Effects of economic recession and local weather on climate change attitudes

How are large companies responding to the challenges of reducing their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions? An analysis of the published climate change policies and performance of 125 large European companies is presented. The results suggest that most large European companies have now developed the management systems and processes necessary for them to effectively manage their GHG emissions and related business risks. However, there is a significant disconnect between the targets that companies set for themselves and the more ambitious targets being set by the European Union (which has committed to a 20% reduction in its emissions by 2020 against a 1990 baseline). Of the companies surveyed, just over one-third had stabilized or reduced their total GHG emissions over the period 2002–2007, and fewer than one-third expected their emissions to stabilize or reduce in the coming years. The relationship between the quality of corporate policies and performance outcomes (in terms of GHG emissions) suggests that while companies with stronger policies are likely to have relatively better performance, only a minority of those companies with the highest-quality policies are committing to absolute reductions in their GHG emissions.     

Living with limits: growth,resources, and climate change

Is it possible for all of humanity to enjoy the standards of living of today's high-income countries? What would happen if these limits were reached, perhaps because of climate change or a shortage of natural resources essential to production? How would society manage – or fail to manage – such limits? Notwithstanding the current financial and economic crises, these are perhaps the biggest questions confronting our species (and of a host of other species, who are the victims of our decisions). The article begins by considering the biggest economic event of our lifetimes – the ‘great convergence’ and its implications for the demand for resources. The discussion then turns to a specific limit on our development, climate change, which is different from most other limits, because it involves a global public good: the atmosphere. What such limits might mean for our civilization is discussed. One can persuade people to tackle climate change only if those concerned with the dangers persuade ordinary people that action will not come at the expense of their prosperity.     

A Spatial Variant of the Basic Reproduction Number for the New Orleans Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878

A spatial variant of the basic reproduction number (R₀), here defined as the number of subsequent deaths attributed to an initial mortality, can be used to identify geographic variation within an epidemic. A spatial R₀ was calculated at the neighborhood level, here defined by a 50‐m buffer surrounding an index case, for mortality data from the 1878 yellow fever epidemic of New Orleans. The highest number of secondary mortalities linked to a neighborhood index case was twelve, with a further eighty‐seven extrapolated morbidity cases. Results also highlight the importance of multideath residences and cultural contacts in neighborhood‐level disease spread.     

National indicators for observing ecosystem service change

Earth’s life-support systems are in rapid decline, yet we have few metrics or indicators with which to track these changes. The world’s governments are calling for biodiversity and ecosystem-service monitoring to guide and evaluate international conservation policy as well as to incorporate natural capital into their national accounts. The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) has been tasked with setting up this monitoring system. Here we explore the immediate feasibility of creating a global ecosystem-service monitoring platform under the GEO BON framework through combining data from national statistics, global vegetation models, and production function models. We found that nine ecosystem services could be annually reported at a national scale in the short term: carbon sequestration, water supply for hydropower, and non-fisheries marine products, crop, livestock, game meat, fisheries, mariculture, and timber production. Reported changes in service delivery over time reflected ecological shocks (e.g., droughts and disease outbreaks), highlighting the immediate utility of this monitoring system. Our work also identified three opportunities for creating a more comprehensive monitoring system. First, investing in input data for ecological process models (e.g., global land-use maps) would allow many more regulating services to be monitored. Currently, only 1 of 9 services that can be reported is a regulating service. Second, household surveys and censuses could help evaluate how nature affects people and provides non-monetary benefits. Finally, to forecast the sustainability of service delivery, research efforts could focus on calculating the total remaining biophysical stocks of provisioning services. Regardless, we demonstrated that a preliminary ecosystem-service monitoring platform is immediately feasible. With sufficient international investment, the platform could evolve further into a much-needed system to track changes in our planet's life-support systems.     

立足本地优势不断提升公共气象服务能力

文章根据近几年内蒙古气象服务中心在公共气象服务领域所取得的成绩,认真探究社会需求对公共气象服务工作所产生的引领作用,同时摆出现阶段发展中所存在的问题,提出只有坚持公共气象服务发展方向,不断培育气象服务新的增长点,才能提高气象事业的核心竞争力,推动内蒙古公共气象服务事业更快更好地发展。     

Implementing climate change adaptation: lessons from India’s national adaptation fund on climate change (NAFCC)

With poverty alleviation and sustainable development as key imperatives for a developing economy like India, what drives the resource-constrained state governments to prioritize actions that address climate change impacts? We examine this question and argue that without access to additional earmarked financial resources, climate action would get overshadowed by developmental priorities and effective mainstreaming might not be possible. A systematic literature review was carried out to draw insights from the current state of implementation of adaptation projects, programmes and schemes at the subnational levels, along with barriers to mainstreaming climate change adaptation. The findings from a literature review were supplemented with lessons emerging from the implementation of India’s National Adaptation Fund on Climate Change (NAFCC). The results of this study underscore the scheme’s relevance.

Key policy insights

• Experience with NAFCC implementation reveals that states require sustained ‘handholding’ in terms of financial, technical and capacity support until climate change issues are fully understood and embedded in the policy landscape.

• Domestic sources of finance are critically important in the absence of predictable and adequate adaptation finance from international sources.

• The dedicated window for climate finance fosters a spirit of competitive federalism among states and encourages enhanced climate action.

• Enhanced budgetary allocation to NAFCC to strengthen the state-level adaptation response and create capacity to mainstream climate change concerns in state planning frames, is urgently needed.

     

Mid-Century Strategies: pathways to a low-carbon future?

Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, both national and subnational governments have been encouraged to submit Mid-Century Strategies, outlining how they would reach their deep decarbonization goals. However, research on the design and potential of these strategies has been very limited. To address this shortcoming, here we assess 13 such strategies – six national, seven subnational – in a comparative fashion. We find that the energy-economy-climate models underpinning these strategies are generally of high quality, though national jurisdictions generally performed better. However, most strategies are not plausible without significant changes to policy, and the industrial sector in particular presents a major limitation. The strategies are helpful in revealing this gap, but much works remains to be done for plausible mid-century decarbonization trajectories to become a reality. We also find that public input and societal participation in strategy building were a double-edged sword depending on the constellation of domestic preferences.

• Governmental Mid-Century Strategies for deep decarbonization are underpinned by high-quality energy-economy-climate models

• Governments’ proposed strategies require significant new policies, as even among jurisdictions that have an MCS, extant policies are insufficient to achieve deep decarbonization

• No jurisdiction studied has yet put forward a plausible decarbonization policy for the industrial sector.

• Public input and societal participation can be a double-edged sword: they can increase durability of the strategy but also enable opposing forces to mobilize against ambitious changes.

     

城市公共自行车自愿碳减排机制初探——以北京市为例

公共自行车系统是待开发的交通自愿碳减排项目。本文采用CCER方法学中的“快速公交项目”,计算北京市2012年公共自行车系统自愿碳减排量,并估算收益。结果显示：北京市2012年公共自行车自愿碳减排量为43.95 t CO₂,出售可获得1538元的收益。同时估算得到北京市2015年公共自行车碳减排量为6874.5 t CO₂,出售可获得约24万的收益。因此,北京等交通需求膨胀的特大型城市,随着公共自行车系统的持续壮大发展,公共自行车运营企业的经济效益有望通过碳交易实现较大提升空间。     

北京地区公众气象服务需求分析

2006年7、8月份在北京地区开展了一次大范围的公众气象服务需求调查,本文在对回收的有效问卷进行统计分析的基础上,从公众对气象信息的关注程度、公众对气象服务的意愿付费情况及对气象服务改进的需求3个方面进行了研究,并运用行为经济学的理论对公众的气象信息需求进行分析阐述,揭示出其规律性.结果反映出公众对气象信息及其价值的认识还比较有限,气象部门有必要加强宣传和引导.最后从用户需求的角度,对如何有效提高公众气象服务质量提出了建议.     

土地规划的自然过程基础与大数据时代的方法探索

随着城市化与工业化程度不断加深,产业空间结构不断重组,导致土地供需矛盾日益突出,国土资源无序开发日益严重,因而优化国土资源空间格局,成为生态文明建设的首要任务。同时,科学合理配置土地资源对土地规划提出了更高要求,传统土地规划方法有待改革。在基于尊重自然、顺应自然的开发理念下,总结土地自然过程基础对土地规划的影响,实现“山水路林田生命共同体”的协调规划发展。其次,“大数据”时代的来临,云计算、空间数据整合、云分析等技术对土地规划方法提供新的技术支撑;最后,针对土地规划数据特殊性、移动用户终端的广泛性,提出应创建土地规划云服务平台,使土地规划实现数据集成管理和更新,从而提高土地规划质量。