Values must be at the heart of responding to loss and damage

As climate change worsens, loss and damage will rapidly accelerate, causing tremendous suffering worldwide. Conceptualising loss and damage based on what people value in their everyday lives and what they consider worth preserving in the face of risk needs to be at the centre of policy and funding. This study in three Pacific Island countries utilises a local, values-based approach to explore people’s experiences of climate change, including intolerable impacts, to inform locally meaningful priorities for funding, resources, and action. What people value determines what is considered intolerable, tolerable, and acceptable in terms of climate-driven loss and damage, and this can inform which responses should be prioritised and where resources should be allocated to preserve the things that are most important to people. Given people’s different value sets and experiences of climate change across places and contexts, intolerable impacts, and responses to address them are place-dependent. We call on policy makers to ensure that understandings of, and responses to, loss and damage are locally identified and led

Genome defence in hypomethylated developmental contexts

Retrotransposons constitute around 40% of the mammalian genome and their aberrant activation can have wide ranging detrimental consequences, both throughout development and into somatic lineages. DNA methylation is one of the major epigenetic mechanisms in mammals, and is essential in repressing retrotransposons throughout mammalian development. Yet during normal mouse embryonic development some cell lineages become extensively DNA hypomethylated and it is not clear how these cells maintain retrotransposon silencing in a globally hypomethylated genomic context. In this thesis I determine that hypomethylation in multiple contexts results in the consistent activation of only one gene in the mouse genome - Tex19.1. Thus if a generic compensatory mechanism for loss of DNA methylation exists in mice, it must function through this gene. Tex19.1-/- mice de-repress retrotransposons in the hypomethylated component of the placenta and in the mouse germline, and have developmental defects in these tissues. In this thesis I examine the mechanism of TEX19.1 mediated genome defence and the developmental consequences upon its removal. I show that TEX19.1 functions in repressing retrotransposons, at least in part, through physically interacting with the transcriptional co-repressor, KAP1. Tex19.1-/- ES cells have reduced levels of KAP1 bound retrotransposon chromatin and reduced levels of the repressive H3K9me3 modification at these loci. Furthermore, these subsets of retrotransposon loci are de-repressed in Tex19.1-/- placentas. Thus, my data indicates that mouse cells respond to hypomethylation by activating expression of Tex19.1, which in turn augments compensatory, repressive histone modifications at retrotransposon sequences, thereby helping developmentally hypomethylated cells to maintain genome stability. I next aimed to further elucidate the role of Tex19.1 in the developing hypomethylated placenta. I determine that Tex19.1-/- placental defects precede intrauterine growth restriction of the embryo and that alterations in mRNA abundance in E12.5 Tex19.1-/- placentas is likely in part due to genic transcriptional changes. De-repression of LINE- 1 is evident in these placentas and elements of the de-repressed subfamily are associated with significantly downregulated genes. If retrotransposon de-repression is contributing to developmental defects by interfering with gene expression remains to be determined, however I identify a further possible mechanism leading to placental developmental defects. I determine that Tex19.1-/- placentas have an increased innate immune response and I propose that this is contributing to the developmental defects observed. Developmental defects and retrotransposon de-repression are also observed in spermatogenesis in Tex19.1-/- testes, the molecular basis for which is unclear. I therefore investigate the possibility that the TEX19.1 interacting partners, the E3 ubiquitin ligase proteins, may be contributing to the phenotypes observed in Tex19.1- /- testes. I show that repression of MMERVK10C in the testes is dependent on UBR2, alongside TEX19.1. Furthermore, I have identified a novel role for the TEX19.1 interacting partner, UBR5, in spermatogenesis, whose roles are distinct from those of TEX19.1. The work carried out during the course of this thesis provides mechanistic insights into TEX19.1 mediated genome defence and highlights the importance of protecting the genome from aberrant retrotransposon expression

Vulnerable groups and preliminary insights into intersecting categories of identity in Laamu Atoll, Maldives

The notion of vulnerability has acquired a significant role in discussions around reducing risk and identifying vulnerable groups, which is particularly important for targeting risk-reducing policy and practice. Through ten semi-structured interviews with 24 stakeholders, this study collected local perceptions on the following groups considered most vulnerable in Laamu Atoll, Maldives: youth and children, women, the elderly, people with disabilities, displaced persons and migrants, and farmers. In doing this, the significance of intersecting categories of identity for understanding vulnerability emerged and was explored; an approach that is often absent or scarcely applied in studies that identify vulnerable groups in the Maldives and elsewhere. Intersections between location, youth and gender or disability, as well as gender and marital status emerged as relevant for the Laamu Atoll context. Although this study acknowledges the incompleteness of its intersectional analysis, these findings provide important preliminary insights into the role of intersectionality in shaping vulnerability experience. To enhance scholarship on vulnerability, future studies could further explore intersectionality in Laamu Atoll and the Maldives using this study as a base and also improve its practical applicability for policy and practice

Barriers to adaptation: insights from Laamu Atoll, Maldives

Although adaptation to climate change is becoming increasingly recognised as an unavoidable priority, barriers are consistently encountered and reported. Identifying, analysing and overcoming these barriers is essential for ensuring that, as climate change worsens, adaptation capacities are not exceeded. Despite current studies providing a useful structuring heuristic to guide inquiry, there is a significant gap related to explanations around barrier occurrence and how to overcome them. In response, this article, based on semi-structured stakeholder interviews, aims to provide preliminary insights into the type of barriers that exist in Laamu Atoll, the Maldives and explore any interdependencies between them. This study found that a range of resource barriers (i.e. funding, physical and human resources in outer islands and data on vulnerable groups) and social barriers (i.e. political/institutional and organisational constraints and inefficiencies, marginalisation and power differences as well as cognitive elements) were hampering adaptation. In exploring the interdependencies that exist between these barriers, the nature of their occurrence, persistence and entry points for resolution were also identified

Emotions of the Anthropocene across Oceania

As human activities have destabilised life on Earth, a new geological era is upon us. While there is a myriad of challenges that have emerged because of such human-driven planetary changes, one area of investigation that requires ongoing scholarly attention and scientific debate is the emotions of the Anthropocene. The emotional, mental, and psychological burdens induced by rapid and unprecedented change must be understood to better reflect the experiences of people around the globe and to initiate conversations about how emotions may be used for transformative change and effective politics. This paper aims to provide insights into the types of emotions that are emerging in Oceania as the Anthropocene unfolds. To do this, we draw on several data sets: questionnaire results with visitors of Mt Barney Lodge in the World Heritage Gondwana area in Queensland, Australia; another questionnaire with Pacific Island “experts” engaged in climate change, development, and disaster risk management work; interviews with locals living in the Cook Islands; and various spoken, written, and visual art from the Pacific. Bringing these data sets together allows us to explore a diversity of experiences, perspectives, and emotional responses to the Anthropocene from participants across Oceania. We found that acute and slow-onset weather events, experiences of direct loss and change, a perceived lack of agency or control over futures, and a sense of injustice triggered emotions including fear, stress, anxiety, exhaustion, sadness, grief, anger, frustration, helplessness, worry, but also empowerment. These results are critical for the first step of acknowledging and naming the emotions that are emerging in Oceania, such that they can then be worked through, and may be used for transformative change, effective politics, and agency over futures

Women’s capabilities in disaster recovery and resilience must be acknowledged, utilized and supported

People’s susceptibility and capacity to respond to disasters is not homogenous. Women, in a generalized sense, tend to bear the brunt of disasters, but they are also often at the frontlines of disaster response and recovery. Women’s experiences and capabilities, however, remain ill-recognized or poorly integrated into policies and projects. This paper draws on a study that documents and listens to the stories of women market vendors in Vanuatu who experienced Cyclone Pam and the severe drought that followed. From this, we issue a call to those working in the disaster and development fields to: (1) acknowledge and utilize women’s knowledge and skills in disaster response and recovery, and (2) support women to further develop their capabilities and address underlying vulnerabilities. While we put forward that women should be more central in disaster recovery and resilience-building processes, we issue a warning that wider inequitable power structures must also be proactively tackled in order to improve women’s overall wellbeing and relieve their burdens

Marketplaces as sites for the development‐adaptation‐disaster trifecta: insights from Vanuatu

Faced with the pressing challenges of poverty, climate change and disasters, identifying opportunities for interventions that offer positive outcomes across the trifecta of development, adaptation and disaster risk reduction is critically needed. While the overlaps between these streams can be straightforward in theory, practical opportunities for convergence are often lacking. Drawing on 10 focus groups with women market vendors who are part of the UN Women's Markets for Change programme in Vanuatu, this paper explores how markets as places can be useful entry points for this trifecta. Marketplaces can be important sites for developing capabilities and empowering women. As transient and interactive spaces, marketplaces also have inherent strengths that can be built upon and utilised to heighten intervention reach and foster positive outcomes across the development-adaptation-disaster trifecta. This paper encourages further exploration into the capacity of marketplaces to achieve this trifecta of outcomes across various scales and locations, and to find solutions to existing challenges