Interpretation of IPCC AR6 on buildings北大核心CSCD

IPCC于2022年4月正式发布了第六次评估报告(AR6)第三工作组(WGⅢ)报告《气候变化2022:减缓气候变化》,该报告以已发布的第一和第二工作组报告作为基础,评估了各领域减缓气候变化的进展。报告的第九章建筑章节系统全面地评估了全球建筑领域的温室气体排放现状、趋势和驱动因素,综述并评估了建筑减缓气候变化的措施、潜力、成本和政策。报告主要结论认为,全球建筑领域有可能在2050年实现温室气体净零排放,但如果政策措施执行不力,将有可能在建筑领域形成长达几十年的高碳锁定效应。报告的主要结论将成为全球建筑领域应对气候变化行动的重要参考,对于我国建筑领域实现碳达峰、碳中和目标也有非常重要的借鉴意义。     

The Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale: Development and validation of a multidimensional scale

Anxiety relating to a multitude of ecological crises, or eco-anxiety, is a subject of growing research significance. We used a multi-study mixed-methods design to explore eco-anxiety in Australia and New Zealand, validating a new eco-anxiety scale. In Study One, we developed and tested a 7-item eco-anxiety scale (n = 334), finding that this captured some, but not all, experiences of eco-anxiety. We found that people were anxious about a range of environmental conditions and their personal negative impact on the planet. Notably, people’s anxiety about different environmental conditions (e.g., climate change, environmental degradation, pollution) were interconnected, lending support for the existence of eco-anxiety (a broader construct that encompasses climate change anxiety). These results informed further scale development in Study Two. Exploratory (n = 365) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n = 370) supported a final 13-item scale that captured four dimensions of eco-anxiety: affective symptoms, rumination, behavioural symptoms, and anxiety about one’s negative impact on the planet, which were each distinct from stress, anxiety and depression. A further longitudinal sample (n = 189) established the stability of these factors across time. Findings support eco-anxiety as a quantifiable psychological experience, reliably measured using our 13-item eco-anxiety scale, and differentiated from mental health outcomes.     

Situated adaptation: Tackling the production of vulnerability through transformative action in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone

Drawing attention to the production of vulnerability across scales in Sri Lanka, we contribute to knowledge of why certain people and social groups are vulnerable. We build our contribution on the theoretical application of ‘situated adaptation’. A situated analytical approach identifies, assesses, and responds to the everyday realities and politics of those living in climate changed environments. It highlights uneven geographies of vulnerability and opportunity, while identifying new imaginations and possibilities for transformative action that counter the production of vulnerability. We illustrate the utility of ‘situated adaptation’ by filling an empirical gap relating to experiences of political-economic and environmental change in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone. We detail situated experiences by drawing on field research in the Anuradhapura District, revealing how the lives and livelihoods of farmer participants are structured by a productivity-vulnerability paradox. We demonstrate how a prevalent adaptation-development paradigm (whereby development and adaptation programs co-exist in theory and practice) is unable to address the structural drivers of vulnerability in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone. A situated adaptation approach both explains why this is the case and highlights opportunities for alternative transformative actions, potentially identifying a more democratic and egalitarian politics of co-determining socionatural change.     

Seeking a handle on climate change: Examining the comparative effectiveness of energy efficiency improvement and renewable energy production in the United States

This study examines the comparative effectiveness of two important proposed solutions to climate change—energy efficiency improvement and the development and use of renewable energy sources. We focus specifically on their impacts on carbon dioxide emissions by conducting fixed effects regression analysis of panel data pertaining to U.S. states. The analysis reveals a negative relationship between both remedies and carbon dioxide emissions. Although the effects of these potential solutions are statistically equivalent, renewable energy production has a slight edge. Reflecting upon these findings and the larger environmental problem, we caution against exclusive reliance on efficiency improvement and renewable energy to the neglect of other important actions, such as lifestyle modifications. A broad range of social changes, which incorporate the remedies investigated in this paper, are needed to limit long-term global temperature increases to the desired level.     

Understanding interlinkages between long-term trajectory of exposure and vulnerability,path dependency and cascading impacts of disasters in Saint-Martin (Caribbean)

This empirical and interdisciplinary study investigates the contribution of deeply enrooted social-political factors to the accumulation of exposure and vulnerability and amplification of cascading impacts of disasters, with implications on the creation and reinforcement of path dependency maintaining social-ecological systems on a maladaptive trajectory. Applying the Trajectory of Exposure and Vulnerability approach to Saint-Martin (Caribbean), we more specifically highlight how the causal chain linking historical geopolitical and political-institutional drivers to legal, economic, demographic, sociocultural, planning-related and environmental drivers, created the accumulation of exposure and vulnerability over time and contributed to the propagation and amplification of the impacts of tropical cyclones Irma and José in 2017. We find that historical social-political dynamics involving unsustainable development and settlement patterns, the weakness of local institutions, population mistrust in public authorities, high social inequalities and environmental degradation maintained Saint-Martin on a maladaptive trajectory through powerful reinforcing mechanisms operating both between and during cyclonic events. This study demonstrates that long-term interdisciplinary approaches are required for a better understanding of path dependency and the identification of levers to break it in risk-prone contexts. In Saint-Martin, breaking path dependency requires the alignment of local institutional capacities with national risk reduction policies, the promotion of social justice and involvement of local communities in decision making. This study therefore confirms the relevance of backward-looking approaches to support forward-looking climate adaptation.     

Environmental stress and agricultural landownership in Africa

We examine how weather variability affects agricultural landownership rates in Africa, where at least half of the population depends on agriculture to earn a livelihood. In the absence of effective adaptation strategies, households that experience difficulties farming due to environmental stress might leave their land. With implications for demography – through migration – and political instability – when affected populations express grievances – changing landownership patterns could make existing development challenges on the continent even more difficult. We test our hypothesis that drier than average growing seasons will reduce landownership rates using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Our DHS dataset includes interviews with 850,961 households in 35 African countries between 2005 and 2017. Compared to regions experiencing weather near the historical average, those with five consecutive dry growing seasons before the DHS experienced a 6.93% decline in the landownership rate. For every additional dry growing season during the five years before each survey, the landownership rate fell by 1.38%. A host of robustness checks support our general conclusion that drying conditions are associated with lower landownership rates.     

Negative-emissions technology portfolios to meet the 1.5 °C target

Our carbon-intensive economy has led to an average temperature rise of 1 °C since pre-industrial times. As a consequence, the world has seen increasing droughts, significant shrinking of the polar ice caps, and steady sea-level rise. To stall these issues’ worsening further, we must limit global warming to 1.5 °C. In addition to the economy’s decarbonization, this endeavour requires the use of negative-emissions technologies (NETs) that remove the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere. While techno-economic feasibility alone has driven the definition of negative-emissions solutions, NETs’ diverse, far-reaching implications demand a more holistic assessment. Here, we present a comprehensive framework, integrating NETs’ critical performance aspects of feasibility, effectiveness, and side impacts, to define the optimal technology mix within realistic outlooks. The resulting technology portfolios provide a useful new benchmark to compare carbon avoidance and removal measures and deliberately choose the best path to solve the climate emergency.     

In government we trust? Micro-business adaptation to climate change in four post-colonial and transitional economies of China

Public expectations of government influence private action for managing climate change risks. Institutional neglect or incompetence result in a loss of trust in public institutions, consequently discouraging the public from taking added responsibility for risk management. This has been explained in terms of social contract, but evidence suggests that a politics of distrust can reinforce alternative social drivers of action, rather than displacing action. This is empirically confirmed by the present study, which examines the tendencies for adopting private protective measures across a gradient of institutional trust. Surveys were conducted in four jurisdictions within China that operate under two different political-economic systems, namely, Hong Kong and Macao (liberal market economy), and Zhuhai and Sanya (socialist market economy). Structured interviews were conducted with 569 business operators to explore how their stated adaptation practice is related to institutional trust and social capital. We found that trust predicted action only in Sanya, which is characterized by a high level of public confidence in authorities. In places of lower institutional trust, social capital became a salient and powerful driver of action. The weakening of the social contracts in Hong Kong and Macao turned their people to alternative social mechanisms. We explain the results in terms of the development trajectories, socio-political norms and institutional settings of these jurisdictions. This study provides insights into how adaptation practice can be mediated by the consequences of a change in political leadership, policy, or governance arrangements that alters the relationship of trust.     

柴达木盆地东北部中新世沉积物色度记录的气候变化

中新世是新生代古气候变化的关键时期。本文以柴达木盆地东北部瑙格剖面18.4～6.9Ma沉积物为研究对象,通过对沉积物颜色指标的测定与分析,获得该时段沉积物高分辨率颜色指标变化序列。发现色度值变化与氧化—还原作用有关,红度值与赤铁矿相对含量呈正相关。结合其它资料分析表明,柴达木盆地东北部地区中新世气候变化为18.4～14.2Ma相对暖湿阶段、14.2～7.7Ma相对冷湿阶段、7.7～6.9Ma相对干冷阶段,其变化可能受到全球温度变化的影响,气候转型主要导致了该区沉积相和沉积物色度的变化。     

“Global warming” versus “climate change”: A replication on the association between political self-identification,question wording,and environmental beliefs

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to humanity and requires immediate action. Schuldt, Konrath, and Schwarz (2011) suggested that beliefs in environmental phenomena can be influenced by the terminology used to describe it: changing question wording from global warming to climate change resulted in a 6.3 percentage point increase in belief in environmental phenomena. This association was moderated by political self-identification, with Republicans being 16.2 percentage points more likely to believe in climate change than in global warming, with Democrats showing no difference. The potential for connotative meanings to shift over time and the sociopolitical changes since the original study, potential policy and environmental campaign implications, and an expansion of these findings to other countries, motivated an attempt to replicate this important finding. This pre-registered study repeated the original procedures in the United States of America and two other countries (United Kingdom and Australia; total N = 5,717). Although question wording no longer had a significant effect on beliefs in climate change/global warming, the association of political self-identification with beliefs in environmental phenomena replicated in all three countries, with Conservatives consistently believing less in climate change/global warming than Liberals. The potential impacts of temporal and methodological differences on the discrepancies between this study's and the original's findings are discussed.