144 research outputs found
Leitplanken erforderlich
Das Klimaproblem ist durch sehr hohe zeitliche, rÀumliche und sektorale KomplexitÀt gekennzeichnet. Dies stellt auch die wissenschaftliche Politikberatung vor erhebliche Herausforderungen. Einen neuen Ansatz, diesen gerecht zu werden, stellt der "Leitplankenansatz" dar
Balancing Health, Economy and Climate Risk in a Multi-Crisis
In the presence of a global pandemic (COVID-19), the relentless pressure on global decision-makers is to ensure a balancing of health (reduce mortality impacts), economic goals (income for livelihood sustenance), and environmental sustainability (stabilize GHG emissions long term). The global energy supply system is a dominant contributor to the GHG burden and deeply embedded in the economy with its current share of 85%, use of fossil fuels has remained unchanged over 3 decades. A unique approach is presented to harmonizing the goals of human safety, economic development, and climate risk, respectively, through an operational tool that provides clear guidance to decision-makers in support of policy interventions for decarbonization. Improving climate change performance as an integral part of meeting human development goals allows the achievement of a countryâs environmental, social, and economic well-being to be tracked and monitored. A primary contribution of this paper is to allow a transparent accounting of national performance highlighting the goals of enhancing human safety in concert with mitigation of climate risks. A measure of a countryâs overall performance, combined as the Development and Climate Change Performance Index (DCI), is derived from two standardized indexes, the development index H and the Climate Change Performance Index CCPI. Data are analyzed for 55 countries comprising 65 percent of the worldâs population. Through active management and monitoring, the proposed DCI can illustrate national performance to highlight a countryâs current standing, rates of improvement over time, and a historical profile of progress of nations by bringing climate risk mitigation and economic well-being into better alignment
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Reply to Smith et al.: Social tipping dynamics in a world constrained by conflicting interests
[No abstract available
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Corona and the climate: A comparison of two emergencies
Social media summary Lessons from the corona crisis can help manage the even more daunting challenge of anthropogenic global warming. © The Author(s), 2020
Will the world run out of land?
Globally, the further expansion of cropland is limited by the availability of adequate land and by the necessity to spare land for nature conservation and carbon sequestration. Analyzing the causes of past landuse changes can help to better understand the potential drivers of land scarcities of the future. Using the FAOSTAT database, we quantify the contribution of four major factors, namely human population growth, rising percapita caloric consumption (including food intake and household waste), processing losses (including conversion of vegetal into animal products and nonfood use of crops), and yield gains, to cropland expansion rates of the past (1961â2007). We employ a Kayatype decomposition method that
we have adapted to be applicable to drivers of cropland expansion at global and national level. Our results indicate that, all else equal, without the yield gains observed globally since 1961, additional land of the size of Australia would have been put under the plough by 2007. Under this scenario the planetary boundary on global cropland use would have already been transgressed today. By contrast, without rising percapita caloric consumption and population growth since 1961, an area as large as nearly half and all of Australia could have been spared, respectively. Yield gains, with strongest contributions from maize, wheat and rice, have approximately offset the increasing demand of a growing world population. Analyses at the national scale reveal different modes of landuse transitions dependent on development
stage, dietary standards, and international trade intensity of the countries. Despite some
wellacknowledged caveats regarding the nonindependence of decomposition factors, these results contribute to the empirical ranking of different drivers needed to set research priorities and prepare wellinformed projections of landuse change until 2050 and beyond.Peer Reviewe
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Will the world run out of land? A Kaya-type decomposition to study past trends of cropland expansion
Globally, the further expansion of cropland is limited by the availability of adequate land and by the necessity to spare land for nature conservation and carbon sequestration. Analyzing the causes of past land-use changes can help to better understand the potential drivers of land scarcities of the future. Using the FAOSTAT database, we quantify the contribution of four major factors, namely human population growth, rising per-capita caloric consumption (including food intake and household waste), processing losses (including conversion of vegetal into animal products and non-food use of crops), and yield gains, to cropland expansion rates of the past (1961â2007). We employ a Kaya-type decomposition method that we have adapted to be applicable to drivers of cropland expansion at global and national level. Our results indicate that, all else equal, without the yield gains observed globally since 1961, additional land of the size of Australia would have been put under the plough by 2007. Under this scenario the planetary boundary on global cropland use would have already been transgressed today. By contrast, without rising per-capita caloric consumption and population growth since 1961, an area as large as nearly half and all of Australia could have been spared, respectively. Yield gains, with strongest contributions from maize, wheat and rice, have approximately offset the increasing demand of a growing world population. Analyses at the national scale reveal different modes of land-use transitions dependent on development stage, dietary standards, and international trade intensity of the countries. Despite some well-acknowledged caveats regarding the non-independence of decomposition factors, these results contribute to the empirical ranking of different drivers needed to set research priorities and prepare well-informed projections of land-use change until 2050 and beyond
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The limits to global-warming mitigation by terrestrial carbon removal
Massive nearâterm greenhouse gas emissions reduction is a precondition for staying âwell below 2°Câ global warming as envisaged by the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, extensive terrestrial carbon dioxide removal (tCDR) through managed biomass growth and subsequent carbon capture and storage is required to avoid temperature âovershootâ in most pertinent scenarios. Here, we address two major issues: First, we calculate the extent of tCDR required to ârepairâ delayed or insufficient emissions reduction policies unable to prevent global mean temperature rise of 2.5°C or even 4.5°C above preâindustrial level. Our results show that those tCDR measures are unable to counteract âbusinessâasâusualâ emissions without eliminating virtually all natural ecosystems. Even if considerable (Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 [RCP4.5]) emissions reductions are assumed, tCDR with 50% storage efficiency requires >1.1âGha of the most productive agricultural areas or the elimination of >50% of natural forests. In addition, >100âMtN/yr fertilizers would be needed to remove the roughly 320âGtC foreseen in these scenarios. Such interventions would severely compromise food production and/or biosphere functioning. Second, we reanalyze the requirements for achieving the 160â190âGtC tCDR that would complement strong mitigation action (RCP2.6) in order to avoid 2°C overshoot anytime. We find that a combination of high irrigation water input and/or more efficient conversion to stored carbon is necessary. In the face of severe tradeâoffs with society and the biosphere, we conclude that largeâscale tCDR is not a viable alternative to aggressive emissions reduction. However, we argue that tCDR might serve as a valuable âsupporting actorâ for strong mitigation if sustainable schemes are established immediately
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