Global Environmental Change最新文献

{"title":"Grappling with a sea change: Tensions in expert imaginaries of marine carbon dioxide removal","authors":"Sara Nawaz ,&nbsp;Javier Lezaun","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102806","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102806","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While research on marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) expands apace, significant unknowns persist regarding the risks and benefits of individual mCDR options. This paper analyses the assumptions and expectations that animate expert understandings of mCDR, with a focus on issues that are central to the responsible governance of this emerging field of climate action. Drawing upon interviews with experts involved in mCDR research projects both academic and entrepreneurial, we highlight four thematic tensions that orient their thinking but are often unstated or left implicit in scientific and technical assessments: (1) the relevance of ‘naturalness’ as a criterion of evaluation for mCDR approaches; (2) the perceived need to accelerate research and development activities via alternative paradigms of evidence-building; (3) a framing of mCDR as a form of waste management that will, in turn, generate new (and currently poorly understood) forms of environmental pollutants; and (4) a commitment to inclusive governance mixed with difficulty in identifying specific stakeholders or constituencies in mCDR interventions. Although expert consensus on these four issues is unlikely, we suggest ways of ensuring that consideration of these themes enriches debate on the responsible development of novel mCDR capabilities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000104/pdfft?md5=d4bd0e3cf699ee44cca0e311f66dfb20&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000104-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139945026","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":"Vulnerability locked in. On the need to engage the outside of the adaptation box","authors":"Julia Teebken","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102807","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>“Vulnerable populations” are experiencing a (re)emphasis in climate change adaptation research and practice even though the concept has long been contested. Adaptation planning is increasingly expected to restore past inequalities and address systemic injustices. Yet, we know little about the role local environmental agencies, bureaucrats, and policy practitioners (can) play in addressing “vulnerable populations”. Drawing from qualitative empirical research in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, and Jinhua, Zhejiang in China, the local problem recognition about “vulnerable populations” and adaptation decision-making was examined. The findings reveal severe limitations in the way “vulnerable populations” are approached, with certain groups being politically contested and being considered difficult to be prioritized. In both cases, accidental forms of adaptation stand out, which mainly focus on blue-green infrastructure interventions and neighborhood revitalization programs, some of which recreated “vulnerable populations”. The findings hint to vulnerability being more deeply rooted in external conditions to the individual, which requires different policy interventions. The article presents a novel understanding by conceptualizing “vulnerable populations” as an instance of vulnerable political institutions. There’s a need to explore the nature of our political systems, how much inequality we allow and which redistribution mechanisms the state has for addressing interdependent dimensions of inequality. To make “vulnerable populations” finally a front and center concern begs us to radically engage the outside of the conventional adaptation box. Inequality studies offers synergies with adaptation justice discourses and different policy instruments that address the root causes of vulnerability.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000116/pdfft?md5=6eadd9f6c03af1c42f98035352baa6a3&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000116-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139941817","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":"Democracy through technocracy? Reinventing civil society as a state-monitored and unpaid service provider in the EU FLEGT VPA in Laos","authors":"Sabaheta Ramcilovic-Suominen","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102809","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102809","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper analyses the European Union’s (EU’s) democratising agenda within the frame of the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) in Laos. In particular, it focuses on the requirement for the participation of civil society organisations (CSOs) in the VPA and the Lao state actors’ responses to this requirement. I frame the VPA’s democratising agenda and its conditionality of civil society participation as acts of governmentality exercised by the EU in Laos. This EU governmentality is exercised through the EU and EU member states’ funded development partner in the frame of their project supporting the FLEGT VPA process in Laos. The Lao government responses and strategies to the EU governmentality resulted on the one hand in the Lao state’s governmentality towards domestic CSOs, and in counter-conduct (i.e. a subtle and sly resistance to some aspects of the VPA) on the other. First, by tracing the establishment of the Lao FLEGT Civil Society Organisations Network (FLEGT CSO Network), I highlight the trend of depoliticisation and rendering technical, where the EU-funded development partner, with full support and backing from the Lao state, trained the CSOs in various VPA and timber legality issues. In the training, the CSOs were given specific roles and tasks, building up their fields of expertise, and were integrated in the formal VPA organisational structures, which allowed for their scrutiny and tight survelience by the state. Second, I analyse the counter-conduct by the Lao government against a civil society that is independent from the state, which the government manifested through further disempowerment of CSOs and tightening of the CSO regulation shortly after the FLEGT CSO Network was established, while at the same time simulating democratisation by welcoming CSOs’ participation in the VPA. Summoning CSOs as compliant actors and unpaid service providers working for and alongside the state was in part enabled by the VPA’s own rendering technical approach. Hence, the EU’s VPA governmentality and the Lao state counter-conduct mutually reinforced one another, even if their initial agendas around democratisation and CSO engagement in forest governance and the VPA diverged.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802400013X/pdfft?md5=43bc2df6bfb85babd1850265fa83abef&pid=1-s2.0-S095937802400013X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139898517","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":"Impacts of air pollution on child growth: Evidence from extensive data in Chinese counties","authors":"Lili Xu ,&nbsp;Kuishuang Feng ,&nbsp;Shuai Shao","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102808","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite extensive research on the detrimental effects of air pollution on health, limited focus has been directed toward the impact of air pollution on child growth. Utilizing comprehensive data spanning 2759 Chinese counties from 2000 to 2018, this study pioneers an empirical investigation of the causal link between air pollution and child growth. The findings reveal a significant correlation between air pollution and child growth; as air pollution worsens, child growth suffers, evident in stunting, underweight, wasting, and severe wasting. More specifically, the effects of PM_2.5 on stunting, underweight, and severe wasting can persist for up to six years, while its impact on wasting endures for three years. Vulnerable groups include older children, girls, and less-developed geographical regions. Environmental regulations like “Low-Carbon Cities” and “Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan” have yielded positive growth outcomes. Mechanistically, PM_2.5 impairs child growth via metabolic disruption and financial constraints. Collectively, this study offers empirical evidence of the adverse impacts of air pollution on child growth while proposing suggests strategies for addressing this challenge in developing countries.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139749299","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":"The role of visions in sustainability transformations: Exploring tensions between the Agrarwende vanguard vision and an established sociotechnical imaginary of agriculture in Germany","authors":"Christine Polzin","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102800","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102800","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Although much research recognises the importance of visions as key ingredients of transformations to sustainability, it remains unclear how and why some visions become collectively binding. This paper uses the lens of sociotechnical imaginaries, i.e., collectively shared, institutionally stabilised, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures, to analyse the so-called <em>Agrarwende</em> (agricultural transformation), a sustainability-oriented reform of German agriculture based on a vision of transformative change towards organic farming. Methodologically, the investigation draws on published historical and contemporary data sources for an in-depth case study of the <em>Agrarwende</em> using content analysis. It shows how a particular sociotechnical imaginary has shaped German agriculture for many decades and explores how three of its constitutive elements - its policy style, expertise, and risk framing – conflict with the vanguard vision of the <em>Agrarwende</em>. The findings suggest that these elements have reinforced one another in shaping the trajectory of the agricultural system, thus co-producing a strong socio-political order in favour of industrial agriculture at the expense of an alternative set of policies, expertise, and risk framing that supports organic agriculture. Taken together, the findings highlight how knowledge and politics shape debates and controversies about what is deemed a desirable future, what is at stake, and for whom.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378024000049/pdfft?md5=600a11d0ea4c2821c5c436d2d8a6dde2&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378024000049-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139493790","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":"Leveraging keystone agents in extractive industries to advance sustainability","authors":"Bert Scholtens","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102794","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102794","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Natural resource extraction has a lasting and dramatic impact on the natural environment as well as far-reaching social effects. As such, public policy and governmental regulation are crucial for a transition to sustainability. However, on their own, these have shown to be insufficient to achieve such transformation. Changing commitment and conduct of the extractives too is important to transit. Firms in the extractives are large and highly international, and their owners are decisive for businesses’ conduct. Therefore, it is relevant to determine whom and how to influence to transit towards sustainability. To this extent, we study dominant firms and their owners in the top-10 international extractive industries. We establish that both natural resource markets and ownership of keystone agents are highly concentrated: the three largest companies earn 70% of the revenues in the ten industries studied, and the three largest shareholders in these companies on average have 22% of the shares of the keystone firms. This helps explain why regulation has been rather ineffective so far. We discuss several options to influence keystone agents. We conclude that advancing sustainability in extractives requires leveraging a limited number of keystone agents.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378023001607/pdfft?md5=f7dc2fcdbb78261ddbcdd0f8498a3006&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378023001607-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139080127","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":"Are civilizations destined to collapse? Lessons from the Mediterranean Bronze Age","authors":"Igor Linkov ,&nbsp;S.E. Galaitsi ,&nbsp;Benjamin D. Trump ,&nbsp;Elizaveta Pinigina ,&nbsp;Krista Rand ,&nbsp;Eric H. Cline ,&nbsp;Maksim Kitsak","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102792","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>As the world faces multiple crises, lessons from humanity’s past can potentially suggest ways to decrease disruptions and increase societal resilience. From 1200 to 1100 BCE, several advanced societies in the Eastern Mediterranean suffered dramatic collapse. Though the causes of the Late Bronze Age Collapse are still debated, contributing factors may include a “perfect storm” of multiple stressors: social and economic upheaval, earthquake clusters, climate change, and others. We examined how collapse might have propagated through the societies’ connections by modeling the Eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age trade and socio-political networks. Our model shows that the Late Bronze Age societies made a robust network, where any single node’s collapse was insufficient to catalyze the regional collapse that historically transpired. However, modeled scenarios indicate that some paired node disruptions could cause cascading failure within the network. Subsequently, a holistic understanding of the region’s network incentive structures and feedback loops can help societies anticipate compounding risk conditions that might lead to widespread collapse and allow them to take appropriate actions to mitigate or adapt societal dependencies. Such network analyses may be able to provide insight as to how we can prevent a collapse of socio-political, economic and trade networks similar to what occurred at the end of the Late Bronze Age. Though such data-intensive analytics were unavailable to these Bronze Age regions, modern society may be able to leverage historical lessons in order to foster improved robustness and resilience to compounding threats. Our work shows that civilization collapses are preventable; we are not necessarily destined to collapse.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139108814","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":"Assessment of extreme temperature to fiscal pressure in China","authors":"Zhongfei Chen ,&nbsp;Xin Zhang ,&nbsp;Fanglin Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102797","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102797","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper investigates the impact of climate change on government fiscal pressure using local governments’ fiscal data in China from 2000 to 2020. While previous studies have extensively explored the effects of climate change<span><span> on individuals and economies, there has been limited research on the negative effects of climate change from a government fiscal perspective. Our study makes contributions by using county-level fiscal data in China, allowing for a detailed examination of the fiscal implications of weather extremes. Moreover, we comprehensively analyze the underlying mechanisms involving population mobility, industrial structure, and electricity consumption. The empirical results indicate that each additional day of extreme temperature in a year leads to a CNY 0.002 billion increase in the general public budget deficit, which is equivalent to 0.1093% of the local fiscal deficit. Furthermore, local governments heavily reliant on agriculture, experiencing low electricity consumption, and significant population outflows face even greater challenges. Notably, medical insurance and the “province-managing-county” reform program emerge as crucial mitigating factors against fiscal pressures. By providing a thorough assessment of climate change’s fiscal impact on local governments, this research contributes to the theoretical foundation for governmental initiatives aimed at reducing </span>carbon emissions.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139419317","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":"Synergies of interventions to promote pro-environmental behaviors – A meta-analysis of experimental studies","authors":"Marius Alt ,&nbsp;Hendrik Bruns ,&nbsp;Nives DellaValle ,&nbsp;Ingrida Murauskaite-Bull","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102776","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102776","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Addressing the threat of climate change requires effective environmental regulation to induce pro-environmental behavior. While various policy interventions already exist, combining different policies may offer greater effectiveness in dealing with market failures, multiple environmental objectives, and mitigating the regressive effects of single policies. In this meta-study, we investigate the potential synergies between policy interventions by rigorously assessing their comparative effectiveness when used individually versus in combination. We focus on experimental studies providing comparable findings from controlled settings to facilitate an empirically grounded understanding of climate policy synergies. Our analysis reveals negative synergy effects, indicating that, on average, the analyzed policy mixes are less effective than the sum of their individual intervention effects. However, we also find that policy mixes can offset the negative effects of single policies. Notably, combinations involving nudges and monetary incentives prove particularly effective in promoting pro-environmental behavior. Lastly, behavioral changes induced by policy mixes tend to wane faster compared to single interventions once the policies are removed. Our study provides important scientific and policy-relevant insights regarding the performance of policy mixes.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378023001425/pdfft?md5=d3cb567b67877c713aae79a02559e6ed&pid=1-s2.0-S0959378023001425-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139487316","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":"MAPPING WILDFIRE JURISDICTIONAL COMPLEXITY REVEALS OPPORTUNITIES FOR REGIONAL CO-MANAGEMENT","authors":"Kate Jones ,&nbsp;Jelena Vukomanovic ,&nbsp;Branda Nowell ,&nbsp;Shannon McGovern","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102804","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102804","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Wildfires often burn across boundaries affecting multiple jurisdictions, landowners and levels of government. Wildfire co-management across jurisdictions is expected to increase in complexity as wildfire severity, size, and frequency increase due to climate change, and growing populations bring more people into close proximity with wildfire. A systematic method to assess jurisdictional complexity for wildfire management is needed to effectively allocate resources and plan for future wildfire management conditions. Here, we developed an open-source framework of decision rules to count jurisdictions and landowners by coupling nearly 9,000 historic wildfire footprints that occurred across 43 U.S. states between 1999 and 2020 with geospatial jurisdictional data. We found that the number of annual wildfires greater than 500 acres has increased through time, with a proportional increase in the number of the highly complex (&gt;7 jurisdictions; &gt;3 levels of government) wildfires. Most wildfires burned 2–3 jurisdictions and 1 or 2 land ownerships, and the most common co-managed wildfires occurred on federal and private lands. On average, the western United States, specifically the Mediterranean California ecoregion, has more jurisdictionally complex wildfires, but the eastern United States, namely the Appalachian Mountains, has localized areas that experienced multiple wildfires with high and varied jurisdictional complexity. The prairies of Texas contained the largest extent of average low complexity wildfires. Of the 43 states that contained a wildfire, 41 had a census place that was burned or within 5 miles of a wildfire boundary, and overall, the annual number of census places near wildfires appears to be increasing through time. We demonstrate a framework that can be used to quantify jurisdictional complexity from observed wildfire boundaries and provide a baseline for discussing jurisdictional complexity at a national, regional, and sub-regional scale. This framework may also be adapted to other hazards or multi-jurisdictional phenomena that have geospatial boundary objects.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139551240","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}