Approaches To Climate Change

This edited volume brings together critical research on climate change adaptation discourses, policies, and practices from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Drawing on examples from countries including Colombia, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Russia, Tanzania, Indonesia, and the Pacific Islands, the chapters describe how adaptation measures are interpreted, transformed, and implemented at grassroots level and how these measures are changing or interfering with power relations, legal pluralismm and local (ecological) knowledge. As a whole, the book challenges established perspectives of climate change adaptation by taking into account issues of cultural diversity, environmental justicem and human rights, as well as feminist or intersectional approaches. This innovative approach allows for analyses of the new configurations of knowledge and power that are evolving in the name of climate change adaptation. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental law and policy, and environmental sociology, and to policymakers and practitioners working in the field of climate change adaptation.

At the recent UN Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen, Cancun and Durban, the developed nations promised hundreds of billions of dollars in financial aid to help developing countries overcome global climate change dangers. The developed nations will need to spend many more billions to limit their own greenhouse gas pollution, the main cause of global warming and climate change. Will all this money and effort be wasted? This book argues that nearly all of the world''s climate policy makers and expert advisors have been making tragic mistakes that ensure the failures of climate change mitigation attempts.The great majority of climate change programs, from American congressional bills to cap-and-trade economic incentive schemes to the Kyoto Protocol and other international treaties, rely on greenhouse gas emissions-reduction targets that will prove OC too little, too lateOCO by deferring strict pollution controls too far into the future. The inadequate emissions-reduction measures also will not be able to bridge the gap between the highest priorities of developed and developing nations. Vast discharges of greenhouse gases authorized by weak emissions-reduction programs in the next several decades virtually guarantee that the cumulative concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will keep increasing while climate change continues to grow worse.Rather than adopting ineffectual emissions-reduction programs that cannot limit the cumulative concentration of greenhouse gases in the air, this book proposes a shift to a OC cleanOCO technology-replacement strategy that could support current lifestyles and expanding economic development without further damaging our climate. The only way to reduce the greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere enough to decrease climate change hazards is to replace large pollution sources as rapidly as feasible in as many industrial sectors and geographic regions as possible with OC cleanOCO alternative technologies, processes, and methods.

The signals are everywhere that our planet is experiencing significant climate change. It is clear that we need to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere if we want to avoid greatly increased risk of damage from climate change. Aggressively pursuing a program of emissions abatement or mitigation will show results over a timescale of many decades. How do we actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make a bigger difference more quickly? As one of a two-book report, this volume of Climate Intervention discusses CDR, the carbon dioxide removal of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere and sequestration of it in perpetuity. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration introduces possible CDR approaches and then discusses them in depth. Land management practices, such as low-till agriculture, reforestation and afforestation, ocean iron fertilization, and land-and-ocean-based accelerated weathering, could amplify the rates of processes that are already occurring as part of the natural carbon cycle. Other CDR approaches, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, direct air capture and sequestration, and traditional carbon capture and sequestration, seek to capture CO2 from the atmosphere and dispose of it by pumping it underground at high pressure. This book looks at the pros and cons of these options and estimates possible rates of removal and total amounts that might be removed via these methods. With whatever portfolio of technologies the transition is achieved, eliminating the carbon dioxide emissions from the global energy and transportation systems will pose an enormous technical, economic, and social challenge that will likely take decades of concerted effort to achieve. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration will help to better understand the potential cost and performance of CDR strategies to inform debate and decision making as we work to stabilize and reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for-and in many cases is already affecting-a broad range of human and natural systems. The compelling case for these conclusions is provided in Advancing the Science of Climate Change, part of a congressionally requested suite of studies known as America's Climate Choices. While noting that there is always more to learn and that the scientific process is never closed, the book shows that hypotheses about climate change are supported by multiple lines of evidence and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations. As decision makers respond to these risks, the nation's scientific enterprise can contribute through research that improves understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change and also is useful to decision makers at the local, regional, national, and international levels. The book identifies decisions being made in 12 sectors, ranging from agriculture to transportation, to identify decisions being made in response to climate change. Advancing the Science of Climate Change calls for a single federal entity or program to coordinate a national, multidisciplinary research effort aimed at improving both understanding and responses to climate change. Seven cross-cutting research themes are identified to support this scientific enterprise. In addition, leaders of federal climate research should redouble efforts to deploy a comprehensive climate observing system, improve climate models and other analytical tools, invest in human capital, and improve linkages between research and decisions by forming partnerships with action-oriented programs.

Despite the clear link between climate change and human rights with the potential for virtually all protected rights to be undermined as a result of climate change, its catastrophic impact on human beings was not really understood as a human rights issue until recently. This book examines the link between climate change and human rights in a comprehensive manner. It looks at human rights approaches to climate change, including the jurisprudential bases for human rights and the environment, the theoretical framework governing human rights and the environment, and the different approaches to this including benchmarks. In addition to a discussion of human rights implications of international environmental law principles in the climate change regime, the book explores how the human rights framework can be used in relation to mitigation, adaption, and adjudication. Other chapters examine how vulnerable groups –women, indigenous peoples and climate "refugees" – would be disproportionately affected by climate change. The book then goes on to discuss a new category of people created by climate change, those who will be rendered stateless as a result of states disappearing and displaced by climate change, and whether human rights law can adequately address these emerging issues.

This book analyzes how climate change adaptation can be implemented at the community, regional and national level. Featuring a variety of case studies, it illustrates strategies, initiatives and projects currently being implemented across the world. In addition to the challenges faced by communities, cities and regions seeking to cope with climate change phenomena like floods, droughts and other extreme events, the respective chapters cover topics such as the adaptive capacities of water management organizations, biodiversity conservation, and indigenous and climate change adaptation strategies. The book will appeal to a broad readership, from scholars to policymakers, interested in developing strategies for effectively addressing the impacts of climate change.

Courts have emerged as a crucial battleground in efforts to regulate climate change. Over the past several years, tribunals at every level of government around the world have seen claims regarding greenhouse gas emissions and impacts. These cases rely on diverse legal theories, but all focus on government regulation of climate change or the actions of major corporate emitters. This book explores climate actions in state and national courts, as well as international tribunals, in order to explain their regulatory significance. It demonstrates the role that these cases play in broader debates over climate policy and argues that they serve as an important force in pressuring governments and emitters to address this crucial problem. As law firms and public interest organizations increasingly develop climate practice areas, the book serves as a crucial resource for practitioners, policymakers and academics.

The climate record for the past 100,000 years clearly indicates that the climate system has undergone periodic-and often extreme-shifts, sometimes in as little as a decade or less. The causes of abrupt climate changes have not been clearly established, but the triggering of events is likely to be the result of multiple natural processes. Abrupt climate changes of the magnitude seen in the past would have far-reaching implications for human society and ecosystems, including major impacts on energy consumption and water supply demands. Could such a change happen again? Are human activities exacerbating the likelihood of abrupt climate change? What are the potential societal consequences of such a change? Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises looks at the current scientific evidence and theoretical understanding to describe what is currently known about abrupt climate change, including patterns and magnitudes, mechanisms, and probability of occurrence. It identifies critical knowledge gaps concerning the potential for future abrupt changes, including those aspects of change most important to society and economies, and outlines a research strategy to close those gaps. Based on the best and most current research available, this book surveys the history of climate change and makes a series of specific recommendations for the future.

To keep the global average temperature from rising further than 2°C, emissions must peak soon and then fall steeply. This book examines how such rapid mitigation can proceed – in the scale and speed required for effective climate action – using an analogy provided by the mobilisation for a war that encompassed nations, the Second World War. Strategies for Rapid Climate Mitigation examines the wartime-climate analogy by drawing lessons from wartime mobilisations to develop contingency plans for a scenario where governments implement stringent mitigation programs as an ‘insurance policy’ where we pay for future benefits. Readers are provided a picture of how these programs could look, how they would work, what could trigger them, and the challenges in execution. The book analyses in detail one plausible approach to a crucial issue – an approach built upon knowledge of climate science and on proven and demonstrated mitigation measures. The book is meshed with a social and political analysis that draws upon narratives of mobilisations during the war to meet a transnational threat, while also addressing the shortcomings of the analogy and its strategies. The book will be of great interest to scholars, students, and practitioners of public policy, climate policy, energy policy, international relations, and strategic studies.

This book explores how Pacific Island communities are responding to the challenges wrought by climate change—most notably fresh water accessibility, the growing threat of disease, and crop failure. The Pacific Island nations are not alone in facing these challenges, but their responses are unique in that they arise from traditional and community-based understandings of climate and disaster. Knowledge sharing, community education, and widespread participation in decision-making have promoted social resilience to such challenges across the Pacific. In this exploration of the Pacific Island countries, Bryant-Tokalau demonstrates that by understanding the inter-relatedness of local expertise, customary resource management, traditional knowledge and practice, as well as the roles of leaders and institutions, local “knowledge-practice-belief systems” can be used to inform adaptation to disasters wherever they occur.