scholarly journals Urban Climate Policy and Action through a Health Lens—An Untapped Opportunity

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (23) ◽  
pp. 12516
Author(s):  
Audrey de Nazelle ◽  
Charlotte J. Roscoe ◽  
Aina Roca-Barcelό ◽  
Giselle Sebag ◽  
Gudrun Weinmayr ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
International Society ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Environmental Epidemiology ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Health Promoting ◽  
Funding Opportunities

Motivated by a growing recognition of the climate emergency, reflected in the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), we outline untapped opportunities to improve health through ambitious climate actions in cities. Health is a primary reason for climate action yet is rarely integrated in urban climate plans as a policy goal. This is a missed opportunity to create sustainable alliances across sectors and groups, to engage a broad set of stakeholders, and to develop structural health promotion. In this statement, we first briefly review the literature on health co-benefits of urban climate change strategies and make the case for health-promoting climate action; we then describe barriers to integrating health in climate action. We found that the evidence-base is often insufficiently policy-relevant to be impactful. Research rarely integrates the complexity of real-world systems, including multiple and dynamic impacts of strategies, and consideration of how decision-making processes contend with competing interests and short-term electoral cycles. Due to siloed-thinking and restrictive funding opportunities, research often falls short of the type of evidence that would be most useful for decision-making, and research outputs can be cryptic to decision makers. As a way forward, we urge researchers and stakeholders to engage in co-production and systems thinking approaches. Partnering across sectors and disciplines is urgently needed so pathways to climate change mitigation and adaptation fully embrace their health-promoting potential and engage society towards the huge transformations needed. This commentary is endorsed by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) and the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH) and accompanies a sister statement oriented towards stakeholders (published on the societies’ websites).

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 Comments about Urban Bioclimate Aspects for Consideration in Urban Climate and Planning Issues in the Era of Climate Change

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 546
Author(s):  
Andreas Matzarakis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Heat Island ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Heat Island ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Urban Heat

In the era of climate change, before developing and establishing mitigation and adaptation measures that counteract urban heat island (UHI) effects [...]

scholarly journals Fostering the ‘Time is Now' Mentality: The Role of Open Data In Urban Climate Resilience

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keira Webster
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Contextual Data ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
The Social ◽  
Innovative Products

Climate change is a systemic issue embedded in and interconnected with the social and economic makeup of a city. Building urban climate resilience requires innovative, collaborative solutions that hinge upon the openness and availability of current and contextual data. Open data tools, in stimulating information sharing, civic engagement, and innovative products, can contribute to climate change planning, building lasting resilience. Through an exploratory research methodology, this paper explores 17 international use cases, providing a basis for the implementation of open data tools in the realm of urban climate resilience, through the following five themes: 1) risk and vulnerability assessment; 2) the inception of initiatives; 3) diverging approaches to preparedness; 4) community mobilization; and 5) mitigation and adaptation. This research aims to spark a dialogue on the intersection of open data tools in urban climate resilience strategies, demonstrating open data as an appropriate tool to cultivate shared understanding and collective action.

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 GENDER AND CLIMATE CHANGE

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prachi Ugle Pimpalkhute
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Gender Bias ◽  
Gender Disparities ◽  
Local Action ◽  
Knowledge Repository ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Common Framework ◽  
Per Se

The impacts of climate action is not bound by gender disparities, but still each one ofus is accountable and responsible for its management. Climate action has to be scientific expression of attributes working in synchronously with multi-stakeholders and a common framework or exchange of dialogues. If equity in action is a perspective per se, then equality in gender towards steering it forward is a gender attribute. Women, men, children and other stakeholders are all impacted, and beyond gender bias one has to work on then targets. Women face inequalities and have not been given the key role in decision making, local and indigenous knowledge repository is used for local action by women and their contribution fixes many local issues.

Climate Change and Implications for Security and Justice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Huntjens ◽  
Ting Zhang ◽  
Katharina Nachbar
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Governance Reform ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Governance Challenges ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
Art Research ◽  
Critical Components

This chapter examines state-of-the art research and thinking on the implications of climate change for security and justice, clarifying the linkages between them and identifying key governance challenges. Climate justice is about protecting the rights of the most vulnerable and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and responses to it equitably and fairly, at the state level as well as beyond the state, while safeguarding the rights of future generations. Broader conceptions of climate security as human security have prevailed, and no trend toward greater militarization of climate action is evident, but successful mitigation and adaptation strategies will be critical components of future peacebuilding work. The chapter ends with recommendations that provide potential pathways for policy and governance reform at multiple levels, both to make multilevel climate governance more fit for purpose, and to better anticipate and address the predicted security and justice implications of climate change.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document