scholarly journals Finance and Management for the Anthropocene

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Shrivastava ◽  
Laszlo Zsolnai ◽  
David Wasieleski ◽  
Mark Stafford-Smith ◽  
Thomas Walker ◽  
...  

The Anthropocene era is characterized by a pronounced negative impact of human and social activities on natural ecosystems. To the extent finance, economics and management underlie human social activities, we need to reassess these fields and their role in achieving global sustainability. This article briefly presents the scientific evidence on accelerating impacts of human activities on nature, which have resulted in breach of planetary boundaries and onset of global climate change. It offers some potential leverage points for change toward sustainability stewardship by highlighting the important role of finance and economics in addressing climate change. We examine the role of financial stakeholders in addressing planetary boundaries and offer a modified stakeholder theory, from which we propose future directions for finance in the Anthropocene.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kit Yu Karen Chan ◽  
Chun Sang Daniel Tong

Abstract Coastal organisms reside in highly dynamic habitats. Global climate change is expected to alter not only the mean of the physical conditions experienced but also the frequencies and/or the magnitude of fluctuations of environmental factors. Understanding responses in an ecologically relevant context is essential for formulating management strategies. In particular, there are increasing suggestions that exposure to fluctuations could alleviate the impact of climate change-related stressors by selecting for plasticity that may help acclimatization to future conditions. However, it remains unclear whether the presence of fluctuations alone is sufficient to confer such effects or whether the pattern of the fluctuations matters. Therefore, we investigated the role of frequency and initial conditions of the fluctuations on performance by exposing larval sea urchin Heliocidaris crassispina to either constant or fluctuating pH. Reduced pH alone (pH 7.3 vs 8.0) did not affect larval mortality but reduced the growth of larval arms in the static pH treatments. Changes in morphology could affect the swimming mechanics for these small organisms, and geometric morphometric analysis further suggested an overall shape change such that acidified larvae had more U-shaped bodies and shorter arms, which would help maintain stability in moving water. The relative negative impact of lower pH, computed as log response ratio, on larval arm development was smaller when larvae were exposed to pH fluctuations, especially when the change was less frequent (48- vs 24-h cycle). Furthermore, larvae experiencing an initial pH drop, i.e. those where the cycle started at pH 8.0, were more negatively impacted compared with those kept at an initial pH of 7.3 before the cycling started. Our observations suggest that larval responses to climate change stress could not be easily predicted from mean conditions. Instead, to better predict organismal performance in the future ocean, monitoring and investigation of the role of real-time environmental fluctuations along the dispersive pathway is key.


2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (spe) ◽  
pp. 9-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Viola ◽  
Matías Franchini ◽  
Thaís Lemos Ribeiro

In the last five years, climate change has been established as a central civilizational driver of our time. As a result of this development, the most diversified social processes - as well as the fields of science which study them - have had their dynamics altered. In International Relations, this double challenge could be explained as follows: 1) in empirical terms, climate change imposes a deepening of cooperation levels on the international community, considering the global common character of the atmosphere; and 2) to International Relations as a discipline, climate change demands from the scientific community a conceptual review of the categories designed to approach the development of global climate governance. The goal of this article is to discuss in both conceptual and empirical terms the structure of global climate change governance, through an exploratory research, aiming at identifying the key elements that allow understanding its dynamics. To do so, we rely on the concept of climate powers. This discussion is grounded in the following framework: we now live in an international system under conservative hegemony that is unable to properly respond to the problems of interdependence, among which - and mainly -, the climate issue.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-395
Author(s):  
Marcela Cardoso Guilles Da Conceição ◽  
Renato de Aragão Ribeiro Rodrigues ◽  
Fernanda Reis Cordeiro ◽  
Fernando Vieira Cesário ◽  
Gracie Verde Selva ◽  
...  

The increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere raises the average temperature of the planet, triggering problems that threaten the survival of humans. Protecting the global climate from the effects of climate change is an essential condition for sustaining life. For this reason, governments, scientists, and society are joining forces to propose better solutions that could well-rounded environmentally, social and economic development relationships. International climate change negotiations involve many countries in establishing strategies to mitigate the problem. Therefore, understanding international negotiation processes and how ratified agreements impact a country is of fundamental importance. The purpose of this paper is to systematize information about how climate negotiations have progressed, detailing key moments and results, analyzing the role that Brazil played in the course of these negotiations and the country’s future perspectives.


Author(s):  
Yanyu Zhang ◽  
Shuying Zang ◽  
Xiangjin Shen ◽  
Gaohua Fan

Precipitation during the main rain season is important for natural ecosystems and human activities. In this study, according to daily precipitation data from 515 weather stations in China, we analyzed the spatiotemporal variation of rain-season (May–September) precipitation in China from 1960 to 2018. The results showed that rain-season precipitation decreased over China from 1960 to 2018. Rain-season heavy (25 ≤ p < 50 mm/day) and very heavy (p ≥ 50 mm/day) precipitation showed increasing trends, while rain-season moderate (10 ≤ p < 25 mm/day) and light (0.1 ≤ p < 10 mm/day) precipitation showed decreasing trends from 1960 to 2018. The temporal changes of precipitation indicated that rain-season light and moderate precipitation displayed downward trends in China from 1980 to 2010 and rain-season heavy and very heavy precipitation showed fluctuant variation from 1960 to 2018. Changes of rain-season precipitation showed clear regional differences. Northwest China and the Tibetan Plateau showed the largest positive trends of precipitation amount and days. In contrast, negative trends were found for almost all precipitation grades in North China Plain, Northeast China, and North Central China. Changes toward drier conditions in these regions probably had a severe impact on agricultural production. In East China, Southeast China and Southwest China, heavy and very heavy precipitation had increased while light and moderate precipitation had decreased. This result implied an increasing risk of flood and mudslides in these regions. The advance in understanding of precipitation change in China will contribute to exactly predict the regional climate change under the background of global climate change.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajishnu Roy ◽  
Kousik Pramanick

AbstractAgriculture, along with industry and household sector are three major sectors of human consumption. Agriculture has proved to be a major contributor to exceeding planetary boundaries. Here, we have explored the impact of agriculture in the Earth system processes, through eight dimensions of planetary boundaries or safe operating spaces: climate change (10.73%), freshwater use (91.56%), arable land use (37.27%), nitrogen use (95.77%), phosphorus use (87.28%), ecological footprint (19.42%), atmospheric pollution (2.52% - 38.08%) and novel entities. In this work, we have also shown role of agriculture to the socio-economic development dimensions: gender equality, employment and economic growth. We have shown that the safe operating limits for agriculture are going to decline by almost 55% (climate change), 300% (freshwater use), 50-55% (arable land use), 180% (nitrogen use), 265% (phosphorus use) and 20% (ecological footprint) in 2050, if the most inefficient way of consumption is chosen and continued. To alleviate the role of agriculture in transgressing planetary boundaries, it is indispensable to comprehend how many roles of agriculture is playing and where which target should be set to framework the national agricultural policies in coherence with attaining sustainable development goals of UN by 2030.


Agronomy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viola Devasirvatham ◽  
Daniel Tan

Global climate change has caused severe crop yield losses worldwide and is endangering food security in the future. The impact of climate change on food production is high in Australia and globally. Climate change is projected to have a negative impact on crop production. Chickpea is a cool season legume crop mostly grown on residual soil moisture. High temperature and terminal drought are common in different regions of chickpea production with varying intensities and frequencies. Therefore, stable chickpea production will depend on the release of new cultivars with improved adaptation to major events such as drought and high temperature. Recent progress in chickpea breeding has increased the efficiency of assessing genetic diversity in germplasm collections. This review provides an overview of the integration of new approaches and tools into breeding programs and their impact on the development of stress tolerance in chickpea.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Dan-Dan Yu ◽  
Shan Li ◽  
Zhong-Yang Guo

The evaluation of climate comfort for tourism can provide information for tourists selecting destinations and tourism operators. Understanding how climate conditions for tourism evolve is increasingly important for strategic tourism planning, particularly in rapidly developing tourism markets like China in a changing climate. Multidimensional climate indices are needed to evaluate climate for tourism, and previous studies in China have used the much criticized “climate index” with low resolution climate data. This study uses the Holiday Climate Index (HCI) and daily data from 775 weather stations to examine interregional differences in the tourist climate comfortable period (TCCP) across China and summarizes the spatiotemporal evolution of TCCP from 1981 to 2010 in a changing climate. Overall, most areas in China have an “excellent” climate for tourism, such that tourists may visit anytime with many choices available. The TCCP in most regions shows an increasing trend, and China benefits more from positive effects of climate change in climatic conditions for tourism, especially in spring and autumn. These results can provide some scientific evidence for understanding human settlement environmental constructions and further contribute in improving local or regional resilience responding to global climate change.


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