scholarly journals Communicating Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Efforts in American Cities

Climate ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantine Boussalis ◽  
Travis Coan ◽  
Mirya Holman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Press Releases ◽  
City Governments ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Adaptation Policies ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City

City governments have a large role to play in climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, given that urban locales are responsible for disproportionately high levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are on the “front lines” of observed and anticipated climate change impacts. This study examines how US mayors prioritize climate policies within the context of the city agenda. Employing a computer-assisted content analysis of over 2886 mayoral press releases related to climate change from 82 major American cities for the period 2010–2016, we describe and explain the extent to which city governments discuss mitigation and adaptation policies in official communications. Specifically, we rely on a semi-supervised topic model to measure key climate policy themes in city press releases and examine their correlates using a multilevel statistical model. Our results suggest that while mitigation policies tend to dominate the city agenda on climate policy, discussion of adaptation efforts has risen dramatically in the past few years. Further, our statistical analysis indicates that partisanship influences city discussion on a range of climate policy areas—including emissions, land use policy, and climate resiliency—while projected vulnerability to climatic risks only influences discussion of climate resiliency and adaptation efforts.

scholarly journals The Politics of Climate Change Adaptation

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 317-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nives Dolšak ◽  
Aseem Prakash
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Disaster Management ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Adaptation Policies

Climate action has two pillars: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation faces collective action issues because its costs are focused on specific locations/actors but benefits are global and nonexcludable. Adaptation, in contrast, creates local benefits, and therefore should face fewer collective action issues. However, governance units vary in the types of adaptation policies they adopt. To explain this variation, we suggest conceptualizing adaptation-as-politics because adaptation speaks to the issues of power, conflicting policy preferences, resource allocation, and administrative tensions. In examining who develops and implements adaptation, we explore whether adaptation is the old wine of disaster management in the new bottle of climate policy, and the tensions between national and local policy making. In exploring what adaptation policies are adopted, we discuss maladaptation and the distinction between hard and soft infrastructure. Finally, we examine why politicians favor visible, hard adaptation over soft adaptation, and how international influences shape local policy.

The Role of Late-Night Infotainment Comedy in Communicating Climate Change Consensus

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward John Roy Clarke ◽  
Anna Klas ◽  
Joshua Stevenson ◽  
Emily Jane Kothe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Mitigation Policy ◽  
Behavioural Intentions ◽  
Late Night ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Adaptation Policies ◽  
Diverse Audience

Climate change is a politically-polarised issue, with conservatives less likely than liberals to perceive it as human-caused and consequential. Furthermore, they are less likely to support mitigation and adaptation policies needed to reduce its impacts. This study aimed to examine whether John Oliver’s “A Mathematically Representative Climate Change Debate” clip on his program Last Week Tonight polarised or depolarised a politically-diverse audience on climate policy support and behavioural intentions. One hundred and fifty-nine participants, recruited via Amazon MTurk (94 female, 64 male, one gender unspecified, Mage = 51.07, SDage = 16.35), were presented with either John Oliver’s climate change consensus clip, or a humorous video unrelated to climate change. Although the climate change consensus clip did not reduce polarisation (or increase it) relative to a control on mitigation policy support, it resulted in hyperpolarisation on support for adaptation policies and increased climate action intentions among liberals but not conservatives.

scholarly journals Potential impact of a US climate policy and air quality regulations on future air quality and climate change

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (21) ◽  
pp. 31385-31432
Author(s):  
Y. H. Lee ◽  
D. T. Shindell ◽  
G. Faluvegi ◽  
R. W. Pinder
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Indirect Forcing

Abstract. We have investigated how future air quality and climate change are influenced by the US air quality regulations that existed or were proposed in 2013 and a hypothetical climate mitigation policy that reduces 2050 CO2 emissions to be 50 % below 2005 emissions. Using NASA GISS ModelE2, we look at the impacts in year 2030 and 2055. The US energy-sector emissions are from the GLIMPSE project (GEOS-Chem LIDORT Integrated with MARKAL for the Purpose of Scenario Exploration), and other US emissions and the rest of the world emissions are based on the RCP4.5 scenario. The US air quality regulations are projected to have a strong beneficial impact on US air quality and public health in the future but result in positive radiative forcing. Surface PM2.5 is reduced by ~ 2 μg m−3 on average over the US, and surface ozone by ~ 8 ppbv. The improved air quality prevents about 91 400 premature deaths in the US, mainly due to the PM2.5 reduction (~ 74 200 lives saved). The air quality regulations reduces the light-reflecting aerosols (i.e., sulfate and organic matter) more than the light-absorbing species (i.e., black carbon and ozone), leading a strong positive radiative forcing (RF) by both aerosols direct and indirect forcing: total RF is ~ 0.04 W m−2 over the globe; ~ 0.8 W m−2 over the US. Under the hypothetical climate policy, future US energy relies less on coal and thus SO2 emissions are noticeably reduced. This provides air quality co-benefits, but it leads to climate dis-benefits over the US. In 2055, the US mean total RF is +0.22 W m−2 due to positive aerosol direct and indirect forcing, while the global mean total RF is −0.06 W m−2 due to the dominant negative CO2 RF (instantaneous RF). To achieve a regional-scale climate benefit via a climate policy, it is critical (1) to have multi-national efforts to reduce GHGs emissions and (2) to target emission reduction of light-absorbing species (e.g., BC and O3) on top of long-lived species. The latter is very desirable as the resulting climate benefit occurs faster and provides co-benefits to air quality and public health.

scholarly journals Challenges of Compensation and Reparation for Loss and Damage Related to the Adverse Effects of Climate Change

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 183
Author(s):  
Jorge Gabriel Arévalo García
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Loss And Damage ◽  
Legal Model ◽  
Adaptation Policies

Anthropogenic climate change has and will have unavoidable adverse effects despite mitigation and adaptation policies. Therefore, the financial burden of the costs of loss and damage must be distributed fairly and proportionally. This implies that those responsible for climate change must take responsibility and compensate those who suffer losses and, if possible, repair the damages related to this phenomenon. However, climate justice has been limited by the lack of a causal link between a specific climate change effect and specific damages or losses. Accordingly, this article discusses the compensation and reparation of losses and damages related to the adverse effects of climate change, as a stream applicable after mitigation and adaptation policies. In addition, this article reviews the implications of the relevant findings that established the existence and development of climate change as a problem that affects the enjoyment of human rights, to argue how the theory of human rights can contribute to the current legal model for reparation and compensation for losses and damages associated with climate change. Also, due to the impossibility of obtaining a legally binding agreement as a structure for integration, and to adequately address the problem of causes, consequences, benefits and burdens, vulnerable groups ought to be the most affected.

Climate Change Law: Encounters with Aesthetics and Art

Climate Law ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 279-319
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Aesthetic Values

Climate change has multifaceted aesthetic dimensions of legal significance. Global warming alters the aesthetic properties of nature, and further aesthetic changes are precipitated by climate mitigation and adaptation responses of impacted societies. The social and political struggles to influence climate change law are also influenced by aesthetics, as environmental activists and artists collaborate to influence public opinion, while conversely the business sector through its marketing and other aesthetic communications tries to persuade consumers of its climate-friendly practices to forestall serious action on global warming. This article distils and analyses these patterns in forging a novel account of the role of aesthetics in climate change law and policy, and it makes conclusions on how this field of law should consider aesthetic values through ‘curatorial’ guidance.

Megaprojects and the limits of ‘green resilience’ in the global South: Two cases from Malaysia and Qatar

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (7) ◽  
pp. 1520-1535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agatino Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Health ◽  
Global South ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Environmental Humanities ◽  
Spatial Processes ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Resilience Thinking

The emergence of the climate change discourse in urban planning emphasises resilience as a key concept to deal with issues such as climate mitigation and adaptation, and urban health. What we have termed in this article ‘green resilience’, the coalescence of technological solutions and resilience thinking to solve cities’ ecological issues, is constantly gaining traction in urban planning research. However, green resilience often fails to take into account the socio-political and spatial processes that pertain to the exploitation of land for urban development particularly in the global South. Based on our latest research on two urban megaprojects, in Johor-Singapore (Malaysia) and Doha (Qatar), in this article we build a critique of green resilience and urbanism by leveraging research in the fields of environmental humanities and urban planning.

scholarly journals Projections of the urban and intra-urban scale thermal effects of climate change in the 21st century for cities in the Carpathian Basin

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Tamás Gál ◽  
Nóra Skarbit ◽  
Gergely Molnár ◽  
János Unger
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Thermal Characteristics ◽  
Carpathian Basin ◽  
Climate Index ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Emission Scenarios ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation

This study evaluates the pattern of a nighttime climate index namely the tropical nights (Tmin ≥ 20ºC) during the 21st century in several different sized cities in the Carpathian Basin. For the modelling, MUKLIMO_3 microclimatic model and the cuboid statistical method were applied. In order to ensure the proper representation of the thermal characteristics of an urban landscape, the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) system was used as landuse information. For this work, LCZ maps were produced using WUDAPT methodology. The climatic input of the model was the Carpatclim dataset for the reference period (1981–2010) and EURO-CORDEX regional model outputs for the future time periods (2021–2050, 2071–2100) and emission scenarios (RCP4.5, RCP8.5). As results show, there would be a remarkable increase in the number of tropical nights along the century, and there is a clearly recognizable increase owing to urban landform. In the near past, the number of the index was 6–10 nights higher in the city core than the rural area where the number of this index was negligible. In the near future this urban-rural trend is the same, however, there is a slight increase (2–5 nights) in the index in city cores. At the end of the century, the results of the two emission scenarios become distinct. In the case of RCP4.5 the urban values are about 15–25 nights, what is less stressful compared to the 30–50 nights according to RCP8.5. The results clearly highlight that the effect of urban climate and climate change would cause serious risk for urban dwellers, therefore it is crucial to perform climate mitigation and adaptation actions on both global and urban scales.

scholarly journals Mapping a Climate Change Vulnerability Index: An Assessment in Agricultural, Geological and Demographic Sectors across the Districts of Karnataka (India)

2019 ◽  
pp. 447-456
Author(s):  
C. Shivakumara ◽  
P. S. Srikantha Murthy
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Vulnerability Index ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Demographic Indicators ◽  
Prone Area ◽  
Composite Vulnerability Index ◽  
Adaptation Policies ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
Index Level

Climate change is a continuous phenomenon and over hundreds of years, the atmosphere has changed considerably around the world. Karnataka has the second largest drought prone area in the country next only to Rajasthan. Assessment of vulnerability index could play a major role in designing appropriate mitigation and adaptation policies to overcome the impacts of climate change. The vulnerability assessment is an exhaustive procedure determined by a large number of indicators. This study attempted to capture a picture of composite vulnerability index of different districts of Karnataka by considering agronomic, climatic and demographic indicators. The secondary data on climatic, agronomic and demographic factors were collected from various sources for the year 2017-18. The findings of the study as shown that the average vulnerability index for 30 districts is 0.577 and 16 districts placed above the average composite vulnerability index level. Bidar (0.655) is the most vulnerable district followed by Kolar (0.658) and Yadgir (0.638) districts. Shivamogga (0.440), Davanagere (0.486) and Udupi (0.486) districts exhibit the least vulnerability to changing climate. The results suggest that agricultural and climatic indicators are the major factors which influence vulnerability. So special attention should be given to agricultural and climatic sectors to minimize the impacts of climatic change in the most vulnerable districts.

scholarly journals "Eco-Infill" as an alternative strategy for postindustrial landscape in the light of climate change: The case of Belgrade shipyard

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-341
Author(s):  
Ana Nikezic ◽  
Natasa Jankovic
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
City Centre ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Life Styles ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Artificial Environment ◽  
Abandoned Spaces ◽  
The City

At this moment, and under the circumstances that surround us, we have recognized as a definite global challenge the problem of climate change, and in general, the ecological misbalance of cities. In an attempt to meet this challenge, we will try to discuss possibilities of implementing the "Eco-Infill" strategy (fragments of nature incorporated into abandoned artificial environment) as a viable, somewhat ?alternative?, urban development strategy. The contemporary matrix of the post-industrial urban landscape is dotted with large and small fragments of abandoned spaces, which need to be incorporated into the city texture. Belgrade is a city with a potential, one of the larger capitals of the region, standing on the threshold of the European Union and undergoing an intensive process of political, economic and social transition. Similar to other large cities, it was previously an industrial city, but is now increasingly relying on the tertiary sector, promoting itself through its geographical, morphological, and cultural advantages. The consequences of privatization during transition and an exceptionally long and difficult political and economic crisis produced Brownfield and other abandoned spaces of the city centre with a complicated proprietary-ownership status, and no realistic guidelines for a much needed regeneration of the city centre in terms of contemporary problems linked to ecological, social and cultural values. In this article, there is a tendency to define principles on which the transformation of these abandoned places is based on and to try to apply these strategies onto the Belgrade shipyard on the river Sava. If we accept the previously set general views, these spaces can become crucial in developing a strategy for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Although these effects are primarily aimed at confronting climate change, they are bound to upgrade the quality of life and offer new life styles, potentially affecting all aspects of urban life, considering that most of the eco-infill we are talking about consists of active public space.

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