scholarly journals Towards legitimacy of the solar geoengineering research enterprise

2018 ◽  
Vol 376 (2119) ◽  
pp. 20160459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Frumhoff ◽  
Jennie C. Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Lower Surface ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Vulnerable Communities ◽  
Policy Relevance ◽  
Solar Geoengineering ◽  
Warming World ◽  
Geopolitical Risks

Mounting evidence that even aggressive reductions in net emissions of greenhouse gases will be insufficient to limit global climate risks is increasing calls for atmospheric experiments to better understand the risks and implications of also deploying solar geoengineering technologies to reflect sunlight and rapidly lower surface temperatures. But solar geoengineering research itself poses significant environmental and geopolitical risks. Given limited societal awareness and public dialogue about this climate response option, conducting such experiments without meaningful societal engagement could galvanize opposition to solar geoengineering research from civil society, including the most climate vulnerable communities who are among its intended beneficiaries. Here, we explore whether and how a solar geoengineering research enterprise might be developed in a way that promotes legitimacy as well as scientific credibility and policy relevance. We highlight the distinctive responsibilities of researchers and research funders to ensure that solar geoengineering research proposals are subject to legitimate societal review and scrutiny, recommend steps they can take to strive towards legitimacy and call on them to be explicitly open to multiple potential outcomes, including the societal rejection or considerable alteration of the solar geoengineering research enterprise. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels'.

scholarly journals Building equity in: strategies for integrating equity into modelling for a 1.5°C world

2018 ◽  
Vol 376 (2119) ◽  
pp. 20160461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klinsky Sonja ◽  
Winkler Harald
Keyword(s):  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Policy Action ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Vulnerable Communities ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Loss And Damage ◽  
Warming World ◽  
Current Modelling

Emission pathways consistent with limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C raise pressing questions from an equity perspective. These pathways would limit impacts and benefit vulnerable communities but also present trade-offs that could increase inequality. Meanwhile, rapid mitigation could exacerbate political debates in which equity has played a central role. In this paper, we first develop a set of elements we suggest are essential for evaluating the equity implications of policy actions consistent with 1.5°C. These elements include (i) assess climate impacts, adaptation, loss and damage; (ii) be sensitive to context; (iii) compare costs of mitigation and adaptation policy action; (iv) incorporate human development and poverty; (v) integrate inequality dynamics; and (vi) be clear about normative assumptions and responsive to users. We then assess the ability of current modelling practices to address each element, focusing on global integrated assessment models augmented by national modelling and scenarios. We find current practices face serious limitations across all six dimensions although the severity of these varies. Finally, based on our assessment we identify strategies that may be best suited for enabling us to generate insights into each of the six elements in the context of assessing pathways for a 1.5°C world. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels'.

Steering and Influence in Transnational Climate Governance: Nonstate Engagement in Solar Geoengineering Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-111
Author(s):  
Joshua B. Horton ◽  
Barbara Koremenos
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Transnational Governance ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Novel Technology ◽  
Transnational Actors ◽  
Solar Geoengineering ◽  
Effective Policy ◽  
Transnational Climate Governance

Theorists of transnational climate governance (TCG) seek to account for the increasing involvement of nonstate and substate actors in global climate policy. While transnational actors have been present in the emerging field of solar geoengineering—a novel technology intended to reflect a fraction of sunlight back to space to reduce climate impacts—many of their most significant activities, including knowledge dissemination, scientific capacity building, and conventional lobbying, are not captured by the TCG framework. Insofar as TCG is identified with transnational governance and transnational governance is important to reducing climate risks, an incomplete TCG framework is problematic for effective policy making. We attribute this shortcoming on the part of TCG to its exclusive focus on steering and corollary exclusion of influence as a critical component of governance. Exercising influence, for example, through inside and outside lobbying, is an important part of transnational governance—it complements direct governing with indirect efforts to inform, persuade, pressure, or otherwise influence both governor and governed. Based on an empirical analysis of solar geoengineering research governance and a theoretical consideration of alternative literatures, including research on interest groups and nonstate advocacy, we call for a broader theory of transnational governance that integrates steering and influence in a way that accounts for the full array of nonstate and substate engagements beyond the state.

scholarly journals The myriad challenges of the Paris Agreement

2018 ◽  
Vol 376 (2119) ◽  
pp. 20180066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dann Mitchell ◽  
Myles R. Allen ◽  
Jim W. Hall ◽  
Benito Muller ◽  
Lavanya Rajamani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
25Th Anniversary ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Science Community ◽  
Warming World ◽  
The University

The much awaited and intensely negotiated Paris Agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015 by the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The agreement set out a more ambitious long-term temperature goal than many had anticipated, implying more stringent emissions reductions that have been under-explored by the research community. By its very nature a multidisciplinary challenge, filling the knowledge gap requires not only climate scientists, but the whole Earth system science community, as well as economists, engineers, lawyers, philosophers, politicians, emergency planners and others to step up. To kick start cross-disciplinary discussions, the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute focused its 25th anniversary conference upon meeting the challenges of the Paris Agreement for science and society. This theme issue consists of review papers, opinion pieces and original research from some of the presentations within that meeting, covering a wide range of issues underpinning the Paris Agreement. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels'.

The legal character and operational relevance of the Paris Agreement's temperature goal

2018 ◽  
Vol 376 (2119) ◽  
pp. 20160458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lavanya Rajamani ◽  
Jacob Werksman
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Common But Differentiated Responsibilities ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Collective Performance ◽  
Warming World ◽  
Legal Character

This article assesses the legal character and operational relevance of the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C temperature goal. This article begins with a textual analysis of the 1.5°C goal. It considers whether the goal creates individual or collective obligations for Parties, and whether it is sufficiently specific to enable the tracking of individual or collective performance. Next, it assesses the operational relevance of the 1.5°C temperature goal, by considering the role it will play in the Paris Agreement's institutions and procedures. To the extent that the goal plays a role, and implies global limits on greenhouse gas emissions, this article observes that it could have implications for the sharing of the effort between Parties. Thus, this article considers the relevance of equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances, to understanding how the 1.5°C goal could be reached. In this context, this article explores whether the 1.5°C goal could play a role in the Paris Agreement's ‘ambition cycle’. Finally, this article asks whether there are any legal or political implications, individually or collectively under the Paris Agreement, should the Parties fail to achieve the 1.5°C goal. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels’.

Climate Risk Management

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-116
Author(s):  
Klaus Keller ◽  
Casey Helgeson ◽  
Vivek Srikrishnan
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Climate Risk ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Climate Risk Management ◽  
Risk Management Strategies ◽  
Implementing Strategies

Accelerating global climate change drives new climate risks. People around the world are researching, designing, and implementing strategies to manage these risks. Identifying and implementing sound climate risk management strategies poses nontrivial challenges including ( a) linking the required disciplines, ( b) identifying relevant values and objectives, ( c) identifying and quantifying important uncertainties, ( d) resolving interactions between decision levers and the system dynamics, ( e) quantifying the trade-offs between diverse values under deep and dynamic uncertainties, ( f) communicating to inform decisions, and ( g) learning from the decision-making needs to inform research design. Here we review these challenges and avenues to overcome them. ▪  People and institutions are confronted with emerging and dynamic climate risks. ▪  Stakeholder values are central to defining the decision problem. ▪  Mission-oriented basic research helps to improve the design of climate risk management strategies.

scholarly journals Juxtaposing Farmers’ Suicides and Climate Change Vulnerability: An Empirical Analysis of Indian States

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-79
Author(s):  
Sridevi Gummadi ◽  
Amalendu Jyotishi ◽  
G Jagadeesh
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Risk Index ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Vulnerability Index ◽  
Indian States ◽  
Climate Change Vulnerability ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Comprehensive Study

India’s overall ranking on the Global Climate Risk Index has been deteriorating in recent years, making it more vulnerable to climate risks. It has been indicated in the literature that climate change is also associated with agrarian distress. However, empirical analyses are scanty on this, especially in the Indian context. In this analytical exercise, we tried to explore the association between farmers’ suicides and climate change vulnerability across Indian states. Using data from various sources, we arrive at an Agrarian Vulnerability Index and juxtaposed that with farmers’ suicide data between 1996 to 2015 collected from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). We noted a strong association between climate change vulnerability and farmers’ suicides. The essence of this analysis is to indicate and understand the broad trends and associations. This research, in the process, informs and presses for a systematic, more comprehensive study with an agenda at micro and meso levels to understand the nuances of this association. Submitted: 01 November 2020; Revised: 11 January 2021; Accepted: 29 April 2021

A hotter-drought fingerprint on Earth’s forest mortality sites–warming accelerates risks

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William M. Hammond ◽  
A. Park Williams ◽  
John T. Abatzoglou ◽  
Henry D. Adams ◽  
Tamir Klein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tree Mortality ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Signal ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Global Database ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Climatic Drivers ◽  
Warming World ◽  
Globally Distributed

<p>Earth’s forests face grave challenges in the Anthropocene, including hotter droughts increasingly associated with widespread forest die-off. But despite the vital importance of forests—especially historical forests—to global ecosystem services, their fates in a warming world remain highly uncertain. Critically missing is quantitative determination of hotter-drought climatic drivers at globally-distributed, ground-based, tree-mortality sites. We established a precisely geo-referenced global database documenting climate-induced mortality events spanning all tree-supporting biomes from 154 studies since 1970. Here we quantify a lethal global hotter-drought fingerprint from these tree-mortality sites across 675 locations encompassing 1,303 database plots. Frequency of these lethal climate conditions accelerates under projected warming, up 140% by +4℃. Our database, soon available at tree-mortality.net, provides initial footing for further community development of quantitative, ground-based monitoring of global tree mortality (e.g., still including peer-reviewed observations, but importantly also those from forestry professionals, land managers, and citizen scientists). Furthermore, our database immediately enables critical predictive model validation and improved remote sensing of mortality. While our initial database enabled empirical quantification of a global climate signal for hotter-drought triggered tree mortality, ongoing and online contributions to the database (with efforts to be more spatially representative) will enable myriad future analyses and progress toward understanding the role of hotter-drought in the mechanistically complex process of tree mortality. Our global fingerprint of lethal hotter-drought confirms many of Earth’s forests are increasingly imperiled by further warming.</p>

scholarly journals The hidden injustices of advancing solar geoengineering research

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennie C. Stephens ◽  
Kevin Surprise
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
White Men ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Elite Institutions ◽  
Global North ◽  
Solar Geoengineering

Abstract Advancing solar geoengineering research is associated with multiple hidden injustices that are revealed by addressing three questions: Who is conducting and funding solar geoengineering research? How do those advocating for solar geoengineering research think about social justice and social change? How is this technology likely to be deployed? Navigating these questions reveals that solar geoengineering research is being advocated for by a small group of primarily white men at elite institutions in the Global North, funded largely by billionaires or their philanthropic arms, who are increasingly adopting militarized approaches and logics. Solar geoengineering research advances an extreme, expert–elite technocratic intervention into the global climate system that would serve to further concentrate contemporary forms of political and economic power. For these reasons, we argue that it is unethical and unjust to advance solar geoengineering research.

Examination of Isentropic Circulation Response to a Doubling of Carbon Dioxide Using Statistical Transformed Eulerian Mean*

2013 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 1649-1667 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yutian Wu ◽  
Olivier Pauluis
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transport ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Sensible Heat Flux ◽  
Sensible Heat ◽  
Isentropic Flow ◽  
Warming World ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Transformed Eulerian Mean

Abstract Responses of the atmospheric circulation to a doubling of CO2 are examined in a global climate model, focusing on the circulation on both dry and moist isentropes. The isentropic circulations are reconstructed using the statistical transformed Eulerian mean (STEM), which approximates the isentropic flow from the Eulerian-mean and second-order moments. This approach also makes it possible to decompose the changes in the circulation into changes in zonal mean and eddy statistics. It is found that, as a consequence of CO2 doubling, the dry isentropic circulation weakens across all latitudes. The weaker circulation in the tropics is a result of the reduction in mean meridional circulation while the reduction in eddy sensible heat flux largely contributes to the slowdown of the circulation in the midlatitudes. The heat transport on dry isentropes, however, increases in the tropics because of the increase in dry effective stratification whereas it decreases in the extratropics following the reduction in eddy sensible heat transport. Distinct features are found on moist isentropes. In the tropics, the circulation weakens, but without much change in heat transport. The extratropical circulation shifts poleward with an intensification (weakening) on the poleward (equatorward) flank, primarily because of the change in eddy latent heat transport. The total heat transport in the midlatitudes also shows a poleward shift but is of smaller magnitude. The differences between the dry and moist circulations reveal that in a warming world the increase in midlatitude eddy moisture transport is associated with an increase in warm moist air exported from the subtropics into the midlatitude storm tracks.

scholarly journals Mathematics applied to the climate system: outstanding challenges and recent progress

2013 ◽  
Vol 371 (1991) ◽  
pp. 20120518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Williams ◽  
Michael J. P. Cullen ◽  
Michael K. Davey ◽  
John M. Huthnance
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation ◽  
Recent Progress ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Physically Based

The societal need for reliable climate predictions and a proper assessment of their uncertainties is pressing. Uncertainties arise not only from initial conditions and forcing scenarios, but also from model formulation. Here, we identify and document three broad classes of problems, each representing what we regard to be an outstanding challenge in the area of mathematics applied to the climate system. First, there is the problem of the development and evaluation of simple physically based models of the global climate. Second, there is the problem of the development and evaluation of the components of complex models such as general circulation models. Third, there is the problem of the development and evaluation of appropriate statistical frameworks. We discuss these problems in turn, emphasizing the recent progress made by the papers presented in this Theme Issue. Many pressing challenges in climate science require closer collaboration between climate scientists, mathematicians and statisticians. We hope the papers contained in this Theme Issue will act as inspiration for such collaborations and for setting future research directions.

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