scholarly journals Climate Change, Strict Pareto Improvements in Welfare and Multilateral Financial Transfers

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christos Kotsogiannis ◽  
Alan D. Woodland
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Financial Transfers ◽  
Pareto Improvements

scholarly journals Paris: Beyond the Climate Dead End through Pledge and Review?

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 142-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert O. Keohane ◽  
Michael Oppenheimer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Financial Transfers ◽  
Newly Industrializing Countries ◽  
Dead End ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Nationally Determined Contributions ◽  
Paris Climate Agreement

The Paris Climate Agreement of December 2015 marks a decisive break from the unsuccessful Kyoto regime. Instead of targets and timetables, it established a Pledge and Review system, under which states will offer Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to reducing emissions that cause climate change. But this successful negotiation outcome was achieved at the price of vagueness of obligations and substantial discretion for governments. Many governments will be tempted to use the vagueness of the Paris Agreement, and the discretion that it permits, to limit the scope or intensity of their proposed actions. Whether Pledge and Review under the Paris Agreement will lead to effective action against climate change will therefore depend on the inclination both of OECD countries and newly industrializing countries to take costly actions, which for the OECD countries will include financial transfers to their poorer partners. Domestic politics will be crucial in determining the attitudes of both sets of countries to pay such costs. The actual impact of the Paris Agreement will depend on whether it can be used by domestic groups favoring climate action as a point of leverage in domestic politics—that is, in a “two-level game” simultaneously involving both international and domestic politics.

Pareto Improvements and Feasible Climate Solutions

2021 ◽  
pp. 346-369
Author(s):  
Katie Steele
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Coordinated Action ◽  
Pareto Improvements

Proponents of International Paretianism (IP)—the principle that international agreements should not make any state worse off and should make some at least better off—argue that it is the only feasible approach to reducing the harms of climate change. They draw on some key assumptions regarding the meaning of ‘feasibility’ and the nature of the Pareto improvements associated with coordinated action on climate change. This chapter challenges these assumptions, in effect weakening the case for IP and allowing for broader thinking about what counts as a ‘feasible’ climate solution.

Building Backstop Technologies and Policies to Implement the Framework Convention on Climate Change

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Edmonds ◽  
Marshall Wise
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
The Other ◽  
Performance Standard ◽  
Synthetic Fuels ◽  
Financial Transfers ◽  
Energy Futures ◽  
Unconventional Oil And Gas

The goal of the Framework Convention on Climate Change is to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at levels which avoid dangerous an thropogenic interference with the climate (United Nations, 1992). No consensus currently exists with regard to a concentration that can be regarded as “safe,” and the issue remains subject to debate, fuelled at least in part by the enormous difficulties in predicting and valuing the consequences of climate change. The attraction of efficient instruments for achieving atmospheric stabilization is great, and most of the analysis to date has focused on either tradable permits or taxes as the instruments of implementation (Hourcade et al., 1996). Clearly, efficient instruments are a first-best alternative for achieving any emissions mitigation objective. But efficient instruments have their own difficulties, not the least of which is the income distribution problem. The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance and cost characteristics of an alternative, technology based, policy instrument, which might serve as a “backstop” in the event that efficient policy instruments could not be employed. Such instruments are of interest because they potentially offer a strategy for stabilizing the atmosphere, while requiring relatively minor financial transfers and allowing economic development to proceed. They accomplish these goals at the expense of economic efficiency, although our study shows the effect of the economic inefficiency is limited to approximately 30%. On the other hand, a technology strategy approach can offer wide technological flexibility in meeting the performance standard. The backstop protocol we study here requires new powerplant and coal-based synthetic fuels capacity to scrub carbon from the waste gas stream in Annex I nations, and provides a mechanism by which non-Annex I nations can graduate into obligations. We examine this protocol under two alternative reference energy futures: one dominated by coal and the other dominated by unconventional oil and gas.

scholarly journals ‘International Paretianism’ and the Question of ‘Feasible’ Climate Solutions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Steele
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Coordinated Action ◽  
Pareto Improvements

Proponents of International Paretianism (IP)—the principle that international agreements should not make any state worse-off and should make some at least better off—argue that it is the only feasible approach to reducing the harms of climate change (see, especially, Posner and Weisbach 2010). They draw on some key assumptions regarding the meaning of ‘feasibility’ and the nature of the Pareto improvements associated with coordinated action on climate change. This chapter challenges these assumptions, in effect weakening the case for IP and allowing for broader thinking about what counts as a ‘feasible’ climate solution.

Averting robo-bees: why free-flying robotic bees are a bad idea

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 723-729
Author(s):  
Roslyn Gleadow ◽  
Jim Hanan ◽  
Alan Dorin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Computer Simulation ◽  
Food Security ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Plant Interactions ◽  
Plant Insect Interactions ◽  
Native Habitat ◽  
Insect Pollinators ◽  
Insect Interactions

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.

Modelling ecosystem adaptation and dangerous rates of global warming

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Millington ◽  
Peter M. Cox ◽  
Jonathan R. Moore ◽  
Gabriel Yvon-Durocher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Diffusion Rate ◽  
Individual Species ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Rates Of Change ◽  
Rapid Climate Change ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
Intraspecies Competition ◽  
High Trait

Abstract We are in a period of relatively rapid climate change. This poses challenges for individual species and threatens the ecosystem services that humanity relies upon. Temperature is a key stressor. In a warming climate, individual organisms may be able to shift their thermal optima through phenotypic plasticity. However, such plasticity is unlikely to be sufficient over the coming centuries. Resilience to warming will also depend on how fast the distribution of traits that define a species can adapt through other methods, in particular through redistribution of the abundance of variants within the population and through genetic evolution. In this paper, we use a simple theoretical ‘trait diffusion’ model to explore how the resilience of a given species to climate change depends on the initial trait diversity (biodiversity), the trait diffusion rate (mutation rate), and the lifetime of the organism. We estimate theoretical dangerous rates of continuous global warming that would exceed the ability of a species to adapt through trait diffusion, and therefore lead to a collapse in the overall productivity of the species. As the rate of adaptation through intraspecies competition and genetic evolution decreases with species lifetime, we find critical rates of change that also depend fundamentally on lifetime. Dangerous rates of warming vary from 1°C per lifetime (at low trait diffusion rate) to 8°C per lifetime (at high trait diffusion rate). We conclude that rapid climate change is liable to favour short-lived organisms (e.g. microbes) rather than longer-lived organisms (e.g. trees).

Climate change and breeding success: decline of the capercaillie in Scotland

2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Moss ◽  
James Oswald ◽  
David Baines
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Breeding Success
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