Assessment of Climate Change Mitigation Benefits and Their Integration in Climate Policies

In South Africa, forests can play an important role in achieving the broader goals of climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, national policies on climate change mitigation and adaptation seem to narrow the potential contributions of the forest sector to climate protection targets. This is largely because of the divergence between the management goals of forests for climate protection, and products for both industries and livelihoods. This article uses discourse analysis as a methodological tool to analyze South Africa's climate and forest policies to identify the discourses shaping forest policy goals and mandates, and their integration into climate policy targets for forest-based climate change interventions. Four discourses, namely, preservation of forest integrity, social inclusiveness, equitable benefit sharing, and inclusive development of forests and forest-based communities, were identified as the dominant discourses influencing forest policy goals in South Africa. Their influence on forest management programmes has a mix of costs and benefits outcomes. For example, policy responses to the discourse on the preservation of forest integrity have resulted in ecologically sustainable forests in some cases and in other cases restricted the participation of local people in forest enterprise development. Additionally, climate policies recognized six possible interventions with respect to forest-based climate change mitigation and adaptation in South Africa but were silent about the four discourses shaping forest policy goals. Consequently, existing climate policies do not contain regulations to guide forest management for climate change mitigation and adaptation. We therefore recommend that forest-related goals in climate policy be grounded in the past experiences and lessons of forest policy implementations in order to take advantage of the synergies and reduce the trade-offs with respect to multipurpose management of forests for livelihoods, enterprise development, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

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Climate Change Triage

10.31228/osf.io/86zw9 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Noah M. Sachs

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Emergency Medicine ◽

International Law ◽

Moral Theory ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Climate Policies ◽

Change Policy ◽

Change Mitigation

Climate change is the first global triage crisis. It is caused by the overuse of a severely limited natural resource—the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases—and millions of lives depend on how international law allocates this resource among nations.This Article is the first to explore solutions for climate change mitigation through the lens of triage ethics, drawing on law, philosophy, moral theory, and economics. The literature on triage ethics—developed in contexts such as battlefield trauma, organ donation, emergency medicine, and distribution of food and shelter—has direct implications for climate change policy and law, yet it has been overlooked by climate change scholars. The triage lens rules out climate policies—including the current emissions path—that will lead to catastrophic warming, and it puts options on the table that are marginalized in the current United Nations negotiations on a climate change agreement.This Article examines three allocation principles that could potentially apply in climate change triage—utilitarianism, egalitarianism, and a market-based distribution—and it concludes that egalitarianism is the preferable allocation principle from the standpoint of ethics and international law. This Article ends by exploring four major policy implications that emerge from viewing climate change through the lens of triage.

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The politics of climate change in a neo-developmental state: The case of South Korea

International Political Science Review ◽

10.1177/0192512120924741 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 019251212092474 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Thomas Kalinowski

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

South Korea ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Developmental State ◽

Green Technology ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation ◽

Green Technologies ◽

Climate Policies ◽

Global Leader ◽

Change Mitigation

South Korea is the seventh largest emitter of CO2 and its climate-change mitigation policies are clearly insufficient. At the same time, the country has been very ambitious in implementing industrial policies promoting green technologies and international initiatives to support greenhouse gas mitigation in developing countries. What explains this discrepancy between weak emission goals and strong investments in green technology as well as ambitions to become a green ‘global leader’? This article argues that the specific character of Korean climate policies can be understood in the context of Korea’s legacy as a developmental state characterized by strong corporatist links between state and business as well as a weak civil society.

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Different Countries, Common Support for Climate Change Mitigation: The Case of Germany and Poland

Climate ◽

10.3390/cli9020027 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 27

Author(s):

Zbigniew Bohdanowicz

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Policy ◽

Emotional Response ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Carbon Tax ◽

The Public ◽

Climate Policies ◽

Common Support ◽

Climate Crisis ◽

Change Mitigation

There are numerous studies assessing the influence of individual sociological, political, and demographic factors on attitudes towards climate change. However, there is still a need for a deeper understanding of the reasons behind these attitudes and for research based on results from more than one country. This study empirically examines a range of psychosocial and demographic determinants of support for climate policy (renewable energy, energy efficiency and carbon tax) in Germany and Poland (n = 1969). The results show that the societies of both countries, despite significant differences in income, culture and political stance on climate change, similarly support implementation of climate policies. For both countries valid predictors of support are: awareness, emotional response to climate crisis, sense of control, and belief in effectiveness of solutions; the study also shows predictors relevant in only one country. Factor analysis identified similar dimensions of attitudes toward climate change in both countries. The main findings show that support for climate policy is high in both countries and that the public is ready to accept more ambitious climate goals. Despite the differences between the countries, a coherent climate policy seems justified. The study also shows differences between the countries and provides recommendations for policymakers.

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Experimental evidence of an environmental attitude-behavior gap in high-cost situations

10.31235/osf.io/5wxrs ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mike Farjam ◽

Olexandr Nikolaychuk ◽

Giangiacomo Bravo

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Real World ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Environmental Attitudes ◽

Low Cost ◽

Environmental Attitude ◽

Climate Policies ◽

Environmental Objectives ◽

Attitude Behavior ◽

Change Mitigation

So far, there has been mixed evidence in the literature regarding the relation between environmental attitudes and actual ``green'' actions, something known as attitude-behavior gap. This raises the question of when attitudes can actually work as a lever to promote environmental objectives, such as climate change mitigation, and, conversely, when other factors would be more effective. We tested the effect of environmental attitudes on behavior in an online experiment with real money at stake and real-world consequences. We found that environmental attitudes affected behavior in low-cost situations while increasing contribution costs generally reduced their effect. This finding is consistent with the low-cost hypothesis of environmental behavior and has important consequences for the design of more effective climate policies in a democratic context.

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Public Perceptions of Climate Change and Support for Climate Policies in Asia: Evidence from Recent Polls

The Journal of Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0021911811000064 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 70 (2) ◽

pp. 319-331 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

So Young Kim

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Focal Point ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Public Perceptions ◽

Climate Policies ◽

Change Policy ◽

Global Coordination ◽

Change Mitigation ◽

Cross National

Climate change has become a focal point in recent environmental debates and policymaking. Latest polls show rising consensus among the global public on the urgency of the problem. Home to the fastest growing economies as well as to four of the ten largest greenhouse gas emitters, Asia holds key to successful global coordination on climate change policy. This essay draws a contour of Asian public opinion on climate change issues based on multiple cross-national polls. While generally aware of climate change and seriously concerned about its effects, Asians turn out to be the least willing to bear the costs of climate change mitigation as compared to the residents of other regions of the world. This portends a great hurdle to devising and implementing proactive policies to address the challenges of climate change in the region.

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Are policymakers responsive to public demand in climate politics?

Journal of Public Policy ◽

10.1017/s0143814x21000088 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-29

Author(s):

Lena Maria Schaffer ◽

Bianca Oehl ◽

Thomas Bernauer

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Issue Salience ◽

Empirical Measures ◽

Climate Politics ◽

Climate Policies ◽

Change Policy ◽

Change Mitigation ◽

Public Demand

Abstract Normative theories of democracy agree that public demand should be the main guide in policymaking. But positive theories and related empirical research disagree about the extent to which this holds true in reality. We address this debate with an empirical focus on climate change policy. Specifically, we are interested in whether observable variation in public demand for climate change mitigation can help explain variation in adopted national climate policies. Using our own data to approximate public demand, we estimate the responsiveness of policymakers to changes in public demand in six OECD countries from 1995 to 2010. We find that policymakers are responsive and react in predicted ways to variation in our opinion component of measured public demand, rather than to the mere salience of the climate issue. The effect of issue salience is strongest in combination with our opinion measure as this creates a scope for action. The results underscore the importance and usefulness of our concept and empirical measures for public demand, as well as of our disaggregated analysis of climate policy outputs in this area.

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