Editorial: Adapting Buildings to Climate Change

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 14-18
Author(s):  
Fuad H. Mallick ◽  
Monjur Mourshed
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

The interdependence and feedback between climate impacts mitigation and adaptation to the inevitable changes in climate are the key challenges for the built environment in the coming decades. These challenges are more pronounced in the interface between science and society, in which scientific knowledge and evidence are transformed into policy actions. This editorial looks at current and growing evidence base on the impacts of climate change and the means to adapt buildings, as well as the interface between policies and evidence base while summarising the contributions to this special issue.

Introducing the beta version of ISIpedia, the open climate-impacts encyclopaedia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burcu Yesil ◽  
Quentin Lejeune ◽  
Inga Menke ◽  
Kaylin Lee ◽  
Barbara Templ ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Stakeholder Engagement ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Beta Version ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

<p>Despite the existing ample amount of scientific knowledge on the impacts of climate change, this information is often not conveyed in a way that is relevant and useful to decision makers. If designed correctly, climate services can bridge the gap between the knowledge providers and users. The ISIpedia project aims at developing an online encyclopedia  that provides policy-relevant, user-driven climate impact information based on the data and scientific knowledge generated by the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Inter-comparison Project (ISIMIP,) community. In order to ensure that the information provided is accessible and understandable, ISIpedia has facilitated a dialogue between modellers and stakeholders through a number of stakeholder engagement activities.</p><p> </p><p>The ISIpedia portal will deliver national- and global- level assessments of impacts of climate change across different sectors to the identified end-users that range from climate adaptation planners (e.g. involved in National Adaptation Plans) and practitioners, regional knowledge hubs, trans- and interdisciplinary scientists to regional climate experts from the private and public sectors. The portal is also characterised by an intuitive and user-friendly interface for better dissemination and application of this knowledge.</p><p> </p><p>Through an interactive exploration of the ISIpedia portal, during this session we will not only introduce the beta version of ISIpedia but also discuss in detail how our stakeholder engagement processes have shaped the portal’s current functionalities and its design. More specifically, the audience will get a chance to create country-specific climate impact assessments and test the legibility of the content, which includes interactive graphs and maps as well as method descriptions. We will also explore how different inter-sectoral indicators, some of which were derived from our workshops in Eastern Europe (Poland, November 2018) and West Africa (Burkina Faso, February 2019), can be applied to managing climate risks, vulnerabilities and planning adaptation and/or larger political contexts, such as the Sustainable Development Goals or Disaster Risk Reduction and what new indicators can be developed. Additionally, we will present other functional and design features, such as the glossary, data download functions and news, that we identified as added values to the portal during diverse stakeholder engagement activities.</p><p> </p><p>The inputs gathered from the EGU conference, along with the ones from the planned feedback workshops in Southeast Asia (April 2020), Eastern Europe (June 2020) and West Africa (October 2020), will be taken into account for further improvement of the portal until its final release in the fall of 2020. Furthermore, a reflection on the successes and challenges of our co-development process will be shared.</p>

scholarly journals Poverty and climate change: introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephane Hallegatte ◽  
Marianne Fay ◽  
Edward B. Barbier
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
National Wealth ◽  
Economic Statistics ◽  
Climate Vulnerability ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

AbstractBecause their assets and income represent such a small share of national wealth, the impacts of climate change on poor people, even if dramatic, will be largely invisible in aggregate economic statistics such as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Assessing and managing future impacts of climate change on poverty requires different metrics, and specific studies focusing on the vulnerability of poor people. This special issue provides a set of such studies, looking at the exposure and vulnerability of people living in poverty to shocks and stressors that are expected to increase in frequency or intensity due to climate change, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, and impacts on agricultural production and ecosystem services. This introduction summarizes their approach and findings, which support the idea that the link between poverty and climate vulnerability goes both ways: poverty is one major driver of people's vulnerability to climate-related shocks and stressors, and this vulnerability is keeping people in poverty. The paper concludes by identifying priorities for future research.

scholarly journals Urban Climate Policy and Action through a Health Lens—An Untapped Opportunity

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (23) ◽  
pp. 12516
Author(s):  
Audrey de Nazelle ◽  
Charlotte J. Roscoe ◽  
Aina Roca-Barcelό ◽  
Giselle Sebag ◽  
Gudrun Weinmayr ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
International Society ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Environmental Epidemiology ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Health Promoting ◽  
Funding Opportunities

Motivated by a growing recognition of the climate emergency, reflected in the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), we outline untapped opportunities to improve health through ambitious climate actions in cities. Health is a primary reason for climate action yet is rarely integrated in urban climate plans as a policy goal. This is a missed opportunity to create sustainable alliances across sectors and groups, to engage a broad set of stakeholders, and to develop structural health promotion. In this statement, we first briefly review the literature on health co-benefits of urban climate change strategies and make the case for health-promoting climate action; we then describe barriers to integrating health in climate action. We found that the evidence-base is often insufficiently policy-relevant to be impactful. Research rarely integrates the complexity of real-world systems, including multiple and dynamic impacts of strategies, and consideration of how decision-making processes contend with competing interests and short-term electoral cycles. Due to siloed-thinking and restrictive funding opportunities, research often falls short of the type of evidence that would be most useful for decision-making, and research outputs can be cryptic to decision makers. As a way forward, we urge researchers and stakeholders to engage in co-production and systems thinking approaches. Partnering across sectors and disciplines is urgently needed so pathways to climate change mitigation and adaptation fully embrace their health-promoting potential and engage society towards the huge transformations needed. This commentary is endorsed by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) and the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH) and accompanies a sister statement oriented towards stakeholders (published on the societies’ websites).

Climate change mitigation and adaptation by biochar: mechanisms and regulatory trend in the rhizosphere

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Feizi ◽  
Bahar Razavi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
High Efficiency ◽  
C Sequestration ◽  
Alkaline Soil ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Change Mitigation ◽  
Biochar Amendment ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

<p>Climate change represents a key challenge to the sustainability of global ecosystems and human prosperity in the twenty-first century. The impacts of climate change combined with natural climate variability are predominantly adverse, and often exacerbate other environmental challenges such as degradation of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and air, water and land pollution. Besides, rapid industrialization and increasing adaption of agrochemical based crop production practices since green revolution have considerably increased the heavy metal contaminations in the environment.</p><p>Assessing the impacts of climate change on our planet and addressing risks and opportunities is essential for taking decisions that will remain robust under future conditions, when many climate change impacts are expected to become more significant.</p><p>Here, we established a review survey to assess the impact of biochar amendment and agroforstry system on CO<sub>2</sub> sequestration and methaloid remediation.</p><p>Our data base showed that Agroforestry-based solutions for carbon dioxide capture and sequestration for climate change mitigation and adaptation in long-term is more practical and realistic options for a sustainable ecosystem and decreasing negative effect of climate change. This was more supported in arid and semi-arid regions as well as area with saline and alkaline soil (20%).</p><p>From a soil remediation standpoint, the general trend has been shifting from reduction of the total concentration to reduction of the physic-chemically and/or biologically available fractions of metals. This regulatory shift represents a tremendous saving in remediation cost. While metals are not degradable, their speciation and binding with soil through biochar amending reduced their solubility, mobility, and bioavailability. While agroforestry showed high efficiency in C sequestration (32%), biochar amendment raveled significant mitigation in heavymetals bioavailability (42%). However, studies which coupled both approaches are limited. Thus, we conclude that combined Agroforestry and biochar amendment regulates C sequestration and metalloids remediation more efficiently.</p>

Climate Change and Schools: Implications for Children's Health and Safety

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Chalupka ◽  
Laura Anderko
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
School Environments ◽  
Healthy Environment ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
The Common ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

The predicted impacts of climate change are fast becoming a reality and are already adversely affecting human health and health systems. Events such as flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires are challenging communities to re-evaluate whether their schools provide a safe, healthy environment. Among the populations most vulnerable to the impacts of our changing climate are our children. Nurses are key to supporting mitigation and adaptation efforts to promote more resilient school environments, using approaches based on values of the common good and social justice.

scholarly journals Projected impacts of climate change on marine fish and fisheries

2013 ◽  
Vol 70 (5) ◽  
pp. 1023-1037 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne B. Hollowed ◽  
Manuel Barange ◽  
Richard J. Beamish ◽  
Keith Brander ◽  
Kevern Cochrane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Marine Fish ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Skill Assessment ◽  
Vital Rates ◽  
Marine Research ◽  
Research Teams ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
Fish And Shellfish ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Abstract Hollowed, A. B., Barange, M., Beamish, R., Brander, K., Cochrane, K., Drinkwater, K., Foreman, M., Hare, J., Holt, J., Ito, S-I., Kim, S., King, J., Loeng, H., MacKenzie, B., Mueter, F., Okey, T., Peck, M. A., Radchenko, V., Rice, J., Schirripa, M., Yatsu, A., and Yamanaka, Y. 2013. Projected impacts of climate change on marine fish and fisheries. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 1023–1037. This paper reviews current literature on the projected effects of climate change on marine fish and shellfish, their fisheries, and fishery-dependent communities throughout the northern hemisphere. The review addresses the following issues: (i) expected impacts on ecosystem productivity and habitat quantity and quality; (ii) impacts of changes in production and habitat on marine fish and shellfish species including effects on the community species composition, spatial distributions, interactions, and vital rates of fish and shellfish; (iii) impacts on fisheries and their associated communities; (iv) implications for food security and associated changes; and (v) uncertainty and modelling skill assessment. Climate change will impact fish and shellfish, their fisheries, and fishery-dependent communities through a complex suite of linked processes. Integrated interdisciplinary research teams are forming in many regions to project these complex responses. National and international marine research organizations serve a key role in the coordination and integration of research to accelerate the production of projections of the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems and to move towards a future where relative impacts by region could be compared on a hemispheric or global level. Eight research foci were identified that will improve the projections of climate impacts on fish, fisheries, and fishery-dependent communities.

scholarly journals Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies to Combat Climate Change in the Built Environment

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1267-1271
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Combat Climate Change ◽  
Building Life Cycle

The built environment with its high energy consumption and carbon emissions during the building life cycle has played a significant role in environmental degradation and global warming. Today the built environment accounts for more than half of global energy use and more than one-third of greenhouse gas emissions in the developed and developing world. New concepts of multidisciplinary design must be generated to develop a climate-responsive and energy-efficient built environment which adapts to the changing environmental conditions and mitigates the causes of the rapid change. By doing so, the building sector can drastically reduce its GHG emissions. Moreover, buildings can also adapt to the constant changes in the environment using emerging technologies such as the use of dynamic climate adaptive building envelopes. This paper presents an overview of climate change theory and its relationship to the built environment and novel methods of mitigation and adaptation.

scholarly journals The Impacts of Climate Change on Nigerian Ecosystems: A Review

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-291
Author(s):  
B. E. Ikumbur ◽  
S. Iornumbe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Climatic Variations ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
The World ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Climate change is the single biggest environmental issue facing the world today. It has become a great challenge to our generation and its impact is felt in almost every society in the world. Nigeria is one of the most vulnerable countries in Africa. Nigeria as a developing nation with a population of about 200 million people is likely to be adversely impacted by climate change due to its vulnerability and low coping capabilities. Climate change is evidently linked to human actions, and in particular from the burning of fossil fuels and changes in global patterns of land use. The impacts of human activities, as well as those of natural phenomena on global warming, climate change, and the environment, were presented and discussed. Various manifestations of its impact are evident in Nigeria, which includes temperature rise, increase in draught, and scarcity of food instigated by irregularities in rainfall, over flooding, and so on. This paper examines the concepts of global warming and climate change; its impact on the Nigeria ecosystems. It highlights the climate change-related risks and hazards the nation could face if best practices are not employed to prevent and mitigate its impact. Two sets of measures have been advocated for confronting climate change, these are mitigation and adaptation measures. The review explores possible adaptation strategies that are required to respond to the climatic variations and suggests ways that these adaptation strategies can be implemented.

scholarly journals Global cotton production under climate change – Implications for yield and water consumption

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Jans ◽  
Werner von Bloh ◽  
Sibyll Schaphoff ◽  
Christoph Müller
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Consumption ◽  
Irrigation Water ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
The Other ◽  
Aral Sea ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Cotton Production ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Abstract. Being an extensively produced natural fiber on earth, cotton is of importance for economies. Although the plant is broadly adapted to varying environments, growth and irrigation water demand of cotton may be challenged by future climate change. To study the impacts of climate change on cotton productivity in different regions across the world and the irrigation water requirements related to it, we use the process-based, spatially detailed biosphere and hydrology model LPJmL. We find our modelled cotton yield levels in good agreement with reported values and simulated water consumption of cotton production similar to published estimates. Following the ISIMIP protocol, we employ an ensemble of five General Circulation Models under four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) for the 2011–2099 period to simulate future cotton yields. We find that irrigated cotton production does not suffer from climate change if CO2 effects are considered, whereas rainfed production is more sensitive to varying climate conditions. Considering the overall effect of a changing climate and CO2 fertilization, cotton production on current cropland steadily increases for most of the RCPs. Starting from ~ 65 million tonnes in 2010, cotton production for RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 equates to 83 and 92 million tonnes at the end of the century, respectively. Under RCP8.5, simulated global cotton production raises by more than 50 % by 2099. Taking only climate change into account, projected cotton production considerably shrinks in most scenarios, by up to one-third or 43 million tonnes under RCP8.5. The simulation of future virtual water content (VWC) of cotton grown under elevated CO2 results for all scenarios in less VWC compared to ambient CO2 conditions. Under RCP6.0 and RCP8.5, VWC is notably decreased by more than 2000 m3 t−1 in areas where cotton is produced under purely rainfed conditions. By 2040, the average global VWC for cotton declines in all scenarios from currently 3300 to 3000 m3 t−1 and reduction continues by up to 30 % in 2100 under RCP8.5. While the VWC decreases by the CO2 effect, elevated temperature (and thus water stress) reverse the picture. Except for RCP2.6, the global VWC of cotton increase slightly but steadily under the other RCPs until mid century. RCP8.5 results in an average global VWC of more than 5000 m3 t−1 by end of the simulation period. Given the economic relevance of cotton production, climate change poses an additional stress and deserves special attention. Changes in VWC and water demands for cotton production are of special importance, as cotton production is known for its intense water consumption that led, e.g., to the loss of most of the Aral sea. The implications of climate impacts on cotton production on the one hand, and the impact of cotton production on water resources on the other hand illustrate the need to assess how future climate change may affect cotton production and its resource requirements. The inclusion of cotton in LPJmL allows for various large-scale studies to assess impacts of climate change on hydrological factors and the implications for agricultural production and carbon sequestration.

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