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Why equity is fundamental in climate change policy research
Abstract
In an Editorial now published in “Global Environmental Change”, 18 climate policy researchers argue that analyses of equity and justice are absolutely essential for our ability to understand climate politics and contribute to concrete efforts to achieve adequate, fair and enduring climate action for present and future generations. Climate change action is too important not to address the issue of equity; failing to do so risks the collapse of the new regime. Our article can be downloaded at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.08.002. This paper is also supported by the Planetary Justice Project, a new initiative launched by the Earth System Governance research alliance (www.earthsystemgovernance.org).
... There is a persistent and increasingly urgent question of who is benefitting from and who is being harmed by climate action and inaction. Even as the collective of voices calling for just climate action grows, powerful societal actors continue to oppress and marginalize the people, lands, and waters most impacted by rapidly changing climate [2][3][4][5][6] . These actors wield power and agency through the dominant systems and structures of colonialism and capitalism, emphasizing that just climate mitigation and adaptation has a power problem that we must contend with if we are to move our climate action ambitions forward, together [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] . ...
... Even as the collective of voices calling for just climate action grows, powerful societal actors continue to oppress and marginalize the people, lands, and waters most impacted by rapidly changing climate [2][3][4][5][6] . These actors wield power and agency through the dominant systems and structures of colonialism and capitalism, emphasizing that just climate mitigation and adaptation has a power problem that we must contend with if we are to move our climate action ambitions forward, together [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] . As an increasing number of urban climate plans, policies, regulations, and programs move to integrate justice considerations, researchers can support this work by providing robust frameworks and approaches to ensure that this work is systemic, high impact, and actionable for practitioners, while working at the deeper root causes that perpetuate injustice, oppression, and ongoing colonization. ...
... These ways of thinking about climate justice seek to identify paradigms, values, socio-cultural factors, niche innovations, and conditions that shape landscape-and regime level forces as high leverage places to experiment and intervene (e.g [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] .). Systems thinking and sustainability transitions theories of change can help us to see that working on climate and justice challenges discreetly, or solely within the dominant, western colonial paradigm of urban governance is neither most effective nor just, and there are ongoing social harms being caused by climate work that does not embed justice (for example 2,5,6,19,34 ). These are generalized patterns being discussed and explored in academic literature theoretically and through examination of cases and examples, and they also show up in our study located in Vancouver, Canada. ...
... Since the NDCs are developed and adopted independently by each party, they can be seen as bottom-up approaches to fairness 15 . Governments' perceptions of what is "fair enough" are manifested in negotiations and commitments like NDCs 16 . At the same time, the NDCs constitute roadmaps with a starting point in current emission levels. ...
... Finally, we estimate the cost for each country to deliver additional emission reductions or carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in line with their accountability. We used the ability to pay metrics GDP per capita, which is a common metric for capabilities 16 . We apply a least-cost principle and assume for simplicity that the average cost for costeffective measures is 150 USD per ton of CO 2 mitigated or removed; this is within the estimated cost range of most CDR methods (see paragraph C.3.5 by the IPCC 35 ), when countries have already employed all low-cost measures for achieving their NDCs and NZTs. ...
Quantifying fair national shares of the remaining global carbon budget has proven challenging. Here, we propose an indicator—additional carbon accountability—that quantifies countries’ responsibility for mitigation and CO2 removal in addition to achieving their own targets. Considering carbon debts since 1990 and future claims based on countries’ emission pathways, the indicator uses an equal cumulative per capita emissions approach to allocate accountability for closing the mitigation gap among countries with a positive total excessive carbon claim. The carbon budget is exceeded by 576 Gigatonnes of fossil CO2 when limiting warming below 1.5 °C (50% probability). Additional carbon accountability is highest for the United States and China, and highest per capita for the United Arab Emirates and Russia. Assumptions on carbon debts strongly impact the results for most countries. The ability to pay for this accountability is challenging for Iran, Kazakhstan and several BRICS+ members, in contrast to the G7 members.
... Climate change mitigation strategies involve global changes in numerous aspects of human activity, and as such they can have huge implications for justice, with negative outcomes including food insecurity, poverty, landlessness and displacement [8][9][10][11] . Strategies involving land-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are particularly significant here because they can have extensive consequences through the land system [12][13][14] . ...
Concerns of justice are rarely considered within feasibility assessments of climate mitigation policies, even when present conditions and climate action itself have serious implications for vulnerable populations, potentially undermining the desirability and eventual success of mitigation. Hence, we propose a feasibility and desirability assessment framework for future assessments to evaluate practicality and desirability-based constraints while accounting for recognitional, procedural, and distributional justice, increasing transparency within the climate policy process.
... Hence, to effectively address risk to diverse population groups, it is necessary to understand how inequalities currently embedded in social systems lead some communities to be more exposed or vulnerable than others, to various hazards. For this reason, scholars have increasingly acknowledged the fundamental need for climate and disaster risk analyses to account for inequities when quantifying risk [5][6][7][8] . ...
Climate-induced hazards exert uneven impacts on communities. However, conventional risk models rarely consider these disparities, which are critical for informing risk reduction decisions. Instead, they quantify risk solely based on the value of assets at risk, without accounting for how communities are differentially exposed and vulnerable to particular hazards. This has significant consequences for low-income populations, who tend to suffer most from disasters. Our study introduces an equity-sensitive framework that considers inequities in exposure and vulnerability, demonstrating how these inequities compound into well-being risks. We apply this framework in a large-scale study of coastal flooding and sea-level rise risk in the Philippines, highlighting both quantitative and spatial variations in asset and well-being risks. Findings indicate that accounting for income-driven inequities yields a more comprehensive understanding of coastal flood risks across groups. This framework is adaptable for other hazards and contexts, and aims to promote more equitable disaster risk reduction outcomes.
... But the research community as a whole should do more than that. We care not just about what can be done but also about what would be good or bad to do [55][56][57] . The role of equity considerations, for example, has once again been highlighted as central within the Synthesis Report of AR6 12 and is central to the Global Stocktake 58 . ...
The current literature on assessing climate change response options does not sufficiently distinguish between assessing options in terms of their feasibility and in terms of their desirability. One example of this is the IPCC feasibility assessment framework. We argue that assessments of climate response options should indeed cover questions of desirability, but they should do so explicitly. Transparency about underlying normative standards is the key to a productive desirability assessment. The urgent need to find adequate responses to climate change drives a substantial part of the global climate research effort currently underway. The demand to evaluate our options for action has led to a vast body of literature assessing specific climate change response options, ranging from emissions reductions and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to adaptation strategies 1,2. A more limited, but rapidly growing number of contributions tackles the meta-question of how to best conduct such an assessment. To this end, a number of frameworks have been put forward, of which the one from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is arguably the most prominent 1-12. These frameworks are not assessments themselves but rather conceptual and analytical tools with which climate response options can be evaluated. Assessment frameworks collect and organize the factors one must look at in order to evaluate potential responses to climate change. Following Steg et al. 10 , we use the generic 'factors' to cover all the elements assessment frameworks may address in order to evaluate climate response options. This covers both the impacts of these options and non-impact issues, e.g., the governance of climate response options. In this paper, we argue that existing assessment frameworks fail to clearly separate between assessing the feasibility and desirability of climate change response options. Frameworks usually state the property they want to assess as 'feasibility', but then frequently mix in assessments of desirability. Both what is feasible and what is desirable in response to climate change are important questions-but they are conceptually different 13,14. Feasibility concerns what can be done, desirability concerns what would be good or bad (or better or worse) to do. This distinction is a familiar one, yet substantial parts of the assessment literature, including recent work by the IPCC itself, do not clearly differentiate between the two. We argue that this poses significant risks, including that of violating the IPCC's self-commitment to being 'policy relevant without being policy-prescriptive' 15. Against this background, we make a proposal for how to improve existing frameworks in order to provide more transparent and, ultimately, more useful results. We argue that assessment frameworks should clearly distinguish between the feasibility and the desirability of climate response options and that the research community should contribute to the assessment of both. We begin with a conceptual section that explains how these two concepts have been used in the literature and to what extent the argument presented here relies on a common understanding of them ("Feasibility and desirability"). With the conceptual tools in hand, we then turn to the climate assessment literature, with a special focus on the IPCC, analyze how the existing literature conflates feasibility and desirability, and detail why this is problematic ("Current assessment frameworks: The IPCC and beyond"). After offering an explanation of how the current situation came about and how problematic 'policy-prescriptiveness' can be avoided ("Two reasons why feasibility and desirability are easily conflated"), we close by forwarding a set of recommendations on how to improve assessments by making feasibility and desirability aspects explicit and transparent ("Conclusion: towards an explicit assessment of both feasibility and desirability").
... Related work, studying the first round of NDCs (1.0), shed light on factors driving economy-wide NDC ambition [10] and subsequent enhancement in the second round of NDCs [6]. Responding to calls for further advancement of theories and investigation methodologies towards reliable explanations which can account for cross-national ambition variances [10,[19][20][21], we develop this novel quantification of sectoral climate policy ambition and seek to answer three key questions: (i) Which factors drive or suppress ambition within the transport sector? (ii) How do these differ from economy-wide findings of previous studies? (iii) What are the real world global-warming outcomes based on variance in these factors? ...
Current pledges in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) imply emissions trajectories that do not align with the Paris Agreement. The transport sector is critically detrimental, responsible for almost a quarter of global energy-related CO₂ emissions and not-on-track for net-zero by 2050. Previous study has focussed on which domestic factors are driving economy wide emission mitigation; we bring strongly warranted focus to the transport sector. To determine whether sectoral complexities are being overlooked, we first conceptualise and quantify a novel formulation of climate policy ambition, applicable on a sectoral level for 167 countries. Second, we conduct quantitative analyses to assess the effects of a set of structural and socio-institutional domestic factors on ambition. Our findings reveal that coal rents, climate vulnerability, control of corruption, electoral democracy and GDP per capita have strong positive effects on ambition. Conversely, oil rents, climate adaptive readiness and electric-vehicle critical mineral endowments have negative effects. These results vary significantly from economy-wide findings, suggesting that sector-specific complexities have historically been overlooked. Greater resolution of transport-specific factors that influence policy ambition can contribute to maximising sectoral trade-offs and synergies to gain greater stakeholder support and reconcile political economy with ambitious clean transport policy.
... This is because it is highly unlikely that any single region can unilaterally counterbalance others' excess emissions under the scenarios we examine, and every additional ton of CO 2 emitted contributes to global budget exceedance, regardless of fair share claims ( 19 ). Norms of global cooperation and perceptions of fairness will therefore be ever more crucial considerations in setting climate ambition and translating this to action in the near term ( 43 ), requiring innovative policymaking and international cooperation that maximizes cobenefits ( 1 ). ...
Current emissions trends will likely deplete a 1.5 °C consistent carbon budget around the year 2030, resulting in at least a temporary exceedance, or overshoot. To clarify responsibilities for this budget exceedance, we consider “net-zero carbon debt,” a forward-looking measure of the extent to which a party is expected to breach its “fair share” of the remaining budget by the time it achieves net-zero carbon emissions. We apply this measure to all vetted mitigation scenarios assessed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report and two scenarios that model current policies and pledges, using an illustrative equal per capita allocation of a remaining 1.5 °C carbon budget starting in 1990. The resulting regional carbon debt estimates inform i) the scale and pace of regional carbon drawdown obligations necessary to address budget exceedance and ii) relative regional responsibilities for increased lifetime exposure to extreme heatwaves across age cohorts due to budget exceedance. Our work strengthens intergenerational equity considerations within an international climate equity discourse and informs the implementation of effort-sharing mechanisms that persist beyond the exhaustion of a rapidly dwindling remaining carbon budget.
... In addition, a trade-off between different equity goals may also occur. 42,[67][68][69] For instance, policies that prohibit siting new polluting energy facilities close to disadvantaged communities could improve environmental justice issues related to pollution exposure but might worsen the inequities related to job and economic opportunities. While our analysis includes a sensitivity analysis focused on the distribution across counties with different socio-vulnerability index ( Figure S11), future research should treat equity considerations in a more systematic way and carefully assess the potential trade-offs across regions, population groups, and policy goals. ...
... It is easier to include specific considerations and needs of vulnerable groups and communities in heatwave adaptation mandates, frameworks and institutional arrangements after identifying them. Heatwave policies that fail to take the needs of vulnerable groups into account during decision-making processes, policy formulation, and implementation may make it harder for countries to ensure that heatwave adaptation and mitigation interventions are equitable (Klinsky et al., 2017;Reckien et al., 2017;Thomas and Twyman, 2005;Zander et al., 2024) and that benefits and burdens of heatwave policies are equally distributed. ...
Global warming continues to exacerbate heatwave severity, duration, and frequency causing impacts that threaten humanity, and the physical and anthropogenic environment. Although research on heatwave impacts has increased, the majority of studies have focused on social effects relegating to the background other crucial impacts. Such a narrow focus on social impacts limits the realization of a thorough understanding of the net impacts of heatwaves. Using the PRISMA protocol, this study conducts a review of 127 peer-reviewed articles to provide a systematic and comprehensive taxonomy of heatwave impacts highlighting key policies, adaptation strategies and barriers. The review found traceable evidence of heatwaves impact on human and environmental ecosystems via 11 thematic pathways namely, health, food crisis/water shortage, infrastructure/energy use, disaster hazard displacement, labour productivity, living cost, industry loss, infrastructure cost, water resources/ marine life, vegetation/wildlife, and ozone/air/particulate pollution grouped under social, economic, and environmental dimensions. These multidimensional impacts of heatwaves necessitate stakeholder synergies in pooling resources and integrating diverse types of information to tackle impacts and develop inclusive policies and adaptation strategies for better heat resilience.
... Bu ayrım, Paris Anlaşması gibi uluslararası müzakerelerde belirginleşmiştir. Bu süreçte, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri de dahil olmak üzere güçlü ülkeler, çok taraflı çevre anlaşmalarına adalet ve eşitlik kavramlarını dahil etmeye direnirken, 134 gelişmekte olan ülkeden oluşan blok, 1972'deki ilk Stockholm çevre zirvesinden bu yana, küresel çevre sorunlarından sorumlu olan ve bunları çözmek için finansal imkanlara sahip ülkelerin emisyon azaltım çabalarının en büyük yükünü üstlenmesi gerektiğini ısrarla savunmuştur (Klinsky et al., 2017). Yeterli küresel eylem, tarihi emisyon seviyelerine bakılmaksızın, her zamankinden daha fazla aktörün derinlemesine emisyon azaltım çabalarını gerektirirken, iklim etkilerinden en az sorumlu olanların genellikle en büyük kırılganlıkları yaşadığı ve uyum sağlamak için kaynaklardan yoksun olduğu gerçeğini de kabul etmelidir. ...
Bu çalışma, sürdürülebilirlik ile çevresel ve sosyal adalet arasındaki ilişkileri inceleyerek, bu iki boyutun bir arada ele alınması gerektiğini savunmaktadır. İklim değişikliği ve fosil yakıtlardan yenilenebilir enerjiye geçiş süreçleri, adil geçiş kavramı çerçevesinde değerlendirilmiştir. Yenilenebilir enerjiye geçişin yalnızca çevresel zorunluluklarla değil, aynı zamanda toplumsal eşitlik hedefleriyle uyumlu bir şekilde planlanması gerektiği vurgulanmıştır. Çalışma, büyüme odaklı ekonomik modellerin sürdürülebilirlik hedefleriyle çatıştığını, kaynakların adil dağılımını ve ekolojik sınırların korunmasını önceleyen küçülme hareketi gibi alternatif yaklaşımların önemini tartışmıştır. Kentsel sürdürülebilirlik politikalarının sosyal adalet ve kapsayıcılık ilkeleriyle uyumlu hale getirilmesi gerektiği, ekonomik büyüme odaklı stratejilerin genellikle eşitsizlikleri artırdığı ifade edilmiştir. Sonuç olarak, çevresel ve sosyal adaletin bütünleşik bir şekilde ele alınmasının, küresel ve yerel düzeyde sürdürülebilir kalkınma hedeflerinin başarısı için kritik öneme sahip olduğu sonucu ortaya konulmaktadır. Abstract This study examines the relationships between sustainability, environmental justice, and social justice, advocating for these dimensions to be addressed in an integrated manner. Climate change and the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy have been evaluated within the framework of the just transition concept. It is emphasized that the shift to renewable energy should be planned not only in response to environmental imperatives but also in alignment with social equity goals. The study discusses how growth-oriented economic models conflict with sustainability objectives, highlighting the importance of alternative approaches such as the degrowth movement, which prioritizes equitable resource distribution and the preservation of ecological boundaries. The study also underscores the need for urban sustainability policies to align with principles of social justice and inclusivity, noting that economic growth-focused strategies often exacerbate inequalities. In conclusion, the study asserts that addressing environmental and social justice in a unified manner is critical for achieving sustainable development goals at both global and local levels.
... However, the broad coverage of NDCs does not guarantee that normative concerns are met 5 as countries seldom account for their full historical responsibility for causing climate change, or their relative capability to meet deep emissions reductions 5 . Achieving appropriate mitigation action globally requires equity and fairness considerations to be a central part of the solution, both to ensure access to sustainable development and to encourage countries with greater responsibilities and capabilities to take up appropriately ambitious climate actions 6 . ...
Equity is a cornerstone of global climate policy, yet differing perspectives mean that international agreement on how to allocate mitigation efforts remains elusive. A rich literature informs this question, but a gap remains in approaches that appropriately consider non-CO2 emissions and their warming contributions. In this study, we address this gap and define a global warming budget applicable to all anthropogenic greenhouse gases that is allocated to countries based on principles drawn from international treaties and environmental law. We find that by 2021 a range of 84 to 90 countries, including but not limited to all major developed countries, exhausted their budget share compatible with keeping warming to 1.5 °C (with 50% likelihood) under all allocation approaches considered in this study. A similar picture emerges for limiting warming to 2 °C (with 67% likelihood). A large group of countries will hence exceed their fair shares even if their pledges under the Paris Agreement represent their deepest possible emission reductions. Considerations of fairness should therefore start exploring aspects beyond domestic emissions reductions.
... Agarwal andNarain 1991, Grubb 1995). These deliberations continue to be central to contemporary political narratives around climate change mitigation (Klinsky et al 2017). In this work, we broadly delineate these debates across two levels, a relatively more abstract level of theory and a relatively more pragmatic level of practice. ...
Fairness considerations have long been central to the international climate change mitigation discourse, generating numerous scientific and philosophical debates. Yet, there remains a pressing need for practical guidance on developing assertions of fairness in national mitigation contributions. The Paris Agreement mandates that subsequent nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted under Article 4 represent a progression compared to previous NDCs. Further decisions under the Paris Agreement mandate that NDCs include clear and transparent considerations of fairness, as recalled in the first Global Stocktake. We propose a practical approach to this, comprising a set of ‘entry points’ that represent key stages where decisions are taken in ‘fair share’ quantifications, from interpreting foundational principles to selecting indicators and presenting results. By bridging the gap between scholarly debates and practical application, this work supports the integration of clear and transparent fairness considerations into climate policy commitments. We demonstrate the use of our approach through a case study.
... Th e principle refl ects the uneven and unequal distribution of benefi ts and burdens globally, as well as heightened violence, exposures, vulnerabilities, and risks experienced by many communities that have contributed least to the root causes of climate change. Yet, thirty years onwards, equity concerns continue to be downplayed or remain absent in many climate action strategies (Klinsky et al. 2017), and climate fi nancing promised to those experiencing disproportional impacts remain unfulfi lled (Timperley 2021). Furthermore, climate change is exacerbating the root causes of inequity, leading Fernandez-Bou et al. (2021) to argue that research with frontline communities is needed to develop and implement impactful policies. ...
Cities and municipalities have emerged as important actors in climate governance, building capacity and leverage through networks. City networks have led to increased agency for local governments at national and international scales but fail to represent northern, rural, and remote geographies. In response, the Northern British Columbia Climate Action Network (NorthCAN) emerged out of a desire to generate connections in the region and across public and private sectors. This research examined NorthCAN as a regional and multi-sector organization that has the goal of accelerating low-carbon transitions in northern British Columbia. It was informed by data collected via survey and qualitative interviews with active NorthCAN members. Our discussion explores the barriers and opportunities at play in this case of networked climate governance, while exploring equity, policy mobility, and community-centred transition as key themes.
... (In)equality is one of the pivotal social challenges of our epoch, with far-reaching implications for human wellbeing (Hamann et al., 2018). In the environmental realm, (in)equality issues have been gaining importance in academic, political, and societal discourses (Burch et al., 2019;Hamann et al., 2018;Klinsky et al., 2017), and currently are recognized to be closely linked to the main environmental problems of our time such as the biodiversity crisis and climate change. Indeed, (in)equality issues are increasingly being discussed at international venues, and feature prominently in major international conventions such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) (IPBES, 2019;United Nations, 2016;United Nations, 1992). ...
Overall patterns of ecosystem services (ES) supplied by a landscape often hide distributional (in)equalities that condition how the benefits from nature are provided and used by people. This is evident in landscapes dominated by private ownership and composed of a mosaic of property sizes, across which ES supply can vary substantially. So far, the distributional inequalities in ES supply have been assessed only implicitly through the identification of ES bundles that yield hotspots and coldspots, whereas explicit analyses of how ES supply is shaped by distri-butional (in)equalities are lacking. Taking southern Chile as a case study, we applied a clustering approach at the municipality scale (n = 177), using data at the property level to identify archetypes in (i) the supply of eight ES and (ii) the (in)equalities of that supply using the Gini coefficient. We then analyzed the spatial co-occurrence between ES supply and (in)equality archetypes, to identify which patterns of (in)equality intersect with the supply of ES. We obtained six ES supply archetypes and ten (in)equality archetypes that showed characteristic spatial patterns. Supply archetypes were spatially dominated by a single archetype, which had below average values in the supply of all ES. Contrarily, (in)equality archetypes presented a more heterogeneous distribution across the study area. ES supply archetypes were defined by regulating and cultural ES, whereas (in)equality archetypes were shaped by provisioning and regulating ES. Spatial co-occurrence analysis showed that the dominant ES supply archetype encompassed all (in)equality archetypes-suggesting that property structure can modulate the (in)equality at which ES are supplied. We discuss the policy and management implications arising from the different co-occurring levels of ES supply and (in)equalities. Understanding the linkages between ES supply and distributional (in)equalities at large spatial scales and high resolution can help to prioritize spatial interventions seeking to improve equitable and sustainable ES supply.
... Finally, when asked who has responsibility to address an environmental challenge, the chatbots mentioned governments five times more often than investors/capital. This tendency to treat environmental challenges as the proper purview of governments and separate from social sustainability challenges aligns more with right-leaning approaches to addressing environmental challenges than left-leaning ones [61,62]. ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how humans obtain information about environmental challenges. Yet the outputs of AI chatbots contain biases that affect how humans view these challenges. Here, we use qualitative and quantitative content analysis to identify bias in AI chatbot characterizations of the issues, causes, consequences, and solutions to environmental challenges. By manually coding an original dataset of 1512 chatbot responses across multiple environmental challenges and chatbots, we identify a number of overlapping areas of bias. Most notably, chatbots are prone to proposing incremental solutions to environmental challenges that draw heavily on past experience and avoid more radical changes to existing economic, social, and political systems. We also find that chatbots are reluctant to assign accountability to investors and avoid associating environmental challenges with broader social justice issues. These findings present new dimensions of bias in AI and auger towards a more critical treatment of AI’s hidden environmental impacts.
... He developed the thermal indices of the predicted average votes and the prediction of the percentage of dissatisfied people to help ventilation engineers in indoor (closed environment) climate conditions. Two decades later, Jendertzaki et.al (1990) managed to adjust the complex Fenger method by assigning suitable variables for external conditions, which is known nowadays as the MEMI model (Klinsky et al., 2017). The MEMI model stands for the energy balance model for individuals. ...
Thermal comfort can affect the performance and efficiency of individuals from physical and mental aspects. it is very important to investigate the impact of shading on thermal comfort in semi-open spaces of Mashhad County with an emphasis on balconies, it seems that no in-depth research focusing has been conducted on this issue so far. Therefore, the present paper, which is based on a simulation approach, investigates and analyzes the thermal comfort in semi-open spaces. The results indicate that what is obtained from investigating the thermal behavior of various models among the various simulation modes in Honeybee Software is that all models are in the thermal comfort range for a very short time (0.05 hours) on the summer solstice day so that it can almost be said that it is not possible to provide thermal comfort at this time; but on the winter solstice day, models number eight and nine have provided the longest duration of thermal comfort with an amount of 2 hours. Of course, it is necessary to point out that after these two models, all the models that are open on one side have created the highest amount of thermal comfort provision on the winter solstice day with 1.75 hours. In addition, from the viewpoint of providing the lowest amount of thermal comfort on winter solstice day, the eastern model with three open sides and the western model with three open sides have gained the weakest position by providing thermal comfort conditions for only 1.25 hours.
... He developed the thermal indices of the predicted average votes and the prediction of the percentage of dissatisfied people to help ventilation engineers in indoor (closed environment) climate conditions. Two decades later, Jendertzaki et.al (1990) managed to adjust the complex Fenger method by assigning suitable variables for external conditions, which is known nowadays as the MEMI model (Klinsky et al., 2017). The MEMI model stands for the energy balance model for individuals. ...
Thermal comfort can affect the performance and efficiency of individuals from physical
and mental aspects. it is very important to investigate the impact of shading on thermal
comfort in semi-open spaces of Mashhad County with an emphasis on balconies, it seems
that no in-depth research focusing has been conducted on this issue so far. Therefore, the
present paper, which is based on a simulation approach, investigates and analyzes the
thermal comfort in semi-open spaces. The results indicate that what is obtained from
investigating the thermal behavior of various models among the various simulation
modes in Honeybee Software is that all models are in the thermal comfort range for a
very short time (0.05 hours) on the summer solstice day so that it can almost be said that
it is not possible to provide thermal comfort at this time; but on the winter solstice day,
models number eight and nine have provided the longest duration of thermal comfort
with an amount of 2 hours. Of course, it is necessary to point out that after these two
models, all the models that are open on one side have created the highest amount of
thermal comfort provision on the winter solstice day with 1.75 hours. In addition, from
the viewpoint of providing the lowest amount of thermal comfort on winter solstice day,
the eastern model with three open sides and the western model with three open sides
have gained the weakest position by providing thermal comfort conditions for only 1.25 hours.
... States worldwide have taken steps to build strategies in response to international conventions, but they must also consider the unequal distribution of climate change effects across vulnerable populations when developing policies to withstand or mitigate its consequences. The poorest and most marginalised populations, who are least responsible for the issue, are being most affected by its impacts and lack the resources to adapt or mitigate these effects (Brugnach et al., 2017;Klinsky & Winkler, 2018;Klinsky et al., 2017;Marino & Ribot, 2012;Ramos Castillo et al., 2017). It is a societal calamity that compels us to tackle issues of inequality on several levels and is closely tied to global inequality patterns. ...
... Efforts to bridge the divide between countries, such as the convening of the BASIC group, have made slow progress despite the wealth of evidence collected on both sides of the science-policy interface (Pickering et al., 2012). These arguments continue to be a central albeit robustly debated element of contemporary political narratives following the shift to the Paris Agreement (Klinsky et al., 2017). In this work, we broadly delineate these debates across two levels, a relatively more abstract level of theory and a relatively more pragmatic level of practice, focussing our efforts on the latter. ...
Fairness considerations have been central to the international climate change mitigation discourse, generating numerous theoretical and philosophical debates. In this article, we address the pressing need for practical guidance on navigating this landscape in assessing relative mitigation efforts. The Paris Agreement mandates that updates to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) include clear and transparent considerations of fairness. This reflects a progression from previous submissions where such considerations were optional and inconsistently addressed. We propose a set of entry points for examining and revising these assertions in practice. We demonstrate the use of this approach through a case study focusing on the European Union. Our work emphasizes the importance of explicitly defining foundational principles, specifying allocation quantities, defining allocation approaches, and presenting selected indicators to operationalize ‘fair shares’ in mitigation efforts. By bridging the gap between scholarly debates and practical application, this study supports the integration of clear and transparent fairness considerations into climate policy commitments.
... High-level decisions are typically made at the national or regional level, leaving local communities at a disadvantage due to the legal and regulatory controls imposed by higher levels of governance (Ekstrom and Moser, 2013). A lack of public participation in decision-making processes reinforces power imbalances and contributes to a sense of marginalization among local communities, but the extent to which local communities can lead processes of change ultimately depends on the degree to which national and local governments prioritize building long-term relationships with them (Klinsky et al., 2017). However, conflicts of territorial scales often arise (Cash et al., 2006). ...
Maladaptation occurs when actions taken to adapt to global change end up increasing vulnerability, instead of reducing it. This process often occurs when multiple drivers affecting a system's vulnerability are not considered. To prevent maladaptive actions, it is important to consider both these drivers and the potential conflicting interests at different territorial scales. Unfortunately, existing guidelines for assessing the risk of maladaptation are not context specific. To address this, we developed a set of guidelines that can establish a link between drivers, trends of change, adaptation actions, and potential conflicts of interest. The suggested protocol allows for context-specific assessment, making it easier to detect adaptation actions that could become maladaptive by either increasing vulnerability or causing negative externalities. It also helps to identify potential conflicts among mental frameworks at the local territorial scale and between these frameworks and development pathways, normally decided for large territorial scales. As a case study, we applied these guidelines to the Pyrenees mountain range. The results show that some adaptation actions, such as promoting local varieties of crops, would be welcomed by all locals, while others, such as revitalizing the building sector, would displease the majority and turn maladaptive. Our application to the Pyrenees also suggests that "Degrowth" is the development pathway that better fits the locals' interests, and "Business-as-usual" has the worst fit. Our guidelines are flexible and modifiable, making them applicable to any social-ecological system.
... What justice means is debated across the frameworks. Climate justice scholars emphasize the need for justice and equity to lead climate change policies, and for marginalized communities to provide their interpretations of justice (Klinsky et al., 2017). Environmental justice scholars identify injustices and examine how 'institutions discipline justice' since knowing justice is elusive (Barkan & Pulido, 2017, p. 38). ...
Addressing the climate crisis requires renewable energy, however, developing renewable energy should be equitable. In this article, we analyze a 15-year-old transnational hydroelectric power development conflict involving Indigenous rights in Mapuche-Williche territory, Chile and a Norwegian state-owned company, Statkraft. We seek to advance the field of energy justice by evaluating injustices in this transnational conflict. At the heart of the conflict is a threatened Ngen Kintuantü (the spirit guardian Kintuantü), which is part of a ceremonial and pilgrimage site of utmost importance in Williche territory. We argue that epistemic justice-the radical inclusion of different ways of knowing-can be a central tenet to understanding and redressing the harms connected to energy development, especially via networks of solidarity with Indigenous rights claims. Yet currently, the right to consent for energy projects,-which is informed by the international legal mechanism Free, Prior, and Informed Consent and Chile's codification of a less stringent Indigenous consultation-is limited by its formation within liberal legality. Despite these limitations, the Traditional Organization of the Ayllarewe of Ngen Mapu Kintuantü, an organization of Mapuche-Williche communities, is crafting and demanding their own form of territorial consultation. Drawing from a solidarity network of research across the Global South and North, we find that existing tools like FPIC can and must be strengthened through Indigenous and local guidance, but that justice, in a broader sense, cannot be achieved without returning land and broader legal reforms.
... However, inconsistencies at the national level surrounding formal institutional arrangements, as well as lack of clarity in application and valuation methods, have hindered delivery of desired outcomes (Kerr et al., 2017). Equity considerations in climate-related policies are complex and will require further research (Klinsky et al., 2017) to manage multiple trade-offs across time, generations, and social classes through the implementation of suitable policy packages (Brunckhorst et al., 2023). ...
Multi‐purpose land use is of great importance for sustainable development, particularly in the context of increasing pressures on land to provide ecosystem services (e.g. food, energy) and support biodiversity.
The recent global increase in land‐take for utility‐scale ground‐mounted solar farms (hereafter referred to as solar farms) to meet Net Zero targets presents an opportunity for enhanced delivery of ecosystem services, especially in temperate ecosystems where solar farm development often results in land use change away from comparatively intensive agricultural land management. Solar farms have long operational lifespans, experience low levels of disturbance during operation and can be managed for ecosystem services beyond low‐carbon electricity generation, including food production and biodiversity conservation.
Here, we briefly synthesise the mechanisms by which solar farm development and operation may impact natural capital and ecosystem services, and provide policy recommendations for policymakers and the solar farm sector.
Solar farms can deliver environmental benefits for hosting ecosystems while minimising negative impacts, with outcomes depending on location, construction techniques, and land management practices. However, the historical misalignment between climate, nature, and land use policies has hindered efforts to simultaneously address the climate and biodiversity crises through land use change for solar farms. For instance, existing public financial incentives in the UK that encourage landowners and developers to manage land for biodiversity largely exclude land with solar farms.
Policy implications: We call for public policymakers to identify appropriate opportunities to amend existing national laws that address climate and biodiversity separately to improve integration of multiple aspects of the climate‐nature‐land use nexus into policymaking by: (1) formulating ecological and socio‐economic indicators and metrics that are appropriate to underpin the development, implementation, and assessment of public policies; (2) adopting a cross‐sectoral and cross‐government approach to form public policies; (3) ensuring solar farms can access public financial incentives that encourage sustainable land use; (4) implementing land use policies that incentivise funding from non‐government sources (e.g. private sector) into nascent nature markets; (5) embedding solar farms in biodiversity‐inclusive spatial planning policies and decision‐making; and (6) building equity and clarity into responsibilities and benefits for all actors involved.
... Can support adaptation This kete is focused on robust and just decision making for climate response as research shows that considering these factors leads to better outcomes for people and the environment (Klinsky et al. 2016). ...
Climate change adaptation is an unprecedented challenge for decision-making at governance and management levels for local authorities and other groups. This interim report provides a summary of emerging themes one year into the ‘Innovations for Climate Adaptation’ research, focusing on Council staff experiences and perspectives. It draws on semi-structured interview data from Council staff in
Otago, Taranaki, and Bay of Plenty, and is designed to be read in conjunction with the report titled ‘Summary of adaptation initiatives by Māori research partners’. Our findings show that Council staff have been undertaking and implementing various actions to reorganise Council practices and processes for climate response. Our findings identify the following key shifts:
• Using carbon accounting to inform mitigation actions that connect across internal Council teams and processes, resulting in new business cases for climate response in annual and long-term plans
• Shifts towards increased cross-Council collaboration and coordination at regional levels as part of climate change risk assessments and adaptation planning
• Internal reorganising within Councils to embed climate change considerations across decisions and valuing a wider range of knowledge and skills to inform these processes
• Increasing recognition of the need to resource mana whenua and community-led projects and processes for climate response.
These shifts show evidence of both ‘just’ (considering equity) and ‘robust’ (incorporating a wider range of knowledge) considerations in climate response. While these shifts may seem small or tentative, they provide important evidence and examples to build on as New Zealand continues to collectively navigate climate response.
... The broader implications of climate change include potential disruptions to economies and livelihoods, especially in industries reliant on natural resources. Uncertainty about the future, concerns about job security, and increased social inequality can exacerbate stress and anxiety (Klinsky et al., 2017). The decrease in mental health indices due to climate change concerns is driven by a complex mix of direct and indirect factors. ...
The following article analyses the relationship between the mental health index and the variables of the Environment, Social and Governance-ESG model in the Italian regions between 2004 and 2023. The econometric analysis is aimed at investigating in detail the relationships between the mental health index and the individual components of the ESG model. The results are critically discussed.
... Fewer papers explore the equity considerations that underlie effort-sharing principles (e.g. Holz et al., 2018;Klinsky et al., 2017;Klinsky & Winkler, 2018), despite the fact that there is no purely scientific way of downscaling emissions pathways (Dooley et al., 2021). Online tools that analyse equity include the Climate Equity Monitor (CEM, 2021), which focuses on shares of total carbon budget (TCB); the Climate Equity Reference Calculator (Kemp-Benedict et al., 2019) with a particular focus on development rights and links to pathways; and Climate Action Tracker (CAT, 2023) which includes some analysis of equity but also labels individual countries' NDCs with long-term goals. ...
... Among the broad institutional barriers that limit the capacity to adapt are the limitations regarding the understanding of how broader socio-economic processes influence vulnerabilities and underpin adaptation (McManus, 2014). According to Klinsky et al., (2017), including equity in the analysis of policy decisions is an imperative for identifying the actual implications of trade-offs for diverse individuals and groups characterised by diversity of positions, opportunities and vulnerabilities which have important bearings to human security as well as equity. This is also pointed out by Juhola et al., (2022), who highlight the need to connect evaluation of justice aspects in development of adaptation plans and strategies. ...
... Thus, from a climate justice perspective, climate finance is ideally a mechanism through which compensatory and restitutive justice can be recognized, though, in reality, it has often failed to meet the demands of vulnerable countries and perhaps reinforces forms of inequality between countries [26]. Critiques of climate finance from a climate justice perspective have focused on considerations of who is responsible for providing finance, the amounts of funding provided for specific purposes, the types and related debt burden of finance, the governance processes involved, the relative impacts of the funding, and the allocation criteria for recipients [11 •]. ...
Purpose of Review
Recent focus on loss and damage within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) follows decades of demands by vulnerable countries for compensation for losses due to climate change. Reviewing recent literature on loss and damage finance, we consider how the new UNFCCC Loss and Damage Fund could be transformative for climate finance.
Recent Findings
This article reviews developments within the UNFCCC, including the creation of the new Loss and Damage Fund and changes in the broader field of climate finance. Recent literature indicates that the factors necessary for just loss and damage finance include inclusive governance, new and additional funds, purpose-made instruments and channels, direct access to funds, and burden sharing aligned with the polluter pays principle.
Summary
We overview the history of loss and damage finance, suggest five criteria that could make the Loss and Damage Fund just, and discuss four potential catalysts for just loss and damage finance: ecological and climatic impacts, institutional developments outside the UNFCCC, Global South leadership on debt justice, and legal developments. As the Loss and Damage Fund is operationalized and the need for loss and damage finance grows, scholars must continue to ask whether loss and damage finance furthers core tenets of climate justice, including forms of restitution.
... Driving this upward trajectory, guidelines underpinning the next generation of NDC submissions in 2025 require that each Party's contributions not only represent their highest possible ambition but also clearly reflect their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in the context of national circumstances. Norms of global cooperation and perceptions of fairness will thus be ever more crucial considerations in setting ambition and translating this to action in the near term (Klinsky et al., 2017), requiring innovative policymaking and international cooperation that maximises co-benefits (UNFCCC, 2023). ...
Current emissions trends are likely to deplete a 1.5°C consistent carbon budget soon after the year 2030, resulting in a period of overshoot. To navigate responsibilities for and during this period we contrast ‘fair’ allocations of a remaining carbon budget with projected carbon emissions trends until net-zero. We term this measure the ‘net-zero carbon debt’, or the expected overconsumption of a ‘fair’ allocation in the year a party achieves net-zero carbon emissions. The ‘net-zero carbon debt’ measure thus provides an estimate today of a party’s expected responsibility for climate overshoot under certain considerations of fairness. We apply this measure to assess all vetted mitigation scenarios evaluated in the IPCC’s sixth assessment report and two bespoke scenarios that assess current policies and net-zero targets, considering the equal per capita allocation of a remaining 1.5°C carbon budget from the year 1990. The resulting regional net-zero carbon debt quantifications are used to determine regional: i) responsibility for overshoot, ii) exceedance drawdown obligations, and iii) increase in extreme climate exposure if drawdown does not occur. Our work generates a new domestic signal from a typically international climate equity discourse and can inform the operationalization of intergenerational and interregional effort sharing mechanisms that persist beyond exhaustion of a remaining carbon budget.
... Climate change, among many of the complex problems we face at the intersection of health and environment, are fundamentally equity issues (31)(32)(33)(34). Given that climate change impacts-when assessed through a holistic lens-span social, health, political and economic sectors, it remains important to understand the intersections between climate change and social, environmental, ecological and planetary Determinants of Health (DoH) across scales of individual, community, and eco-social systems (4). ...
Climate change is an environmental crisis, a health crisis, a socio-political and an economic crisis that illuminates the ways in which our human-environment relationships are arriving at crucial tipping points. Through these relational axes, social structures, and institutional practices, patterns of inequity are produced, wherein climate change disproportionately impacts several priority populations, including rural and remote communities. To make evidence-based change, it is important that engagements with climate change are informed by data that convey the nuance of various living realities and forms of knowledge; decisions are rooted in the social, structural, and ecological determinants of health; and an intersectional lens informs the research to action cycle. Our team applied theory- and equity-driven conceptualizations of data to our work with the community on Cortes Island—a remote island in the northern end of the Salish Sea in British Columbia, Canada—to aid their climate change adaptation and mitigation planning. This work was completed in five iterative stages which were informed by community-identified needs and preferences, including: An environmental scan, informal scoping interviews, attending a community forum, a scoping review, and co-development of questions for a community survey to guide the development of the Island’s climate change adaptation and mitigation plan. Through this community-led collaboration we learned about the importance of ground truthing data inaccuracies and quantitative data gaps through community consultation; shifting planning focus from deficit to strengths- and asset-based engagement; responding to the needs of the community when working collaboratively across academic and community contexts; and, foregrounding the importance of, and relationship to, place when doing community engagement work. This suite of practices illuminates the integrative solution-oriented thinking needed to address complex and intersecting issues of climate change and community health.
... Actually, people when at all considered were simplified and perceived as a homogeneous entity despite known facts about substantial class and income differences in Europe and tensions between rural and urban populations (cf. Klinsky et al., 2017;Magnusdottir and Kronsell, 2015, 2016. Furthermore, the recent EU Green Deal (EU Commission, 2023) with its aim to lead the EU to carbon neutrality through several ambitious decarbonizing strategies within a single framework remains largely gender blind. ...
Climate institutions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with its expert panel the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the European Union, as well as national and local authorities in various sectors (such as transport, industry, energy, and agriculture), play a central role in developing and enacting climate strategies. Climate institutions, particularly in the Global North, have however been slow in their recognition of gender and other climate-relevant social aspects. With the help of feminist institutionalism, we analyze the contemporary climate regime and how it deals with gender and social differences, asking how climate institutions, originating in the Global North, organize bodies and institutionalize gender norms and relations. The main aim is to highlight existing institutional inertia and obstacles to transformative institutional practices that are needed for just and inclusive climate policies. The article is conceptual with examples drawn from institutional literature as well as empirical research on the United Nations, the European Union, and states in the Global North. We conclude that there is an increasing recognition of the gendered effects of climate change particularly in terms of the need for diverse representation in decision making. Institutional inertia, in particular path-dependent policy-making in climate institutions, however makes gender often invisible or associated with women only and therefore remains a major obstacle for the realization of inclusive and equal climate policies.
Across both wealthy and non‐wealthy nations, research finds public support for wealthy countries taking greater climate action. However, it is unclear whether this is driven by a belief that wealthier nations have greater economic capacity to respond or a greater historic responsibility for causing climate change. We explore this idea in the context of climate aid policies, which direct support to those most affected by climate change. In a correlational study ( N = 292, United Kingdom), individuals who believe their nation has greater historic responsibility for climate change showed stronger support for their country providing climate aid. Two experiments provide conflicting findings. In Study 2 ( N = 366, United Kingdom), we experimentally manipulated national wealth and historical emissions using a fictional nation paradigm and found that wealth was the stronger predictor of support for their country providing climate aid. In Study 3 ( N = 797, South Africa) we manipulated these factors about participants' own nation and found that neither predicted support for climate aid policy, but both predicted greater support for their country implementing climate mitigation policies. Although higher capacity and responsibility increased support for mitigation policies, further efforts are needed to understand their role in shaping support for climate aid.
The main objective of this study was to examine the asymmetrical impact of international collaboration in green technology development on carbon dioxide emissions in the top 50 most innovative countries. An augmented mean group estimator was used to compute the long‐run coefficients. The findings indicate that positive shocks in international collaboration in green technology development mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. In contrast, adverse shocks in international collaboration in green technology development have an escalating effect on carbon dioxide emissions. The outcomes also imply that renewable energy consumption, domestic green innovation, digital economy, and contractionary fiscal policy were negatively associated with carbon dioxide emissions, whereas gross domestic product and expansionary fiscal policy were positively associated with carbon dioxide emissions. It is suggested that governments should have a balanced fiscal policy, lining up their goals for economic expansion and ecological responsibility and using the potential of the digital economy and domestic green innovation to drive green outcomes.
Integrated Assessment Models have become indispensable tools for exploring strategies to mitigate climate change while achieving broader social and environmental goals. However, most modelled pathways assume continued economic growth throughout the century, even for high-income nations. This has sparked calls for modellers to expand their visions of sustainable futures. One suggested approach is post-growth, which shifts the focus of the economy from economic growth to ecological stability, equality, human well-being and enhanced democracy. In this review, we examine current post-growth scenario modelling approaches, spanning national to global scales and single-sector to whole-economy approaches, to identify best practices and key gaps in representing a post-growth transition. We develop a framework for evaluating these scenarios along five key dimensions of post-growth theorisation: feasible technological change, scale-down of harmful production, good life for all, wealth redistribution, and international justice. We then explore current approaches to post-growth scenario modelling, focusing on the types of models used, the mechanisms employed to simulate post-growth scenarios and the representation of post-growth policies. Finally, drawing on the wider post-growth literature, we offer recommendations for improving post-growth model representation, focusing on five main areas: the energy-economy connection, spatial differentiation, sectoral differentiation, the inclusion of different provisioning systems and feasibility considerations.
Given the exponential growth in financial investments to support climate change mitigation and adaptation, particularly shaped as capital flows from the Global North to the Global South, an incredible amount of research has come out in recent years interrogating various modes of climate finance. This article provides an overview of “climate finance justice,” an emerging subfield of scholarship that asks “What kinds of justice and injustice do we see in climate finance? How does climate justice influence flows and constructions of capital? And how can finance be more just?” As climate finance is often framed as a response to calls for climate justice, climate finance justice offers a space in which to rigorously and comprehensively analyze the outcomes of these flows of capital, finance and power. Yet the field is still new, and would benefit from further inclusion of a broader array of fields and influences, including postcolonial, poststructural, feminist, indigenous, urban, post‐political and other critical perspectives to inform scholarship, and challenge dominant conceptualizations of justice and equity. This article highlights the field of climate finance justice and explores the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) as a means of understanding its applied implications. It situates the evolution of the subfield within the broader literature on neoliberal natures, political ecology, and the critical geographies of the carbon economy.
This literature review provides an overview of ethical approaches used at the intersection of climate change, the environment and health. Six ethical approaches are discussed: (i) rights- based approaches, concentrating on human rights, animal rights and environmental rights; (ii) justice approaches, discussing issues of distribution, relations, climate health justice, future generations, and interspecies justice; (iii) integrated concepts of health, such as One Health and Planetary Health; (iv) Indigenous and non-Western perspectives, introducing the significance of biocultural heritage, harmonious relationships, and decolonisation movements; (v) professional responsibilities towards the environment among health workers and other professions; and (vi) ethical principles in relation to climate change and the environment. A concise assessment is provided on how each of these ethical approaches may inform policy and practice addressing climate change, environmental degradation and health.
In this chapter, the authors explore the connection between climate change, housing insecurity, homelessness, and mental health and addiction issues, emphasizing their interrelatedness. They highlight the diverse mental health consequences of climate change, particularly for vulnerable populations. A climate justice framework is adopted, emphasizing the involvement of marginalized communities in decision-making processes and addressing existing climate injustices. To mitigate the mental health impacts on homeless populations, strategies such as resilient housing, access to essential resources and services, trauma-informed care, peer support, and tailored disaster resilience education are recommended. Policies addressing funding, equity, green spaces, and the specific needs of Indigenous populations and children and youth are also suggested. By prioritizing inclusive strategies and policies that meet the needs of affected communities, the climate justice approach offers valuable insights into tackling the mental health implications of climate change and promoting resilience among vulnerable populations.
The Glasgow Climate Pact defined 2020–2030 as a crucial decade for climate change mitigation. Scientific experts say multiple strategies and policies must be designed and implemented over the next eight years in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C. However, the latest United Nations studies report a lack of ambition in mitigation strategies. The most recent COP26 held in Glasgow (United Kingdom) brought no breakthrough. Why do climate negotiations fail? To answer this question, this article will address the multiple meanings of “climate ambition”. We analyse and contrast the main actors’ perspectives on ambition: the ecomodernist vision of Western countries, the limits to growth requested by prominent scientists, the post-developmental approaches of the Global South, and the compensatory vision of the fossil fuel-dependent countries. A few months before COP27 – to be held in November 2022 in Sham El-Sheikh (Egypt) – it is essential to find common ground between the different visions. If we want 2020–2030 to be a successful decade, a shared definition of climate ambition has to emerge.
The spatiotemporal patterns of environmental degradation are heterogeneous and predicted by legacies of systemic injustice. The inclusion of local environmental knowledge found within historically marginalized communities is central to achieving environmental justice, yet prevailing methods of data collection and analysis often fail to recognize discourses that reject mainstream environmental knowledge. In this study, we describe methods and outcomes of a pop-up booth and balloting project in the Puget Sound region of the Pacific Northwest, USA. We applied critical discourse analysis to data collected in public settings such as ethnic festivals, markets, and homeless meal sites. We asked adult respondents to provide their zip code and describe (1) important environmental challenges in their lives, and (2) coping or surviving these challenges. We critically analyzed discourses in 1051 responses from predominantly low-income zip codes in the region. Of the 144 responses that contested mainstream discourses on the environment, respondents identified racial, political, and social division as environmental threats and argued for the importance of addressing personal needs and human rights. We disseminated our findings through podcasts with local activists. Critical discourse analysis provided new insights into meaningful involvement of marginalized voices in environmental decision making and the criticality of addressing human needs and social justice through local knowledge.
Equity is a cornerstone of global climate policy, yet no international agreement has managed to agree on how to allocate mitigation efforts across countries. While a rich literature informs these deliberations, there remains a gap in approaches that appropriately consider non-CO 2 emissions and their warming contributions. In this study, we define a global warming budget applicable to all anthropogenic greenhouse gases and allocate it to countries based on equity principles drawn from international environmental law. We find that by 2021 up to 85 countries, including all major developed countries, exhausted their budget compatible with keeping warming to 1.5°C under all allocation approaches considered in this study. A similar picture emerges for 2°C. A large group of countries will hence exceed their fair shares even if their updated pledges under the Paris Agreement represent the deepest possible reductions. Considerations of fairness should therefore start to include aspects beyond domestic emissions reductions only.
At the United Nations climate change conference in 2011, parties decided to launch the “Durban Platform” to work towards a new long-term climate agreement. The decision was notable for the absence of any reference to “equity,” a prominent principle in all previous major climate agreements. Wealthy countries resisted the inclusion of equity on the grounds that the term had become too closely yoked to developing countries' favored conception of equity. This conception, according to wealthy countries, exempts developing countries from making commitments that are stringent enough for the collective effort needed to avoid dangerous climate change. In circumstances where even mentioning the term equity has become problematic, a critical question is whether the possibility for a fair agreement is being squeezed out of negotiations. To address this question we set out a conceptual framework for normative theorizing about fairness in international negotiations, accompanied by a set of minimal standards of fairness and plausible feasibility constraints for sharing the global climate change mitigation effort. We argue that a fair and feasible agreement may be reached by (1) reforming the current binary approach to differentiating developed and developing country groups, in tandem with (2) introducing a more principled approach to differentiating the mitigation commitments of individual countries. These two priorities may provide the basis for a principled bargain between developed and developing countries that safeguards the opportunity to avoid dangerous climate change without sacrificing widely acceptable conceptions of equity.
There is very little elaboration in literature of the phrase “equitable access to sustainable development” that is referenced in the Cancun Agreement on climate change. We interpret this at a minimum as people’s right to a decent living standard, which gives rise to claims by countries to an exemption from mitigation for the energy and emissions needed to provide a decent life to all. We elaborate a conceptual framework for a comprehensive quantification of such an energy requirement, including the energy required to build out infrastructure to support these living standards. We interpret decent living as the consumption by households of a set of basic goods including adequate nutrition, shelter, health care, education, transport, refrigeration, television and mobile phones. We develop universal indicators for these activities and their infrastructure requirements, and specify a methodology to convert these to energy requirements using energy input-output analysis. Our main recommendations include estimating bottom-up, country-specific energy and emissions requirements, incorporating a minimum for methane emissions, and using international benchmarks at the sector level to encourage the reduction of countries’ energy and emissions intensity.
The United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro in June is an important opportunity to improve the institutional framework for sustainable development.
Climate change and justice are so closely associated that many people take it for granted that a global climate treaty should--indeed, must--directly address both issues together. But, in fact, this would be a serious mistake, one that, by dooming effective international limits on greenhouse gases, would actually make the world's poor and developing nations far worse off. This is the provocative and original argument of Climate Change Justice. Eric Posner and David Weisbach strongly favor both a climate change agreement and efforts to improve economic justice. But they make a powerful case that the best--and possibly only--way to get an effective climate treaty is to exclude measures designed to redistribute wealth or address historical wrongs against underdeveloped countries. In clear language, Climate Change Justice proposes four basic principles for designing the only kind of climate treaty that will work--a forward-looking agreement that requires every country to make greenhouse--gas reductions but still makes every country better off in its own view. This kind of treaty has the best chance of actually controlling climate change and improving the welfare of people around the world.
What has happened globally on the climate change issue? How have countries' positions differed over time, and why? How are problems and politics developing on an increasingly globalised planet, and can we find a solution? This book explores these questions and more, explaining the key underlying issues of the conflicts between international blocs. The negotiation history is systematically presented in five phases, demonstrating the evolution of decision-making. The book discusses the coalitions, actors and potential role of the judiciary, as well as human rights issues in addressing the climate change problem. It argues for a methodical solution through global law and constitutionalism, which could provide the quantum jump needed in addressing the problem of climate governance. This fascinating and accessible account will be a key resource for policymakers and NGOs, and also for researchers and graduate students in climate policy, geopolitics, climate change, environmental policy and law, and international relations.
After nearly a quarter century of international negotiations on climate change, we stand at a crossroads. A new set of agreements is likely to fail to prevent the global climate’s destabilization. Islands and coastlines face inundation, and widespread drought, flooding, and famine are expected to worsen in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. How did we arrive at an entirely inequitable and scientifically inadequate international response to climate change?
In Power in a Warming World, David Ciplet, J. Timmons Roberts, and Mizan Khan, bring decades of combined experience as negotiators, researchers, and activists to bear on this urgent question. Combining rich empirical description with a political economic view of power relations, they document the struggles of states and social groups most vulnerable to a changing climate and describe the emergence of new political coalitions that take climate politics beyond a simple North-South divide. They offer six future scenarios in which power relations continue to shift as the world warms. A focus on incremental market-based reform, they argue, has proven insufficient for challenging the enduring power of fossil fuel interests, and will continue to be inadequate without a bolder, more inclusive and aggressive response.
This article traces the evolution of international environmental law and dialogue in the four decades from Stockholm, 1972, to Rio+20, 2012, with a focus on the changing dynamics of the discourse between developed and developing countries, and the corresponding interpretational shifts in the application of differential treatment in international environmental law—climate change law in particular. This article argues that in the first three decades of environmental diplomacy, from 1972 to 2002, the international community witnessed an exponential growth in the number and range of multilateral environmental agreements, an array of tools, techniques and practices, and a rapid expansion of differential treatment in favour of developing countries. Differential treatment in central obligations, albeit disputed from its inception, found pride of place in the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997. The decade that followed, 2002 to 2012, witnessed heightened popular and political mobilization around the climate change issue. But, in response to seemingly intractable difficulties across the North—South and North—North spectrum, it was accompanied by a retreat from differential treatment in central obligations. The battle over the future (or lack thereof) of the Kyoto Protocol, and the recent developments in the climate regime—in particular the 2011 Durban Platform Decision—testify to this retreat from certain variants of differential treatment, and interpretations of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. An analysis of these developments and the politics that gave rise to them, reveal that while the international regime can survive the erosion of certain limited forms of differential treatment, a wholesale rejection of differential treatment, and of the 'equity' concerns that animate it, would destabilize the normative core of the regime as well as render the climate regime unattractive to key players like India.
Science assessments indicate that human activities are moving several of Earth's sub-systems outside the range of natural variability typical for the previous 500,000 years (1, 2). Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change (3). This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship
The difficulties in negotiating a post-2012 regime of binding targets and timetables and the decisions of the US, Canada, and Russia on the Kyoto Protocol regime have led to pessimism about the future of the climate regime. Negotiation issues for different coalitions and actors are placed in a wider historical context by examining the key challenge facing the evolving long-term climate change negotiation process: the principled basis for the allocation of resources, responsibilities, rights, and risks between actors. Four theoretical approaches (problem structuring; negotiation theory; collective action and social practice models; legal theory) are applied to the climate regime. A principled approach is only a distributive approach from a narrow short-term perspective. It becomes an integrative approach from a longer-term perspective when it increases the pie, enhances the win-win opportunities and creates space for sustainable solutions to emerge. It is especially integrative when undertaken within the context of global rule of law, which is able to create predictable rules that apply to future global problems with different country interests. Will this happen? Climate justice movements and climate litigation have begun; statesmanship is still needed.
This paper aims at analysing the congruence between the well-established environmental law principles of precaution, prevention, polluter pays and sustainable development and environmental justice. While much can be said (and much has been said) about the principles, the aim of this paper is not to provide a full-fledged analysis of the principles. Instead, this paper aims to start a debate on the role of environmental justice as a concept and its compatibility with the more well-established norms of environmental policy and law. The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, in light of the emergence of environmental justice as a concept in the UK and Europe, it is important to attempt to define the boundaries and meaning of the concept. Secondly, while environmental justice and its emphasis on fair distribution and processes on the face of it seems benign, it is important to subject the concept to critical scrutiny, given the possible implications of its claims of injustices. Equally, given the pervasiveness of the well-established environmental principles it becomes relevant to question these principles in the name of justice in an attempt to further debate about their longevity. The paper argues that for all three of the principles a comparison with environmental justice gives rise to conflicts as well as conformity. The main reason for this is the inherent ambiguity and inconsistency of environmental justice and the three principles.
Climate change politics after Paris as a two-level game: implications of pledge and review for social science research. Keynote Address at the 2016 Berlin Conference on Global Environmental Change, Transformative Global Climate Governance après Paris
- R O Keohane
Keohane, R.O., 2016. Climate change politics after Paris as a two-level game:
implications of pledge and review for social science research. Keynote Address
at the 2016 Berlin Conference on Global Environmental Change, Transformative
Global Climate Governance après Paris, Berlin, Germany, 24 May 2016.
Bali Principles of Climate Justice
ICJN, 2002. Bali Principles of Climate Justice. http://www.indiaresource.org/issues/
energycc/2003/baliprinciples.html.
- S Klinsky
S. Klinsky et al. / Global Environmental Change xxx (2016) xxx-xxx
Trust and Reciprocity. Russell Sage Foundation publishing
- E Ostrom
- J Walker
Ostrom, E., Walker, J., 2003. Trust and Reciprocity. Russell Sage Foundation
publishing.