Landscape for change? International climate policy and energy transitions: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

What is the role of the climate regime in facilitating rapid decarbonization of the world’s energy systems? We examine how core assumptions concerning the roles of the nation state, carbon markets and finance and technology in international climate policy are being challenged by the realities of how transitions in the energy systems are unfolding. Drawing on the critical region of sub-Saharan Africa, we examine the potential for international climate policy to foster new trajectories towards decarbonization.

Policy relevance

The international regime for climate policy has been in place for some twenty years. Despite significant changes in the landscape of energy systems and drivers of global GHG emissions over this time, the core principles and tools remain relatively stable – national governments, carbon markets, project-based climate finance and the transfer of technological hardware. Given the diversity of actors and drivers and the limited direct reach and influence of international climate policy, however, there is an urgent need to consider how the climate regime can best support the embryonic transitions that are slowly taking form around the world. To do this effectively requires a more nuanced understanding of the role of the state in governing these transitions beyond the notion of a cohesive state serving as rule-enforcer and transition manager. It also requires a broader view of technology, not just as hardware that is transferred, but as a set of practices and networks of expertise and enabling actors. Likewise, though markets have an important role to play as vehicles for achieving broader ends, they are not an end in themselves. Finally on finance, while acknowledging the important role of climate aid, often as a multiplier or facilitator of more ambitious private flows, it is critical to differentiate between the types of finance required for different transitions, many of which will not be counted under, or directed by, the climate regime. In sum, the (low-) carbon economy is being built in ways and in numerous sites that the climate regime needs to be cognizant of and engage with productively, and this may require fundamental reconsideration of the building blocks of the international climate regime.     

Emplacement mechanisms of the South Kona slide complex,Hawaii Island: sampling and observations by remotely operated vehicle Kaiko

Emplacement of a giant submarine slide complex, offshore of South Kona, Hawaii Island, was investigated in 2001 by visual observation and in-situ sampling on the bench scarp and a megablock, during two dives utilizing the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Kaiko and its mother ship R/V Kairei. Topography of the bench scarp and megablocks were defined in 3-D perspective, using high-resolution digital bathymetric data acquired during the cruise. Compositions of 34 rock samples provide constraints on the landslide source regions and emplacement mechanisms. The bench scarp consists mainly of highly fractured, vesiculated, and oxidized aa lavas that slumped from the subaerial flank of ancestral Mauna Loa. The megablock contains three units: block facies, matrix facies, and draped sediment. The block facies contains hyaloclastite interbedded with massive lava, which slid from the shallow submarine flank of ancestral Mauna Loa, as indicated by glassy groundmass of the hyaloclastite, low oxidation state, and low sulfur content. The matrix facies, which directly overlies the block facies and is similar to a lahar deposit, is thought to have been deposited from the water column immediately after the South Kona slide event. The draped sediment is a thin high-density turbidite layer that may be a distal facies of the Alika-2 debris-avalanche deposit; its composition overlaps with rocks from subaerial Mauna Loa. The deposits generated by the South Kona slide vary from debris avalanche deposit to turbidite. Spatial distribution of the deposits is consistent with deposits related to large landslides adjacent to other Hawaiian volcanoes and the Canary Islands.     

Transient sediment supply in a high‐altitude Alpine environment evidenced through a 10Be budget of the Etages catchment (French Western Alps)

Although beryllium‐10 (¹⁰Be) concentrations in stream sediments provide useful synoptic views of catchment‐wide erosion rates, little is known on the relative contributions of different sediment supply mechanisms to the acquisition of their initial signature in the headwaters. Here we address this issue by conducting a ¹⁰Be‐budget of detrital materials that characterize the morphogenetic domains representative of high‐altitude environments of the European Alps. We focus on the Etages catchment, located in the Ecrins‐Pelvoux massif (southeast France), and illustrate how in situ ¹⁰Be concentrations can be used for tracing the origin of the sand fraction from the bedload in the trunk stream. The landscape of the Etages catchment is characterized by a geomorphic transient state, high topographic gradients, and a large variety of modern geomorphic domains ranging from glacial environments to scarcely vegetated alluvial plains. Beryllium‐10 concentrations measured in the Etages catchment vary from ~1 × 10⁴ to 4.5 × 10⁵ atoms per gram quartz, while displaying consistent ¹⁰Be signatures within each representative morphogenetic unit. We show that the basic requirements for inferring catchment‐wide denudation from ¹⁰Be concentration measurements are not satisfied in this small, dynamic catchment. However, the distinct ¹⁰Be signature observed for the geomorphic domains can be used as a tracer. We suggest that a terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) budget approach provides a valuable tool for the tracing of material origin in basins where the ‘let nature do the averaging’ principles may be violated. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Soil water residence times and solute uptake on a dolomite bedrock—preliminary results

Calcium and magnesium levels have been monitored in slope foot drainage waters on a dolomite bedrock. Both calcium and magnesium rich pulses occur. Short term dissolution experiments demonstrate high calcium levels in solution while other authors have suggested that long residence time groundwater has relatively high levels of magnesium due to calcite precipitation. Patterns of field fluctuations in Ca: Mg ratios can thus be tentatively interpreted in terms of short residence time water of high calcium content mixing with long residence time water of high magnesium content. Fluorometric dye tracing has been used to indicate the orders of magnitude of soil water residence times, suggesting that quickflow components are resident in the system for a few hours to a few days. Further work is in progress.     

Continuous injection model for hard X-ray correlated microwave bursts

Asymmetric magnetic field configurations in solar active regions hinder mildly relativistic electrons with magnetic moments suitable to produce microwave radiation from being trapped. Therefore the duration of stay of electrons in the microwave source region is much shorter (<0.2 s) than in the usually assumed trapping models. On this basis we construct a consistent model of hard X-ray correlated microwave bursts due to continuous injection of electrons into a pole field of an asymmetric magnetic loop (Figures 1 and 2). This resolves the discrepancy of the numbers of electrons needed to produce X-ray and radio emission.We compute gyrosynchrotron spectra with the assumption of conservation of the magnetic moment M in the microwave source. The consequence is an anticorrelation between the low frequency power index a of the microwave spectrum and the power index of the hard X-ray spectrum. In fact during the flare of May 18, 1972 increases with time while a is decreasing, so that +a= constant. Furthermore, it is shown that electrons with energies below 100 keV contribute significantly to the microwave radiation; they determine the low frequency spectrum completely.The model is able to explain the most often observed type C-spectra (Guidice and Castelli, 1975), but also flat spectra over one frequency decade.On leave from University of Berne, Institute of Applied Physics.     

Spatially explicit modelling of the impact of climate changes on pasture production in the North Island,New Zealand

To assess the potential impact of climate changes on pasture production in the North Island, New Zealand, eight climate scenarios of increased temperature and increased (or decreased) rainfall were investigated by integrating a polynomial regression model for pasture production with a Geographic Information System (GIS). The results indicated that the climate change scenarios assuming an increase in temperature by 1–2°C and a rainfall change by −20 to +20% would have a very significant impact on pasture production with a predicted pasture production variation from −46.2 to +51.9% compared with the normal climate from 1961–1990. Increased temperature would generally have a positive effect on pasture production in the south and southeast of the North Island, and increased rainfall would have a positive effect in the central, south and southeast of the North Island and a negative effect in the north of the North Island. The interaction of decreased rainfall and increased temperature would have a negative impact for the whole North Island except some central areas with high rainfall. Relevant management practices for coping with potential climate change are discussed.     

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans in sediments from Hong Kong

Concentrations of 2,3,7,8-substituted polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) were determined in 14 sediment samples collected from four sites in the Mai Po Marshes Nature Reserve (within a RAMSAR Site) and from another six sites in Victoria Harbour and along the Hong Kong coastline. Elevated levels of PCDDs, and particularly OCDD, were detectable in all samples collected from the Mai Po Marshes and five of the six sites. In contrast to PCDDs, PCDFs were mainly found in sediment samples collected from industrial areas (Kwun Tong and To Kwa Wan) in Victoria Harbour. PCDD/F levels and congener profiles in the samples from the Mai Po Marshes Nature Reserve in particular show strong similarities to those reported in studies which have attributed similar elevated PCDD concentrations to nonanthropogenic PCDD sources.     

Alkylation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in carbonaceous chondrites

Using microprobe laser-desorption, laser-ionization mass spectrometry (μL²MS), we measured the distributions of alkylated and unalkylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the free organic material of 20 carbonaceous chondrites. These meteorites represent a variety of meteorite classes and alteration histories, including CI, CK, CM, CO, CR, CV, and Tagish Lake. This work provides information on free organic compounds that is complementary to studies of the structure and composition of meteoritic macromolecular content.For the nine CM2 meteorites analyzed, we observe that higher relative abundances of alkylated PAHs correlate with more intense aqueous activity. We attribute this correlation to the differences in solubility and volatility between unalkylated and alkylated PAHs. Naphthalene and its alkylation series are more susceptible to the effects of aqueous exposure than the less-soluble PAH phenanthrene and its alkylated derivatives. These observations are consistent with the possibility of chromatographic separations on the meteorite parent bodies. We identify six CM2 meteorites with similar PAH distributions that may represent the original, unaltered organic composition of the parent body.Increased metamorphic intensity reduces the abundance of all PAHs. The thermally metamorphosed CK chondrites had no detectable levels of typical meteoritic PAHs. This observation might be explained either by a loss of PAHs caused by volatilization or by a significantly different organic content of the CK parent body.     

On a transformation of the differential equations of the lunar theory

This work contains a transformation of Hill-Brown differential equations for the coordinates of the satellite to a type which can be integrated in a literal form using an analytical programming language. The differential equation for the parallax of the satellite is also established. Its use facilitates the computation of Hill's periodic intermediary orbit of the satellite and provides a good check for the expansion of the coordinates and frequencies. The knowledge of the expansion of the parallax facilitates the formation of differential equations for terms with a given characteristic. These differential equations are put into a form which favors the solution by means of iteration on the computer. As in the classical theory we obtain the expansions of the coordinates and of the parallax in the form of trigonometric series in four arguments and in powers of the constants of integration. We expand the differential operators into series in squares of the constants of integration. Only the terms of order zero in these expansions are employed in the integration of the differential equations. The remaining terms are responsible for producing the cross-effects between the perturbations of different order. By applying the averaging operator to the right sides of the differential equations we deduce the expansion of the frequencies in powers of squares of the constants of integration.Basic Notations f the gravitational constant - E the mass of the planet - M the mass of the satellite - t dynamical time - x, y, z planetocentric coordinates of the satellite - u x+y–1 - s x–y–1 - the planetocentric distance of the satellite - w 1/ - ₀ the variational part of - w ₀ the variational part ofw, - n the mean daily sidereal motion of the satellite - a the mean semi-major axis of the satellite defined by means of the Kepler relation:a ³ n ²=f(E+M) - a the mean semi-major axis defined as the constant factor attached to the variational solution - e the constant of the eccentricity of the satellite - the sine of one half the orbital inclination of the satellite relative to the orbit of the sun - c(n–n) the anomalistic frequency of the satellite - c ₀ the part ofc independent frome,e, and - g(n–n) the draconitic frequency of the satellite, - g ₀ the part ofg independent frome,e, and - exp (n–n)t–1 - D d/d - e the eccentricity of the solar planetocentric orbit - a the semi-major axis of the solar orbit - n the mean daily motion of the sun in its orbit around the planet - m n/(n–n) - a/a-the parallactic factor - the disturbing function