Toward Effective International Cooperation on Climate Change: Numbers, Interests and Institutions

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 90-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Victor
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Kyoto Protocol ◽  
International System ◽  
Climate Agreements ◽  
The North ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Ambitious Program ◽  
High Level ◽  
Effective Use

Arild Underdal's “law of the least ambitious program” is properly pessimistic about the prospects for cooperation in the international system where nations must give their consent to be bound by meaningful commitments. Those pessimistic expectations are now being revealed in the collective efforts to address the problem of climate change, notably through the Kyoto Protocol. Over-coming Underdal's law requires narrowing the numbers of countries that participate in key climate agreements and tailoring membership so that just the most important countries are engaged and there are strong incentives to avoid defection. At the same time, the effectiveness of cooperative efforts would gain from fuller use of nonbinding instruments, review procedures and high level conferences—as were put to effective use in the North Sea cooperation, for example— in addition to legally binding international law through instruments such as the Kyoto Protocol. Sadly, most of the conventional wisdom runs the opposite direction, favoring binding treaties among large numbers of countries.

Field Implementation of RBI for Jacket Structures

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Faber ◽  
Daniel Straub ◽  
John D. So̸rensen ◽  
Jesper Tychsen
Keyword(s):  
Sensitivity Analysis ◽  
Data Base ◽  
Stress Ratio ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Inspection Planning ◽  
The North ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Structural Details ◽  
Jacket Structures ◽  
The North Sea

The present paper first gives a brief outline of the simplified and generic approach to reliability and risk based inspection planning and thereafter sets focus on a recent application of the methodology for planning of in-service NDT inspections of the fixed offshore steel jacket structures in the DUC concession area in the Danish part of the North-Sea. The platforms are operated by Maersk Oil and Gas on behalf of DUC partners A.P. Mo̸ller, Shell and Texaco. The study includes a sensitivity analysis performed for the identification of relevant generic parameters such as the bending to membrane stress ratio, the design fatigue life and the material thickness. Based on the results of the sensitivity analysis a significant number of inspection plans were computed for fixed generic parameters (pre-defined generic plans) and a data-base named iPlan was developed from which inspection plans may be obtained by interpolation between the pre-defined generic plans. The iPlan data-base facilitates the straightforward production of large numbers of inspection plans for structural details subject to fatigue deterioration. In the paper the application of the generic inspection plan database iPlan is finally illustrated on an example.

Decline in Atlantic wolffish Anarhichas lupus in the North Sea: Impacts of fishing pressure and climate change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna K. Bluemel ◽  
Simon Fischer ◽  
David W. Kulka ◽  
Christopher P. Lynam ◽  
Jim R. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Fishing Pressure ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Anarhichas Lupus ◽  
Atlantic Wolffish

scholarly journals Climate change effects on marine protected areas: Projected decline of benthic species in the North Sea

2021 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 105230
Author(s):  
Michael Weinert ◽  
Moritz Mathis ◽  
Ingrid Kröncke ◽  
Thomas Pohlmann ◽  
Henning Reiss
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Marine Protected Areas ◽  
Benthic Species ◽  
Climate Change Effects ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea

scholarly journals The effects of climate change on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the North Sea

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 1525-1557
Author(s):  
K. O'Driscoll ◽  
B. Mayer ◽  
J. Su ◽  
M. Mathis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Organic Pollutants ◽  
North Sea ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Persistent Organic Pollutants ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Open Boundary ◽  
The North ◽  
The Future ◽  
The North Sea

Abstract. The fate and cycling of two selected legacy persistent organic pollutants (POPs), PCB 153 and γ-HCH, in the North Sea in the 21st century have been modelled with combined hydrodynamic and fate and transport ocean models. To investigate the impact of climate variability on POPs in the North Sea in the 21st century, future scenario model runs for three 10 yr periods to the year 2100 using plausible levels of both in situ concentrations and atmospheric, river and open boundary inputs are performed. Since estimates of future concentration levels of POPs in the atmosphere, oceans and rivers are not available, our approach was to reutilise 2005 values in the atmosphere, rivers and at the open ocean boundaries for every year of the simulations. In this way, we attribute differences between the three 10 yr simulations to climate change only. For the HAMSOM and atmospheric forcing, results of the IPCC A1B (SRES) 21st century scenario are utilised, where surface forcing is provided by the REMO downscaling of the ECHAM5 global atmospheric model, and open boundary conditions are provided by the MPIOM global ocean model. Dry gas deposition and volatilisation of γ-HCH increase in the future relative to the present. In the water column, total mass of γ-HCH and PCB 153 remain fairly steady in all three runs. In sediment, γ-HCH increases in the future runs, relative to the present, while PCB 153 in sediment decreases exponentially in all three runs, but even faster in the future, both of which are the result of climate change. Annual net sinks exceed sources at the ends of all periods.

scholarly journals CLIMATE CHANGE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS TOWARDS GREENER ENVIRONMENT IN THE WORLD

2017 ◽  
pp. 22-32
Author(s):  
Mayuri Pandya ◽  
Binod Das
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Green House ◽  
The North ◽  
Green House Gas ◽  
Developed Nations ◽  
Stockholm Conference ◽  
North And South

Climate change is a multi-dimensional global problem. Its causes and impacts are distributed and felt across the International system, surpassing the traditional boundaries and jurisdictions of the states. The complex politics of climate change results from the global economy's interdependence on green house gas emissions. This paper attempts to explore the politics of climate change between developed and developing countries, International relations practice and environment issues in various International conferences. The historical perspective of climate change issues eliberated since Stockholm conference to the latest Paris conference is analysed. Adaptation, mitigation, finance, technology all these issues are highlighted in the paper. The paper has viewed that the International policy on environment is being shaped by inequality of bargaining power between the North and South. The developing countries under the leadership of India have taken firm position against the developed nations on the issue of green house gas emission, funding and technology, the paper has argued. Towards the end, this paper has focused on possible measures to address the problems of climate change through foreign policy initiatives, trade and investment, adaptation and mitigation.

scholarly journals The risk of carbon leakage in global climate agreements

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Nielsen ◽  
Nicolai Baumert ◽  
Astrid Kander ◽  
Magnus Jiborn ◽  
Viktoras Kulionis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Kyoto Protocol ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Carbon Leakage ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Climate Agreements ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Nationally Determined Contributions

Abstract Although climate change and international trade are interdependent, policy-makers often address the two topics separately. This may inhibit progress at the intersection of climate change and trade and could present a serious constraint for global climate action. One key risk is carbon leakage through emission outsourcing, i.e. reductions in emissions in countries with rigorous climate policies being offset by increased emissions in countries with less stringent policies. We first analyze the Paris Agreement’s nationally determined contributions (NDC) and investigate how carbon leakage is addressed. We find that the risk of carbon leakage is insufficiently accounted for in these documents. Then, we apply a novel quantitative approach (Jiborn et al., 2018; Baumert et al., 2019) to analyze trends in carbon outsourcing related to a previous international climate regime—the Kyoto Protocol—in order to assess whether reported emission reductions were offset by carbon outsourcing in the past. Our results for 2000–2014 show a more nuanced picture of carbon leakage during the Kyoto Protocol than previous studies have reported. Carbon outsourcing from developed to developing countries was dominated by the USA outsourcing to China, while the evidence for other developed countries was mixed. Against conventional wisdom, we find that, in general, countries that stayed committed to their Kyoto Protocol emission targets were either only minor carbon outsourcers or actually even insourcers—although the trend was slightly negative—indicating that binding emissions targets do not necessarily lead to carbon outsourcing. We argue that multiple carbon monitoring approaches are needed to reduce the risk of carbon leakage.

scholarly journals Surface Heat Budget over the North Sea in Climate Change Simulations

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Dieterich ◽  
Shiyu Wang ◽  
Semjon Schimanke ◽  
Matthias Gröger ◽  
Birgit Klein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Heat Flux ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Heat Budget ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Surface Heat ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Rcp 8.5 ◽  
Surface Heat Budget

An ensemble of regional climate change scenarios for the North Sea is validated and analyzed. Five Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) General Circulation Models (GCMs) using three different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) have been downscaled with the coupled atmosphere–ice–ocean model RCA4-NEMO. Validation of sea surface temperature (SST) against different datasets suggests that the model results are well within the spread of observational datasets. The ensemble mean SST with a bias of less than 1 ∘ C is the solution that fits the observations best and underlines the importance of ensemble modeling. The exchange of momentum, heat, and freshwater between atmosphere and ocean in the regional, coupled model compares well with available datasets. The climatological seasonal cycles of these fluxes are within the 95% confidence limits of the datasets. Towards the end of the 21st century the projected North Sea SST increases by 1.5 ∘ C (RCP 2.6), 2 ∘ C (RCP 4.5), and 4 ∘ C (RCP 8.5), respectively. Under this change the North Sea develops a specific pattern of the climate change signal for the air–sea temperature difference and latent heat flux in the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. In the RCP 8.5 scenario the amplitude of the spatial heat flux anomaly increases to 5 W/m 2 at the end of the century. Different hypotheses are discussed that could contribute to the spatially non-uniform change in air–sea interaction. The most likely cause for an increased latent heat loss in the central western North Sea is a drier atmosphere towards the end of the century. Drier air in the lee of the British Isles affects the balance of the surface heat budget of the North Sea. This effect is an example of how regional characteristics modulate global climate change. For climate change projections on regional scales it is important to resolve processes and feedbacks at regional scales.

scholarly journals Shifts in spawning phenology of cod linked to rising sea temperatures

2017 ◽  
Vol 74 (6) ◽  
pp. 1561-1573 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate McQueen ◽  
C. Tara Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Gadus Morhua ◽  
Atlantic Cod ◽  
Size Structure ◽  
Gonadal Development ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Irish Sea ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea

AbstractWarming temperatures caused by climate change have the potential to impact spawning phenology of temperate marine fish as some species have temperature-dependent gonadal development. Inter-annual variation in the timing of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) spawning in the northern North Sea, central North Sea and Irish Sea was estimated by calculating an annual peak roe month (PRM) from records of roe landings spanning the last three decades. A trend towards earlier PRM was found in all three regions, with estimates of shifts in PRM ranging from 0.9 to 2.4 weeks per decade. Temperatures experienced by cod during early vitellogenesis correlated negatively with PRM, suggesting that rising sea temperatures have contributed to a shift in spawning phenology. A concurrent reduction in the mean size of spawning females excluded the possibility that earlier spawning was due to a shift in size structure towards larger individuals, as large cod spawn earlier than smaller-sized individuals in the North Sea. Further research into the effects of climate change on the phenology of different trophic levels within the North Sea ecosystem should be undertaken to determine whether climate change-induced shifts in spawning phenology will result in a temporal mismatch between cod larvae and their planktonic prey.

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