scholarly journals Promoting Intergenerational Justice Through Participatory Practices: Climate Workshops as an Arena for Young People’s Political Participation

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Ursin ◽  
Linn C. Lorgen ◽  
Isaac Arturo Ortega Alvarado ◽  
Ani-Lea Smalsundmo ◽  
Runar Chang Nordgård ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Interdisciplinary Team ◽  
County Council ◽  
Children And Youth ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Intergenerational Justice ◽  
Policy Document ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change

In the fall of 2019, Trøndelag County Council, Norway, organized a Climate Workshop for children and youth. The intention of the workshop was to include children’s and youth’s perspectives as a foundation for a policy document titled “How we do it in Trøndelag. Strategy for transformations to mitigate climate change”. The workshop involved a range of creative and discussion tools for input on sustainable development and climate politics. In this article, we aim to (1) describe and discuss innovative practices that include children and youth in policymaking related to climate action, and (2) discuss the theoretical implications of such policymaking in relation to children’s rights, young citizenship, and intergenerational justice. We employ a generational framework and perceive climate politics as inherently ingrained in intergenerational justice, where no generation has a superior claim to the earth’s resources, yet power is unfairly concentrated and accumulated among adult generations. We draw on contributions by various stakeholders involved: Two young workshop participants, two county council policymakers, and an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Childhood Studies and Design.

From Kyoto to Paris and Beyond: The Emerging Politics of Climate Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 097492842110272
Author(s):  
Saurabh Thakur
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Greenhouse Gases Emissions ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Action Strategies ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Justice Movements

Anthropogenic climate change has emerged as the most disruptive socio-political issue in the last few decades. The Kyoto Protocol’s failure to curb the rising greenhouse gases emissions pushed the UNFCCC-led negotiations towards a more flexible, non-binding agreement at the Paris COP21 meeting in 2015. The Paris Agreement’s hybrid approach to climate change governance, where flexible measures like the nationally determined commitments are balanced against the ambition of limiting the global temperature within the two-degree range, ensured the emergence of an increasingly complex and multi-stakeholder climate change regime. The article outlines the roadmap of the transition from the top-down approach of Kyoto Protocol to the legally non-binding, bottom-up approaches adopted for the post-Paris phase. The article outlines the post-Paris developments in international climate politics, which hold long-term geopolitical and geoeconomic implications. The article focuses on the fundamental shifts and balances within the UNFCCC architecture and examines the four fundamental features of this transition—the interpretation of differentiation and common but differentiated responsibilities, the evolving role of emerging economies in the negotiations, the rising profile of non-party stakeholders in shaping the climate action strategies and the emergence of climate justice movements as an alternate site of climate action.

scholarly journals Climate Solutions Double as Health Interventions

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (24) ◽  
pp. 13339
Author(s):  
Nicholas A. Mailloux ◽  
Colleen P. Henegan ◽  
Dorothy Lsoto ◽  
Kristen P. Patterson ◽  
Paul C. West ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Health Benefits ◽  
Respiratory Illness ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Vector Borne ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
Climate Crisis

The climate crisis threatens to exacerbate numerous climate-sensitive health risks, including heatwave mortality, malnutrition from reduced crop yields, water- and vector-borne infectious diseases, and respiratory illness from smog, ozone, allergenic pollen, and wildfires. Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stress the urgent need for action to mitigate climate change, underscoring the need for more scientific assessment of the benefits of climate action for health and wellbeing. Project Drawdown has analyzed more than 80 solutions to address climate change, building on existing technologies and practices, that could be scaled to collectively limit warming to between 1.5° and 2 °C above preindustrial levels. The solutions span nine major sectors and are aggregated into three groups: reducing the sources of emissions, maintaining and enhancing carbon sinks, and addressing social inequities. Here we present an overview of how climate solutions in these three areas can benefit human health through improved air quality, increased physical activity, healthier diets, reduced risk of infectious disease, and improved sexual and reproductive health, and universal education. We find that the health benefits of a low-carbon society are more substantial and more numerous than previously realized and should be central to policies addressing climate change. Much of the existing literature focuses on health effects in high-income countries, however, and more research is needed on health and equity implications of climate solutions, especially in the Global South. We conclude that adding the myriad health benefits across multiple climate change solutions can likely add impetus to move climate policies faster and further.

Sometimes, green is the outcome: climate action in records management and archives in Canada

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lois M. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Records Management ◽  
Green Is ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Impact Reduction ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Sustainability Measurement ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
Sustainability Initiatives

Purpose The paper aims to respond to three questions: Are Canadian organizations committed to sustainability? Are there any links between sustainability and records management and archives programs? And, to what extent are records managers, archivists and technologists engaged in climate action? The paper also provides background on climate change in the Canadian and global contexts, defines relevant terminology, and presents a literature review that positions sustainability, adaptation and mitigation in relation to records management and archives. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on qualitative participatory research involving expert interviews in 24 government agencies, universities and businesses located in 10 Canadian cities. Findings The organizations in the study are committed to sustainability and have developed significant programs and activities in support of this aim. Although the records managers, archivists and technologists interviewed are involved in related activities, there is a gap between what they are doing as a matter of course and the wider sustainability efforts of their parent organizations. As resources are tight, sustainability measurement entails more work and there are no real incentives to add sustainability components to programs, the participants are focused on delivering the programs they are hired to do. As a result, there is a sense of serendipity around outcomes that do occur – “sometimes, green is the outcome”. Research limitations/implications This paper presents the results of research conducted at 24 organizations in 10 Canadian cities, a small but meaningful sample that provides a springboard for considering climate action in records and archives. Based on the discussion, there is a need for a records and archives agenda that directly responds the United Nation's climate action targets: strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters; integrating climate change measures into policies, strategies and planning; and improving education, awareness-raising and human institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning. In support of this aim, the paper charts possible material topics from the literature and compares these with research findings. Practical implications From a top-down perspective, organizations need to expand sustainability programs to address all business areas, including records and archives. From a bottom-up perspective, records managers and archivists should include adaptation in disaster planning and consider the program benefits of developing economic, environmental and social sustainability initiatives to mitigate climate change. Originality/value The paper defines resilience, sustainability, adaption and mitigation and positions these terms in records management and archives. The paper examines how records managers, archivists and technologists think about sustainability; where sustainability intersects with records and archives work; and how records managers and archivists can engage in climate action.

scholarly journals Financing climate justice in the European Union and China: common mechanisms, different perspectives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Minas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
European Union ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
First Case ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The Eu

AbstractClimate justice is a concept with many different and competing interpretations. It has salience at intra-country, inter-country and intergenerational levels of climate politics. While inter-country climate justice has long been on the agenda of United Nations climate negotiations, the intra-country and intergenerational aspects of climate justice have assumed new prominence in many countries in recent years, as the economic consequences of mitigation became felt and transnational activism highlighted youth concerns. The diverse elements of and approaches to climate justice have this in common: realising them requires massive financial interventions and reforms. This article examines the still emerging frameworks to finance climate justice in two of the jurisdictions most important to the global response to climate change: the European Union and the People’s Republic of China. The EU and China have in common that they are both on the front line of financial innovation to respond to climate change. They are utilising similar tools of systemic financial intervention in order to transition financing to climate-friendly investment, in the first case domestically, but with clear implications for global financial markets. However, the EU and China are utilising climate financing mechanisms in the context of very different prevailing perspectives on climate justice. This article interrogates the relationship between these different perspectives on climate justice and the distribution, scale and pace of climate finance. The article also observes that while the EU incorporated climate justice considerations in its economic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic with a recovery package prioritising climate action, China did not take the opportunity to foster a ‘green recovery’.

scholarly journals Development Of A Template To Benchmark Municipal Climate Change Action

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Beare
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Municipal Policy ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
Original Insight

The goal of this thesis is to produce a benchmarking template that can be applied by municipalities across Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their operations. This template will provide a common set of indicators for benchmarking municipal emissions. It will attempt to link the academic literature to existing conditions and practices within municipalities. It also provides original insight through interviews with municipal officials and municipal policy experts. Research has shown that municipalities can mitigate climate change. Municipalities have authority to enact policies which reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While many municipalities have taken action, benchmarking initiatives still do not exist to allow for direct comparison of municipalities. Following a review of academic literature interviews were held with a panel of nine municipal policy experts to assess existing programs and a proposed benchmarking template. An indicator set with nine categories and 18 individual indicators measuring corporate and community GHG emissions was developed through consultations with the panel. A questionnaire was sent to 32 municipalities with a response rate of 25%. Based on the results participating municipalities were compared against one another to determine best practices and areas for improvement. Indicators for residential densities, municipal building heating, solid waste, and municipal buildings and operations had the highest tCO An examination of indicator set development, improved methods for modelling community emissions, assessment of the benefits of climate action and municipal networking for small municipalities would build upon this research.

scholarly journals CLIMATE JUSTICE: BALANCING THE RIGHT TO DEVELOP AND THE NORM OF SUSTAINABILITY

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ushana Jayasuriya
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Potential Distribution ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Intergenerational Justice ◽  
Present Generation ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
The Right ◽  
Real World Situation

<p>Climate change presents a global problem that requires collective action. Distributing obligations in relation to this has proven problematic, especially in light of the divide between wealthy and developed states compared to poor and developing states. The norm of sustainability requires states to continue to protect and promote sustainable actions. This comes into direct conflict with the right to develop when considering how to mitigate climate change. The right to develop requires the use of limited resources now, whereas the norm of sustainability argues that these resources must be protected for both environmental protection and intergenerational justice. Intragenerational justice requires us to consider whether actions that protect the future may be causing greater injustice within the present generation. In this thesis, I discuss the important potential distribution principles, with considerations of historic responsibility, uncertainty, and the ability to pay principles. I then use this foundation to explore how a right to develop can fit within the balance of intergenerational and intragenerational justice. I also include the context of non-ideal theory as a means of making the discussion more relevant to the real-world situation we find ourselves in, with the partial and non-compliance of many states. I conclude that, within the context of non-ideal theory, there is a right to develop but currently it ought to be limited to a basic needs threshold if we wish to justly distribute obligations between and across generations.</p>

scholarly journals CLIMATE JUSTICE: BALANCING THE RIGHT TO DEVELOP AND THE NORM OF SUSTAINABILITY

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ushana Jayasuriya
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Potential Distribution ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Intergenerational Justice ◽  
Present Generation ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
The Right ◽  
Real World Situation

<p>Climate change presents a global problem that requires collective action. Distributing obligations in relation to this has proven problematic, especially in light of the divide between wealthy and developed states compared to poor and developing states. The norm of sustainability requires states to continue to protect and promote sustainable actions. This comes into direct conflict with the right to develop when considering how to mitigate climate change. The right to develop requires the use of limited resources now, whereas the norm of sustainability argues that these resources must be protected for both environmental protection and intergenerational justice. Intragenerational justice requires us to consider whether actions that protect the future may be causing greater injustice within the present generation. In this thesis, I discuss the important potential distribution principles, with considerations of historic responsibility, uncertainty, and the ability to pay principles. I then use this foundation to explore how a right to develop can fit within the balance of intergenerational and intragenerational justice. I also include the context of non-ideal theory as a means of making the discussion more relevant to the real-world situation we find ourselves in, with the partial and non-compliance of many states. I conclude that, within the context of non-ideal theory, there is a right to develop but currently it ought to be limited to a basic needs threshold if we wish to justly distribute obligations between and across generations.</p>

The Climate Duties of Sub-National Political Communities

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-36
Author(s):  
Lachlan Montgomery Umbers ◽  
Jeremy Moss
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
National Level ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Partial Compliance ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Collective Agent

In recent years, several actors at the sub-national level (e.g. California, British Columbia, New York City) have taken unilateral steps to mitigate climate change by reducing their emissions. These developments have commanded considerable attention in the empirical literature. In this piece, we consider the philosophical dimensions of climate action at the sub-national level. Specifically, we argue that climate action at the sub-national level is an instance of a more general class of cases in which the failure of some collective agent to discharge some duty to which it is subject entails duties for the sub-collectives of which it is comprised to partially discharge that duty. We begin, then, with a discussion of such cases, and a defence of the devolution principle, which sets out conditions under which such duties arise. We then set out the argument with respect to sub-national political communities’ duties to take action on climate change, specifically. The article concludes by considering complications arising out of the inevitable fact of partial compliance, drawing upon recent work in the literature on slack-taking duties.

scholarly journals DRAFT Climate Change Adaptation Indicators Framework for the City of Boston, MA

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
SeaPlan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Change Climate ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
Climate Action Plan ◽  
The City

Despite global efforts to mitigate climate change, climate change impacts are occurring, and will likely increase in severity in the coming decades. The City of Boston has stated its commitment to mitigating climate change and preparing the city for its impacts through the establishment of the Climate Action Plan (2010). Through their report, the Climate Action Leadership Committee and the Community Advisory Committee of the City of Boston established the need for an indicators framework to track the progress of the City of Boston in preparing for climate change. “A Draft Climate Adaptation Indicators Framework for the City of Boston, MA” provides a pragmatic approach to establishing indicator metrics to better understand the City of Boston’s vulnerabilities and to evaluate and track its progress in implementing preparedness and resilience measures. This report describes the four-step methodology to develop a climate change adaptation (CCA) indicators framework, the resulting draft CCA indicators framework, and recommendations for next steps in implementing and honing this framework.

scholarly journals Development Of A Template To Benchmark Municipal Climate Change Action

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Beare
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Municipal Policy ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
Original Insight

The goal of this thesis is to produce a benchmarking template that can be applied by municipalities across Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their operations. This template will provide a common set of indicators for benchmarking municipal emissions. It will attempt to link the academic literature to existing conditions and practices within municipalities. It also provides original insight through interviews with municipal officials and municipal policy experts. Research has shown that municipalities can mitigate climate change. Municipalities have authority to enact policies which reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While many municipalities have taken action, benchmarking initiatives still do not exist to allow for direct comparison of municipalities. Following a review of academic literature interviews were held with a panel of nine municipal policy experts to assess existing programs and a proposed benchmarking template. An indicator set with nine categories and 18 individual indicators measuring corporate and community GHG emissions was developed through consultations with the panel. A questionnaire was sent to 32 municipalities with a response rate of 25%. Based on the results participating municipalities were compared against one another to determine best practices and areas for improvement. Indicators for residential densities, municipal building heating, solid waste, and municipal buildings and operations had the highest tCO An examination of indicator set development, improved methods for modelling community emissions, assessment of the benefits of climate action and municipal networking for small municipalities would build upon this research.

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