Gretchen L. Stokes , Samuel J. Smidt , Emily L. Tucker , Matteo Cleary , Simon Funge-Smith , John Valbo‐Jørgensen , Benjamin S. Lowe , Abigail J. Lynch
{"title":"Adaptive capacities of inland fisheries facing anthropogenic pressures","authors":"Gretchen L. Stokes , Samuel J. Smidt , Emily L. Tucker , Matteo Cleary , Simon Funge-Smith , John Valbo‐Jørgensen , Benjamin S. Lowe , Abigail J. Lynch","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102949","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102949","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Inland fisheries face multiple, intensifying threats (i.e., proximate human pressures causing degraded ecological attributes) from land development, climate change, resource extraction, and competing demands for water resources. Planning for resiliency amidst these pressures requires understanding the factors that influence an inland fishery’s capacity to adapt to system changes under multiple threats. Incorporating expert knowledge can illuminate priority fisheries and provide important insights where data are otherwise limited. Using data from a global survey of 536 fishery professionals, this study examines perceptions of threats and adaptive capacity (i.e., ability to mitigate or respond to change) in major inland fisheries. We assessed associations across 29 different perceived threats and their ranked influence scores, tested agreement among five adaptive capacity domains (i.e., agency, assets, flexibility, learning, organization), and examined relationships between threats and adaptive capacity domains. Results provide quantitative evidence that the greatest threats to inland fisheries come from outside the fishing sector and that most inland fisheries face multiple threats. Results also support the five domains as a collective measure of adaptive capacity and illuminate a negative association between the threats to a fishery and a fishery’s adaptive capacity. These findings highlight the need for fishery managers to engage in decision making with non-fishery sectors (e.g., multi-sectoral management) and the prioritization of habitat and watershed-scale conservation and rehabilitation efforts for improved adaptability amidst ecological transformation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102949"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142759507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lotsmart Fonjong , Frank Matose , David A. Sonnenfeld
{"title":"Climate change in Africa: Impacts, adaptation, and policy responses","authors":"Lotsmart Fonjong , Frank Matose , David A. Sonnenfeld","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102912","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102912","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>African countries have been among the least historic producers of global carbon emissions, yet they are among the most vulnerable to and impacted by global climate change. Climate change is profoundly impacting African countries in a multitude of ways including exacerbating water stress, damaging agricultural harvests, affecting lifestyles, and amplifying gender and other dimensions of inequality. Beyond such direct impacts, socio-economic consequences of climate change are impacting governance on the continent, as well. With current levels of external debt, rapid urbanization, social inequality, and pressures on agricultural land, the number of people living in rural poverty and informal urban settlements continues to rise. Many of the latter, in turn, are in constant danger of floods, and lack access to sustainable livelihoods, potable water, adequate food, health care, electricity, sanitary and solid waste disposal, and other fundamental services. Climate change exacerbates internal and external human mobility across the continent; endangers families and communities; and threatens African ecologies, economies, and political stability. How are policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders responding and adapting to climate-related threats in Africa today? This Special Issue highlights the work of African scholars and others in examining and interrogating current trends, dynamics, policies, and developments in response to climate change in Africa. The seven papers utilize multiple levels of analysis, draw from various disciplinary perspectives, and examine climate change related accomplishments and challenges of diverse countries across the continent. While these contributions generally interrogate the policy response to the climate crisis, most are specific in their framing and analysis. This introduction characterizes the impact of climate change on Africa; highlights each article’s key contributions and discusses implications of their findings in the context of electoral dynamics and climate policy discourse in Africa; and discusses some possible future directions for scholarship and policymaking on climate change in Africa.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102912"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142757668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Carbon territoriality at the land-water interface","authors":"Michelle Ann Miller","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102954","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102954","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Large volumes of organic carbon are stored in wetland ecosystems such as mangrove forests, peatlands, salt marshes and seagrass meadows. Efforts to mitigate anthropogenic climate change are transforming the governance of these naturally saturated carbon sinks. Scientific and market valuations of wetlands as carbon have prompted diverse experimentation with carbon sequestration projects and offset programs. These activities may displace wetland-reliant communities and add to societal equalities. This perspective paper develops the concept of carbon territoriality to explore emerging spaces of climate governance in wetlands. It moves beyond terra-centric policy debates tied to fixed and flat landscapes by integrating literature on the dynamic (sub)surface and atmospheric territorial dimensions of carbon. It posits that combining scientific knowledge of fixed carbon stocks with the inherited knowledge of coastal and riparian communities about fluid land–water connections could foster more inclusive and equitable forms of climate stewardship within biogeophysically relevant boundaries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102954"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142721115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Matthew T. Ballew , Laura Thomas-Walters , Matthew H. Goldberg , Marija Verner , Jessica Lu , John Marshall , Seth A. Rosenthal , Anthony Leiserowitz
{"title":"Climate change messages can promote support for climate action globally","authors":"Matthew T. Ballew , Laura Thomas-Walters , Matthew H. Goldberg , Marija Verner , Jessica Lu , John Marshall , Seth A. Rosenthal , Anthony Leiserowitz","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102951","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102951","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Climate change communication campaigns can reach many audiences cost-effectively. However, some climate messages may not work universally as there may be heterogeneity in message effects across audiences. An online experiment (<em>N</em> = 57,968) across 23 countries found that three climate messages had modest positive effects on support for climate action. An “Urgency & Generational” message had the strongest effect overall and had, on average, stronger effects in countries with lower baseline support for climate action (e.g., developed countries, democratic countries). While the size of this message’s positive effects varied across countries, effects were positive across all audience subgroups investigated and there was no evidence of backfire effects. For instance, this message had positive effects across the political spectrum and effects were marginally stronger among the political Right. Although the average message effects were small, the results indicate that, when deployed at a large scale, climate change messages have the potential to strengthen public support for climate action.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102951"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142698108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Harald Sterly , Marion Borderon , Patrick Sakdapolrak , Neil Adger , Ayansina Ayanlade , Alassane Bah , Julia Blocher , Suzy Blondin , Sidy Boly , Timothée Brochier , Loïc Brüning , Simon Bunchuay-Peth , David O’Byrne , Ricardo Safra De Campos , Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe , Florian Debève , Adrien Detges , Maria Franco-Gavonel , Claire Hathaway , Nikki Funke , Caroline Zickgraf
{"title":"Habitability for a connected, unequal and changing world","authors":"Harald Sterly , Marion Borderon , Patrick Sakdapolrak , Neil Adger , Ayansina Ayanlade , Alassane Bah , Julia Blocher , Suzy Blondin , Sidy Boly , Timothée Brochier , Loïc Brüning , Simon Bunchuay-Peth , David O’Byrne , Ricardo Safra De Campos , Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe , Florian Debève , Adrien Detges , Maria Franco-Gavonel , Claire Hathaway , Nikki Funke , Caroline Zickgraf","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102953","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102953","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As global climate change intensifies, the question of what makes a place habitable or uninhabitable is critical, particularly in the context of a potential future climate outside the realm of lived experience, and the possible concurrent redistribution of populations partly associated with such climatic shifts. The concept of habitability holds the potential for advancing the understanding of the societal consequences of climate change, as well as for integrating systemic understandings and rights-based approaches. However, most ways of analyzing habitability have shortcomings in terms of in-depth integration of socio-cultural aspects and human agency in shaping habitability, in failing to address spatial inequalities and power dynamics, and in an underemphasis of the connectedness of places. Here we elaborate habitability as an emergent property of the relations between people and a given place that results from people’s interactions with the material and immaterial properties of a place. From this, we identify four axes that are necessary to go beyond environmental changes, and to encompass socio-cultural, economic, and political dynamics: First the processes that influence habitability require a systemic approach, viewing habitability as an outcome of ecological, economic, and political processes. Second, the role of socio-cultural dimensions of habitability requires special consideration, given their own operational logics and functioning of social systems. Third, habitability is not the same for everyone, thus a comprehensive understanding of habitability requires an intersectionally differentiated view on social inequalities. Forth, the influence of external factors necessitates a spatially relational perspective on places in the context of their connections to distant places across scales. We identify key principles that should guide an equitable and responsible research agenda on habitability. Analysis should be based on disciplinary and methodological pluralism and the inclusion of local perspectives. Habitability action should integrate local perspectives with measures that go beyond purely subjective assessments. And habitability should consider the role of powerful actors, while staying engaged with ethical questions of who defines and enacts the future of any given place.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102953"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142698109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The curve: An ethnography of projecting sea level rise under uncertainty","authors":"Jessica O’Reilly , Michael Oppenheimer","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102947","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102947","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Drawing from a multiyear series of interviews with sea level rise assessors during the development of IPCC’s Working Group I volume of the Sixth Assessment Report—the first time access had been granted to researchers to observe the IPCC process—this article analyzes the social and epistemic challenges and tools (both technical and social) involved in assessing complex, uncertain science questions. This study shows that “the curve”, a representation of future sea level rise, is an example of the human dimensions of the science/policy interaction in three ways. First, IPCC authors’ experiences demonstrate that it is not just the communicative outcomes or political feedback from assessment reports that matter, but also the social and expert processes that produce these assessments. Attempting new assessment techniques to improve understandings of climate science can also improve broader society’s understanding of climate science, impacts and solutions. Second, the human side of global environmental assessments influences the credibility of these organizations. Expert authors accept these volunteer jobs for multiple reasons but their perception of the social experience of assessment influences their buy-in, and ultimately, the legitimacy of the organization. Third, the IPCC is increasingly formalizing its procedures for figure design and generally supports author experimentation with figures. However, less is known about how the social dynamics of chapter teams influences figure design and other assessment elements: we demonstrate this through our ethnographic analysis of the creation of curve figure and text box. The IPCC is a living, breathing organization: assessment work is not formulaic. To understand the science decisions in the report, we must understand how these decisions were made.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102947"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142663187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between theory and action: Assessing the transformative character of climate change adaptation in 51 cases in the Netherlands","authors":"Dore Engbersen, Robbert Biesbroek, Catrien J.A.M. Termeer","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102948","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102948","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Globally, researchers and policymakers are calling for transformative climate adaptation (TCA) to fundamentally change the attributes of social, economic, and ecological systems to deal with climate risks. However, attempts to conceptualize, assess, and implement TCA are limited and often result in vague and diffuse meanings, hindering transformative action. This study synthesizes existing literature to introduce a framework consisting of six dimensions for evaluating transformative climate adaptation actions: (1) depth, (2) scope, (3) scale, (4) speed, (5) social vulnerability, and (6) ecological vulnerability. We applied this framework to 51 climate change adaptation cases in the Netherlands. Our results show that no single case scored high on all dimensions, suggesting there are trade-offs between the six dimensions. Most trade-offs exist between depth, speed, and scale; however, they sometimes extend to the interplay between social and ecological vulnerability. We identify multiple clusters of cases that display varying degrees and characteristics of transformative change. Our results strengthen the call for a multidimensional and continuous change perspective of TCA to address the gap between transformative theory and transformative actions. The framework proposed here could guide future empirical research on the drivers of TCA and help governance actors work towards building more socially and environmentally resilient futures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102948"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142593945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Air pollution under formal institutions: The role of distrust environment","authors":"Xiaojuan Hou , Ruojun Xiang , Ming Jin","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102950","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102950","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Formal trust is an important formal institution that may significantly impact the environment. This study uses regional distrust environment as a reverse proxy variable for formal trust and studies the impact of formal trust on corporate sulfur dioxide emissions. This study finds that the environment of distrust significantly increases the sulfur dioxide emission levels of enterprises, which means that formal trust affects the environmental management strategies of enterprises. This study also finds that some other formal institutional factors, which include marketization, the development of intermediate organizations, the legal system environment, and GDP levels, have moderating effects on the impact of distrust environment on corporate sulfur dioxide emissions. In addition, climatic conditions including temperature, humidity, and precedence, as well as the location of the enterprise, have certain moderation effects. Mechanism analysis indicates that distrust environment affects corporate sulfur dioxide emissions through the increase in coal sulfur content in enterprise production, the decrease in exhaust gas processing capacity, the reduction in financing capacity, and the decline in social and environmental responsibilities. Finally, this study finds through further analysis that the local government appears to have noticed this negative impact, and the regions with a distrust environment tend to increase their environmental regulation intensity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102950"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142577920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A globally just and inclusive transition? Questioning policy representations of the European Green Deal","authors":"Håkon da Silva Hyldmo , Ståle Angen Rye , Diana Vela-Almeida","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102946","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102946","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Climate change mitigation policies around the world are increasingly formulated as ‘green deals’ characterized by comprehensive packages of (‘green’) economic and societal reforms intended to bring about a just and inclusive transition to a low-carbon economy. This paper takes as its starting point what we see as a fundamental tension underlying the logic of these policies: despite making ambitious claims about the ethical merits of the transition they aim to bring about, their implementation depends on the extraction of massive amounts of raw materials. Most of these materials will be sourced from the Global South, where the negative ecological and social impacts will be felt. Empirically we explore how this tension is reflected in the European Green Deal, the most comprehensive of the green deal initiatives to date. Analyzing 195 policy documents from the European Union, we find that the role played by the European Green Deal in driving negative impacts beyond its borders is effectively silenced in official discourse. This enables the propagation of a narrative that justifies the dominant paradigm of green growth by portraying the European Green Deal as undertaking a globally ‘just transition’ that ‘do no harm’ and ‘leaves no one behind’. However, it also results in discursive contradictions and inconsistencies that undermine the logic and legitimacy of the European Green Deal. These contradictions and inconsistencies, we argue, provide a possible entry point for efforts to improve the just and inclusive outcomes from the European Green Deal.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102946"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142555050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pia Treichel , Michai Robertson , Emily Wilkinson , Jack Corbett
{"title":"“Scale and access to the Green climate Fund: Big challenges for small island developing States”","authors":"Pia Treichel , Michai Robertson , Emily Wilkinson , Jack Corbett","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102943","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102943","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Small island developing States (SIDS) are among the first and the most severely impacted by climate change and thus have been designated as a priority for adaptation finance. But despite their urgent need and <em>prima facie</em> case for climate justice, SIDS have been proportionally less successful than other vulnerable country groups in accessing climate funding via the Green Climate Fund (GCF). This research extends existing studies that seek to understand the SIDS-specific challenges to accessing international public climate finance by developing a new explanation based on data collected via a multi-methods research design which draws on interviews with SIDS negotiators and officials, surveys, and roundtables, as well as content analysis of GCF and UNFCCC documents. Drawing on ideas about the social construction of scale and the emerging literature on the financialization of international development funding, we argue that SIDS’ limited access to climate funding from the GCF is the consequence of assumptions in development models of the benefits of largeness, with largeness equated with value for money. The perceived advantages of large-scale programs compound the injustice of climate change for SIDS, whose communities have contributed little to the problem yet struggle to gain access to meaningful levels of assistance. Improving access to climate finance for SIDS will require changes to the systems of access and this cannot happen unless ideas about the costs and benefits of different scales are disrupted.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102943"},"PeriodicalIF":8.6,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142527871","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}