Linking multi-level governance to local common-pool resource theory using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis: Insights from twenty years of biodiversity conservation in Costa Rica

Understanding the relationship between multi-level institutional linkages and conditions influencing the likelihood of successful collective action has practical and theoretical relevance to sustainable local resource governance. This paper studies the relationship between multi-level linkages and local autonomy, a facilitating condition found to increase the likelihood of local successful collective action. A technique known as fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was applied to a longitudinal comparative data set. In the context of the decentralization of a protected area system in Costa Rica (1986–2006), it traced the emergence and endurance of autonomy among local institutions for biodiversity conservation. The technique illustrates which set of multi-level linkages combined in different ways, and at different points in time, to reach the same outcome (local autonomy). The findings show that a unique set of combinations of multi-level linkages led to the emergence of local autonomy among institutions for biodiversity conservation governance. In contrast, a more diverse set was associated with the endurance of local autonomy over time, suggesting that institutional diversity may play a more prominent role in the maintenance of institutional robustness than in processes of institutional emergence.     

Changing trends in tropospheric methane and carbon monoxide: A sensitivity analysis of the OH-radical

A sensitivity analysis is performed in order to study recently observed changes in atmospheric methane and carbon monoxide trends. For the analysis we have adapted a one-dimensional transport/chemistry model in order to comply with changes in vertical transport, stratosphere-troposphere flux of ozone, the water vapour cycle and the short-wave radiative transfer. In addition we have formulated an improved relationship which expresses the steady state OH concentration in terms of longer lived compounds which has a fair agreement with the one-dimensional model results. An analysis of the observed changes and trends in methane and carbon monoxide shows that both emissions and changes in global OH concentrations can be main causes for the observed changes. Average methane emissions have slowed down, particularly in the NH, in the last five years, though perhaps not very significantly. Carbon monoxide emissions are decreasing faster in the last couple of years than in the period 1983–1990. The study suggests that climate fluctuations (tropospheric water vapour, temperature and convective activity) and the stratospheric ozone depletion (tropospheric UV radiation) have a significant influence on tropospheric composition and thus on trends in methane and carbon monoxide concentrations.The IMAU is partner in the Netherlands Centre for Climate Research (CCR).     

EU corporate action as a driver for global emissions abatement: A structural analysis of EU international supply chain carbon dioxide emissions

Global greenhouse gas emissions driven by European consumption increasingly occur outside European borders. These non-European sources of emissions remain linked to Europe via the international supply chains of European companies. Leading companies are now measuring their supply chain emissions and taking tentative steps to reduce them. If such activities were to become widespread, then an opportunity may exist for European industry to drive significant emissions abatement beyond European borders. This paper provides the first analysis into the maximum potential influence European industry has over its non-European supply chain emissions. The analysis is performed at the level of aggregate industry sectors using a global Multi-Regional Input–Output model. The Total Consumption Attribution method is used to estimate the potential influence of different European industries with detailed decompositions carried out using Structural Path Analysis techniques. The potential influence of European industry over non-European supply chain emissions is found to be greater than one gigatonne of carbon dioxide. The European manufacturing sector is found to have the greatest potential influence over non-European emissions via relatively short supply chains that entail few international border crossings. The results presented in this paper provide initial evidence in support of the development of European climate policies aimed at stimulating supply chain emissions reductions activities within European companies     

Experiences of modernity in the greenhouse: A cultural analysis of a physicist “trio” supporting the backlash against global warming

This paper identifies cultural and historical dimensions that structure US climate science politics. It explores why a key subset of scientists—the physicist founders and leaders of the influential George C. Marshall Institute—chose to lend their scientific authority to this movement which continues to powerfully shape US climate policy. The paper suggests that these physicists joined the environmental backlash to stem changing tides in science and society, and to defend their preferred understandings of science, modernity, and of themselves as a physicist elite—understandings challenged by on-going transformations encapsulated by the widespread concern about human-induced climate change.