An emission intensity protocol for climate change: an application of FUND

Abstract

An emission intensity protocol to govern long-term international greenhouse gas emission reduction is proposed. The protocol may also be interpreted as a technology protocol. The protocol consists of three parameters: a graduation income, below which countries have no emission reduction obligations; a convergence rate, at which emission intensities should approach that of the most carbon-extensive countries; and an acceleration rate, at which the most carbon-extensive countries should improve their technology over and above the business-asusual scenario. Depending on the parameter values, emission reduction ranges from draconian to almost nil. The graduation income and acceleration rate have the expected effects. The effect of the convergence rate is strongly scenario-dependent; some scenarios, perhaps unrealistically, assume strong technological convergence in the nopolicy case; in other scenarios, adopting ‘best commercial technology in the whole world’ would lead to substantial emission reduction. Not surprisingly, different regions prefer different parameters in the emission intensity protocol. Adopting the opinion of the median voter, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in the year 2200 would be reduced from 1650 to 950 ppm. This reduction is relatively robust to changes in crucial model parameters. The costs of complying with the emission intensity protocol can be reduced substantially through international trade in emission permits and, in particular, by banking and borrowing.     

Considering attitudinal uncertainty in the climate change skepticism continuum

In this paper we present an empirically driven language to discuss climate change skepticism. We conceptualize skeptic/skepticism as an umbrella term that includes those who actively reject climate science and those who are uncertain about climate change. We propose four categories for better empirical analysis of climate skepticism: epistemic deniers, epistemic doubters (borrowing from Capstick and Pidgeon 2014), attribution deniers, and attribution doubters (borrowing from Rahmstorf 2004). Using a unique dataset of surveys (n = 1000) and interviews (n = 33) with residents of the U.S. Pacific Northwest who are skeptical about climate change, we compare those four groups across several predictors and demographic variables (age, race, gender, political ideology, religiosity, income, education, and level of trust in science) and outcome variables (environmental concern, policy support, and conspiracy ideation (adherence to the belief that climate change is a “hoax”). We demonstrate the importance of considering attitudinal uncertainty in the analysis of climate skepticism by providing evidence for the presence of a continuum of thought wherein epistemic deniers and attribution doubters make up the two ends of a continuum with more complicated distinctions between epistemic doubters and attribution deniers.     

Compounds, creativity and complexity in climate change communication: The case of ‘carbon indulgences’

This article deals with climate change from a linguistic perspective. Climate change is an extremely complex issue that has exercised the minds of experts and policy makers with renewed urgency in recent years. It has prompted an explosion of writing in the media, on the internet and in the domain of popular science and literature, as well as a proliferation of new compounds around the word ‘carbon’ as a hub, such as ‘carbon indulgence’, a new compound that will be studied in this article. Through a linguistic analysis of lexical and discourse formations around such ‘carbon compounds’ we aim to contribute to a broader understanding of the meaning of climate change. Lexical carbon compounds are used here as indicators for observing how human symbolic cultures change and adapt in response to environmental threats and how symbolic innovation and transmission occurs.     

‘Energy security’ and ‘climate change’: Constructing UK energy discursive realities

Recently, in the United Kingdom, two issues have dominated the energy policy agenda: effective climate change mitigation and energy security. Whilst evolving government policy has led to government support for new build nuclear power as part of the nation's future energy mix, limited attention has been devoted to examining how arguments were constructed to lead ‘naturally’ to nuclear new build as an option for addressing these two issues. Using Critical Discourse Analysis this paper analyses the struggles within the climate change mitigation and energy security discourses in generating and/or replacing meanings. In particular, it examines how construction of the dominant (hegemonic) discourses led ‘naturally’ to the necessity of new build nuclear power. This paper draws upon 24 stakeholder interviews to examine the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses. It outlines how climate change and energy security were perceived as motivators for energy policy; it shows how the combination of the dominant construction of climate change as an environmental issue and the construction of energy security as a ‘gas gap’ lent weight to the argument for nuclear new build. Struggling against these discourses is a counter-hegemonic discourse centred around climate change as a symptom of unsustainability and energy security as a lack of energy diversity. The latter, rather than ‘naturally’ proposing an urgent need for nuclear new build, lead to the argument for readdressing the focus of, and use of resources by, society - reducing energy demand and increasing energy supply diversity.     

‘Strange changes’: Indigenous perspectives of climate change and adaptation in NE Arnhem Land (Australia)

Despite growing global attention to the development of strategies and policy for climate change adaptation, there has been little allowance for input from Indigenous people. In this study we aimed to improve understanding of factors important in integration of Yolngu perspectives in planning adaptation policy in North East Arnhem Land (Australia). We conducted workshops and in-depth interviews in two ‘communities’ to develop insight into Yolngu peoples’ observations and perspectives on climate change, and their ideas and preferences for adaptation. All participants reported observing changes in their ecological landscape, which they attributed to mining, tourism ‘development’, and climate change. ‘Strange changes’ noticed particularly in the last five years, had caused concern and anxiety among many participants. Despite their concern about ecological changes, participants were primarily worried about other issues affecting their community's general welfare. The results suggest that strategies and policies are needed to strengthen adaptive capacity of communities to mitigate over-arching poverty and well-being issues, as well as respond to changes in climate. Participants believed that major constraints to strengthening adaptive capacity had external origins, at regional, state and federal levels. Examples are poor communication and engagement, top-down institutional processes that allow little Indigenous voice, and lack of recognition of Indigenous culture and practices. Participants’ preferences for strategies to strengthen community adaptive capacity tended to be those that lead towards greater self-sufficiency, independence, empowerment, resilience and close contact with the natural environment. Based on the results, we developed a simple model to highlight main determinants of community vulnerability. A second model highlights components important in facilitating discourse on enhancing community capacity to adapt to climatic and other stressors.     

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.     

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。     

将适应气候变化纳入国土空间规划：进展、困境与思路

空间规划是适应气候变化的重要政策工具之一,将适应气候变化目标纳入空间规划已经成为国际主流政策。中国适应气候变化的空间规划仍面临诸多问题和挑战,包括气候适应目标和理念薄弱、气候变化风险评估与空间规划尺度不匹配、适应和减缓策略的协同机制欠缺、技术标准和法律法规不完善等。文章结合国家适应气候变化战略和国土空间规划体系重构的目标要求,研究提出适应气候变化导向的国土空间规划框架体系和技术思路,以及将适应气候变化纳入空间规划编制审批、技术标准、实施监督以及法规政策等各个环节的思路与建议,以期通过空间规划的编制与监督实施促进适应气候变化目标的实现。     

可计算一般均衡框架下的气候变化经济影响综合评估

气候变化是21世纪人类面临的重大挑战之一,并对自然系统和社会经济系统造成了各种负面影响。对气候变化的影响进行经济评估是气候变化研究中的重要问题。而可计算一般均衡框架下的综合评估模型（CGE_IAMs）是评估气候变化经济影响的有效手段之一,文中对气候变化影响经济评估的主要CGE_IAMs进行了文献调研,并对这些模型进行了比较分析。研究表明不同模型在温室气体排放、气候参数的处理方式以及气候影响的引入机制等方面有着较大区别,因而各模型对气候变化影响的经济评估结果也有一定的差异。此外,当前CGE_IAMs在评估气候变化经济影响时存在支撑数据未及时更新、方法不细致以及评估不全面等问题。未来该领域的相关研究应该更加关注于模型与支撑数据的精细化和开源化,此外还应加强CGE_IAMs中经济模块与复杂气候模式的耦合。     

OK Boomer: A decade of generational differences in feelings about climate change

The emergence of concern about and evidence of climate change has been argued to create a cultural milieu unique to the Millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996) and iGeneration (aka iGens or Generation Z born after 1997). The present research tested a) claims of unique angst about climate change among younger versus older generations, b) growing generational discrepancies over time in emotions about climate change, c) generational differences for several emotions about climate change, and d) the implications of these emotions for motivating people to discuss climate change with others, potentially aiding coping with climate change and facilitating action to address climate change. Survey data gathered from 2010 to 2019 of a representative sample of United States residents (N = 22,468) document greater increases in worry about climate change and, to a lesser degree, anger and guilt about climate change, within the two youngest generations relative to changes among Generation X, Baby Boomers, and the Silent and Greatest Generations. Although generational differences were small and suggest overstatements of unique effects for younger generations, increases in younger generations’ emotions transform into the two youngest generations reporting the strongest emotions in 2019. Over ten years, these differential shifts in emotions explain more substantial increases in the frequency of discussing climate in the youngest generations.     

气候变化综合评估模型的损失函数研究进展

该研究从综合评估模型(IAM)的模型耦合视角出发,介绍了当前损失函数的研究进展,主要从损失函数的构建方法、损失函数与IAM气候模块和经济模块的耦合以及IAM与气候模式的耦合角度分析了损失函数的耦合功能及其存在的科学问题,探讨了损失函数的改进方向。通过文献梳理发现,损失函数的构建方法上,主要采用专家判断法、元分析法和统计学方法,但各有优缺点;与气候模式的耦合功能上,损失函数多以温升为气候变化因素,降水等气候变化信息无法表达,且由全球尺度的年平均值进行标定,不能体现区域的差异和季节的变化,无法直接描述极端气候事件造成的巨大损失;与经济模块的耦合功能上,基于生产部门的损失函数缺乏间接损失评估功能,缺乏对经济增长的动态影响机制。针对上述IAM中气候变化对经济影响的反馈机制的不足,需重点从细化区域气候变化因素影响和细分经济产业部门两个方向重构损失函数,紧密连接气候模式与经济模块,全面评估气候变化经济损失,并需要从技术上解决损失函数在耦合经济模块与气候模式时出现的时空尺度不匹配问题,最终为IAM与气候模式甚至地球系统模式的耦合提供重要的解决方案。     

The economics of climate change in Mexico: implications for national/regional policy

The recent Mexican government study, The Economics of Climate Change in Mexico (ECCM), which has largely influenced Mexico's stance on climate change issues and international negotiations, is critically reviewed. Whilst the importance of such government-supported national studies as a first attempt to provide estimates on the anticipated costs of climate change is recognized, there is scope to strengthen the underlying analysis. It is argued that some of the key policy recommendations of ECCM are weakly supported by its analysis, that it has some methodological weaknesses, and that there are inconsistencies with the approach adopted in the Stern Review. Furthermore, it is likely that the estimated costs severely under-represent future climate change damages in the case of Mexico, which could deter drastic mitigation and adaptation efforts. New estimates of the costs of climate change are presented based on the impact functions of two integrated assessment models.

Policy relevance

Due to its large influence in building a regional view of what climate change could imply for Latin America, the analysis of the ECCM highlights the need to strengthen the analysis of national climate documents to ensure they properly support national/regional policy making. The academic evaluation of national climate change documents is a necessary prerequisite for the development of sound climate policy.     

The economics of inaction on climate change: a sensitivity analysis

Abstract

Economic models of climate change often take the problem seriously, but paradoxically conclude that the optimal policy is to do almost nothing about it. We explore this paradox as seen in the widely used DICE model. Three aspects of that model, involving the discount rate, the assumed benefits of moderate warming, and the treatment of the latest climate science, are sufficient to explain the timidity of the model's optimal policy recommendation. With modifications to those three points, DICE shows that the optimal policy is a much higher and rapidly rising marginal carbon price; and that higher carbon price has a greater effect on physical measures of climate impacts. Our modifications exhibit nonlinear interactions; at least at low discount rates, there is synergy between individual changes to the model. At low discount rates, the inherent uncertainty about future damages looms larger in the analysis, rendering long-run economic modelling less useful. Our analysis highlights the sensitivity of the model to three debatable assumptions; it does not, and could not, lead to a more reliably ‘optimal’ cost of carbon. Cost-effectiveness analysis, focusing on the generally shorter-term cost side of the problem, reduces the economic paradoxes of the long run, and may make a greater contribution than economic optimization modelling.     

The contribution of future agricultural trends in the US Midwest to global climate change mitigation

Land use change is a complex response to changing environmental and socioeconomic systems. Historical drivers of land use change include changes in the natural resource availability of a region, changes in economic conditions for production of certain products and changing policies. Most recently, introduction of policy incentives for biofuel production have influenced land use change in the US Midwest, leading to concerns that bioenergy production systems may compete with food production and land conservation. Here we explore how land use may be impacted by future climate mitigation measures by nesting a high resolution agricultural model (EPIC – Environmental Policy Indicator Climate) for the US Midwest within a global integrated assessment model (GCAM – Global Change Assessment Model). This approach is designed to provide greater spatial resolution and detailed agricultural practice information by focusing on the climate mitigation potential of agriculture and land use in a specific region, while retaining the global economic context necessary to understand the far ranging effects of climate mitigation targets. We find that until the simulated carbon prices are very high, the US Midwest has a comparative advantage in producing traditional food and feed crops over bioenergy crops. Overall, the model responds to multiple pressures by adopting a mix of future responses. We also find that the GCAM model is capable of simulations at multiple spatial scales and agricultural technology resolution, which provides the capability to examine regional response to global policy and economic conditions in the context of climate mitigation.     

‘Earth system governance’ as a crosscutting theme of global change research

In 2001, the four global change research programmes ‘urgently’ called for ‘an ethical framework for global stewardship and strategies for Earth System management’. Yet this notion of ‘earth system management’ remains vaguely defined: It is too elusive for natural scientists, and too ambitious or too normative for social scientists. In this article, I develop an alternative concept that is better grounded in social science theory: ‘earth system governance’. I introduce, first, the concept of earth system governance as a new social phenomenon, a political programme and a crosscutting theme of research in the field of global environmental change. I then sketch the five key problem structures that complicate earth system governance, and derive from these four overarching principles for earth system governance as political practice, namely credibility, stability, adaptiveness, and inclusiveness. In the last part of the article, I identify five research and governance challenges that lie at the core of earth system governance as a crosscutting theme in global change research. These are the problems of the overall architecture of earth system governance, of agency beyond the state, of the adaptiveness of governance mechanisms and of their accountability and legitimacy, and of the modes of allocation in earth system governance—in short, the five A's of earth system governance research.     

Adaptive and risk-based approaches to climate change and the management of uncertainty and institutional risk: The case of future flooding in England

This paper focuses on how scientific uncertainties about future peak flood flows and sea level rises are accounted for in long term strategic planning processes to adapt inland and coastal flood risk management in England to climate change. Combining key informant interviews (n = 18) with documentary analysis, it explores the institutional tensions between adaptive management approaches emphasising openness to uncertainty and to alternative policy options on the one hand and risk-based ones that close them down by transforming uncertainties into calculable risks whose management can be rationalized through cost-benefit analysis and nationally consistent, risk-based priority setting on the other hand. These alternative approaches to managing uncertainty about the first-order risks to society from future flooding are shaped by institutional concerns with managing the second-order, ‘institutional’ risks of criticism and blame arising from accountability for discharging those first-order risk management responsibilities. In the case of river flooding the poorly understood impacts of future climate change were represented with a simplistic adjustment to peak flow estimates, which proved robust in overcoming institutional resistance to making precautionary allowances for climate change in risk-based flood management, at least in part because its scientific limitations were acknowledged only partially. By contrast in the case of coastal flood risk management, greater scientific confidence led to successively more elaborate guidance on how to represent the science, which in turn led to inconsistency in implementation and increased the institutional risks involved in taking the uncertain effects of future sea level rise into account in adaptation planning and flood risk management. Comparative analysis of these two cases then informs some wider reflections about the tensions between adaptive and risk-based approaches, the role of institutional risk in climate change adaptation, and the importance of such institutional dynamics in shaping the framing uncertainties and policy responses to scientific knowledge about them.     

The discourses of climate change science: Scientific reporting,climate negotiations and the case of Papua New Guinea

This paper analyses climate science as a discourse to reveal how it enables and constrains climate change negotiations and action. Focusing on long-term outcomes projected in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report and the World Bank’s “Turn Down the Heat” reports, this paper examines processes of discourse structuration and institutionalization to identify the dominant discourses which frame climate action. We trace the dominant discourses identified in the scientific reports – Survivalism, Ecological Modernisation and Economic Rationalism – through the Paris Agreement and selected Leader Statements and Intended Nationally Determined Contributions from COP21. From the 24 states included in this analysis, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is developed as a case study to investigate the hybridity and institutionalization of discourses. Even though PNG’s rhetoric and commitments at COP21 express Survivalism, the state’s policy frameworks rarely move beyond solutions found in Economic Rationalism and Ecological Modernisation. This suggests that states strategically adopt hybrid discourses drawn from climate science in line with their positionality, political economy and interests. Understanding how discourses drawn from climate science manifest in national policies has significant implications not only for how science is communicated at the international level but also for understanding different state positions in the global climate governance regime.     

Asking about climate change: Reflections on methodology in qualitative climate change research published in Global Environmental Change since 2000

There is increasing evidence that climate change will strongly affect people across the globe. Likely impacts of and adaptations to climate change are drawing the attention of researchers from many disciplines. In adaptation research focus is often on perceptions of climate change and on vulnerability and adaptation strategies in a particular region or community. But how do we research the ways in which people experience changing climatic conditions, the processes of decision-making, the actual adaptation strategies carried out and the consequences of these for actors living and dealing with climate change? On the basis of a literature review of all articles published in Global Environmental Change between 2000 and 2012 that deal with human dimensions of climate change using qualitative methods this paper provides some answers but also raises some concerns. The period and length of fieldwork and the number and types of interviews conducted are, for example, not always clear. Information on crucial aspects of qualitative research like researcher positionality, social positions of key informants, the use of field assistants, language issues and post-fieldwork treatment of data is also lacking in many articles. We argue that this lack of methodological information and reflections is particularly problematic in an interdisciplinary field such as climate change research and journals such as Global Environmental Change and that clearer communication is key to facilitate truly interdisciplinary dialogue.     

用 IAP／LASG GOALS模式模拟CO2增加引起的东亚地区气候变化

Two simulations, one for the control run and another for the perturbation run, with a global coupled ocean-atmosphere-land system model (IAP / LASG GOALS version 4) have been carried out to study the global warming, with much detailed emphasis on East Asia. Results indicate that there is no climate drift in the control run and at the time of CO2 doubling the global temperature increases about 1.65℃. The GOALS model is able to simulate the observed spatial distribution and annual cycles of temperature and precipitation for East Asia quite well. But, in general, the model underestimates temperature and overestimates rainfall amount for regional annual average. For the climate change in East Asia, the temperature and precipitation in East Asia increase 2. l℃ and 5% respectively, and the maximum warming occurs at middle-latitude continent and the maximum precipitation increase occurs around 25°N with reduced precipitation in the tropical western Pacific.     

Public microblogging on climate change: One year of Twitter worldwide

Public perceptions of climate change are traditionally measured through surveys. The exploding popularity of social networks, however, presents a new opportunity to research the spatiotemporal pattern of public discourse in relation to natural and/or socio-economic events. Among the social networks, Twitter is one of the largest microblogging services. The architecture of Twitter makes the question “what's happening?” the cornerstone of information exchange. This inspired the notion of using Twitter users as distributed sensors, which has been successfully employed in both the natural and social sciences. In 2012 and 2013, we collected 1.8 million tweets on “climate change” and “global warming” in five major languages (English, German, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish). We discuss the geography of tweeting, weekly and daily patterns, major news events that affected tweeting on climate change, changes in the central topics of discussion over time, the most authoritative traditional media, blogging, and the most authoritative organizational sources of information on climate change referenced by Twitter users in different countries. We anticipate that social network mining will become a major source of data in the public discourse on climate change.