Escaping the climate policy uncertainty trap: options contracts for REDD+

Climate policy uncertainty significantly hinders investments in low-carbon technologies, and the global community is behind schedule to curb carbon emissions. Strong actions will be necessary to limit the increase in global temperatures, and continued delays create risks of escalating climate change damages and future policy costs. These risks are system-wide, long-term and large-scale and thus hard to diversify across firms. Because of its unique scale, cost structure and near-term availability, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries (REDD+) has significant potential to help manage climate policy risks and facilitate the transition to lower greenhouse gas emissions. ‘Call’ options contracts in the form of the right but not the obligation to buy high-quality emissions reduction credits from jurisdictional REDD+ programmes at a predetermined price per ton of CO₂ could help unlock this potential despite the current lack of carbon markets that accept REDD+ for compliance. This approach could provide a globally important cost-containment mechanism and insurance for firms against higher future carbon prices, while channelling finance to avoid deforestation until policy uncertainties decline and carbon markets scale up.

Key policy insights

• Climate policy uncertainty discourages abatement investments, exposing firms to an escalating systemic risk of future rapid increases in emission control expenditures.

• This situation poses a risk of an abatement ‘short squeeze,’ paralleling the case in financial markets when prices jump sharply as investors rush to square accounts on an investment they have sold ‘short’, one they have bet against and promised to repay later in anticipation of falling prices.

• There is likely to be a willingness to pay for mechanisms that hedge the risks of abruptly rising carbon prices, in particular for ‘call’ options, the right but not the obligation to buy high-quality emissions reduction credits at a predetermined price, due to the significantly lower upfront capital expenditure compared to other hedging alternatives.

• Establishing rules as soon as possible for compliance market acceptance of high-quality emissions reductions credits from REDD+ would facilitate REDD+ transactions, including via options-based contracts, which could help fill the gap of uncertain climate policies in the short and medium term.

     

On the precision and accuracy of IGS orbits

In order to explore the precision and accuracy of International GNSS Service (IGS) orbits, we difference geocentric satellite positions midway between successive daily Final orbits for the period starting 5 November 2006, when the IGS switched its method of antenna calibration, through 31 December 2007. This yields a time series of orbit repeatabilities analogous to the classical geodetic test for position determinations. If we compare our average positional discontinuities to the official IGS accuracy codes, root-sum-squared (RSS) for each pair of days, we find the discontinuities are not well correlated with the predicted performance values. If instead the IGS weighted root-mean-square (WRMS) values from the Final combination long-arc analyses are taken as the measure of IGS accuracy, we find the position differences and long-arc values are correlated, but the long-arc values are exaggerated, particularly around eclipses, despite the fact that our day-boundary position differences apply to a single epoch each day and the long-arc analyses consider variations over a week. Our method is not well suited to probe the extent to which systematic effects dominate over random orbit errors, as indicated by satellite laser ranging residuals, but eclipsing satellites often display the most problematic behavior. A better metric than the current IGS orbit accuracy codes would probably be one based on the orbit discontinuities between successive days.     

Distribution,Abundance, and Habitat Characterization of the Saltmarsh Topminnow, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fundulus jenkinsi</Emphasis> (Everman 1892)

The saltmarsh topminnow (Fundulus jenkinsi) is federally listed as a Species of Concern due to a its rarity, impacts from human activities, and lack of information on its biology and ecology. From 2007 through 2008, we used Breder traps to fish the marsh edge on a falling tide in four regions from Louisiana through the Florida panhandle during winter, spring, and summer periods. Out of 2,108 Breder traps deployed, 661 F. jenkinsi were collected as far east as Escambia Bay, Florida, with Weeks Bay, National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), Alabama, yielding the highest F. jenkinsi abundance. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to ordinate physical–chemical data into two meaningful components: a geomorphic axis (water depth, bank slope, and plant stem density) and a seasonal/spatial axis of species occurrence (water temperature, salinity, and turbidity). PCA showed a higher mean catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) in environments comprised of low to moderate stem density (<25 stems/0.25 m⁻²), depth (<25 cm), bank slope (<15°), turbidity (<30 NTU), and salinity (<16) coupled with spring and early summer water temperatures (>15°C). F. jenkinsi CPUE was significantly higher in Spartina cynosuroides marsh edge compared with five other habitat types, even though it was one of the least sampled habitats. This species appears to be collected more frequently and in higher CPUE in small dendritic creeks off of main channels than suggested by our previous work in main channel edge habitat. This suggests that small creeks are important vectors for marsh access and supports the value of the dendritic nature of salt marshes to marsh residents.     

Coexisting clinopyroxene,garnet and amphibole from an “eclogite”, Kakanui,New Zealand

Analyses of major and rare earth elements are presented for co-existing garnet, clinopyroxene, and amphibole from a Kakanui eclogite.New and previously published analyses of garnets suggest a gradual increase of Fe and decrease of Mg from xenocrysts through garnet pyroxene eclogitic rocks to amphibole-rich eclogitic rocks. Clinopyroxenes show a parallel increase in Fe/Mg ratio and an increase in Jadeite component and decrease in Tschermak's component. These data indicate crystallization of garnet and clinopyroxene from an alkali-rich undersaturated magma and are consistent with the concept of eclogite fractionation, but rare earth data allow severe constraints to be placed on this process. The eclogites are considered to be deep-seated crystallization products of nephelinite, but eclogite fractionation is small and cannot account for the association of alkali basalt, basanite and nephelinite.     

Methods for Estimating Air–Sea Fluxes of CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> Using High-Frequency Measurements

The most direct method for flux estimation uses eddy covariance, which is also the most commonly used method for land-based measurements of surface fluxes. Moving platforms are frequently used to make measurements over the sea, in which case motion can disturb the measurements. An alternative method for flux estimation should be considered if the effects of platform motion cannot be properly corrected for. Three methods for estimating CO₂ fluxes are studied here: the eddy-covariance, the inertial-dissipation, and the cospectral-peak methods. High-frequency measurements made at the land-based Östergarnsholm marine station in the Baltic Sea and measurements made from a ship during the Galathea 3 expedition are used. The Kolmogorov constant for CO₂, used in the inertial-dissipation method, is estimated to be 0.68 and is determined using direct flux measurements made at the Östergarnsholm site. The cospectral-peak method, originally developed for neutral stratification, is modified to be applicable in all stratifications. With these modifications, the CO₂ fluxes estimated using the three methods agree well. Using data from the Östergarnsholm site, the mean absolute error between the eddy-covariance and inertial-dissipation methods is 0.25 μmol  m^?2 s^?1. The corresponding mean absolute error between the eddy-covariance and cospectral-peak methods is 0.26 μmol m^?2 s^?1, while between the inertial-dissipation and cospectral-peak methods it is 0.14 μmol m^?2 s^?1.     

Global GPS data analysis at the National Geodetic Survey

NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has been one of the Analysis Centers (ACs) of the International GNSS Service (IGS) since its inception in 1994. Solutions for daily GPS orbits and Earth orientation parameters are regularly contributed to the IGS Rapid and Final products, as well as solutions of weekly station positions. These solutions are combined with those of the other ACs and then the resultant IGS products are distributed to users. To perform these tasks, NGS has developed and refined the Program for the Adjustment of GPS EphemerideS (PAGES) software. Although PAGES has continuously evolved over the past 15 years, recent efforts have focused mostly on updating models and procedures to conform more closely to IGS and the International Earth Rotation Service (IERS) conventions. Details of our processing updates and demonstrations of the improvements will be provided.     

Line P ocean temperature and salinity, 1956-2005

Vertical profiles of temperature and salinity have been measured for 50 years along Line P between the North American west coast and mid Gulf of Alaska. These measurements extend 1425 km into the gulf at 13 or more sampling stations. The 10-50-m deep layer of Line P increased in temperature by 0.9 °C from 1958 to 2005, but is significant only at the 90% level due to large interannual variability. Most of this increase in temperature accompanies the 1977 shift in wind patterns. Temperature changes at 100-150 m and salinity changes in both layers are not statistically significant. Much of the variance in temperature is in the upper 50 m of Line P, and temperature changes tend to be uniform along Line P except for waters on the continental margin. Salinity changes are dominated by variability in the halocline between 100 and 150 m depth and are less uniform along Line P. Largest oscillations in temperature and salinity are between 1993 and 2003. These events can be understood by considering changes in eastward wind speed and wind patterns that are revealed in the first two modes of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Changes in these patterns are indicators for both Ekman surface forcing (Surface ocean currents flow to the right of the wind direction) and Ekman pumping (Surface waters diverge away from regions of positive wind stress curl, leading to upwelling of colder saltier water). Changes in temperature along the nearshore part of Line P suggest Ekman surface forcing is the stronger of the two processes in the upper layer. The change in salinity anomalies in the halocline along the seaward end of Line P, following the wind shift in 1977, is in agreement with enhanced upwelling caused by stronger Ekman pumping in this region.     

People’s capacities in facing hazards and disasters: an overview

Natural Hazards - This article constitutes an effort towards providing an academic overview and grounding for the concept of capacities in the context of disaster studies and disaster risk...