scholarly journals Legal Mobilization and Climate Change: The Role of Law in Wicked Problems

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (9(3)) ◽  
pp. 267-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Maria Marshall ◽  
Susan Sterett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Legal Mobilization ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Legal Enforcement ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
Law And Courts ◽  
Legal Strategies ◽  
The Many

Climate change is a wicked problem, a framework not often used in sociolegal studies. The problem is complex, not readily named, and not limited to one jurisdiction. Therefore, the places of law are multiple: human rights instruments, supranational tribunals, regional courts, and local governments and NGOS. Litigation concerning responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions has largely not resulted in favorable judgments, and the papers in this collection turn to other ways of conceptualizing law and courts in responding to climate change. Relevant legal strategies include environmental legal enforcement, but also changes in investment, and response to the many disasters that are related to climate change. The papers in this collection travel across jurisdictions, actors and problems to assess legal strategies concerning climate change. El cambio climático es un problema perverso, un marco poco usado en los estudios sociojurídicos. El problema es complejo, de difícil denominación, y no está limitado a una sola jurisdicción. Por lo tanto, el derecho tiene muchos espacios: instrumentos de derechos humanos, tribunales supranacionales, juzgados regionales y gobiernos y ONG locales. Los litigios sobre responsabilidades por emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero no han solido acabar con veredictos favorables, y los artículos de esta colección miran hacia otras formas de conceptualizar el derecho y los tribunales como respuesta al cambio climático. Estrategias legales importantes incluyen la aplicación del derecho, pero también cambios en inversiones y respuestas a los múltiples desastres relacionados con el cambio climático. Los artículos de este número navegan por varias jurisdicciones, agentes y problemas para valorar las estrategias jurídicas sobre cambio climático.

scholarly journals Overcoming the barriers to green procurement in the county: Interest groups and administrative professionalism

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christy Smith ◽  
Jessica Terman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Green Procurement ◽  
Environmentally Responsible ◽  
Government Involvement ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change

Scholars and practitioners have come to understand the important role of local governments in the causes and effects of climate change. The literature has examined both the substantive and symbolic determinants of urban sustainability policies in addition to the implementation issues associated with those policies. At the heart of these policies is the idea that local governments have the desire and ability to engage in socially and environmentally responsible practices to mitigate climate change. While important, these studies are missing a key component in the investigation of local government involvement in sustainability policies: government purchasing power. This study examines the effect of administrative professionalism and interest group presence on the determinants of green procurement in the understudied context of counties in the United States.

scholarly journals Adaptation confusion? A longitudinal examination of the concept “climate change adaptation” in Norwegian municipal surveys.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torbjørn Selseng ◽  
Marit Klemetsen ◽  
Tone Rusdal
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Building Society ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Local Government Level ◽  
Longitudinal Examination

AbstractIn recent decades, there has been a surge in the scholarship on climate change adaptation (CCA) terminology and diverging interpretations of the term has emerged. Given the crucial role of local governments in building society-wide adaptive capacity, understanding how municipalities understand and interpret CCA, is important. In this study, we analyse twelve large-scale questionnaires from 2007 to 2020 distributed to all Norwegian municipalities. Using a combination of directed and conventional content analysis of the questions and answers, we summarise and map the progress of adaptation work over the 14 years and assess the consistency and the scope of the surveys in light of the current research on climate adaptation. We find diverging views on what adaptation entails, both from the researchers, in the phrasing of questions, and from the respondents. The empirical evidence suggests an overall imbalanced interpretation of CCA, both in terms of the risks and consequences we may face, the climate that needs adapting to, as well as adequate adaptation strategies. We go on to discuss the implications of these findings, highlighting the need for a shared and well-communicated framework for local CCA and a closer monitoring of the actual efforts of the municipalities. If instead left unchecked, this confusion might lead to unsustainable maladaptation at the local government level throughout Norway and beyond.

scholarly journals The role of architectural research centers in addressing climate change

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Carmody
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Performance Outcomes ◽  
Research Center ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Research Centers ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
Architectural Research

ABSTRACT: It is clear that an urgent, major transformation needs to happen in the design of the built environment to respond to impending climate change and other environmental degradation. This paper will explain the potential role of architectural research centers in this transformation and provide examples from the Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR) at the University of Minnesota. A research center can become a regional hub to coordinate and disseminate critical information. CSBR is leading the establishment of Architecture 2030 standards in Minnesota, assisting local governments in writing green building policy, providing design assistance to local government, developing tools to assist design decision making, providing technical assistance to the affordable housing community inMinnesota, and establishing a regional case study database that includes actual performance information. CSBR is creating a publicly accessible, credible knowledge base on new approaches, technologies and actual performance outcomes. Research centers such as CSBR can be a critical component of the necessary feedback loop often lacking in the building industry. A research center can also fill major gaps in providing in depth professional education as well as be a catalyst for demonstration projects and public education.

THE ECONOMICS OF MITIGATING CLIMATE CHANGE: WHAT CAN WE KNOW?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A.Rosen ◽  
Edeltraud Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Technical Problems ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation Policy ◽  
The Many

The long-term economics of mitigating climate change over the long run has played a high profile role in the most important analyses of climate change in the last decade, namely the Stern Report and the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment. However, the various kinds of uncertainties that affect these economic results raise serious questions about whether or not the net costs and benefits of mitigating climate change over periods as long as 50 to 100 years can be known to such a level of accuracy that they should be reported to policymakers and the public. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the derivation of these estimates of the long-term economic costs and benefits of mitigation. It particularly focuses on the role of technological change, especially for energy efficiency technologies, in making the net economic results of mitigating climate change unknowable over the long run. Because of these serious technical problems, policymakers should not base climate change mitigation policy on the estimated net economic impacts computed by integrated assessment models. Rather, mitigation policies must be forcefully implemented anyway given the actual physical climate change crisis, in spite of the many uncertainties involved in trying to predict the net economics of doing so.

Human behaviour trumps entomological risk.

2021 ◽  
pp. 276-282
Author(s):  
Sam Telford
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Lyme Disease ◽  
Expert Opinion ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Human Aspects ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Vector Borne ◽  
The Many

Abstract This expert opinion argues that human aspects of risk are poorly studied and need to be considered in any discussion of the role of global climate change on risk for vector-borne infections, particularly for those transmitted by ticks. It also covers the many models that are used predict the future distribution of Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections in the USA and elsewhere, based on anticipated changes in weather.

scholarly journals Revisiting limits to legal mobilization for global climate justice: Complexity, territoriality, and responsibility

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (9(3)) ◽  
pp. 333-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Derman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Legal Mobilization ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
Ecological Complexity ◽  
Probability Prediction ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
Related Harm

Amidst disproportionate climate-related harms and inadequate responses, affected groups have turned to legal mobilization. This paper analyzes socio-ecological complexity and territorial limits as themes of enduring relevance in official responses to the Inuit Circumpolar Council’s and Maldives’ foundational legal claims that climate change violates human rights, considering these against the backdrop of evolving understanding of responsibility for climate-related harm in scientific, political, and public discourse. The claims demonstrated that when legal analysis integrates scientific and traditional knowledge, climate change can be seen as violating rights internationally, and identifiable actors as culpable. Respondents disagreed, citing the complexity of climate-related harm, which combines multiple human actors, environmental processes, probability, prediction, and extraterritorial impact. Unresolved gaps between these interpretations raise doubts about law’s relevance to growing global inequities of climate change and other processes that mix people, places, and things. Este artículo analiza la complejidad socioecológica y los límites territoriales como temas de importancia permanente en las respuestas oficiales a las reclamaciones legales fundacionales del Consejo Circumpolar Inuit y de las Maldivas, que afirman que el cambio climático viola derechos humanos. Se consideran esas respuestas sobre el trasfondo de la comprensión paulatina en el discurso científico, político y público de la responsabilidad por los daños relacionados con el clima. Las demandas demostraron que, cuando el análisis jurídico integra el saber científico y el tradicional, se puede considerar el cambio climático como violador de derechos internacionales, y a los agentes identificables como culpables. Los críticos se mostraron en desacuerdo, aludiendo a la complejidad del daño relacionado con el clima. Los vacíos sin resolver entre esas interpretaciones arrojan dudas sobre la relevancia del derecho en cuanto a crecientes desigualdades globales sobre cambio climático y otros procesos que comprenden a personas, lugares y cosas.

scholarly journals Motivations and Intended Outcomes in Local Governments' Declarations of Climate Emergency

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xira Ruiz-Campillo ◽  
Vanesa Castán Broto ◽  
Linda Westman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Environmental Action ◽  
Future Planning ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Global And Local

Near 1,500 governments worldwide, including over 1,000 local governments, have declared a climate emergency. Such declarations constitute a response to the growing visibility of social movements in international politics as well as the growing role of cities in climate governance. Framing climate change as an emergency, however, can bring difficulties in both the identification of the most appropriate measures to adopt and the effectiveness of those measures in the long run. We use textual analysis to examine the motivations and intended outcomes of 300 declarations endorsed by local governments. The analysis demonstrates that political positioning, previous experience of environmental action within local government, and pressure from civil society are the most common motivations for declaring a climate emergency at the local level. The declarations constitute symbolic gestures highlighting the urgency of the climate challenge, but they do not translate into radically different responses to the climate change challenge. The most commonly intended impacts are increasing citizens’ awareness of climate change and establishing mechanisms to influence future planning and infrastructure decisions. However, the declarations are adopted to emphasize the increasing role cities are taking on, situating local governments as crucial agents bridging global and local action agendas.

scholarly journals Weaponizing the EPA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig A. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Climate Agreements ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Political Partisanship

In its broadest sense, presidential control encompasses all the actions, in both word and deed, whereby presidents "go it alone" to adopt policies in the absence of congressional will to do so, and sometimes directly contrary to it. This dissertation studies how President Obama used rhetorical and administrative tools of presidential control to address the "wicked problem" of climate change. The "administrative presidency" and the "rhetorical presidency" are familiar political science terms, but in the case of climate change policy, they appear to be moving policymaking in a new and perhaps profound direction, which this study refers to as "post-deliberative policymaking." Applying these two areas of scholarship together to the wicked problem of climate change creates a helpful window through which to study how President Obama utilized administrative and rhetorical strategies and tools during his presidency. In particular, the study examines how he rhetorically constructed and rationalized his use of the Environmental Protection Agency to implement federal climate change regulations via the federal Clean Power Plan. Among the insights revealed by this analysis are how President Obama, in an age of acute political partisanship and polarization, positioned the role of the bureaucracy, how he invoked executive power, and what his actions reveal and may portend about executive views of democratic institutions and norms. This dissertation analyzes President Obama's rhetoric through a study of his speeches from 2009 through 2015 that explicitly or implicitly reference climate change, greenhouse gases, and the Clean Power Plan, but also related topics, such as energy policy and climate agreements.

scholarly journals Arctic Air Pollution: New Insights from POLARCAT-IPY

2014 ◽  
Vol 95 (12) ◽  
pp. 1873-1895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine S. Law ◽  
Andreas Stohl ◽  
Patricia K. Quinn ◽  
Charles A. Brock ◽  
John F. Burkhart ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Tropospheric Ozone ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
International Polar Year ◽  
Ice Surface ◽  
Arctic Pollution ◽  
The Many

Given the rapid nature of climate change occurring in the Arctic and the difficulty climate models have in quantitatively reproducing observed changes such as sea ice loss, it is important to improve understanding of the processes leading to climate change in this region, including the role of short-lived climate pollutants such as aerosols and ozone. It has long been known that pollution produced from emissions at midlatitudes can be transported to the Arctic, resulting in a winter/spring aerosol maximum known as Arctic haze. However, many uncertainties remain about the composition and origin of Arctic pollution throughout the troposphere; for example, many climate–chemistry models fail to reproduce the strong seasonality of aerosol abundance observed at Arctic surface sites, the origin and deposition mechanisms of black carbon (soot) particles that darken the snow and ice surface in the Arctic is poorly understood, and chemical processes controlling the abundance of tropospheric ozone are not well quantified. The International Polar Year (IPY) Polar Study using Aircraft, Remote Sensing, Surface Measurements and Models, Climate, Chemistry, Aerosols and Transport (POLARCAT) core project had the goal to improve understanding about the origins of pollutants transported to the Arctic; to detail the chemical composition, optical properties, and climate forcing potential of Arctic aerosols; to evaluate the processes governing tropospheric ozone; and to quantify the role of boreal forest fires. This article provides a review of the many results now available based on analysis of data collected during the POLARCAT aircraft-, ship-, and ground-based field campaigns in spring and summer 2008. Major findings are highlighted and areas requiring further investigation are discussed.

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