scholarly journals Integrated assessment of climate change: state of the literature

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (03) ◽  
pp. 377-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Weyant
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Carbon Policy ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Regulatory Processes ◽  
Order Of Magnitude

Abstract: This paper reviews applications of benefit-cost analysis (BCA) in climate policy assessment at the US national and global scales. Two different but related major application types are addressed. First there are global-scale analyses that focus on calculating optimal global carbon emissions trajectories and carbon prices that maximize global welfare. The second application is the use of the same tools to compute the social cost of carbon (SCC) for use in US regulatory processes. The SCC is defined as the climate damages attributable to an increase of one metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions above a baseline emissions trajectory that assumes no new climate policies. The paper describes the three main quantitative models that have been used in the optimal carbon policy and SCC calculations and then summarizes the range of results that have been produced using them. The results span an extremely broad range (up to an order of magnitude) across modeling platforms as well as across the plausible ranges of input assumptions to a single model. This broad range of results sets the stage for a discussion of the five key challenges that face BCA practitioners participating in the national and global climate change policy analysis arenas: (1) including the possibility of catastrophic outcomes; (2) factoring in equity and income distribution considerations; (3) addressing intertemporal discounting and intergenerational equity; (4) projecting baseline demographics, technological change, and policies inside and outside the energy sector; and (5) characterizing the full set of uncertainties to be dealt with and designing a decision-making process that updates and adapts new scientific and economic information into that process in a timely and productive manner. The paper closes by describing how the BCA models have been useful in climate policy discussions to date despite the uncertainties that pervade the results that have been produced.

scholarly journals Global Deliberative Democracy and Climate Change: Insights from World Wide Views on Global Warming in Australia

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Riedy ◽  
Jade Herriman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Climate Change Response ◽  
Deliberative System ◽  
The World ◽  
Change Response

On 26 September 2009, approximately 4,000 citizens in 38 countries participated in World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews). WWViews was an ambitious first attempt to convene a deliberative mini-public at a global scale, giving people from around the world an opportunity to deliberate on international climate policy and to make recommendations to the decision-makers meeting at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15) in December 2009. In this paper, we examine the role that deliberative mini-publics can play in facilitating the emergence of a global deliberative system for climate change response. We pursue this intent through a reflective evaluation of the Australian component of the World Wide Views on Global Warming project (WWViews). Our evaluation of WWViews is mixed. The Australian event was delivered with integrity and feedback from Australian participants was almost universally positive. Globally, WWViews demonstrated that it is feasible to convene a global mini-public to deliberate on issues of global relevance, such as climate change. On the other hand, the contribution of WWViews towards the emergence of a global deliberative system for climate change response was limited and it achieved little influence on global climate change policy. We identify lessons for future global mini-publics, including the need to prioritise the quality of deliberation and provide flexibility to respond to cultural and political contexts in different parts of the world. Future global mini-publics may be more influential if they seek to represent discourse diversity in addition to demographic profiles, use designs that maximise the potential for transmission from public to empowered space, run over longer time periods to build momentum for change and experiment with ways of bringing global citizens together in a single process instead of discrete national events.

scholarly journals Using the Market to Address Climate Change: Insights from Theory & Experience

Daedalus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 141 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph E. Aldy ◽  
Robert N. Stavins
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Shadow Price ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Carbon Intensity ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Carbon Taxes

Emissions of greenhouse gases linked with global climate change are affected by diverse aspects of economic activity, including individual consumption, business investment, and government spending. An effective climate policy will have to modify the decision calculus for these activities in the direction of more efficient generation and use of energy, lower carbon-intensity of energy, and a more carbon-lean economy. The only technically feasible and cost-effective approach to achieving this goal on a meaningful scale is carbon pricing: that is, market-based climate policies that place a shadow-price on carbon dioxide emissions. We examine alternative designs of three such instruments: carbon taxes, cap and trade, and clean energy standards. We note that the U.S. political response to possible market-based approaches to climate policy has been, and will continue to be, largely a function of issues and structural factors that transcend the scope of environmental and climate policy.

scholarly journals Will We Ever Have Paris? Canada's Climate Change Policy and Federalism 3.0

2018 ◽  
pp. 889
Author(s):  
Jason MacLean
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Canadian Society ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Change Policy

Global climate change is at the point where politics as usual is not sufficient to combat it. The author argues that a new conceptualization of constitutionalism and federalism will be required to respond to this change. What the author calls federalism 3.0 will be a bottom-up approach to politics, where individuals are empowered by governments and institutions to shape climate policy. This bottom-up approach is encapsulated in the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has publicly declared Canada’s commitment to climate leadership through mobilizing all elements of Canadian society. However, the author argues Trudeau’s policies to date are merely an example of formalistic, check-the-box constitutionalism, rather than substantive, federalism 3.0.

Hot Planet, Cold Wars

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 533-548
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Kane
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Gas Emissions

Shared challenges can bring out the best in people, but they can also do the opposite. Global climate change is an archetypal shared challenge for humanity, and although the threat has inspired a substantial amount of international co-operation, efforts to moderate it have already proven divisive. These divisions go beyond economically-driven haggling over who must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by what amount. Attempts to mitigate human civilisation's effects on the climate raise questions of political principle. Moreover, these questions have the specific potential to mobilise certain states and quasi-states against certain other ones, and this has implications for the field of security studies. Thus, climate change threatens to revive ideological dispute among armed, organised economically-developed societies. Although the idea of a world war over carbon remains far-fetched, the parallels with the international politics of the mid–20th century are disturbing. Policymakers would be wise to take the political questions of climate change more seriously than they appear to have done in the past. Scholars may note that disputes over global warming challenge influential models of contemporary global politics. This paper explores the reasons why controversies over climate policy are likely to prove particularly divisive in international politics. The first section discusses the relative ideological consensus that has prevailed among developed societies since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even pessimistic theorists initially took this consensus for granted. As of 2005, however, this consensus is stretched thin on numerous issues. One of these issues is climate policy. A second section of this paper discusses the stakes in the climate debate, suggesting that this dispute is likely to be a particularly important one. The third section notes that attempts to limit global carbon dioxide emissions raise questions about citizens' relationships to each other and to the state. Historically, such questions have raised issues of principle. These issues have had moral and emotional implications that run far beyond the material issues involved. Many nations, notably the US, have resolved these issues by adopting the political system known as republicanism. A fourth section discusses the concept of a republic and the problems it presents for those who wish to develop an international policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The fifth section notes that a broad, if informal, movement in early 21st century politics directly challenges republicanism. Debates over climate policy have already served to deepen this division. A conclusion sums up the paper's findings and reflects on their implications. Future work in the field of security studies will need to address the potential friction between republican and anti-republican political entities, and this paper highlights one of the forms this friction may take.

Copenhagen Agreement - A New Paradigm of Climate Problem Solving

2010 ◽  
pp. 115-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Agibalov ◽  
A. Kokorin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
New Order ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Energy Efficiency Policy ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
Change Policy

Copenhagen summit results could be called a failure. This is the failure of UN climate change policy management, but definitely the first step to a new order as well. The article reviews main characteristics of climate policy paradigm shifts. Russian interests in climate change policy and main threats are analyzed. Successful development and implementation of energy savings and energy efficiency policy are necessary and would sufficiently help solving the global climate change problem.

scholarly journals Post COVID-19 Recovery and 2050 Climate Change Targets: Changing the Emphasis from Promotion of Renewables to Mandated Curtailment of Fossil Fuels in the EU Policies

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1347
Author(s):  
Kyriakos Maniatis ◽  
David Chiaramonti ◽  
Eric van den Heuvel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
European Union ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
The European Union

The present work considers the dramatic changes the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the global economy, with particular emphasis on energy. Focusing on the European Union, the article discusses the opportunities policy makers can implement to reduce the climate impacts and achieve the Paris Agreement 2050 targets. The analysis specifically looks at the fossil fuels industry and the future of the fossil sector post COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis first revises the fossil fuel sector, and then considers the need for a shift of the global climate change policy from promoting the deployment of renewable energy sources to curtailing the use of fossil fuels. This will be a change to the current global approach, from a relative passive one to a strategically dynamic and proactive one. Such a curtailment should be based on actual volumes of fossil fuels used and not on percentages. Finally, conclusions are preliminary applied to the European Union policies for net zero by 2050 based on a two-fold strategy: continuing and reinforcing the implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive to 2035, while adopting a new directive for fixed and over time increasing curtailment of fossils as of 2025 until 2050.

scholarly journals Reduced resilience of terrestrial ecosystems locally is not reflected on a global scale

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuhao Feng ◽  
Haojie Su ◽  
Zhiyao Tang ◽  
Shaopeng Wang ◽  
Xia Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Terrestrial Vegetation ◽  
Ecosystem Resilience

AbstractGlobal climate change likely alters the structure and function of vegetation and the stability of terrestrial ecosystems. It is therefore important to assess the factors controlling ecosystem resilience from local to global scales. Here we assess terrestrial vegetation resilience over the past 35 years using early warning indicators calculated from normalized difference vegetation index data. On a local scale we find that climate change reduced the resilience of ecosystems in 64.5% of the global terrestrial vegetated area. Temperature had a greater influence on vegetation resilience than precipitation, while climate mean state had a greater influence than climate variability. However, there is no evidence for decreased ecological resilience on larger scales. Instead, climate warming increased spatial asynchrony of vegetation which buffered the global-scale impacts on resilience. We suggest that the response of terrestrial ecosystem resilience to global climate change is scale-dependent and influenced by spatial asynchrony on the global scale.

Comments: Carbon Tariffs - Fair Incentives for Change?

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (05) ◽  
pp. 8-8
Author(s):  
Pam Boschee
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Carbon Price ◽  
Carbon Leakage ◽  
Carbon Taxes ◽  
Trading Systems ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Carbon Tariff

Carbon credits, carbon taxes, and emissions trading systems are familiar terms in discussions about limiting global warming, the Paris Agreement, and net-zero emissions goals. A more recent addition to the glossary of climate policy is “carbon tariff.” While the concept is not new, it recently surfaced in nascent policymaking in the EU. In 2019, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed a “carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM)” as part of a proposed green deal. In March, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on a World Trade Organization (WTO)-compatible CBAM. A carbon tariff, or the EU’s CBAM, is a tax applied to carbon-intensive imports. Countries that have pledged to be more ambitious in reducing emissions—and in some cases have implemented binding targets—may impose carbon costs on their own businesses. Being eyed now are cross-border or overseas businesses that make products in countries in which no costs are imposed for emissions, resulting in cheaper carbon-intensive goods. Those products are exported to the countries aiming for reduced emissions. The concern lies in the risk of locally made goods becoming unfairly disadvantaged against competitors that are not taking similar steps to deal with climate change. A carbon tariff is being considered to level the playing field: local businesses in countries applying a tariff can better compete as climate policies evolve and are adopted around the world. Complying with WTO rules to ensure fair treatment, the CBAM will be imposed only on high-emitting industries that compete directly with local industries paying a carbon price. In the short term, these are likely to be steel, chemicals, fertilizers, and cement. The Parliament’s statement introduced another term to the glossary of climate policy: carbon leakage. “To raise global climate ambition and prevent ‘carbon leakage,’ the EU must place a carbon price on imports from less climate-ambitious countries.” It refers to the situation that may occur if businesses were to transfer production to other countries with laxer emission constraints to avoid costs related to climate policies. This could lead to an increase in total emissions in the higher-emitting countries. “The resolution underlines that the EU’s increased ambition on climate change must not lead to carbon leakage as global climate efforts will not benefit if EU production is just moved to non-EU countries that have less ambitious emissions rules,” the Parliament said. It also emphasized the tariff “must not be misused to further protectionism.” A member of the environment committee, Yannick Jadot, said, “It is a major political and democratic test for the EU, which must stop being naïve and impose the same carbon price on products, whether they are produced in or outside the EU, to ensure the most polluting sectors also take part in fighting climate change and innovate towards zero carbon. This will give us the best chance of remaining below the 1.5°C warming limit, whilst also pushing our trading partners to be equally ambitious in order to enter the EU market.” The Commission is expected to present a legislative proposal on a CBAM in the second quarter of 2021 as part of the European Green Deal.

scholarly journals Global Potato Yields Increase Under Climate Change With Adaptation and CO2 Fertilisation

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart A. Jennings ◽  
Ann-Kristin Koehler ◽  
Kathryn J. Nicklin ◽  
Chetan Deva ◽  
Steven M. Sait ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
National Scale ◽  
Modeling Studies ◽  
Potato Yields

The contribution of potatoes to the global food supply is increasing—consumption more than doubled in developing countries between 1960 and 2005. Understanding climate change impacts on global potato yields is therefore important for future food security. Analyses of climate change impacts on potato compared to other major crops are rare, especially at the global scale. Of two global gridded potato modeling studies published at the time of this analysis, one simulated the impacts of temperature increases on potential potato yields; the other did not simulate the impacts of farmer adaptation to climate change, which may offset negative climate change impacts on yield. These studies may therefore overestimate negative climate change impacts on yields as they do not simultaneously include CO2 fertilisation and adaptation to climate change. Here we simulate the abiotic impacts of climate change on potato to 2050 using the GLAM crop model and the ISI-MIP ensemble of global climate models. Simulations include adaptations to climate change through varying planting windows and varieties and CO2 fertilisation, unlike previous global potato modeling studies. Results show significant skill in reproducing observed national scale yields in Europe. Elsewhere, correlations are generally positive but low, primarily due to poor relationships between national scale observed yields and climate. Future climate simulations including adaptation to climate change through changing planting windows and crop varieties show that yields are expected to increase in most cases as a result of longer growing seasons and CO2 fertilisation. Average global yield increases range from 9 to 20% when including adaptation. The global average yield benefits of adaptation to climate change range from 10 to 17% across climate models. Potato agriculture is associated with lower green house gas emissions relative to other major crops and therefore can be seen as a climate smart option given projected yield increases with adaptation.

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