Bioenergy and Climate Change: Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

This chapter examines the fast-moving area of law relating to climate change. This includes a considerable body of public international law, from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to the legally innovative Paris Agreement 2015. The chapter also considers legal developments at the EU and UK levels, which both contain a rich body of climate law and policy. The EU and the UK are both seen as ‘world leaders’ in climate law and policy. In EU law, this is due to the EU greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme and the EU’s leadership in advocating ambitious greenhouse gas mitigation targets and in implementing these targets flexibly across the EU Member States through a range of regulatory mechanisms. The UK introduced path-breaking climate legislation in the Climate Change Act 2008, which provided an inspiring model of climate governance, legally entrenching long-term planning for both mitigation and adaptation. The chapter concludes with an exploration of climate litigation, a new and growing field of inquiry.

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Climate change impacts and greenhouse gas mitigation effects on U.S. water quality

Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems ◽

10.1002/2014ms000400 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 1326-1338 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Brent Boehlert ◽

Kenneth M. Strzepek ◽

Steven C. Chapra ◽

Charles Fant ◽

Yohannes Gebretsadik ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Quality ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

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Liability and Climate Change

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.648 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Michael Faure ◽

Marjan Peeters

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Greenhouse Gases ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Law And Economics ◽

Criminal Liability ◽

Tort Law ◽

Public Law ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation ◽

Private Law ◽

Court System

In view of the need to curb greenhouse gases, the question arises as to the functions of liability in providing effective incentives for emitters in order to change their behavior. Liability for emitting greenhouse gases exists (or can exist) in the area of public law and private law and can be subdivided into international, administrative, and criminal liability (public law liabilities) and tort law liability (private law liability). Actions for holding individual and legal persons (such as states, authorities, and companies) liable can, depending on the specific jurisdiction, be triggered by citizens but also by legal persons, such as authorities, companies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), particularly environmental NGOs. The central question in this article is how climate liability is arranged under public law and whether there would be any role for climate liability to play under private law, thereby applying a legal and economic methodology. That so-called law and economics doctrine is a useful approach as it has given a lot of attention, for example, to the different functions of specific legal instruments (more particularly regulation, including taxation and emissions trading and tort law liability) for mitigating greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, in practice, various examples can be identified whereby tort law liability is used as a complement to greenhouse gas regulation. This specific use of tort liability is analyzed in the light of the law and economics literature, thereby pointing at prospects but also at remaining core questions. The success of tort law actions will most likely greatly depend on the (lack of) ambition vested into the emissions regulations at international and national levels. One of the exciting questions for the near future is to what extent judges feel able to step into the regulation of the climate change problem, in an ex ante way. The most difficult cases are obviously those where a regulatory system concerning greenhouse gas mitigation has been put in place and where the court system is strong, but where particular groups consider the regulations to be insufficient.

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U.S. Air Quality and Health Benefits from Avoided Climate Change under Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

Environmental Science & Technology ◽

10.1021/acs.est.5b01324 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 49 (13) ◽

pp. 7580-7588 ◽

Cited By ~ 53

Author(s):

Fernando Garcia-Menendez ◽

Rebecca K. Saari ◽

Erwan Monier ◽

Noelle E. Selin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Air Quality ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Health Benefits ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

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Effect of Climate-Smart Agriculture Practices on Climate Change Adaptation, Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Economic Efficiency of Rice-Wheat System in India

Agriculture ◽

10.3390/agriculture11121269 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (12) ◽

pp. 1269

Author(s):

Suresh K. Kakraliya ◽

Hanuman S. Jat ◽

Tek B. Sapkota ◽

Ishwar Singh ◽

Manish Kakraliya ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

South Asia ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Wheat Yield ◽

Agricultural Practices ◽

Conventional Tillage ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Management Scenarios ◽

Ghg Mitigation

Conventional rice–wheat (RW) rotation in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of South Asia is tillage, water, energy, and capital intensive. Coupled with these, crop residue burning contributes significantly to greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and environmental pollution. So, to evaluate the GHG mitigation potential of various climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs), an on-farm research trial was conducted during 2014–2017 in Karnal, India. Six management scenarios (portfolios of practices), namely, Sc1—business as usual (BAU)/conventional tillage (CT) without residue, Sc2—CT with residue, Sc3—reduced tillage (RT) with residue + recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF), Sc4—RT/zero tillage (ZT) with residue + RDF, Sc5—ZT with residue + RDF + GreenSeeker + Tensiometer, and Sc6—Sc5 + nutrient-expert tool, were included. The global warming potential (GWP) of the RW system under CSAPs (Sc4, Sc5, and Sc6) and the improved BAU (Sc2 and Sc3) were 33–40% and 4–26% lower than BAU (7653 kg CO2 eq./ha/year), respectively. This reflects that CSAPs have the potential to mitigate GWP by ~387 metric tons (Mt) CO2 eq./year from the 13.5 Mha RW system of South Asia. Lower GWP under CSAPs resulted in 36–44% lower emission intensity (383 kg CO2 eq./Mg/year) compared to BAU (642 kg CO2 eq./Mg/year). Meanwhile, the N-factor productivity and eco-efficiency of the RW system under CSAPs were 32–57% and 70–105% higher than BAU, respectively, which reflects that CSAPs are more economically and environmentally sustainable than BAU. The wheat yield obtained under various CSAPs was 0.62 Mg/ha and 0.84 Mg/ha higher than BAU during normal and bad years (extreme weather events), respectively. Thus, it is evident that CSAPs can cope better with climatic extremes than BAU. Therefore, a portfolio of CSAPs should be promoted in RW belts for more adaptation and climate change mitigation.

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Does Institutional Proliferation Undermine Cooperation? Theory and Evidence from Climate Change

International Studies Quarterly ◽

10.1093/isq/sqaa092 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sam S Rowan

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

General Theory ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Paris Agreement ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation ◽

Global Politics ◽

Institutional Environments ◽

Slow Pace ◽

State Participation ◽

New Institutions

Abstract Global politics has undergone a tremendous institutional proliferation, yet many questions remain about why states join these new institutions and whether they support cooperation. I build on existing work to develop a general theory of state participation in dense institutional environments that also helps to explain cooperative outcomes. I argue that states may be dissatisfied when cooperation proceeds either too slowly or too quickly and that these two types of dissatisfaction motivate opposing participation behaviors. Deepeners are states that are dissatisfied with the slow pace of cooperation and join institutions to support cooperation, while fragmenters are states dissatisfied with the quick pace and join institutions to undermine cooperation. I evaluate my argument using new data on sixty-three climate institutions and states’ greenhouse gas mitigation targets in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. I find that membership in climate institutions designed to facilitate implementation is associated with more ambitious targets, while membership in general is unrelated to targets.

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A proposed approach to estimate and reduce net greenhouse gas emissions from whole farms

Canadian Journal of Soil Science ◽

10.4141/s05-101 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 86 (3) ◽

pp. 401-418 ◽

Cited By ~ 64

Author(s):

H H Janzen ◽

D A Angers ◽

M. Boehm ◽

M. Bolinder ◽

R L Desjardins ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Key Words ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation ◽

Interactive Effects ◽

Gas Emissions ◽

The Past ◽

Parallel Streams ◽

Farm Types

Greenhouse gas emissions from farms can be suppressed in two ways: by curtailing the release of these gases (especially N2O and CH4), and by storing more carbon in soils, thereby removing atmospheric CO2. But most practices have multiple interactive effects on emissions throughout a farm. We describe an approach for identifying practices that best reduce net, whole-farm emissions. We propose to develop a “Virtual Farm”, a series of interconnected algorithms that predict net emissions from flows of carbon, nitrogen, and energy. The Virtual Farm would consist of three elements: descriptors, which characterize the farm; algorithms, which calculate emissions from components of the farm; and an integrator, which links the algorithms to each other and the descriptors, generating whole-farm estimates. Ideally, the Virtual Farm will be: boundary-explicit, with single farms as the fundamental unit; adaptable to diverse farm types; modular in design; simple and transparent; dependent on minimal, attainable inputs; internally consistent; compatible with models developed elsewhere; and dynamic (“seeing”into the past and the future). The Virtual Farm would be constructed via two parallel streams - measurement and modeling - conducted iteratively. The understanding built into the Virtual Farm may eventually be applied to issues beyond greenhouse gas mitigation. Key words: CO2, N2O, CH4, agroecosystems, models, climate change

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Climate change impacts and greenhouse gas mitigation effects on U.S. hydropower generation

Applied Energy ◽

10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.09.054 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 183 ◽

pp. 1511-1519 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Brent Boehlert ◽

Kenneth M. Strzepek ◽

Yohannes Gebretsadik ◽

Richard Swanson ◽

Alyssa McCluskey ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation ◽

Hydropower Generation

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An Exploration of Common Greenhouse Gas Emissions by the Cyanobiont of the Azolla–Nostoc Symbiosis and Clues as to Nod Factors in Cyanobacteria

Plants ◽

10.3390/plants8120587 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (12) ◽

pp. 587 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dilantha Gunawardana

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Nitric Oxide ◽

Carbon Dioxide ◽

Nitrous Oxide ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Calvin Cycle ◽

Carbon Assimilation ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation ◽

C3 Plants ◽

Floating Macrophytes

Azolla is a genus of aquatic ferns that engages in a unique symbiosis with a cyanobiont that is resistant to cultivation. Azolla spp. are earmarked as a possible candidate to mitigate greenhouse gases, in particular, carbon dioxide. That opinion is underlined here in this paper to show the broader impact of Azolla spp. on greenhouse gas mitigation by revealing the enzyme catalogue in the Nostoc cyanobiont to be a poor contributor to climate change. First, regarding carbon assimilation, it was inferred that the carboxylation activity of the Rubisco enzyme of Azolla plants is able to quench carbon dioxide on par with other C3 plants and fellow aquatic free-floating macrophytes, with the cyanobiont contributing on average ~18% of the carboxylation load. Additionally, the author demonstrates here, using bioinformatics and past literature, that the Nostoc cyanobiont of Azolla does not contain nitric oxide reductase, a key enzyme that emanates nitrous oxide. In fact, all Nostoc species, both symbiotic and nonsymbiotic, are deficient in nitric oxide reductases. Furthermore, the Azolla cyanobiont is negative for methanogenic enzymes that use coenzyme conjugates to emit methane. With the absence of nitrous oxide and methane release, and the potential ability to convert ambient nitrous oxide into nitrogen gas, it is safe to say that the Azolla cyanobiont has a myriad of features that are poor contributors to climate change, which on top of carbon dioxide quenching by the Calvin cycle in Azolla plants, makes it an efficient holistic candidate to be developed as a force for climate change mitigation, especially in irrigated urea-fed rice fields. The author also shows that Nostoc cyanobionts are theoretically capable of Nod factor synthesis, similar to Rhizobia and some Frankia species, which is a new horizon to explore in the future.

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