scholarly journals Trust/distrust judgments and perceptions of climate science: A research note on skeptics’ rationalizations

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilshani Sarathchandra ◽  
Kristin Haltinner
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Research Note ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Scientific Authority ◽  
Incentive Structures

Using interviews with residents of Idaho (a rural northwest US state) who identify as skeptical of climate change, we examine how skeptics rationalize their doubts about climate science. Skeptics tend to question the reality and human causes of climate change by (1) raising concerns about incentive structures in science that could bias climatology, (2) doubting the accuracy of data and models used by climate scientists, and (3) perceiving some practices of climate science and scientists as exclusionary. Despite these concerns, skeptics exhibit deference to scientific authority when using scientific assessments to make policy decisions, including environmental policy. Understanding skeptics’ concerns about climate science and areas where they support science-based policy, will lead to better dialogue between scientists, interest groups, policy makers, and the skeptical public, potentially clarifying avenues to communicate climate information and enact climate policy.

scholarly journals Death by Degrees: Taking a Feminist Hard Look at the 2° Climate Policy

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joni Seager
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Global Temperature ◽  
Acceptable Level ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Feminist Analysis

International policy-makers are forging a consensus that a 2° rise in global temperature represents an acceptable level of danger to the planet. This is not based on climate science. This article explores how feminist analysis and perspectives on climate change can help to reveal the gendered political and ideological underpinnings of this approach to climate change.

5. Climate change impacts

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-89
Author(s):  
Mark Maslin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Shifting Baseline ◽  
Dangerous Climate Change

‘Climate change impacts’ assesses the potential impacts of climate change and how these alter in scale and intensity with increasing warming by breaking down the potential impacts into sectors: extreme heat and droughts, storms and floods, agriculture, ocean acidification, biodiversity, and human health. Policy-makers should identify what dangerous climate change is. We need a realistic target concerning the degree of climate change with which we can cope. Fortunately, the societal coping range is flexible and can change with the shifting baseline and the more frequent extreme events—as long as there is strong climate science to provide clear guidance on what sort of changes are going to occur.

13. Environmental Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 297-320
Author(s):  
Andrea Lenschow
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Environmental Interest Groups ◽  
The Eu

This chapter focuses on the European Union’s environmental policy, the development of which was characterized by institutional deepening and the substantial expansion of environmental issues covered by EU decisions and regulations. Environmental policy presents a host of challenges for policy-makers, including the choice of appropriate instruments, improvement of implementation performance, and better policy coordination at all levels of policy-making. The chapter points to the continuing adaptations that have been made in these areas. It first considers the historical evolution of environmental policy in the EU before discussing the main actors in EU environmental policy-making, namely: the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and environmental interest groups. The chapter also looks at the EU as an international actor.

The Politics of Climate Change

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren R. Cass
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Political Response ◽  
Change Climate ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Climate Change Politics

Climate politics presents difficulties for study given its interdisciplinary nature and the scientific complexities involved in climate change. Climate change politics had got its start in the mid- to late 1980s, as climate science became more and more accessible to policy makers and the general public. Yet prior to 2008, climate politics was only touched upon in major publications on international relations, with the exception of policy journals. Climate change was frequently referenced in articles on a range of topics, but it was not the primary focus of analysis. The recent years have seen an explosion in literature focusing on the topic, however. The potential for massive economic, political, and ecological dislocation from the consequences of climate change as well as from the potential policies to address the problem have since resulted in an extensive literature, with scholars addressing aspects of climate politics from every paradigm within international relations, as well as drawing on research in numerous other related disciplines. In addition, efforts to address the consequences of climate change have evoked controversial ethical and distributive justice questions that have produced an important normative literature. Overall, the literature on climate politics centers on two issues: how we can explain the international political response to climate change, as well as how the international community should respond to climate change.

scholarly journals Are citizen juries and assemblies on climate change driving democratic climate policymaking? An exploration of two case studies in the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Wells ◽  
Candice Howarth ◽  
Lina I. Brand-Correa
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Elected Representatives ◽  
The Impact

Abstract In light of increasing pressure to deliver climate action targets, and the growing role of citizens in raising the importance of the issue, deliberative democratic processes (e.g. Citizen Juries and Citizen Assemblies) on climate change are increasingly being used to provide a voice to citizens in climate change decision-making. Through a comparative case study of two processes that ran in the UK in 2019 (the Leeds Climate Change Citizens’ Jury and the Oxford Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change), this paper investigates how far Citizen Assemblies and Juries on climate change are increasing citizen engagement on climate change and creating more citizen-centred climate policy-making. Interviews were conducted with policy-makers, councillors, professional facilitators and others involved in running these processes to assess motivations for conducting these, their structure and the impact and influence they had. The findings suggest the impact of these processes is not uniform: they have an indirect impact on policymaking by creating momentum around climate action and supporting the introduction of pre-planned or pre-existing policies rather than a direct impact by being truly being citizen-centred policymaking processes or conducive to new climate policy. We conclude with reflections on how these processes give elected representatives a public mandate on climate change, that they help to identify more nuanced and in-depth public opinions in a fair and informed way, yet it can be challenging to embed citizen juries and assemblies in wider democratic processes.

scholarly journals Agriculture's Contribution to Climate Change and Role in Mitigation Is Distinct From Predominantly Fossil CO2-Emitting Sectors

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Lynch ◽  
Michelle Cain ◽  
David Frame ◽  
Raymond Pierrehumbert
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Emission Rates ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Agricultural Emissions ◽  
Stock Pollutant ◽  
Global Temperature Change

Agriculture is a significant contributor to anthropogenic global warming, and reducing agricultural emissions—largely methane and nitrous oxide—could play a significant role in climate change mitigation. However, there are important differences between carbon dioxide (CO2), which is a stock pollutant, and methane (CH4), which is predominantly a flow pollutant. These dynamics mean that conventional reporting of aggregated CO2-equivalent emission rates is highly ambiguous and does not straightforwardly reflect historical or anticipated contributions to global temperature change. As a result, the roles and responsibilities of different sectors emitting different gases are similarly obscured by the common means of communicating emission reduction scenarios using CO2-equivalence. We argue for a shift in how we report agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and think about their mitigation to better reflect the distinct roles of different greenhouse gases. Policy-makers, stakeholders, and society at large should also be reminded that the role of agriculture in climate mitigation is a much broader topic than climate science alone can inform, including considerations of economic and technical feasibility, preferences for food supply and land-use, and notions of fairness and justice. A more nuanced perspective on the impacts of different emissions could aid these conversations.

scholarly journals Energy and Climate Policy—An Evaluation of Global Climate Change Expenditure 2011–2018

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 4839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coilín ÓhAiseadha ◽  
Gerré Quinn ◽  
Ronan Connolly ◽  
Michael Connolly ◽  
Willie Soon
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
World Energy

Concern for climate change is one of the drivers of new, transitional energy policies oriented towards economic growth and energy security, along with reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and preservation of biodiversity. Since 2010, the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) has been publishing annual Global Landscape of Climate Finance reports. According to these reports, US$3660 billion has been spent on global climate change projects over the period 2011–2018. Fifty-five percent of this expenditure has gone to wind and solar energy. According to world energy reports, the contribution of wind and solar to world energy consumption has increased from 0.5% to 3% over this period. Meanwhile, coal, oil, and gas continue to supply 85% of the world’s energy consumption, with hydroelectricity and nuclear providing most of the remainder. With this in mind, we consider the potential engineering challenges and environmental and socioeconomic impacts of the main energy sources (old and new). We find that the literature raises many concerns about the engineering feasibility as well as environmental impacts of wind and solar. However, none of the current or proposed energy sources is a “panacea”. Rather, each technology has pros and cons, and policy-makers should be aware of the cons as well as the pros when making energy policy decisions. We urge policy-makers to identify which priorities are most important to them, and which priorities they are prepared to compromise on.

International Environmental Policy: Interests and the Failure of the Kyoto Process

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1044-1046
Author(s):  
Robert Boardman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Global Development ◽  
International Environmental Policy ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Climate Change Politics ◽  
Edward Elgar

International Environmental Policy: Interests and the Failure of the Kyoto Process, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen and Aynsley Kellow, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2002, pp. xi, 214This valuable critique of climate change politics is written by two of its leading observers. The authors—who variously describe themselves as skeptical, dissident or agnostic about the scientific issues—acknowledge that their views on the process are controversial and unpopular. Why, they ask (1), was Kyoto so widely embraced? Unlike other complex international agreements, the Protocol has been iconized. To criticize it, they write, is to attack not only the “moral crusade” (104) of environmentalism but also the global development agenda (110). Behind the complaint is a well-crafted argument about the inadequacies of science as a guide to policy, and a detailed account of what they see as the politicization of climate science. The science, in sum, has been “inescapably tied up with the play of interests from the outset,” and “reflects, rather than simply drives, politics” (6–7).

scholarly journals The Precis Caribbean Story: Lessons and Legacies

2013 ◽  
Vol 94 (7) ◽  
pp. 1065-1073 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Taylor ◽  
Abel Centella ◽  
John Charlery ◽  
Arnoldo Bezanilla ◽  
Jayaka Campbell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Change Information ◽  
Current Century ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Regional Climates ◽  
Science Information

By the beginning of the current century, there was heightened recognition that the Caribbean is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Yet, there was very little climate change science information for the region and at the scale of the small islands that make up most of the region. To fill the gap, a group of regional scientists representing three institutions and four territories (Barbados, Belize, Cuba, and Jamaica) initiated a project to provide dynamically downscaled climate change information for the Caribbean. The Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies (PRECIS)-Caribbean initiative was premised on a shared workload with goals to build regional capacity to provide climate change information for the region from within the region, to provide much needed climate information in the shortest possible time frame, and to create a platform for sharing the information as widely as possible. Ten years later offers the opportunity for retrospection and evaluation, particularly since a phase 2 initiative is being formulated. By both accident and design, the legacies of the PRECIS-Caribbean initiative include i) the positioning of the Caribbean to pose and answer for itself some of the emerging second-generation climate change questions; ii) the emergence of a regional template for capacity building in the sciences through cooperation; iii) an expanded regional capacity to undertake climate science; and iv) a significant body of climate change and climate science knowledge relevant to and at the scale of the Caribbean region.

scholarly journals Climate Change Scepticism: Reconsidering How to Respond to Core Criticisms of Climate Science and Policy

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824401774898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Van Rensburg ◽  
Brian W. Head
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
The Core ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Policy Proposals

The contextual drivers of climate change scepticism are well described and explained in the literature. A key assumption underlying most of the scholarly constructions of the sceptical phenomenon is that the key objections raised by sceptics to climate science and climate policy proposals represent some form of submerged deception or self-delusion on their part. This article refocuses attention on sceptics’ central criticisms, and argues that direct responses to these criticisms should not be neglected in favor of a primary focus on sceptics’ possible inner motivations. The article investigates the core objections raised by sceptics, with particular attention to the views of one prominent Australian sceptic, Andrew Bolt. We argue that some of these objections should be treated as legitimate forms of dissent, and that ongoing constructive responses to such criticisms are necessary to counter the impact of climate change scepticism.

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