A New Scenario Framework for Climate Change Research: The Concept of Shared Climate Policy Assumptions

How can we reasonably justify a climate policy goal if we accept that only possible consequences from climate change are known? Precautionary principles seem to offer promising guidelines for reasoning in such epistemic situations. This chapter presents two versions of the precautionary principle (PP) and defends one of them as morally justifiable. However, it argues that current versions of the PP do not allow discrimination between relevant climate change policies. Therefore, the chapter develops a further version of the PP, the Controllability Precautionary Principle (CPP), and defends its moral plausibility. The CPP incorporates the following idea: in a situation when the possible outcomes of the available actions cannot be ranked with regard to their value, the choice between available options for action should rest on the comparison of how well decision makers can control the processes of the implementation of the available strategies.

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Contrasting Evolution Patterns of Endorheic and Exorheic Lakes on the Central Tibetan Plateau and Climate Cause Analysis during 1988–2017

Water ◽

10.3390/w13141962 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (14) ◽

pp. 1962

Author(s):

Zhilong Zhao ◽

Yue Zhang ◽

Zengzeng Hu ◽

Xuanhua Nie

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Climatic Factors ◽

Global Climate ◽

Rapid Expansion ◽

Annual Precipitation ◽

The Tibetan Plateau ◽

Lake Area ◽

Climate Change Research ◽

Mean Temperature

The alpine lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are indicators of climate change. The assessment of lake dynamics on the TP is an important component of global climate change research. With a focus on lakes in the 33° N zone of the central TP, this study investigates the temporal evolution patterns of the lake areas of different types of lakes, i.e., non-glacier-fed endorheic lakes and non-glacier-fed exorheic lakes, during 1988–2017, and examines their relationship with changes in climatic factors. From 1988 to 2017, two endorheic lakes (Lake Yagenco and Lake Zhamcomaqiong) in the study area expanded significantly, i.e., by more than 50%. Over the same period, two exorheic lakes within the study area also exhibited spatio-temporal variability: Lake Gaeencuonama increased by 5.48%, and the change in Lake Zhamuco was not significant. The 2000s was a period of rapid expansion of both the closed lakes (endorheic lakes) and open lakes (exorheic lakes) in the study area. However, the endorheic lakes maintained the increase in lake area after the period of rapid expansion, while the exorheic lakes decreased after significant expansion. During 1988–2017, the annual mean temperature significantly increased at a rate of 0.04 °C/a, while the annual precipitation slightly increased at a rate of 2.23 mm/a. Furthermore, the annual precipitation significantly increased at a rate of 14.28 mm/a during 1995–2008. The results of this study demonstrate that the change in precipitation was responsible for the observed changes in the lake areas of the two exorheic lakes within the study area, while the changes in the lake areas of the two endorheic lakes were more sensitive to the annual mean temperature between 1988 and 2017. Given the importance of lakes to the TP, these are not trivial issues, and we now need accelerated research based on long-term and continuous remote sensing data.

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Twitter Users’ Displays of Affect in the Global Warming Debate

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication ◽

10.1177/00472816211007804 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 004728162110078

Author(s):

Shanna Cameron ◽

Alexandra Russell ◽

Luke Brake ◽

Katherine Fredlund ◽

Angela Morris

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Social Media ◽

Global Warming ◽

Content Analysis ◽

Technical Communication ◽

Research Team ◽

Future Research ◽

Climate Change Research ◽

Quantitative Content ◽

Twitter Users

This article engages with recent discussions in the field of technical communication that call for climate change research that moves beyond the believer/denier dichotomy. For this study, our research team coded 900 tweets about climate change and global warming for different emotions in order to understand how Twitter users rely on affect rhetorically. Our findings use quantitative content analysis to challenge current assumptions about writing and affect on social media, and our results indicate a number of arenas for future research on affect, global warming, and rhetoric.

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A room with a view: a special issue with a special perspective

Environment and Development Economics ◽

10.1017/s1355770x21000103 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 205-210

Author(s):

Simone Borghesi

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Developing Countries ◽

Climate Policy ◽

Present Article ◽

Emerging Economies ◽

Emissions Trading ◽

Developed Countries ◽

Special Issue ◽

Climate Policies

AbstractThe present article describes the main insights deriving from the papers collected in this special issue which jointly provide a ‘room with a view’ on some of the most relevant issues in climate policy such as: the role of uncertainty, the distributional implications of climate change, the drivers and applications of decarbonizing innovation, the role of emissions trading and its interactions with companion policies. While looking at different issues and from different angles, all papers share a similar attention to policy aspects and implications, especially in developing countries. This is particularly important to evaluate whether and to what extent the climate policies adopted thus far in developed countries can be replicated in emerging economies.

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Shared socioeconomic pathways for climate change research in Finland: co-developing extended SSP narratives for agriculture

Regional Environmental Change ◽

10.1007/s10113-020-01734-2 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Heikki S. Lehtonen ◽

Jyrki Aakkula ◽

Stefan Fronzek ◽

Janne Helin ◽

Mikael Hildén ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

National Level ◽

Global Scale ◽

Change Scenario ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Climate Change Research ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Agriculture And Food ◽

Farm Subsidies

AbstractShared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), developed at global scale, comprise narrative descriptions and quantifications of future world developments that are intended for climate change scenario analysis. However, their extension to national and regional scales can be challenging. Here, we present SSP narratives co-developed with stakeholders for the agriculture and food sector in Finland. These are derived from intensive discussions at a workshop attended by approximately 39 participants offering a range of sectoral perspectives. Using general background descriptions of the SSPs for Europe, facilitated discussions were held in parallel for each of four SSPs reflecting very different contexts for the development of the sector up to 2050 and beyond. Discussions focused on five themes from the perspectives of consumers, producers and policy-makers, included a joint final session and allowed for post-workshop feedback. Results reflect careful sector-based, national-level interpretations of the global SSPs from which we have constructed consensus narratives. Our results also show important critical remarks and minority viewpoints. Interesting features of the Finnish narratives compared to the global SSP narratives include greater emphasis on environmental quality; significant land abandonment in SSPs with reduced livestock production and increased plant-based diets; continued need for some farm subsidies across all SSPs and opportunities for diversifying domestic production under scenarios of restricted trade. Our results can contribute to the development of more detailed national long-term scenarios for food and agriculture that are both relevant for local stakeholders and researchers as well as being consistent with global scenarios being applied internationally.

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