scholarly journals Some ethical considerations for South Africa's climate change mitigation approach in light of the Paris Agreement

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee-Anne Steenkamp ◽  
Piet Naude
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Change Mitigation

scholarly journals Two Faces of Foreign Affairs Federalism and What They Mean for Climate Change Mitigation

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 274-278
Author(s):  
Jean Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Outer Face ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Combat Climate Change ◽  
International Engagement ◽  
Change Mitigation

President Trump has done the impossible: he has made the international community enthusiastic about U.S. federalism. Even as they express dismay at Trump's plan to abandon the Paris Agreement, foreign leaders and internationalists have praised the efforts of  U.S. states and cities to combat climate change mitigation in accordance with the Agreement's goals. These leaders are responding to what I will call the outer face of foreign affairs federalism—the direct international engagement undertaken by U.S. states and cities. This outer face has gained visibility in recent years, spurred on not only by the exigencies of climate but also by developments in legal practice. Less noticed internationally but of great practical importance is the inner face of foreign affairs federalism—the ways in which U.S. states and cities interact with the federal government. In this contribution, I first describe these two faces of foreign affairs federalism as they relate to climate and then suggest some ways in which foreign leaders and internationalists could expand the outer face and respond to the inner face.

scholarly journals Mitigation efforts will not fully alleviate the increase in water scarcity occurrence probability in wheat-producing areas

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. eaau2406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Trnka ◽  
Song Feng ◽  
Mikhail A. Semenov ◽  
Jørgen E. Olesen ◽  
Kurt Christian Kersebaum ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Representative Concentration Pathway ◽  
Occurrence Probability ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Change Mitigation

Global warming is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of severe water scarcity (SWS) events, which negatively affect rain-fed crops such as wheat, a key source of calories and protein for humans. Here, we develop a method to simultaneously quantify SWS over the world’s entire wheat-growing area and calculate the probabilities of multiple/sequential SWS events for baseline and future climates. Our projections show that, without climate change mitigation (representative concentration pathway 8.5), up to 60% of the current wheat-growing area will face simultaneous SWS events by the end of this century, compared to 15% today. Climate change stabilization in line with the Paris Agreement would substantially reduce the negative effects, but they would still double between 2041 and 2070 compared to current conditions. Future assessments of production shocks in food security should explicitly include the risk of severe, prolonged, and near-simultaneous droughts across key world wheat-producing areas.

scholarly journals Economic disparity among generations under the Paris Agreement

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haozhe Yang ◽  
Sangwon Suh
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Age Cohorts ◽  
Net Benefits ◽  
Lower Income Countries ◽  
Change Mitigation

AbstractThe costs and benefits of climate change mitigation are known to be distributed unevenly across time and space, while their intergenerational distribution across nations has not been evaluated. Here, we analyze the lifetime costs and benefits of climate change mitigation by age cohorts across countries under the Paris Agreement. Our results show that the age cohorts born prior to 1960 generally experience a net reduction in lifetime gross domestic product per capita. Age cohorts born after 1990 will gain net benefits from climate change mitigation in most lower income countries. However, no age cohorts enjoy net benefits regardless of the birth year in many higher income countries. Furthermore, the cost-benefit disparity among old and young age cohorts is expected to widen over time. Particularly, lower income countries are expected to have much larger cost-benefit disparity between the young and the old. Our findings highlight the challenges in building consensus for equitable climate policy among nations and generations.

Adjudicating States’ International Climate Change Obligations Before International Courts and Tribunals

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 201-205
Author(s):  
Paula F. Henin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Kyoto Protocol ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
International Courts ◽  
United Nations Framework Convention ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Change Mitigation

States have undertaken increasingly ambitious climate change mitigation and adaptation commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)1 and instruments adopted thereunder, notably the 1997 Kyoto Protocol2 and the 2015 Paris Agreement.3

Black Carbon Particles Needs Attention in Climate Change Mitigation Policies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ram Lal Verma ◽  
Balram Ambade
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Black Carbon ◽  
Emission Reduction ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Change Mitigation

Abstract Climate change poses enormous challenges to human civilization in food security, water security, and health security. Anthropogenic emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) are made responsible for climate change. The climate change mitigation agreements and treaties, from the Kyoto Protocol (1997) to the Paris Agreement (2015), are mainly focusing on emission reduction of GHGs. The Copenhagen Accord (2009) set the target of emission reduction of GHGs to the level of 1990, intending to keep the global warming below 2-degree centigrade (°C) above the temperature level of the pre-industrial era. The Paris Agreement (2015) further pursued efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C by reducing emissions of GHGs to 40 Gigatonne (Gt CO-eq) by 2030. However, assuming the countries will achieve the target of emission reduction of GHGs by 2030, the target of keeping global warming below 1.5°C is unlikely to achieve because the Paris Agreement (2015) has not included emission reduction of black carbon (BC) particles in the intergovernmental negotiation. The BC particles are strong climate warming agents whose climate forcing is more than half of that of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main GHG. This article argues for the inclusion of BC mitigation measures in the climate change mitigation measures. As BC also causes severe health impacts, BC mitigation will bring multiple co-benefits for health and environment, including a quick fixing of climate change problems in a few weeks, since the residence time of BC in the atmosphere is about a week.

DO GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE REPRESENT A SERIOUS THREAT TO OUR WELFARE AND ENVIRONMENT?

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Mann
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
Change Mitigation

The science underlying global warming, climate change, and the connections between these phenomena are reviewed. Projected future climate changes under various plausible scenarios of future human behavior are explored, as are the potential impacts of projected climate changes on society, ecosystems, and our environment. The economic, security, and ethical considerations relevant to determining the threat posed by climate change are subsequently assessed. The article then discusses the various means available for climate change mitigation, focusing on the relative strengths and weaknesses of various societal alternatives including ‘geoengineering’ and transitioning to less carbon intensive energy sources. The article concludes with the author's views as to what steps might most profitably be taken to avert dangerous anthropogenic interference with Earth's climate, and the ramifications if such steps are not taken.

scholarly journals Transitioning to Low-Carbon Economies under the 2030 Agenda: Minimizing Trade-Offs and Enhancing Co-Benefits of Climate-Change Action for the SDGs

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 10774
Author(s):  
Gabriela Ileana Iacobuţă ◽  
Niklas Höhne ◽  
Heleen Laura van Soest ◽  
Rik Leemans
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
2030 Agenda ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Change Mitigation

The 2030 Agenda with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change were adopted in 2015. Although independently defined, the two agreements are strongly interlinked. We developed a framework that scores the impacts of climate-change actions on all SDG targets based on directionality (i.e., trade-offs or co-benefits) and likelihood of occurrence (i.e., ubiquitous or context-dependent), and categorizes them by dependence on four key context dimensions—geographical, governance, time horizon and limited natural resources. Through an extensive literature review, we found that climate-change mitigation measures directly affect most SDGs and their targets, mostly through co-benefits. Improving energy efficiency, reducing energy-services demand and switching to renewables provide the most co-benefits. In contrast, carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy likely lead to multiple trade-offs. We show how understanding the relevant context dimensions facilitates policy design and policy mixes that enhance co-benefits and minimize trade-offs. Finally, by assessing the prevalence of climate-change mitigation measures in G20 countries, we found that measures with more co-benefits are more frequently adopted. Our study advances the knowledge of climate–SDG interactions, contributing to climate and sustainable development governance research, and facilitating policy design for a joint implementation of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda.

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