Aligning Sub-national Climate Actions for the new post-Paris Climate Regime

The rise of sub-national actors in global climate governance underscores the need for clear alignment between these efforts and their national counterparts. As these sub-national climate actions are filling gaps in mitigation, adaptation, and financing, among other functions, a critical question is how these efforts complement or overlap with national climate pledges. This consideration is particularly important in the context of the Paris Agreement’s mandate for fiveyear review cycles, where national governments will be asked to demonstrate progress towards climate mitigation goals and increase their ambition. In this paper, we argue that alignment – both vertically between multiple jurisdictions and horizontally with external networks and actors – is critical to clarifying climate actions between multiple levels of actors and to maximizing mitigation potential. We use nine case studies to demonstrate the varying degrees and modes of vertical integration between subnational and national climate actors. We find that the case studies embody different styles of vertical alignment, and exhibit significant variation in the degree and direction of vertical alignment within each of these modes. We also find that many case studies rely on horizontally- aligned international networks and coalitions to fill gaps in financial resources or technical support. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate that an additional 1 gigaton carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2020 can be achieved in these nine case studies through stronger alignment that makes it possible to scale sub-national climate actions to the national level. These findings suggest there may be a missed opportunity to realize greater mitigation potential by fostering stronger vertical alignment, and enhancing coordination between horizontal networks of climate action and national governments

Crowdsourcing Global Wastewater Data

No time to waste: Crowdsourcing global wastewater treatment data Worldwide, over 80 percent of wastewater is discharged into water bodies without undergoing treatment, severely impairing human well-being and ecosystem vitality along the way. National performance on wastewater treatment is difficult to quantify and is poorly understood due to a lack of common definitions, poor data collection standards, and limited historical data. To address this, the Yale Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a research group that produces a biennial ranking of country-level environmental performance, developed a first-of-its kind national wastewater treatment indicator.[1] The indicator assesses wastewater treatment performance for 183 countries, but there are still data gaps and quality issues to address. The Yale EPI is looking to refine and improve its database through a first-of-its-kind innovative effort to crowdsource updates and feedback using an interactive map of wastewater treatment performance.[2] The crowdsourcing effort is targeted at water experts and decision-makers around the world and aims to: Validate existing data by working with local experts, Improve spatial and temporal data coverage Build a wider community of users around wastewater data. Yale EPI’s wastewater treatment indicator can help improve understanding of the topic, and refine the signal sent to policymakers about proper management. Keywords (wastewater, crowdsourcing, map, treatment, ecosystem, indicator, EPI, national, global, database) [1] Malik, Omar A., et al. 2015. “A global indicator of wastewater treatment to inform the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).” Environmental Science & Policy 48: 172-185. [2] Torres Quintanilla, Diego, Peter Hirsch, Samuel Cohen. Wastewater Treatment Map. Environmental Performance Index, Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, 6 July 2015. Web. 26 Aug. 2015.

Toward the Next Generation of Air Quality Monitoring Indicators

This paper introduces an initiative to bridge the state of scientific knowledge on air pollution with the needs of policymakers and stakeholders to design the "next generation" of air quality indicators. As a first step this initiative assesses current monitoring and modeling associated with a number of important pollutants with an eye toward identifying knowledge gaps and scientific needs that are a barrier to reducing air pollution impacts on human and ecosystem health across the globe. Four outdoor air pollutants were considered e particulate matter, ozone, mercury, and Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) e because of their clear adverse impacts on human and ecosystem health and because of the availability of baseline data for assessment for each. While other papers appearing in this issue will address each pollutant separately, this paper serves as a summary of the initiative and presents recommendations for needed investments to provide improved measurement, monitoring, and modeling data for policyrelevant indicators. The ultimate goal of this effort is to enable enhanced public policy responses to air pollution by linking improved data and measurement methods to decision-making through the development of indicators that can allow policymakers to better understand the impacts of air pollution and, along with source attribution based on modeling and measurements, facilitate improved policies to solve it. The development of indicators represents a crucial next step in this process

Infective endocarditis and cancer in the elderly

Little is known about the magnitude of the association between infective endocarditis and cancer, and about the natural history of cancer patients with concomitant diagnosis of infective endocarditis. We used the SEER-Medicare linked database to identify individuals aged 65 years or more diagnosed with colorectal, lung, breast, or prostate cancer, and without any cancer diagnosis (5 % random Medicare sample from SEER areas) between 1992 and 2009. We identified infective endocarditis from the ICD-9 diagnosis of each admission recorded in the Medpar file and its incidence rate 90 days around cancer diagnosis. We also estimated the overall survival and CRC-specific survival after a concomitant diagnosis of infective endocarditis. The peri-diagnostic incidence of infective endocarditis was 19.8 cases per 100,000 person-months for CRC, 5.7 cases per 100,000 person-months for lung cancer, 1.9 cases per 100,000 person-months for breast cancer, 4.1 cases per 100,000 person-months for prostate cancer and 2.4 cases per 100,000 person-months for individuals without cancer. Two-year overall survival was 46.4 % (95 % CI 39.5, 54.5 %) for stage I–III CRC patients with concomitant endocarditis and 73.1 % (95 % CI 72.9, 73.3 %) for those without it. In this elderly population, the incidence of infective endocarditis around CRC diagnosis was substantially higher than around the diagnosis of lung, breast and prostate cancers. A concomitant diagnosis of infective endocarditis in patients with CRC diagnosis is associated with shorter survival

Beyond national climate action : the impact of region, city, and business commitments on global greenhouse gas emissions

This article quantifies the net aggregate impact in 2030 of commitments by individual non-state and subnational actors (e.g. regions, cities and businesses, collectively referred to as ‘NSAs’) to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The analysis was conducted for NSAs operating within ten major emitting economies that together accounted for roughly two-thirds of global GHG emissions in 2016. Our assessment includes 79 regions (e.g. subnational states and provinces), approximately 6,000 cities, and nearly 1,600 companies with a net emissions coverage of 8.1 GtCO2e/year, or a quarter of the ten economies’ total GHG emissions in 2016. The analysis reflects a proposed methodology to aggregate commitments from different subnational (i.e. regional and city government) and non-state (i.e. business) actors, accounting for overlaps. If individual commitments by NSAs in the ten high-emitting economies studied are fully implemented and do not change the pace of action elsewhere, projected GHG emissions in 2030 for the ten economies would be 1.2–2.0 GtCO2e/year or 3.8%–5.5% lower compared to scenario projections for current national policies (31.6–36.8 GtCO2e/year). On a country level, we find that the full implementation of these individual commitments alone could result in the European Union and Japan overachieving their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), while India could further overachieve its unconditional NDC target. In the United States, where the national government has rolled back climate policies, NSAs could become a potential driving force for climate action. Key policy insights Full implementation of reported and quantifiable individual commitments by regions, cities and businesses (NSAs) in ten major economies could reduce emissions by 3.8%–5.5% in 2030 below current national policies scenario projections. National governments’ mitigation targets could be more ambitious if they would take NSA commitments into account. With full implementation of such action, the European Union and Japan would overachieve their NDC targets. For the United States such action could help meeting its original 2025 NDC target in spite of rollbacks in national climate policies. The full universe of NSA climate action expands far beyond the subset of commitments analysed in this study; NSAs could become a strong driving force for enhanced action towards the Paris climate goals.</p

Ambient air pollution and consumer spending: Evidence from Spain

Research on the economic burden of air pollution has focused primarily on its macroeconomic impact. However, as some studies have found that air pollution can lead to avoidance behavior–for example, reducing the time spent outdoors–we hypothesize that it can also influence consumer spending activity. We combine high frequency data on ozone and fine particulate pollution with daily consumer spending in brick-and-mortar retail in 129 postal codes in Spain during 2014 to estimate the association between the two. Using a linear fixed effects model, we find that a 1-standard deviation increase in ozone concentration (20.97 μg/m3) is associated with 3.9 percent decrease in consumer spending (95% CI: -0.066, -0.012; p0.10). Further, we do not observe a sufficiently strong bounce-back in consumer spending in the day–or even the week–following higher ozone concentration. Also, we find that the relationship between ozone concentration and consumer spending is heterogeneous, with those aged below 25 and those aged 45 or above exhibiting stronger negative association. This research informs policymakers about a plausibly unaccounted cost of ambient air pollution, even at concentrations lower than the WHO air quality guideline for short-term exposure

Low-temperature titania-graphene quantum dots paste for flexible dye-sensitised solar cell applications

Graphene possesses excellent mechanical strength and chemical inertness with high intrinsic carrier mobility and superior flexibility making them exceptional candidates for optoelectronic applications. Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) derived from graphene domains have been widely explored to study their photoluminescence properties which can be tuned by size. GQDs are biocompatible, low cytotoxic, strongly luminescent and disperse well in polar and non-polar solvents showing bright promise for the integration into devices for bioimaging, light emitting and photovoltaic applications. In the present study, graphene quantum dots were synthesized by an electrochemical cyclic voltammetry technique using reduced graphene oxide (rGO). GQDs have been incorporated into binder free TiO2 paste and studied as a photoelectrode material fabricated on ITO/PEN substrates for flexible dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). DSSC based on GQDs-TiO2 exhibited open circuit output potential difference (Voc) of 0.73 V, and short circuit current density (Jsc) of 11.54 mA cm-2 with an increment in power conversion efficiency by 5.48 %, when compared with those with DSSC build with just a TiO2 photoanode (open-circuit output potential difference (Voc) of 0.68 V and short circuit density (Jsc) of 10.67 mA cm-2). The results have been understood in terms of increased charge extraction and reduced recombination losses upon GQDs incorporation