Energy justice and climate change: reflections from a Joseph Rowntree Foundation research programme

This paper investigates the values and priorities reflected in a Canadian pipeline review: The National Energy Board (NEB) decision on Line 9. Theories of energy justice guided analysis of evidence presented at NEB hearings, the NEB’s explanation of its decision, and a Supreme Court challenge. We find that several aspects of energy justice were weak in the NEB process. First, a project-specific scope obstructed the pursuit of equity within and between generations: the pipeline’s contributions to climate change, impacts of the oil sands, and cumulative encroachment on Indigenous lands were excluded from review. Second, the NEB created a hierarchy of knowledge: it considered evidence of potential spill impacts as hypothetical while accepting as fact the proponent’s claim that it could prevent and manage spills. Third, recognition of diversity remained elusive: Indigenous nations’ dissatisfaction with the process challenged the NEB’s interpretation of meaningful consultation and procedural fairness. To address the challenges of climate change and reconciliation between Indigenous and settler nations, it is crucial to identify which kinds of evidence decision-makers recognize as valid and which they exclude. Ideas from energy justice can help support actions to improve the public acceptability of energy decisions, as well as to foster greater Indigenous autonomy.

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Climate Change, Energy Policy and Justice: A Systematic Review

Analyse & Kritik ◽

10.1515/auk-2014-0207 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 36 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Jason Byrne ◽

Chloe Portanger

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Energy Policy ◽

Energy Security ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Change Policy ◽

Key Issues ◽

Energy Justice

AbstractEnergy efficiency and energy security are emerging concerns in climate change policy. But. there is little acknowledgment of energy justice issues. Marginalised and vulnerable communities may be disproportionately exposed to both climate change impacts (e.g. heat, flooding) and costs associated with energy transitions related to climate change mitigation and adaptation (e.g. particulate exposure from biofuel combustion). Climate change is producing energy-related impacts such as increased cooling costs. In some cases it threatens energy security. Higher electricity costs associated with ‘climate proofing’ energy network infrastructure may exacerbate ‘fuel poverty’ - itself a form of injustice. In this paper we critically review the literature about multiple interrelations between energy policy, justice and climate change. We identify key issues, illuminate knowledge gaps, and synthesise findings to develop a conceptual model. We chart a research agenda and highlight policy implications.

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Developing scenarios of atmosphere, weather and climate for northern regions

Agricultural and Food Science ◽

10.23986/afsci.72743 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 235-249 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Timothy R. Carter

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

High Latitude ◽

General Circulation ◽

Global Climate ◽

Circulation Model ◽

Research Programme ◽

Atmospheric Composition ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Scenario Development ◽

Study Region

Future changes in atmospheric composition and consequent global and regional climate change are of increasing concern to policy makers, planners and the public. However, predictions of these changes are uncertain. In the absence of single, firm predictions, the next best approach is to identify sets of plausible future conditions termed scenarios. This paper focuses on the development of climate change scenarios for northern high latitude regions. Three methods of scenario development can be identified; use of analogues having conditions similar to those expected in the study region, application of general circulation model results, and composite methods that combine information from different sources. A composite approach has been used to produce scenarios of temperature, precipitation, carbon dioxide and sea-level change for Finland up to 2100, as part of the Finnish Research Programme on Climate Change (SILMU). Tools for applying these scenarios in impact assessment studies, including stochastic weather generators and spatial downscaling techniques, are also examined. The SILMU scenarios attempt to capture uncertainties both in future emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols into the atmosphere and in the global climate response to these emissions. Two types of scenario were developed: (i) simple “policy-oriented” scenarios and (ii) detailed “scientific” scenarios. These are compared with new model estimates of future climate and recent observed changes in climate over certain high latitude regions.

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Research focused on climate change and security for Japan

Impact ◽

10.21820/23987073.2020.6.23 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 (6) ◽

pp. 23-25

Author(s):

Yasuko Kameyama

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Supply Chains ◽

Foreign Relations ◽

Collaborative Research ◽

Environmental Studies ◽

Research Programme ◽

Project Team ◽

Japanese Economy ◽

Systems Research ◽

Environmental Systems

The economic knock-on effect of climate change is often underrepresented. When Japan's Ministry of the Environment first started to appreciate that climate change related events at home and abroad were going to threaten supply chains, the Japanese economy and foreign relations, they set out to assemble a team who could research and report on the problem. Dr Yasuko Kameyama, Director, Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) is leading a project team that has developed a collaborative research programme addressing themes and sub-topics that consists compound risks of climate change.

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Differences in the ERA5-Land reanalysis and real observation datasets for calculation of drought indices from two distinct points

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-18404 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Alise Babre ◽

Janis Bikse ◽

Konrads Popovs ◽

Andis Kalvans ◽

Aija Delina

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Weather Forecasting ◽

Meteorological Data ◽

Research Programme ◽

Agricultural Drought ◽

Drought Indices ◽

Observation Data ◽

Reanalysis Product ◽

Temporal Prediction ◽

Groundwater Drought

Even though, droughts usually correspond to smaller latitudes, during the last decade Latvia has faced several long-term drought events. This have caused awareness of more frequent drought episodes in future due to climate change. Accurate and complete meteorological data are required to calculate realistic drought indices and to estimate drought probability in the future.In places were direct meteorological observation data are absent or dataset is incomplete and not sufficient, data from numerical weather forecasting reanalysis such as ERA5 can be used instead or along with direct observations. Reanalysis provide comprehensive snapshots of conditions at regular intervals over long time periods &#8212; often years or decades. The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has released its latest reanalysis product, the ERA5-Land dataset (C3S, 2019).The goal of this study is to evaluate the ERA5-Land reanalysis product as a substitute for observations in meteorological stations for calculation of drought related indices for time period from 1981 to 2018.&#160; Two meteorological stations more than 200 km apart in Latvia - Riga and Rezekne - were considered.&#160;Meteoric and agricultural drought indices were calculated with freely available software DrinC (Tigkas et.al., 2013) as well as R &#8211; packages spei and pdsi - using monthly mean reanalysis as well as observed meteorological data as input. It is found that meteorological parameters as well as drought indices have high consistency between two data sources.&#160;References:Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) (2019): C3S ERA5-Land reanalysis. Copernicus Climate Change Service, 12.12.2019. Tigkas, Dimitris & Vangelis, Harris & Tsakiris, George. (2013). The Drought Indices Calculator (DrinC).The study is supported by fundamental and applied science research programme, project No.: lzp-2019/1-0165 &#8220;Spatial and temporal prediction of groundwater drought with mixed models for multilayer sedimentary basin under climate change&#8221;.

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A Quality-Controlled Global Sub-daily Precipitation Dataset and Sub-daily Precipitation Indices

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-20501 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Hayley Fowler ◽

Liz Lewis ◽

Stephen Blenkinsop ◽

David Pritchard ◽

Selma Guerreiro ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Daily Precipitation ◽

Climate Extremes ◽

Research Programme ◽

Grand Challenge ◽

Maximum Rainfall ◽

Daily Precipitation Data ◽

Hourly Rainfall ◽

Wide Range ◽

Precipitation Indices

Extremes of precipitation can cause flooding and droughts which can lead to substantial damages to infrastructure and ecosystems and can result in loss of life. It is still uncertain how hydrological extremes will change with global warming as we do not fully understand the processes that cause extreme precipitation under current climate variability. Progress has been limited so far in this area due to the lack of data available to researchers. The INTENSE project, part of the with the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)'s Grand Challenge on 'Understanding and Predicting Weather and Climate Extremes', has used a novel and fully-integrated data-modelling approach to provide a step-change in our understanding of the nature and drivers of global sub-daily precipitation extremes and change on societally relevant timescales.The first step towards achieving this was to construct a new global sub-daily precipitation dataset. The dataset contains hourly rainfall data from ~25,000 gauges across >200 territories from a wide range of sources. A rigorous, flexible quality-control algorithm has been developed to ensure that the data collected is as accurate as possible. The QC methodology combines a number of checks against neighbouring gauges, known biases and errors, and thresholds based on the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI) Climate Change Indices.&#160; An open source version of the QC software will set a new standard for verifying sub-daily precipitation data.A set of global sub-daily precipitation indices have also been produced (and will be made freely available later this year) based upon stakeholder recommendations including indices that describe maximum rainfall totals and timing, the intensity, duration and frequency of storms, frequency of storms above specific thresholds and information about the diurnal cycle. The talk will discuss the major findings from the production of these new global sub-daily precipitation indices.

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Climate Change, Consumption and Intergenerational Justice

10.1332/policypress/9781529204735.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Kristina Diprose ◽

Gill Valentine ◽

Robert Vanderbeck ◽

Chen Liu ◽

Katie McQuaid

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Social Research ◽

Sustainable Consumption ◽

Research Programme ◽

Urban Residents ◽

Intergenerational Justice ◽

Global Networks ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Vulnerability To Climate Change

This book examines lived experiences and perceptions of climate change, changing consumption practices, and intra- and intergenerational justice with urban residents in China, Uganda, and the United Kingdom. The book draws on an interdisciplinary research programme called INTERSECTION, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council from 2014 to 2017. INTERSECTION was an innovative, cross-national programme that employed participatory arts and social research methods with urban residents in three cities: Jinja in Uganda, Nanjing in China, and Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Drawing together a unique dataset from these three cities -- which are very differently positioned in relation to global networks of production and consumption, (de)industrialisation and vulnerability to climate change -- the research demonstrates how people engage selectively with the ‘global storm’ and the ‘intergenerational storm’ of climate change. The research reveals a ‘human sense of climate’ that clouds its framing as an issue of either international and intergenerational justice. Its chapters focus on the global and intergenerational dimensions of climate change, local narratives of climate change, moral geographies of climate change, intergenerational perspectives on sustainable consumption, and imaging alternative futures through community based and creative research practices.

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Processing and analysing an ensemble of climate projections for the joint research project KLIWAS

Advances in Science and Research ◽

10.5194/asr-10-91-2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 91-98 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

F. Imbery ◽

S. Plagemann ◽

J. Namyslo

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Radiation ◽

Precipitation Amount ◽

Research Programme ◽

Climate Indices ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Joint Research ◽

Joint Research Project

Abstract. The research programme KLIWAS, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban affairs is focussed on climate change and its impacts on waterways and navigation for Germany in the 21th century. In order to derive sound statements about the range of possible future climate changes, KLIWAS use hydro-meteorological information derived from a wide variety of global and regional climate models. In the framework of KLIWAS emphasis is taken on the quantification of uncertainties in climate model output. Therefore, a 19-member ensemble of climate model runs was used. On the basis of the SRES-scenario A1B the probabilities of changes in air temperature, precipitation amount, global radiation and several climate indices were computed for near (2021 to 2050) and distant (2071–2100) scenario horizons. Furthermore, statistical downscaling techniques, including approved bias correction methods, were used to provide a spatial high-resolution sub-ensemble of eight climate model simulations for climate change impact investigations.

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The Story of Water in Windhoek: A Narrative Approach to Interpreting a Transdisciplinary Process

Water ◽

10.3390/w10101366 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 1366 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Dianne Scott ◽

Kornelia Iipinge ◽

John Mfune ◽

Davison Muchadenyika ◽

Olavi Makuti ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Conservation ◽

Water Demand ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Collaborative Work ◽

Local Level ◽

Research Programme ◽

Narrative Approach ◽

Aquifer Recharge ◽

The City

The aim of the paper is to present a story about the 2015 to early 2017 Windhoek drought in the context of climate change while using the narrative approach. The story that is presented here is derived from the engagement of participants in a transdisciplinary, co-productive workshop, the Windhoek Learning Lab 1 (March 2017), as part of the FRACTAL Research Programme. The results show that the story starts with the ‘complication’ where the drought had reached crisis levels where the water demand increasingly exceeded the supply in the face of the drought. The City of Windhoek (CoW) was unable to address the problem, particularly the recharging of the Windhoek aquifer due to lack of funding. Phase 2 then shows four reactions to the drought: water conservation by water demand management; a Water Saving campaign; the Windhoek Managed Aquifer Recharge Scheme; and, the setting up of the Cabinet Technical Committee of Supply Security. The resolution of the story, Phase 4, is when the national government instructs NamWater to provide the funds for CoW to complete the recharging of the aquifer, which supplied water to the city at the last minute at the end of 2016. The final situation of the story is that ongoing collaborative work by CoW with FRACTAL on the city’s burning issues is planned to integrate climate change into future decision making for the longer term. The main actors in the story are the Ministry of Agriculture and NamWater as hero and villain, and CoW a hero, with the victims of the story, the residents of informal settlements. The main learnings from this story are that the lack of decentralization of power and resources serve to exacerbate water crises at the local level and hamper climate adaptation, despite a proactive and innovative local municipality. The paper also shows that the narrative approach provides the thread of the story to simplify a very complex set of arrangements and contradictions.

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