scholarly journals Implementing Rapid Climate Action: Learning from the ‘Practical Wisdom’ of Local Decision-Makers

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5687
Author(s):  
Andy Yuille ◽  
David Tyfield ◽  
Rebecca Willis

A global goal to limit dangerous climate change has been agreed through the 2015 Paris Accords. The scientific case for action has been accepted by nearly all governments, at national and local or state level. Yet in all legislatures, there is a gap between the stated climate ambitions and the implementation of the measures necessary to achieve them. This paper examines this gap by analysing the experience of the following three UK cities: Belfast, Edinburgh, and Leeds. Researchers worked with city officials and elected representatives, using interviews and deliberative workshops to develop their shared understandings. The study finds that local actors employ different strategies to respond to the stated climate emergency, based on their innate understanding, or ‘phronetic knowledge’, of what works. It concludes that rapid climate action depends not just on the structures and mechanisms of governance, but at a deeper level, the assumptions, motivations and applied knowledge of decision-makers.

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1354-1359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristan Partridge ◽  
Javiera Barandiaran ◽  
Casey Walsh ◽  
Kalina Bakardzhieva ◽  
Leah Bronstein ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reza Yaesoubi ◽  
Shiying You ◽  
Qin Xi ◽  
Nicolas A Menzies ◽  
Ashleigh Tuite ◽  
...  

Low rates of vaccination, emergence of novel variants of SARS-CoV-2, and increasing transmission relating to seasonal changes leave many U.S. communities at risk for surges of COVID-19 during the winter and spring of 2022 that might strain hospital capacity, as in previous waves. The trajectories of COVID-19 hospitalizations during this period are expected to differ across communities depending on their age distributions, vaccination coverage, cumulative incidence, and adoption of risk mitigating behaviors. Yet, existing predictive models of COVID-19 hospitalizations are almost exclusively focused on national- and state-level predictions. This leaves local policymakers in urgent need of tools that can provide early warnings about the possibility that COVID-19 hospitalizations may rise to levels that exceed local capacity. In this work, we develop simple decision rules to predict whether COVID-19 hospitalization will exceed the local hospitalization capacity within a 4- or 8-week period if no additional mitigating strategies are implemented during this time. These decision rules use real-time data related to hospital occupancy and new hospitalizations associated with COVID-19, and when available, genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2. We showed that these decision rules present reasonable accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity (all ≥80%) in predicting local surges in hospitalizations under numerous simulated scenarios, which capture substantial uncertainties over the future trajectories of COVID-19 during the winter and spring of 2022. Our proposed decision rules are simple, visual, and straightforward to use in practice by local decision makers without the need to perform numerical computations.


2004 ◽  
Vol 184 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Weich ◽  
Ricardo Araya

Vicente and his colleagues present admirably concise findings from a large epidemiological survey of non-psychotic psychiatric morbidity in four different geographical locations in Chile (Vicente et al, 2004, this issue). Without gainsaying the importance of psychiatric morbidity in that country, many readers, including local decision-makers, may find it difficult to assimilate these results.


2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Houle ◽  
C Guillou-Ouellette

Introduction In Montréal, the characteristics of suicide cases may vary between different areas. The information collected by coroners during their investigations of suicides could be used to support local suicide-prevention planning actions. Methods This study analyzes all coroners' records on suicide in Montréal from 2007 to 2009 to 1. determine the usefulness of the data available; 2. develop a profile of cases; 3. examine local differences by comparing two areas, one with the highest suicide rate and the other with the lowest. Results The data collected revealed the lack of a systematic, standardized procedure for recording information about deaths by suicide. The rates of missing data varied, but were very high for antecedents of suicide attempts and recent events that could have precipitated the suicide. We observed differences in the characteristics of suicide cases according to area of residence. Conclusion By adopting a standardized procedure for collecting information on cases of suicide, coroners could provide local decision makers with a more accurate portrait of the people who die by suicide in their area. Local adjustments may improve suicide-prevention strategies.


Author(s):  
Roger Mac Ginty

This chapter looks at the pros and cons of peace formation in Northern Ireland; a case where many would suppose that international, elite-level, and social claims had moved close together during the peace process, having been at least partly reconciled mainly by various international and state-level initiatives. This translates as a form of oligarchy between domestic political parties and the British and Irish governments which did its best to stage-manage popular input. Indeed, the agency of local actors was encouraged when deemed useful but was ignored if it fell outside of the intentions of the elite peace oligarchy unless it threatened a reversion to violence. At the same time, however, party politics managed to channel popular support into the peace process, even as popular legitimacy for the outcomes of this process was waning. The chapter argues that this level of peace process — elite negotiations and party politics — has not brought about reconciliation.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shankar Neeraj ◽  
Sandeeka Mannakkara ◽  
Suzanne Wilkinson

Purpose This paper aims to understand the recovery process after the 2018 floods in Kerala, India, and it determines whether the recovery efforts were aligned with Build Back Better (BBB) concepts. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was adopted to collect the data from the officials of Government and NGOs involved in Kerala recovery. The participants were interviewed on the challenges faced during the recovery process and the actions taken by them to overcome it. Findings The study identified that the Kerala Government was proactive at making the community resilient from future disasters by – encouraging owner-driven reconstruction among flood-affected households; supporting locals to rejuvenate their business; and by creating a local-level recovery authority. Further, this paper identifies the areas that Kerala was lacking in terms of BBB and where resilience-based plans and actions are needed for the future. Research limitations/implications The participants were employees of Government and NGOs at a state level as they were the primary decision-makers to implement any recovery actions. Researchers believe that the authorities at district and village level could have had a different perspective towards implementing the recovery actions. Practical implications The best practices presented in this paper for effective BBB will assist the government to build/improve resilience in the community. Originality/value The implementation of BBB concepts in the areas of disaster risk reduction, community recovery and effective implementation was never studied extensively. The research provides valuable information on what extent Kerala’s post-disaster recovery and reconstruction activities were in-line with BBB practices.


Author(s):  
Parisa Maroufkhani ◽  
Ralf Wagner ◽  
Wan Khairuzzaman Wan Ismail

PurposeThe literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems is fragmented, and yet, no studies have paid attention to integrating the available studies. The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic review of contributions related to entrepreneurial ecosystems.Design/methodology/approachThis literature review evaluates studies that are covered in the Web of Science index.FindingsIn addition to the recent state of research (covering industries, geographical scopes, methodologies, etc.), this study provides an extension of Isenberg’s (2011) model of entrepreneurial ecosystems.Research limitations/implicationsA new avenue arises for both conceptual and empirical research by emphasizing crowdsourcing as a contributing element for the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Future studies can evaluate the effectiveness of different types of crowdsourcing profoundly to make sure whether creating a promising ecosystem all types of crowdsourcing have a similar value or impact.Practical implicationsFor public policy and local decision-makers, both collaboration opportunities and interaction interfaces between the stakeholders of the entrepreneurial need to be reconsidered in the design of entrepreneurial ecosystems.Social implicationsHigher degrees of collaboration, information exchange and innovation are likely to yield favorable entrepreneurship environments.Originality/valueNovelty of this study arises from integrating crowdsourcing theory in the systematic review of entrepreneurial ecosystems.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Pazzi ◽  
Mattia Ceccatelli ◽  
Teresa Gracchi ◽  
Elena Benedetta Masi ◽  
Riccardo Fanti

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