Large-scale environmental degradation results in inequitable impacts to already impoverished communities: A case study from the floating villages of Cambodia

Cambodian subsistence communities within the Tonle Sap Great Lake area rely on resource extraction from the lake to meet livelihood needs. These fishing communities-many of which consist of dwellings floating on the lake-face potentially profound livelihood challenges because of climate change and changing hydrology due to dam construction for hydroelectricity within the Mekong Basin. We conducted interviews across five village communities, with local subsistence fisher people in the Tonle Sap in 2015, and used thematic analysis methods to reveal a fishery system that is undergoing rapid ecological decline, with local fishing communities increasingly experiencing reductions in available fish stocks. As a result, over 100\ua0000 people living in these communities are experiencing a direct loss of well-being and livelihood. We discuss these losses and consider their implications for the future viability of Cambodian floating village communities

Carbon Dioxide Removal Policy in the Making : Assessing Developments in 9 OECD Cases

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, spurred by the 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, net zero emission targets have emerged as a new organizing principle of climate policy. In this context, climate policymakers and stakeholders have been shifting their attention to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as an inevitable component of net zero targets. The importance of CDR would increase further if countries and other entities set net-negative emissions targets. The scientific literature on CDR governance and policy is still rather scarce, with empirical case studies and comparisons largely missing. Based on an analytical framework that draws on the multi-level perspective of sociotechnical transitions as well as existing work on CDR governance, we gathered and assessed empirical material until early 2021 from 9 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) cases: the European Union and three of its Member States (Ireland, Germany, and Sweden), Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Based on a synthesis of differences and commonalities, we propose a tripartite conceptual typology of the varieties of CDR policymaking: (1) incremental modification of existing national policy mixes, (2) early integration of CDR policy that treats emission reductions and removals as fungible, and (3) proactive CDR policy entrepreneurship with support for niche development. Although these types do not necessarily cover all dimensions relevant for CDR policy and are based on a limited set of cases, the conceptual typology might spur future comparative work as well as more fine-grained case-studies on established and emerging CDR policies

Carbon dioxide removal policy in the making: Assessing developments in 9 OECD cases

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, spurred by the 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, net zero emission targets have emerged as a new organizing principle of climate policy. In this context, climate policymakers and stakeholders have been shifting their attention to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as an inevitable component of net zero targets. The importance of CDR would increase further if countries and other entities set net-negative emissions targets. The scientific literature on CDR governance and policy is still rather scarce, with empirical case studies and comparisons largely missing. Based on an analytical framework that draws on the multi-level perspective of sociotechnical transitions as well as existing work on CDR governance, we gathered and assessed empirical material until early 2021 from 9 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) cases: the European Union and three of its Member States (Ireland, Germany, and Sweden), Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Based on a synthesis of differences and commonalities, we propose a tripartite conceptual typology of the varieties of CDR policymaking: (1) incremental modification of existing national policy mixes, (2) early integration of CDR policy that treats emission reductions and removals as fungible, and (3) proactive CDR policy entrepreneurship with support for niche development. Although these types do not necessarily cover all dimensions relevant for CDR policy and are based on a limited set of cases, the conceptual typology might spur future comparative work as well as more fine-grained case-studies on established and emerging CDR policies