scholarly journals Information Disclosure and the Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy: Climate-Related Risk in the UK and France

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-308
Author(s):  
Emily Webster

Abstract Over the last several years there has been increasing recognition and acceptance of the threat that climate change poses to global financial stability and the concurrent need for corporations to identify and account for both climate risks and their impacts on the environment. This has resulted in the emergence of climate risk disclosure (CRD) as a voluntary standard as well as movement on the domestic level to introduce mandatory CRD, demonstrated by the introduction of CRD framework legislation in France. This article conducts a comparative analysis of France and the UK—countries that are adopting divergent methods of legal development towards CRD—to analyse the potential of CRD as a policy tool to aid towards climate change mitigation and the transition to a low-carbon economy, and evaluate how effectively this is being achieved in practice.

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Fankhauser ◽  
David Kennedy ◽  
Jim Skea

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W.N. Steenberg ◽  
Peter N. Duinker ◽  
Irena F. Creed ◽  
Jacqueline N. Serran ◽  
Camille Ouellet Dallaire

In response to global climate change, Canada is transitioning towards a low-carbon economy and the need for policy approaches that are effective, equitable, coordinated, and both administratively and politically feasible is high. One point is clear; the transition is intimately tied to the vast supply of ecosystem services in the boreal zone of Canada. This paper describes four contrasting futures for the boreal zone using scenario analysis, which is a transdisciplinary, participatory approach that considers alternative futures and policy implications under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity. The two critical forces shaping the four scenarios are the global economy’s energy and society’s capacity to adapt. The six drivers of change are atmospheric change, the demand for provisioning ecosystem services, the demand for nonprovisioning ecosystem services, demographics, and social values, governance and geopolitics, and industrial innovation and infrastructure. The four scenarios include: (i) the Green Path, where a low-carbon economy is coupled with high adaptive capacity; (ii) the Uphill Climb, where a low-carbon economy is instead coupled with low adaptive capacity; (iii) the Carpool Lane, where society has a strong capacity to adapt but a reliance on fossil fuels; and (iv) the Slippery Slope, where there is both a high-carbon economy and a society with low adaptive capacity. The scenarios illustrate the importance of transitioning to a low-carbon economy and the role of society’s adaptive capacity in doing so. However, they also emphasize themes like social inequality and adverse environmental outcomes arising from the push towards climate change mitigation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhang Mu ◽  
Luo Jing ◽  
Zhang Xiaohong ◽  
Tang Lei ◽  
Feng Xiao-na ◽  
...  

Recent years saw the global wave of new low-carbon economy which is a strategic measure to cope with global warming, and it has gained concerns from many governments. As the representatives of developing countries, China is responsible for “common but distinguishing duty for global climate change.” Many policies have been made to develop low-carbon economy with the hope to advocate and innovate low-carbon economy in some industries and cities during these years. Therefore, it is a theoretical and innovative project to find a low-carbon economical model for various industries and carry out the experiments of low-carbon economy in some cities. Hence, guided by low-carbon economy theory, choosing booming Chinese tourism industry as the object, this paper constructs an operation framework system of low-carbon tourism development from the advantage of low-carbon tourism to the proposal of low-carbon tourism definition so as to conclude an execution scheme of “six elements” of low-carbon tourism with selecting OCT East (Chinese national ecotourism demonstration district) and Mt. Danxia (World Geo-park) as demonstration districts to discuss about models and methods of low-carbon economy in tourism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenjuan Yang ◽  
Rongqin Zhao ◽  
Xiaowei Chuai ◽  
Liangang Xiao ◽  
Lianhai Cao ◽  
...  

AbstractClimate change has emerged as one of the most important environmental issues worldwide. As the world’s biggest developing country, China is participating in combating climate change by promoting a low carbon economy within the context of global warming. This paper summarizes the pathways of China’s low carbon economy including the aspects of energy, industry, low carbon cities, circular economy and low carbon technology, afforestation and carbon sink, the carbon emission trading market and carbon emission reduction targets. There are many achievements in the implementation of low carbon policies. For example, carbon emission intensity has been reduced drastically along with the optimizing of energy and industry structure and a nationwide carbon trading market for electricity industry has been established. However, some problems remain, such as the weakness of public participation, the ineffectiveness of unified policies for certain regions and the absence of long-term planning for low carbon cities development. Therefore, we propose some policy recommendations for the future low carbon economy development in China. Firstly, comprehensive and long-term planning should be involved in all the low carbon economy pathways. Secondly, to coordinate the relationship between central and local governments and narrow the gap between poor and rich regions, different strategies of carbon emission performance assessment should be applied for different regions. Thirdly, enterprises should cooperate with scientific research institutions to explored low carbon technologies. Finally, relevant institutions should be regulated to realize comprehensive low carbon transition through reasonable and feasible low carbon pathways in China. These policy recommendations will provide new perspectives for China’s future low carbon economy development and guide practices for combating climate change.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zofia Wysokińska

This paper analyses the evolution of the new environmental policy of the European Union in the context of the efforts undertaken to moderate the negative effects of climate change. It describes all the activities in the European Union designed to implement new tools of the EU environmental policy, such as low carbon economy technologies, tools that improve the efficiency of managing the limited natural resources, the environmentally friendly transport package, etc. All of them are aimed at laying the foundations of the circular economy, which may also be referred to as a closed-loop economy, i.e., an economy that does not generate excessive waste and whereby any waste becomes a resource.


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