Climate change diffusion: While the world tips, business schools lag

The influence of business schools on business practitioners is considerable. An important proportion of corporate leaders hold a degree in business administration or an MBA, if not both. In the context of climate change, this influence matters: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from a selection of global 500 companies approximate that of the USA and the EU15 combined. Not only do corporations have a significant climate footprint, but the impact of climate change on the business landscape is already noticeable. Yet, meeting the managerial challenges that climate change brings requires knowledge only moderately addressed in business education and scholarship today. Climate change tends to be discussed in electives - hence reaching only a fraction of students - and tends to be treated alongside a myriad of other corporate social responsibility issues. Moreover, from 1992 to 2008, only seven articles with titles containing climate change or global warming were published in the top-30 peer-reviewed management journals (this paper, see also Goodall, 2008). In this paper, by mapping the diffusion of climate change within press media and academic peer-reviewed publications, I argue that understanding the existing lag in business scholarship engagement requires a fundamental understanding of processes that either hinder or lead to the diffusion of new ideas. To do so, I present a simple yet novel approach for the quantification of climate change or global warming (CCorGW) coverage relative to population size. My results on the diffusion of the climate change idea over time show: (a) an overall increase in proportional coverage in all databases (b) tipping points around the late 1980s and circa 2005 and (c) delays in adoption between press categories. I explicate the occurrence of these tipping points as well as the existence of delays by theoretically unifying my analyses with results from previous studies under the umbrella of the diffusion of innovation paradigm. I suggest that the following key factors have contributed in slowing the diffusion within business scholarship: (a) corporate values, beliefs and operational modes (b) social structures and incentives prevailing within academia and finally (b) academia's valued research communication channels. I conclude by elaborating key recommendations to facilitate the diffusion of this idea to business scholars and other influential audiences.     

Values,climate change,and implications for adaptation: Evidence from two communities in Labrador,Canada

Local material and symbolic values have to date remained underrepresented in climate change research and policy and this gap is particularly salient in places that have been identified as at significant risk from climate change. In such places, the dominant approach to understanding the effects of climate change has been centred on vulnerability; it has highlighted the social determinants of vulnerability and the differential and uneven distribution of effects. This approach cannot, however, illuminate the diverse and nuanced meanings people attach to specific aspects of their way of life, how the changing climate might affect these, and what this implies for adaptation. To address this gap, this empirical study uses the concept of values, defined as trans-situational conceptions of the desirable that give meaning to behaviour and events, and influence perception and interpretation of situations and events. We develop a set of values from 53 qualitative interviews in two remote communities in subarctic easternmost Canada. It draws on these values to frame how effects of climate change, specifically intangible and subjective effects, are felt, and how responses to them are imagined by those affected. The article argues that values are crucial in shaping perception of climate impacts and adaptation to them. Distinct values, such as tradition, freedom, harmony, safety, and unity shape different interpretations and meaning of impacts, and lead to distinct views on how to adapt to these. Conflicting and competing values can act as barriers to adaptation. The findings imply that adaptation research and policy need to address values explicitly if efforts for planned adaptation are to be perceived as legitimate and effective by those affected by the changing climate.     

企业气候变化意识及应对措施调查研究

基于2012—2015年在华北、珠三角和湖南湖北地区对企业管理人员进行的气候变化意识的问卷调查,构建了气候变化意识和企业应对气候变化措施两个一级指数。通过对调查结果交叉列联表分析,得出以下结论：企业管理人员的气候变化意识指数处于一般水平,并且受年龄、产业类型、企业类型的影响显著;企业应对气候变化措施指数也处于一般水平且不同企业水平差距较大,企业管理人员气候变化意识水平、未来预期和自主知识产权拥有量对其影响显著。     

Firms and sustainability: Mapping the intellectual origins and structure of the corporate sustainability field

Business research has repeatedly been criticized for its lack of engagement with pressing issues such as climate change, despite a surge of publications on corporate sustainability topics in recent years. We are therefore interested in identifying the knowledge development and knowledge gaps in business scholarship on the relationship between firms, environment and society. This paper provides a systematic review of the corporate sustainability field in form of a bibliometric analysis based on citation data acquired from the Social Sciences Citation Index. The final dataset contained 3117 records published between 1953 and 2011. Our analysis shows that, over the last 50 years, the field of corporate sustainability has emerged from a few primary nodes of research and developed into four distinct conceptual genealogies: corporate social performance theory, stakeholder theory, a corporate social performance versus economic performance debate, and a greening of management debate. The results of our analysis suggest four key findings. First, the four genealogies only comprise a relatively narrowly focused research scope. Second, there is very little integration and citation of work in other disciplinary areas such as ecology or environmental science. Third, the existing literature has a strong focus on empirically examining the relationship between a firm's environmental and/or social performance and its financial performance. Finally, there is little consideration of managerial implications and consequences of climate change in the corporate sustainability literature to date. We suggest that while this may be a reflection of an insular field, it may also be a role played by the management literature turning away from problem based issues in favor of empirical results, theory building, and the identification of variables that influence firm profitability and can be subjected to direct managerial control. We conclude by outlining pathways for future research.     

Learning to Adapt: Organisational Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts

Analysis of human adaptation to climate change should be based on realistic models of adaptive behaviour at the level of organisations and individuals. The paper sets out a framework for analysing adaptation to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change in business organisations with new evidence presented from empirical research into adaptation in nine case-study companies. It argues that adaptation to climate change has many similarities with processes of organisational learning. The paper suggests that business organisations face a number of obstacles in learning how to adapt to climate change impacts, especially in relation to the weakness and ambiguity of signals about climate change and the uncertainty about benefits flowing from adaptation measures. Organisations rarely adapt ‘autonomously’, since their adaptive behaviour is influenced by policy and market conditions, and draws on resources external to the organisation. The paper identifies four adaptation strategies that pattern organisational adaptive behaviour.     

全球契约与企业应对气候变化

全面分析了气候变化给企业带来的机遇与挑战。全球契约的"关注气候"倡议为企业响应全球号召应对气候变化带来了机遇,全球契约是全球企业共同应对气候变化、实现企业社会责任和树立企业形象的良好平台。另外,通过调查研究分析了中国民营企业应对气候变化的现状,并提出了相关政策建议。     

适应与绿色复苏：应对新冠疫情和气候复合风险的协同

作为全球性危机,新冠疫情和气候危机在影响范围、效果、原因等方面的相似之处可能使两种危机的效果叠加,而二者的不同之处又可能导致应对政策的相互干扰,带来更加严峻的复合风险。文中全面分析了全球面临的新冠疫情和气候危机的复合风险,识别了新冠疫情对全球气候变化适应进程的影响,以及适应在各国疫后绿色复苏计划中的地位。研究表明,目前全球的绿色复苏中较少考虑适应,而绿色复苏为同时恢复经济和增强气候恢复力提供了机会,如果能在绿色复苏中考虑变革性适应,将显著提升社会经济系统对气候变化等冲击的抵御能力与恢复力,实现疫情后更持续和更有韧性的经济发展。     

Extreme weather exposure and support for climate change adaptation

Policy efforts to address climate change are increasingly focused on adaptation, understood as adjustments in human systems to moderate the harm, or exploit beneficial opportunities, related to actual or expected climate impacts. We examine individual-level determinants of support for climate adaptation policies, focusing on whether individuals’ exposure to extreme weather events is associated with their support for climate adaptation policies. Using novel public opinion data on support for a range of adaptation policies, coupled with high resolution geographic data on extreme weather events, we find that individuals experiencing recent extreme weather activity are more likely to support climate change adaptation policy in general, but that the relationship is modest, inconsistent across specific adaptation policies, and diminishes with time. The data thus suggest that experiencing more severe weather may not appreciably increase support for climate adaptation policies.     

Climate change and the transgenic adaptation strategy: Smallholder livelihoods,climate justice,and maize landraces in Mexico

Climate change will affect agricultural production by subsistence farms in crop centers of origin, where landraces are conserved in situ. Various strategies for adaptation to climate change have been proposed. In this paper we examine the prospects of what we call the ‘transgenic adaptation strategy’, i.e. the appeal to use transgenic seeds to adapt to climate change, through the lens of smallholder maize farming in Mexico. Landraces are the bedrock of maize production in Mexico. We consider how maize farmers may respond to climate change and the effects of those responses on crop diversity. In this paper, we argue that the promotion of the transgenic adaptation strategy is problematic for biological and social reasons. Smallholder livelihoods in southern Mexico could suffer a disproportionate negative impact if transgenic technology is privileged as a response to climate change. Agroecological and evolutionary approaches to addressing the effects of climate change on smallholder agriculture provides an alternative adaptive strategy.     

Are cultural heritage and resources threatened by climate change? A systematic literature review

Climate change poses serious threats to the protection and preservation of cultural heritage and resources. Despite a high level of scholarly interest in climate change impacts on natural and socio-economic systems, a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of climate change on cultural heritage and resources across various continents and disciplines is noticeably absent from the literature. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic literature review methodology to identify and characterize the state of knowledge and how the cultural heritage and resources at risk from climate change are being explored globally. Results from 124 reviewed publications show that scholarly interest in the topic is increasing, employs a wide range of research methods, and represents diverse natural and social science disciplines. Despite such increasing and diverse interest in climate change and cultural heritage and resources, the geographic scope of research is limited (predominantly European focused). Additionally, we identified the need for future studies that not only focuses on efficient, sustainable adaptation planning options but also documents if, and how, the implementation of cultural heritage and resources adaptation or preservation is taking place. This systematic literature review can help direct scholarly research in climate change and cultural heritage and resource area. Ultimately, we hope these new directions can influence policy-making for preservation and adaptation of cultural heritage and cultural resources globally.     

《巴厘行动计划》以来适应气候变化谈判进展及未来需求分析

回顾了《巴厘行动计划》以来形成的与适应气候变化议题相关的国际决议及谈判进展,分析了这些决议对推动发展中国家适应气候变化进程的可能作用和面临的障碍,综述了发展中国家和发达国家对“2015气候协议”的利益诉求和建议。作者认为：《巴厘行动计划》以来,《联合国气候变化框架公约》下适应气候变化方面的谈判取得了较明显的进展,建立了适应委员会、国家适应计划进程和应对损失与危害的国际机制等;资金、技术研发、推广和使用、政策法规、机构设置与能力、信息等是提高发展中国家适应气候变化的限制因素;资金、技术转让和能力建设仍是“2015气候协议”谈判的重点和难点。针对非洲集团和小岛屿国家联盟全球适应目标和应对气候变化造成的损失与危害的补偿的提议,作者建议加强科学研究,开发评估方法和工具,探讨气候自然变率和人类活动导致的气候变化影响的归因;同时建议中国进一步加强适应气候变化的南南合作。     

AD-DICE: an implementation of adaptation in the DICE model

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMS) have helped us over the past decade to understand the interactions between the environment and the economy in the context of climate change. Although it has also long been recognized that adaptation is a powerful and necessary tool to combat the adverse effects of climate change, most IAMS have not explicitly included the option of adaptation in combating climate change. This paper adds to the IAM and climate change literature by explicitly including adaptation in an IAM, thereby making the trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation visible. Specifically, a theoretical framework is created and used to implement adaptation as a decision variable into the DICE model. We use our new AD-DICE model to derive the adaptation cost functions implicit in the DICE model. In our set-up, adaptation and mitigation decisions are separable and AD-DICE can mimic DICE when adaptation is optimal. We find that our specification of the adaptation costs is robust with respect to the mitigation policy scenarios and parameter values. Our numerical results show that adaptation is a powerful option to combat climate change, as it reduces most of the potential costs of climate change in earlier periods, while mitigation does so in later periods.     

IPCC AR6报告解读：气候变化与人类健康

IPCC近期发布了第六次评估报告（AR6）第二工作组（WGII）报告《气候变化：影响、适应和脆弱性》,其中第7章“健康、福祉和不断变化的社区结构”评估了气候变化对人类健康和福祉的当前影响以及未来风险,提出了应对气候变化的解决方案和适应策略。报告明确指出,气候变化对气候敏感传染病和慢性非传染性疾病,以及精神心理健康等的威胁正在增加,并表现出复合暴露和连锁事件的风险,且预计未来风险还会随着全球变暖而进一步加剧。实施积极和有效的气候变化适应措施并快速采取行动,将会在很大程度上减少和避免气候变化导致的健康风险,但不会完全消除所有风险。报告凸显了气候变化健康影响的严重性和紧迫性,未来需要加大对健康领域适应气候变化的科技创新、规划、行动和资金支持。     

What drives national adaptation? A global assessment

That the climate is changing and societies will have to adapt is now unequivocal, with adaptation becoming a core focus of climate policy. Our understanding of the challenges, needs, and opportunities for climate change adaptation has advanced significantly in recent years yet remains limited. Research has identified and theorized key determinants of adaptive capacity and barriers to adaptation, and more recently begun to track adaptation in practice. Despite this, there is negligible research investigating whether and indeed if adaptive capacity is translating into actual adaptation action. Here we test whether theorized determinants of adaptive capacity are associated with adaptation policy outcomes at the national level for 117 nations. We show that institutional capacity, in particular measures of good governance, are the strongest predictors of national adaptation policy. Adaptation at the national level is limited in countries with poor governance, and in the absence of good governance other presumed determinants of adaptive capacity show limited effect on adaptation. Our results highlight the critical importance of institutional good governance as a prerequisite for national adaptation. Other elements of theorized adaptive capacity are unlikely to be sufficient, effective, or present at the national level where national institutions and governance are poor.     

Identifying the exposure of two subsistence villages in Alaska to climate change using traditional ecological knowledge

Dramatic climatic change in the Arctic elevates the importance of determining the risk of exposure for people living in vulnerable areas and developing effective adaptation programs. Climate change assessment reports are valuable, and often definitive, sources of information for decision makers when constructing adaptation plans, yet the scope of these reports is too coarse to identify site-specific exposure to the impacts of climate change and adaptation needs. Subsistence hunters and gatherers in the Arctic are valuable knowledge holders of climate-related change in their area. Incorporating both their traditional ecological knowledge and information found in climate science assessment reports can offer adaption planners a deeper understanding of exposure to climate change and local adaptation needs. In this study, we compare information found in assessment reports of climate change in the Arctic with what we have learned from the Alaskans Sharing Indigenous Knowledge project from 2009 to 2012, a research project documenting traditional ecological knowledge in two Native villages in Alaska, Savoonga and Shaktoolik. Content analysis of the interviews with hunters and gatherers reveal the site-specific impacts of climate change affecting these two villages. We find that their traditional ecological knowledge is complimentary and largely corroborates the climate science found in assessment reports. Traditional ecological knowledge, however, is more current to the social and local conditions of the villages, and presents a more unified social and biophysical portrayal of the impacts of climate change. If taken together, these two forms of knowledge can focus adaptation planning on the pertinent needs of the communities in question.     

基于计划行为理论的樱桃种植户对气候变化与气象灾害适应行为研究

了解农户气候变化与气象灾害适应行为影响机制对未来制定有效气候变化政策至关重要。基于计划行为理论,利用西安市白鹿原樱桃种植区农户的调查数据,结合结构方程模型分析樱桃种植户气候变化与气象灾害适应行为机制。研究表明,种植户关于气候变化与气象灾害的行为态度、主观规范和知觉行为控制三者之间相互影响,且三者均可直接影响种植户适应气候变化与气象灾害的行为意向,其中行为态度对行为意向的影响最为显著;种植户的知觉行为控制对于气候变化及气象灾害的适应行为影响不显著;种植户对气候变化与气象灾害的行为意向是影响其适应行为最直接的因素。     

Governing people on the move in a warming world: Framing climate change migration and the UNFCCC Task Force on Displacement

Different ways of framing the nexus between climate change and migration have been advanced in academic, advocacy and policy circles. Some understand it as a state-security issue, some take a protection (or human security) approach and yet others portray migration as an adaptation or climate risk management strategy. Yet we have little insight into how these different understandings of the ‘problem’ of climate change-related migration are beginning to shape the emergence of global governance in the climate regime. Through a focus on the UNFCCC Task Force on Displacement we argue that these different framings of climate change migration shape how actors understand the appropriate role of the TFD, including the substantive scope of its mandate; its operational priorities; the nature of its outputs and where it should be situated in the institutional architecture. We show that understanding the different framings of the nexus between climate change and migration – and how these framings are contested within the UNFCCC – can help to account for institutional development in this area of climate governance.     

Integration of ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change policies in Viet Nam

There is growing recognition of the importance of ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation to climate change—it is a cost-effective measure that has multiple benefits and can overcome many of the drawbacks of more common engineering adaptation options. Viet Nam has a rich biodiversity and is also one of the most vulnerable countries impacted by climate change. Climate change policies have been adopted at national and local levels as well as by sector, making Viet Nam one of the nations to most systematically fulfill their obligation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Consequently, we have used Viet Nam as a case study, to assess the integration of ecosystem-based approach to adaptation to climate change. We found that ecosystem-based adaptation is being implemented in some projects but, overall, is inadequately considered by Viet Nam’s climate change policies. Instead, policies predominantly rename infrastructure projects as climate change adaptation and focus on hard solutions for disaster reduction, rather than responding to long-term climate change through ecosystem-based adaptation. Moreover, ecosystem-based adaptation projects have focused on only a few relevant types of ecosystems. Viet Nam should revise its existing climate change policies and sectoral strategies to integrate ecosystem-based adaptation across different scales of governance. As other nations develop adaptation policies at different scales, the lesson from Viet Nam is that engineering measures need to be balanced with ecosystem-based adaptation for more affordable and effective responses to climate change.     

VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTIVE RESPONSE IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The paper explores the distinction between climate and climate change. Adaptation to current climate variability has been proposed as an additional way to approach adaptation to long-term climate change. In effect improved adaptation to current climate is a step in preparation for longer term climate change. International programs of research and assessment are separately organized to deal with natural disasters and climate change. There is no scientific concensus so far, that extreme events have changed in frequency on a world-wide basis, although some regional changes have occured. It is extremely unlikely that significant shifts in the means of weather distrbutions will take place without shifts in the tails. In some situations it may make more sense to focus on adaptation to extreme events and the tails of distributions. In other circumstances adaptation to the norms is the logical focus. The relationship between normal climate and climate change is examined in terms of single and complex variables and phenomena. It is proposed that the research communities studying adaptation to extreme events and adaptation to climate change work more closely together, perhaps in a newly organized joint research program.