scholarly journals The Impact of Public Deliberation on Climate Change Opinions Among U.S. Citizens

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajiv Ghimire ◽  
Nathaniel Anbar ◽  
Netra B. Chhetri
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Rank Test ◽  
Citizen Engagement ◽  
Global Environmental Issue ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Impact

Governance of climate change has become a major global environmental issue in the 21st century, and in the absence of wider citizen engagement poses risks of global proportions. Much of the current climate governance debate, unfortunately, is limited to scientists, politicians, and interest groups. With few exceptions, everyday citizens are spectators at best, their views, if not absent, are dismally represented in policy processes. To close the widening gap between citizens and policymakers, thereby increasing the sense of ownership of environmental policies by ordinary people, several methods of citizen engagement for global environmental governance have emerged. The effectiveness of these methods, however, relies upon the ability of citizens to deliberate meaningfully, especially in issues such as climate change. We conducted a study in conjunction with World Wide Views on Climate and Energy, a global citizen consultation that aims to solicit carefully considered public views on pressing issues, to determine whether American citizens are receptive to deliberation, and to ascertain what effect it had on their opinions, if any, could be observed. Along with the descriptive analysis, we performed a non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test of selected pre-and post-event opinions of the participants from the US. Our study revealed that providing US citizens with the opportunity to engage in deliberation resulted in increased awareness regarding climate change and greater trust in science, technology, and international agreements. The change in opinion was more pronounced among people whose political orientation titled to the right or who considered themselves as neutral. Citizen’s opinions, especially after the event, resulted in less polarized views towards the global consensus on climate change. This finding suggests that US citizens are receptive to scientific information if it is communicated in an appropriate manner – a characteristic necessary for the creation of deliberative democratic governance on socially contested issues.

scholarly journals When emergent countries reform global governance of climate change: Brazil under Lula

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (spe) ◽  
pp. 73-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Flávia Barros-Platiau
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Analytical Instruments ◽  
Environmental Regimes ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Emerging Country ◽  
Emerging Powers ◽  
The Impact

Due to its recent economic success, Brazil is considered an emerging country, but is it an emerging power concerning global environmental governance? This article argues that although Brazil has a sui generis profile, it can only be considered an emerging power in some environmental regimes, such as global climate change. Thus, international relations theory needs more analytical instruments to assess the impact of emerging powers in global environmental governance

The Polluter Pays Principle as an Instrument of Municipal and Global Environmental Governance in Climate Change Mitigation Law: Lessons from China, India, and the United States

Climate Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-93
Author(s):  
Paul A. Barresi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Polluter Pays Principle ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Change Mitigation

The disparate fates of the polluter pays principle (ppp) as an instrument of municipal environmental governance in the environmental law of China, India, and the United States illustrate how institutions and culture can shape its use. In China, essential elements of the Chinese legal tradition and an institutionalized devolution of power from the central government to local governments essentially neutralized the Chinese variant of the ppp in one important context by mobilizing certain culturally defined behavioural norms at the local level. In India, the Supreme Court has behaved in accordance with the socially revolutionary role intended for it by the framers of India’s Constitution by recognizing a maximalist conception of the ppp as part of Indian law, although other features of India’s unique legal culture and institutions have reduced the impact of this development. In the United States, the institutionalized fragmentation of the law-making process within the Federal Government has undermined even the implicit implementation of the ppp, to which US environmental statutes do not refer. The implications of these developments for the ppp as an instrument of municipal but also global environmental governance in climate change mitigation law flow less from the nominal status of the ppp in the laws of China, India, and the United States than from the unique institutional and cultural conditions that prevail there. The result is a case study in how institutions and culture can transform the implementation of a principle of environmental governance that at first glance might seem to be a simple exercise in economic rationality into a different exercise that is not simple at all.

Climate change in the Cameroonian press: An analysis of its representations

2020 ◽  
pp. 096366252097601
Author(s):  
Nicole Kay ◽  
Sandrine Gaymard
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Environmental Issue ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Global Environmental Issue ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Opening Up

Climate change is a global environmental issue and its outcome will affect societies around the world. In recent years, we have seen a growing literature on media coverage of climate change, but, to date, no study has assessed the situation in Cameroon, although it is considered to be one of the world’s most affected and vulnerable regions. This study attempted to address this deficit by analysing how climate change is represented in the Cameroonian media. A similarity analysis was performed on three newspapers published in 2013–2016. Results showed that climate coverage focused on politics and international involvement. It seems disconnected from local realities, potentially opening up a spatial and social psychological distance. The relationship between the representation of climate change and that of poverty is an area for further exploration.

scholarly journals Predicting current and future background ion concentrations in German surface water under climate change

2018 ◽  
Vol 374 (1764) ◽  
pp. 20180004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trong Dieu Hien Le ◽  
Mira Kattwinkel ◽  
Klaus Schützenmeister ◽  
John R. Olson ◽  
Charles P. Hawkins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Surface Waters ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Running Water ◽  
Ion Concentrations ◽  
Freshwater Organisms ◽  
Global Environmental Issue ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Major Factors

Salinization of surface waters is a global environmental issue that can pose a regional risk to freshwater organisms, potentially leading to high environmental and economic costs. Global environmental change including climate and land use change can increase the transport of ions into surface waters. We fit both multiple linear regression (LR) and random forest (RF) models on a large spatial dataset to predict Ca 2+ (266 sites), Mg 2+ (266 sites), and (357 sites) ion concentrations as well as electrical conductivity (EC—a proxy for total dissolved solids with 410 sites) in German running water bodies. Predictions in both types of models were driven by the major factors controlling salinity including geologic and soil properties, climate, vegetation and topography. The predictive power of the two types of models was very similar, with RF explaining 71–76% of the spatial variation in ion concentrations and LR explaining 70–75% of the variance. Mean squared errors for predictions were all smaller than 0.06. The factors most strongly associated with stream ion concentrations varied among models but rock chemistry and climate were the most dominant. The RF model was subsequently used to forecast the changes in EC that were likely to occur for the period of 2070 to 2100 in response to just climate change—i.e. no additional effects of other anthropogenic activities. The future forecasting shows approximately 10% and 15% increases in mean EC for representative concentration pathways 2.6 and 8.5 (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5) scenarios, respectively. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Salt in freshwaters: causes, ecological consequences and future prospects’.

scholarly journals STRATEGIC GUIDELINES FOR COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE AND THREATS IN GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-83
Author(s):  
Lyudmila Levkovska ◽  
Alla Omelchenko
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Environmental Security ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Impact

It is substantiated that the development of scientific and technological progress since the middle of the last century has led to intensive industrialization that, together with globalization processes, has resulted in global climate change. Nowadays, combating global warming is one of the most challenging and urgent tasks of humanity. Sweeping changes in natural systems, primarily an increase in the frequency and duration of droughts, floods, melting glaciers and rising water in the seven seas, biodiversity loss, etc., are the effect of global temperature rise. There is also a deterioration of living conditions and standards of the public, declining food security, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The research outlines the main trends in climate change. It is clarified the impact of climate change on the environment, man, society, and economy. The authors emphasize the significance and role of local actions towards adapting to the effects of climate change, which may become a tool for reducing climate risks in a global environment. It is justified that the challenge of climate change is addressed by joint efforts of each state of the world economic space. The effects of climate change and adaptation measures within economic realms are regarded by relying on global experience. The purpose of the article is to determine strategic guidelines for implementing adaptation measures to the impact of climate change to guarantee global environmental security. The research is based on a systems approach to solving the issue of guaranteeing global environmental security. In this context, it refers to the stimulation of constant economic modernization and the development of a new economic structure of the 21st century aimed at searching for effective mechanisms and tools promoting the measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. First of all, this means the implementation of energy-saving technologies, which will reduce the energy intensity of production and thus, increase economic energy efficiency and enhance global environmental security.

scholarly journals New Governance Mechanisms Contributing to the Integration of National Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Policies in the Brazilian Amazon

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-151
Author(s):  
Carlos Germano Ferreira Costa
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Governance Mechanisms ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Municipal Level

Research in the field of Global Environmental Governance (GEG) pays considerable attention to the emergence of New Governance Mechanisms (NGM). NGM poses profound challenges to governments and institutions in the Developed and Developing world alike, corresponding to new ways of participation. This article seeks to contribute to the debates on NGM by analyzing a municipal-level environmental governance scheme based on deforestation-free commitments emerged in 2011, in Brazil, that has successfully helped to reduce deforestation in the participant municipalities; the Programa Municípios Verdes (PMV). We also shed some lights on the risks represented by promises of changes in federal environmental legislation by the newly elected government of Brazil. It is secondary research based on official data analysis that provided a cost-effective way of gaining a broad understanding of the integration of multi-level climate change mitigation and adaptation policies as well as a report of the governance of policy instruments in local governance schemes. Methodologically we rely on the method of content analysis, based on the study of the PMV Statistical Database, that gives visibility to a broad range of environmental, social, and territorial data and information for the 144 municipalities of the Pará State, through six different types of official reports.

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