A General Approach for Financial Quantification of Climate Change Risk for Enterprises

Climate change is a major risk for the global economy. Increased frequency of climatic events coupled with unsustainable economic development without considering environmental & social aspects has resulted in runaway climatic impacts. It became evident for all stakeholders to work in unison; which led to formation of Task force on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD). Financial quantification of climate risk is a new area to be explored & could be an effective measure to tackle climate change. This chapter provides a general approach for financial quantification of climate change risk for businesses to understand & prioritize climate action. Though the approach is limited to the manufacturing sector, it can be used with some modifications for other sectors. It will help find impacts that climate change could pose to supply chain using various tools & evaluation of its usefulness. As 'Climate Action' is part of Sustainable Development Goals; it will be useful to understand how integrating TCFD could help enterprises tackle climate change by localizing SDG-13 into their businesses.

A General Approach for Financial Quantification of Climate Change Risk for Enterprises

Climate change is a major risk for the global economy. Increased frequency of climatic events coupled with unsustainable economic development without considering environmental & social aspects has resulted in runaway climatic impacts. It became evident for all stakeholders to work in unison; which led to formation of Task force on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD). Financial quantification of climate risk is a new area to be explored & could be an effective measure to tackle climate change. This chapter provides a general approach for financial quantification of climate change risk for businesses to understand & prioritize climate action. Though the approach is limited to the manufacturing sector, it can be used with some modifications for other sectors. It will help find impacts that climate change could pose to supply chain using various tools & evaluation of its usefulness. As 'Climate Action' is part of Sustainable Development Goals; it will be useful to understand how integrating TCFD could help enterprises tackle climate change by localizing SDG-13 into their businesses.

Palaeolithic Assemblages associated with Youngest Toba Tuff deposits from the Upper Gundlakamma river basin, Andhra Pradesh, India

Archaeological and geological remains associated with the Youngest Toba Tuff (YTT) deposits in India are seen as significant proxies for reconstructing 1) Initial modern human colonization of India and 2) Possible climatic impacts of the Toba super-eruption of 74 ka on Indian climate and hominin behaviour. In order to gain further insights into the environmental impacts and behavioural adaptations of human populations in India before and after the Toba eruption, we investigated archaeological horizons associated with the Toba ash beds along the Gundlakamma basin in Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Here, lithic artefacts were identified below and above the YTT deposits. The YTT deposits in the Gundlakamma river basin has a maximum thickness of 50 cm, comparatively thinner than those at the better investigated valleys of the adjacent Jurreru and Sagileru in Andhra Pradesh and the Son, Madhya Pradesh, India. Our surveys indicate that the Palaeolithic assemblages associated with YTT deposits from the Gundlakamma river basin can provide significant insights on the issues and debates surrounding the Toba archaeology.Supplementary material at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5729449

Considering an Intersectional Lens in Agriculture and Climate Change: A Systematic Literature Review

BACKGROUND:Climate change has detrimental effects on agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods. Disasters such as droughts, wildfires, floods, changes in intensity and timing of temperatures often cause gendered differential impacts. Furthermore, gendered climate vulnerability increases its impacts over time, threatening rural livelihoods and global food security. Consequently, the most vulnerable sections of the society experience severe effects due to their lack of capacity and opportunities to respond to these clime shocks. PROBLEM:Available literature on climate change, agriculture and gender explore vulnerabilities in rural populations through binary gender lenses, whereby men and women are categorised distinctly in terms of needs, climate adaptation and agricultural practices. These studies utilise a narrow gender analysis. In so doing, indicators like age, household types, income and ethnicity are made analytically invisible. METHODS:This paper utilised a systematic review method. Literature from the 1991 to 2020 was utilised in a comprehensive literature review to show how the concept of gender in agriculture and climate change has evolved in the past three decades. A content thematic analysis was utilised to analyse the data. Results: Findings indicated that without considering social variances between and within genders, policy and programming lacks comprehensive insights in responding to differential climatic impacts. This leads to obscurity experienced in one-size-fits-all approaches taken to address the needs of all vulnerable members of society. RECOMMENDATIONS:This paper recommended that climate change programming and policy frameworks must be informed by comprehensive analysis aimed at developing suitable climate change adaptation strategies within and between genders.

Deep in the Sierra Nevada critical zone: Saprock represents a large terrestrial organic carbon stock

Large uncertainty remains in the spatial distribution of deep soil organic carbon (OC) storage and how climate controls belowground OC. This research aims to quantify OC stocks, characterize soil OC age and chemical composition, and evaluate climatic impacts on OC storage from the soil surface through the deep critical zone to bedrock. These objectives were carried out at four sites along a bio-climosequence in the Sierra Nevada, California. On average, 74% of OC was stored below the A horizon, and up to 30% of OC was stored in saprock (friable weakly weathered bedrock). Radiocarbon, spectroscopic, and isotopic analyses revealed the coexistence of very old organic matter (OM) (mean radiocarbon age = 20,300 y BP) with relatively recent OM (mean radiocarbon age = 4,800 y BP) and highly decomposed organic compounds with relatively less decomposed material in deep soil and saprock. This co-mingling of OM suggests OC is prone to both active cycling and long-term protection from degradation. In addition to having direct effects on OC cycling, climate indirectly controls deep OC storage through its impact on the degree of regolith weathering (e.g. thickening). Although deep OC concentrations are low relative to soil, thick saprock represents a large, previously unrealized OC pool.

Quantifying the role of ocean coupling in Arctic amplification and sea-ice loss over the 21st century

The enhanced warming of the Arctic, relative to other parts of the Earth, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification, is one of the most striking features of climate change, and has important climatic impacts for the entire Northern Hemisphere. Several mechanisms are believed to be responsible for Arctic amplification; however, a quantitative understanding of their relative importance is still missing. Here, using ensembles of model integrations, we quantify the contribution of ocean coupling, both its thermodynamic and dynamic components, to Arctic amplification over the 20th and 21st centuries. We show that ocean coupling accounts for ~80% of the amplification by 2100. In particular, we show that thermodynamic coupling is responsible for future amplification and sea-ice loss as it overcomes the effect of dynamic coupling which reduces the amplification and sea-ice loss by ~35%. Our results demonstrate the utility of targeted numerical experiments to quantify the role of specific mechanisms in Arctic amplification, for better constraining climate projections.

Organizing Sport for Climate Related Adaptations: Lessons from the Water and Forestry Industries

Sporting societies around the world are being impacted by a variety of contemporary climatic challenges. The sport management literature indicates that these impacts have disrupted sport. Some adaptations have been implemented, but a comprehensive planning framework is absent from the literature. Learning from other industries, thus, was considered, and an examination of the literature from the water and forestry industries was conducted. The examination resulted in the discovery of six key themes offering insights or practical lessons to guide sport organizations in their efforts to organize for adapting to climatic impacts.