsidies to forest owners that generate carbon sequestration and taxes levied on carbon emissions leads to a reduced forest harvest. However, including albedo in the policy alongside carbon fluxes yields very different results, causing initial harvest levels to increase substantially. The inclusion of albedo impacts will make harvests more beneficial for climate change mitigation as compared to a carbon-only policy. Hence, it is likely that carbon policies that ignore albedo will not lead to optimal forest management for climate change mitigation.     

Health co-benefits and the development of climate change mitigation policies in the European Union

The 2015 Paris Agreement requires increasingly ambitious emissions reduction efforts from its member countries. Accounting for ancillary positive health outcomes (health co-benefits) that result from implementing climate change mitigation policies can provide Parties to the Paris Agreement with a sound rationale for introducing stronger mitigation strategies. Despite this recognition, a knowledge gap exists on the role of health co-benefits in the development of climate change mitigation policies. To address this gap, the case study presented here investigates the role of health co-benefits in the development of European Union (EU) climate change mitigation policies through analysis and consideration of semi-structured interview data, government documents, journal articles and media releases. We find that while health co-benefits are an explicit consideration in the development of EU climate change mitigation policies, their influence on final policy outcomes has been limited. Our analysis suggests that whilst health co-benefits are a key driver of air pollution mitigation policies, climate mitigation policies are primarily driven by other factors, including economic costs and energy implications.

Key policy insights

• Health co-benefits are quantified and monetized as part of the development of EU climate change mitigation policies but their influence on the final policies agreed upon is limited.

• Barriers, such as the immediate economic costs associated with climate action, inhibit the influence of health co-benefits on the development of mitigation policies.

• Health co-benefits primarily drive the development of EU air pollution mitigation policies.

• The separation of responsibility for GHG and non-GHG emissions across Directorate Generals has decoupled climate change and air pollution mitigation policies, with consequences for the integration of health co-benefits in climate policy.

     

Land restoration in food security programmes: synergies with climate change mitigation

Food-insecure households in many countries depend on international aid to alleviate acute shocks and chronic shortages. Some food security programmes (including Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program–PSNP – which provides a case study for this article) have integrated aid in exchange for labour on public works to reduce long-term dependence by investing in the productive capacity and resilience of communities. Using this approach, Ethiopia has embarked upon an ambitious national programme of land restoration and sustainable land management. Although the intent was to reduce poverty, here we show that an unintended co-benefit is the climate-change mitigation from reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increased landscape carbon stocks. The article first shows that the total reduction in net GHG emissions from PSNP’s land management at the national scale is estimated at 3.4 million?Mg?CO₂e?y^?1 – approximately 1.5% of the emissions reductions in Ethiopia’s Nationally Determined Contribution for the Paris Agreement. The article then explores some of the opportunities and constraints to scaling up of this impact.

Key policy insights

• Food security programmes (FSPs) can contribute to climate change mitigation by creating a vehicle for investment in land and ecosystem restoration.

• Maximizing mitigation, while enhancing but not compromising food security, requires that climate projections, and mitigation and adaptation responses should be mainstreamed into planning and implementation of FSPs at all levels.

• Cross-cutting oversight is required to integrate land restoration, climate policy, food security and disaster risk management into a coherent policy framework.

• Institutional barriers to optimal implementation should be addressed, such as incentive mechanisms that reward effort rather than results, and lack of centralized monitoring and evaluation of impacts on the physical environment.

• Project implementation can often be improved by adopting best management practices, such as using productive living livestock barriers where possible, and increasing the integration of agroforestry and non-timber forest products into landscape regeneration.

     

The implications of climate policy for the impacts of climate change on global water resources

This paper assesses the implications of climate policy for exposure to water resources stresses. It compares a Reference scenario which leads to an increase in global mean temperature of 4 °C by the end of the 21st century with a Mitigation scenario which stabilises greenhouse gas concentrations at around 450 ppm CO₂e and leads to a 2 °C increase in 2100. Associated changes in river runoff are simulated using a global hydrological model, for four spatial patterns of change in temperature and rainfall. There is a considerable difference in hydrological change between these four patterns, but the percentages of change avoided at the global scale are relatively robust. By the 2050s, the Mitigation scenario typically avoids between 16 and 30% of the change in runoff under the Reference scenario, and by 2100 it avoids between 43 and 65%. Two different measures of exposure to water resources stress are calculated, based on resources per capita and the ratio of withdrawals to resources. Using the first measure, the Mitigation scenario avoids 8-17% of the impact in 2050 and 20-31% in 2100; with the second measure, the avoided impacts are 5-21% and 15-47% respectively. However, at the same time, the Mitigation scenario also reduces the positive impacts of climate change on water scarcity in other areas. The absolute numbers and locations of people affected by climate change and climate policy vary considerably between the four climate model patterns.     

Attitudes toward climate change mitigation policies: a review of measures and a construct of policy attitudes

Research on policy support or public acceptability of climate change policies is proliferating. There is, however, a great diversity in how these evaluative responses have been defined, operationalized, and measured across studies. In order to shed some light on this subject, we reviewed 118 studies published over the last 15 years aiming at measurement of policy acceptability, acceptance, support, and other responses to climate change mitigation policies. We found that conceptual vagueness and weak theoretical embedding are pervasive in the field, which leads to uncertainty over what is being measured, ambiguity of policy recommendations, and difficulties in comparing empirical results. In response, we propose a construct of policy attitudes as an overarching concept comprising the diversity of measures and constructs already in use. The purpose of the construct is to serve as a common basis for operationalization and survey design. In order to inform policy makers, researchers should be clear in how they formulate surveys with a focus on questions of importance to research and policy-making.

Key policy insights

• Acceptability, acceptance, and support are defined as distinct and possibly empirically distinguishable classes of responses evaluating a policy proposal. These responses are expressions of underlying policy attitudes.

• People may respond to policies in other ways as well, including lack of interest.

• There is no popularity threshold for a policy to be safe to implement, but instead it is a matter of identifying the conditions of policy support or other responses.

• Results obtained using different measures of mitigation policy attitudes vary widely with respect to the characteristics of the policy in question and the measured response. Thus, great care must be taken when designing surveys and interpreting their results.

     

Power,coalitions and institutional change in South African climate policy

This paper examines power relations, coalitions and conflicts that drive and hinder institutional change in South African climate policy. The analysis finds that the most contested climate policies are those that create distributional conflicts where powerful, non-poor actors will potentially experience real losses to their fossil fuel-based operations. This finding opposes the assumption of competing objectives between emissions and poverty reduction. Yet, actors use discourse that relates to potentially competing objectives between emissions reductions, jobs, poverty reduction and economic welfare.

The analysis relates to the broader questions on how to address public policy problems that affect the two objectives of mitigating climate change and simultaneously boosting socio-economic development. South Africa is a middle-income country that represents the challenge of accommodating simultaneous efforts for emissions and poverty reduction.

Institutional change has been constrained especially in the process towards establishing climate budgets and a carbon tax. The opposing coalitions have succeeded in delaying the implementation of these processes, as a result of unequal power relations. Institutional change in South African climate policy can be predominantly characterized as layering with elements of policy innovation. New policies build on existing regulations in all three cases of climate policy examined: the climate change response white paper, the carbon tax and the renewable energy programme. Unbalanced power relations between coalitions of support in government and civil society and opposition mainly from the affected industry result in very fragile institutional change.

Key policy insights

• The South African government has managed to drive institutional change in climate policy significantly over the past 7 years.

• Powerful coalitions of coal-related industries and their lobbies have constrained institutional change and managed to delay the implementation of carbon pricing measures.

• A successfully managed renewable energy programme has started to transform a coal- and nuclear-powered electricity sector towards integrating sustainable energy technologies. The programme is vulnerable to intergovernmental opposition and requires management at the highest political levels.

• Potential conflict with poverty reduction measures is not a major concern that actively hinders institutional change towards climate objectives. Predominantly non-poor actors frequently use poverty-related discourse to elevate their interests to issues of public concern.

     

Developments in national climate change mitigation legislation and strategy

The results are presented from a survey of national legislation and strategies to mitigate climate change covering almost all United Nations member states between 2007 and 2012. This data set is distinguished from the existing literature in its breadth of coverage, its focus on national policies (rather than international pledges), and on the use of objective metrics rather than normative criteria. The focus of the data is limited to national climate legislation and strategies and does not cover subnational or sectoral measures. Climate legislation and strategies are important because they can: enhance incentives for climate mitigation; provide mechanisms for mainstreaming; and provide a focal point for actors. Three broad findings emerge. First, there has been a substantial increase in climate legislation and strategies between 2007 and 2012: 67% of global GHG emissions are now under national climate legislation or strategy compared to 45% in 2007. Second, there are substantial regional effects to the patterns, with most increases in non-Annex I countries, particularly in Asia and Latin America. Third, many more countries have adopted climate strategies than have adopted climate legislation between 2007 and 2012. The article concludes with recommendations for future research.

Policy relevance The increase in climate legislation and strategy is significant. This spread suggests that, at the national level, there is some movement in reshaping climate governance despite the relatively slow pace of global negotiations, although the exact implications of this spread require further research on stringency of actions and their implementation. Asia and Latin America represent the biggest improvements, while OECD countries, which start from a high base, remain relatively stagnant. Implications of regional patterns are further refined by an analysis by emissions, which shows that some areas of low levels of legislation and strategy are also areas of relatively low emissions. A broad trend toward an emphasis on strategies rather than legislation, with the significant exception of China, calls for enhanced research into the practical impact of national non-binding climate strategies versus binding legislation on countries’ actual emissions over time.     

A Modeling Study of Climate Change and Its Implication for Agriculture in China Part II: The Implication of Climate Change for Agriculture in China

The potential CO2-induced impacts on the geographical shifts of wheat growth zones in China were studied from seven GCMs outputs. The wheat growth regions may move northward and westward under the condition of a doubling CO2 climate. The wheat cultivation features and variety types may also assume significant changes. Climatic warming would have a positive influence in Northeast China, but high temperature stress may be produced in some regions of central and southern China. Higher mean air temperatures during wheat growth, particularly during the reproductive stages, may increase the need for earlier-maturing and more heat-tolerant cultivars.     

Politics eclipses climate extremes for climate change perceptions

Whether or not actual shifts in climate influence public perceptions of climate change remains an open question, one with important implications for societal response to climate change. We use the most comprehensive public opinion survey data on climate change available for the US to examine effects of annual and seasonal climate variation. Our results show that political orientation has the most important effect in shaping public perceptions about the timing and seriousness of climate change. Objective climatic conditions do not influence Americans’ perceptions of the timing of climate change and only have a negligible effect on perceptions about the seriousness of climate change. These results suggest that further changes in climatic conditions are unlikely to produce noticeable shifts in Americans’ climate change perceptions.