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。     

大学生气候变化意识的一次调查——以南京农业大学为例

 大学气候变化教育是国家应对气候变化能力建设的重要组成部分。通过一个自主设计的问卷,随机抽样调查了南京农业大学部分在校本科生,评价和分析了其对气候变化问题的认识水平、应对行动态度与行动的意愿性等。结果表明,被调查者在气候变化与农业的关系上有较高的认知,但在气候变化意识的不同方面和年级间及专业间都存在一定差异。农学类学生对于温室气体的产生途径及其与气候变化的关系了解不够,不过,高年级学生和农科类学生关于气候变化与农业关系方面的认知分别显著高于低年级和文科类学生。然而,学生个体间在应对气候变化的参与态度上有很大差异,而气候变化的总体意识和参与态度与年级关系相对较弱。看来,高等农业院校本科教育中急需加强气候变化教育。建议开设气候变化及其应对的公共选修课或专门气候变化管理课程,以适应应对气候变化的人才培养需求。     

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。     

中国公众对气候变化和气象灾害认知的社会性别差异

对2015年全国公众气象服务评价调查结果的分析显示,我国公众中男性对气候变化认识程度以及对气象灾害预警的认知水平和满意度都比女性高。城镇女性选择环保产品、环保出行及愿意对生活或工作方式做出改变来应对气候变化的比例高于城镇男性,而农村男性选择调整或改变种植或养殖方式、改变种植或养殖品种及转换谋生方式的比例高于女性。男性选择购买相关气象或气候保险、参加培训或辅导的比例比女性高,而女性选择学习气象灾害和气候变化相关的专业知识比例高于男性。女性对气象服务信息的需求比例比男性高。建议：1)积极推进气候变化及其灾害认知的社会性别研究,建立灾害认知性别数据库,将社会性别融入到气象灾害风险管理的整个过程;2)在气象服务中引入社会性别视角,加强针对女性的宣传和指导,开发适合女性的服务产品和信息传播渠道,提升她们应对灾害的意识和能力。     

北疆地区公众对气候变化认知与适应的性别差异分析

针对位于"一带一路"重点区域的北疆地区民众对气候变化的认知与适应行为开展调查研究,分析当地居民对气候变化的感知和适应情况.结果表明:公众对气候变化的感知较为清晰,女性对气候变化及气象灾害的关注和相对感知强度更高.在适应气候变化引起的干旱缺水方面,"修水库"等基础设施建设的认可度最高,除此之外,男性更倾向于"推广喷灌、滴...     

极端天气和气候事件的变化

自1950年以来的观测证据表明,有些极端天气和气候事件已经发生了变化。全球尺度上,人为影响可能已经导致极端日最低和最高温度升高;由于平均海平面上升,人类活动可能已对沿海极端高水位事件的增加产生了影响;具有中等信度的是,人为影响已导致全球强降水增加;由于热带气旋历史记录的不确定性、缺乏对热带气旋与气候变化之间关联的物理机制的完整认识及热带气旋自然变率的程度,将可检测到的热带气旋活动变化归因于人为影响仅具有低信度。将单一的极端事件变化归因于人为气候变化具有挑战性。对极端事件变化预估的信度取决于事件的类型、区域和季节、观测资料的数量和质量、基本物理过程的认知水平及模式对其模拟的可靠性。     

陕北黄土丘陵沟壑区农户气候变化的适应行为及影响因素分析

从农户个体微观视角,研究农业的活动主体--农户的气候变化适应行为。选择陕北黄土丘陵沟壑区,采用问卷调查和半结构式访谈相结合的方法研究农户气候变化感知与适应行为,运用二元逻辑回归模型分析影响该地区农户适应行为的因素。结果表明：农户对气候变化趋势感知比较一致,认为近5 年夏季和冬季气温升高,降水减少,但与实际观测存在一定偏差。农户应对气候变化采取适应行为的比重并不高,只有57.8% 的农户表示采取了相应的措施来应对气候变化。农户适应行为受气候变化感知的影响,此外,家庭社会经济属性对农户采取适应行为的概率影响显著,而性别、年龄、文化程度等人口属性因素与农户采取适应行为的概率关系不大。     

气候变化对天津市不同节能水平建筑制冷采暖能耗的影响

利用天津市地面气象观测站1961—2017年逐小时观测资料,通过TRNSYS软件,对不同节能水平办公建筑供热和制冷能耗,以及居住建筑供热能耗进行动态模拟,定量评估了气候变化对天津市不同节能水平建筑能耗的影响。结果表明：在供暖期和制冷期,温度均呈现显著上升的趋势,而太阳辐射则呈现下降的趋势,受其影响,1961—2017年办公和居住建筑供热能耗呈现显著下降的趋势,制冷能耗呈现微弱的上升趋势,但气候变化对供热能耗的影响要明显强于制冷能耗;随着建筑节能水平的提升,供热和制冷能耗均有一定程度的下降,其中供热能耗的降幅尤为明显,四步节能居住建筑相比于一步到三步节能居住建筑,供热能耗分别下降了53.56%、50.13%和21.25%。对新建建筑及既有建筑的节能改造,应充分考虑不同节能水平对建筑能耗的影响,结合实际需求酌情进行升级改造。除此之外,建筑节能水平的提升,会使其供热和制冷能耗变化量随温度的上升而减小,说明其对气候变化的敏感性在逐渐减弱。因此,提高建筑节能水平,可以更好的应对气候变化,保证其在未来的使用中耗能更低。     

樱桃种植户对气候变化及气象灾害的适应行为效能感知研究

在全球气候变化及气象灾害频发的背景下,农户的适应行为受到了众多学者的关注,而适应行为的效能感知关系到农户能否准确有效地应对气候变化和气象灾害带来的影响,从而提高适应能力,降低生计风险。基于陕西省白鹿原地区9个村落的相关统计数据,运用计划行为理论和路径分析法辨识樱桃种植户适应行为效能感知的影响因素,继而利用有序logistic回归模型探究樱桃种植户属性、气候变化感知及樱桃不同生长阶段的气象灾害感知对较弱适应行为效能感知的影响机制。结果表明：樱桃种植户的行为态度、主观规范和知觉行为控制对适应行为效能的感知程度都具有显著的正向影响;较弱的适应行为效能感知主要受到樱桃种植户年龄、家庭农业收入、近30年本地气候变暖感知以及本地霜冻感知的显著正向影响。最后,基于以上结论提出了具有针对性的政策建议。     

气候变化与城市全要素生产率：理论与实证

利用1994—2014年中国城市数据探讨气候变化对城市全要素生产率（TFP）的影响。研究发现：气候变化（气温变化和降水量变化）对城市TFP均有负面影响,其中降水量的影响更显著,但对中国东部地区城市的TFP影响不明显;经济发展水平越高的城市,其TFP受气候变化的影响越小,而经济发展水平越低,这种影响就越显著;城市产业结构越趋合理,天气与气候的影响越低,反之则影响越大。其中降水量的变化对三大产业都有影响,对第一产业影响最显著。     

Voluntary citizen participation in carbon allowance markets: the role of norm-based motivation

The results from a semi-experimental study of Swedish students’ stated willingness to purchase emission allowances for carbon dioxide are presented. Drawing heavily on recent developments in the literature on integrating norm-motivated behaviour into neoclassical consumer theory, it is assumed that individuals have a preference for maintaining a self-image as a responsible (and thus norm-compliant) person. The results indicate that students’ willingness to purchase carbon allowances is determined by both price and the presence of norms: those who feel personally responsible for contributing to reducing climate damages also appear more inclined to buy allowances. The empirical findings are consistent with the notion that a person's beliefs about others’ stated willingness to purchase carbon allowances imply improvements in their own self-image and ultimately behavioural change. This suggests that information campaigns that attempt to influence beliefs about others’ intentions could promote ‘green’ consumer behaviour in the carbon allowance market. Such (stated) behaviour also appears to be influenced by a person's awareness of the problem of climate change and their beliefs about their own ability to contribute to solving it.

Policy relevance

Although there is a concern that public goods such as reduced climate change may be under-provided in the free market, individual concern for the environment occasionally has profound impacts on consumer choice and voluntary action. This research suggests that information campaigns that attempt to influence beliefs about others’ intentions could promote ‘green’ consumer behaviour in carbon allowance markets. Publicly-provided information about the impacts of climate change and the ways in which these damages stem from individual choices could also induce this type of behaviour.     

Climate change in arid lands and Native American socioeconomic vulnerability: The case of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe

The case of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe exemplifies tribal vulnerabilities as a result of climate change. Preliminary socio-economic data and analysis reveal that the tribe’s vulnerability to climate change is related to cultural and economic dependence on Pyramid Lake, while external socio-economic vulnerability factors influence adaptive capacity and amplify potential impacts. Reduced water supplies as a consequence of climate change would result in a compounded reduction of inflows to Pyramid Lake, thus potentially impacting the spawning and sustenance of a cultural livelihood, the endangered cui-ui fish (Chasmistes cujus). Meanwhile, limited economic opportunities and dwindling federal support constrain tribal adaptive capacity. Factors that contribute to tribal adaptive capacity include: sustainability-based values, technical capacity for natural resource management, proactive initiatives for the control of invasive-species, strong external scientific networks, and remarkable tribal awareness of climate change.     

Climate change and the agricultural sector in Ireland: examining farmer awareness and willingness to adopt new advisory mitigation tools

Agriculture is responsible for the bulk of Ireland’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, the potential to mitigate some of these emissions through the adoption of more efficient farm management practices may be hampered by farmers’ awareness and attitude towards climate change and agriculture’s role in contributing to GHG emissions. This paper presents results from a survey of 746 Irish farmers in 2014, with a view to understanding farmers’ awareness of, and attitudes to, climate change and GHG emissions. Survey results show that there was a general uncertainty towards a number of questions related to agricultural GHG emissions, e.g. if tilling of land causes GHG emissions, and that farmers were reluctant to take action to reduce GHG emissions on their farm. To further explore farmers’ attitudes towards climate change, a multinomial logit model was used to examine the socio-economic factors that affect farmers’ willingness to adopt an advisory tool that would show the potential reduction in GHG emissions from the adoption of new technologies. Results show that farmers’ awareness of human-induced global climate change was positively related to the tool’s adoption.

Key policy insights

• Irish farmers are generally not sufficiently aware of the impact of their activities on climate change.

• A quarter of farmers believed that climate change will only impact on their business in the long-term; such an attitude may lead to a reluctance amongst these farmers to adopt management practices that reduce GHG emissions.

• Awareness of climate change affects positively the adoption of new tools to reduce GHG emissions on farmers’ farms.

• IT literacy affects willingness to adopt new tools to address GHG emissions.

• Reception of agri-environmental advice can have a positive influence on farmers’ willingness to adopt new GHG emission abatement tools.

• Farmers in receipt of environmental subsidies are more likely to adopt new abatement tools, either because they are more environmentally conscious or because the subsidy raised their environmentally consciousness.

• Willingness to adopt differs between different farm enterprises; operating dairy enterprise increases the willingness to adopt new advisory mitigation tools.

     

Analysis of Climate Change Indicators. Part 2. Northwestern Russia

Data on modern climate and environmental changes in the northwestern region of Russia are compared with the public perception of such changes. The analysis reveals that unusual weather patterns and single extreme events have a deeper impact on the public perception than long-term periods of climate change. The majority of population consider climate and environmental changes locally, do not associate them with global drivers, and are not prepared to adaptation. The numerical climate perception index is developed to characterize the awareness of population about the climate change and preparedness to adaptation. The index can be used for improving the awareness of policymakers for regional climate adaptation.     

Conservative Protestantism and skepticism of scientists studying climate change

Politicians who proclaim both their skepticism about global warming and their conservative religious credentials leave the impression that conservative Protestants may be more skeptical about scientists’ claims regarding global warming than others. The history of the relationship between conservative Protestantism and science on issues such as evolution also suggests that there may be increased skepticism. Analyzing the 2006 and 2010 General Social Survey, we find no evidence that conservative Protestantism leads respondents to have less belief in the conclusiveness of climate scientists’ claims. However, a second type of skepticism of climate scientists is an unwillingness to follow scientists’ public policy recommendations. We find that conservative Protestantism does lead to being less likely to want environmental scientists to influence the public policy debate about what to do about climate change. Existing sociological research on the relationship between religion and science suggests that this stance is due to a long-standing social/moral competition between conservative Protestantism and science.     

Agricultural risk management policies under climate uncertainty

Climate change is forecasted to increase the variability of weather conditions and the frequency of extreme events. Due to potential adverse impacts on crop yields it will have implications for demand of agricultural risk management instruments and farmers’ adaptation strategies. Evidence on climate change impacts on crop yield variability and estimates of production risk from farm surveys in Australia, Canada and Spain, are used to analyse the policy choice between three different types of insurance (individual, area-yield and weather index) and ex post payments. The results are found to be subject to strong uncertainties and depend on the risk profile of different farmers and locations; the paper provides several insights on how to analyse these complexities. In general, area yield performs best more often across our countries and scenarios, in particular for the baseline and marginal climate change (without increases in extreme events). However, area yield can be very expensive if farmers have limited information on how climate change affects yields (misalignment in expectations), and particularly so under extreme climate change scenarios. In these more challenging cases, ex post payments perform well to increase low incomes when the risk is systemic like in Australia; Weather index performs well to reduce the welfare costs of risks when the correlation between yields and index is increased by the extreme events. The paper also analyses the robustness of different instruments in the face of limited knowledge of the probabilities of different climate change scenarios; highlighting that this added layer of uncertainty could be overcome to provide sound policy advice under uncertainties introduced by climate change. The role of providing information to farmers on impacts of climate change emerges as a crucial result of this paper as indicated by the significantly higher budgetary expenditures occurring across all instruments when farmers’ expectations are misaligned relative to actual impacts of climate change.     

Public policy, institutional investors and climate change: a UK case-study

Institutional investors have two important roles to play in encouraging companies to address the risks and take advantage of the opportunities presented by climate change. The first is through using their influence as shareholders to encourage companies to adopt more proactive approaches to managing the risks and opportunities presented by climate change. The second is through explicitly factoring climate change risks and opportunities into ‘mainstream’ investment analysis processes. While there is growing investor activity on the former, the integration of climate change into investment analysis remains confined to sectors where there are strong government incentives (e.g. for renewable energy) or where greenhouse gas emissions have a market price. This article reviews the evolution of UK institutional investor interest in climate change from 1990 to 2005, focusing in particular on the relative contributions of ‘soft’ policy measures such as information-disclosure and awareness raising, and ‘hard’ policy measures such as regulation and market-based instruments. The article concludes that, over this period, soft policy measures played an important role in encouraging investors to discuss climate change issues with companies, but had minimal influence on investment decisions. It was only with the introduction of hard policy measures that climate change started to be systematically factored into investment analysis. The article canvasses the implications of these findings for government efforts in the UK and elsewhere to encourage investors to play a more proactive role in the climate change debate. It also considers the role that institutional investors themselves can play in strengthening public policy measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.     

Activating the legacy motive mitigates intergenerational discounting in the climate game

Climate change will have dangerous impacts on future generations. Accordingly, people in the present have an obligation to make sacrifices for the benefit of future others. However, research on temporal and social discounting shows that people are short-sighted and selfish—they prefer immediate over delayed benefits, and they prefer benefits for themselves over others. Discounting over long-term time horizons is known as intergenerational discounting, and is a major obstacle to climate action. Here, we examine whether persuasive messages that activate the legacy motive—the desire to build a positive legacy—can increase the willingness of current actors to make sacrifices for future generations. Using a climate change public goods game, we find that when the benefits of cooperation accrue to decision makers in the present, high levels of cooperation are sustained, whereas when the benefits accrue to future generations, intergenerational discounting makes cooperation elusive. Crucially, when the legacy motive is activated—by promoting death awareness, feelings of power asymmetry, and intergenerational reciprocity—intergenerational discounting is attenuated, and cooperation is restored. Our results suggest climate action can be fostered by framing climate change as an intergenerational dilemma, and by crafting persuasive messages that activate people’s drive to leave a positive legacy.