Reflections and projections on a decade of climate science

To mark the tenth anniversary of Nature Climate Change, we asked a selection of researchers across the broad range of climate change disciplines to share their thoughts on notable developments of the past decade, as well as their hopes and expectations for the coming years of discovery. Much has changed in the last 10 years since the Nature Climate Change inaugural issue in April 2011. The effects of climate change are now more apparent, global leaders have reached a climate agreement, and public awareness and engagement, particularly in the younger generation, continues to grow. Here, ten researchers discuss advances in their field, highlighting the progress and drawing attention to what still needs to be done

Publisher Correction: Reflections and projections on a decade of climate science (Nature Climate Change, (2021), 11, 4, (279-285), 10.1038/s41558-021-01020-x)

Published: 14 June 202

Australians’ views on carbon pricing before and after the 2013 federal election

As climate policies change through the legislative process, public attitudes towards them may change as well. Therefore, it is important to assess how people accept and support controversial climate policies as the policies change over time. Policy acceptance is a positive evaluation of, or attitude towards, an existing policy; policy support adds an active behavioural component1, 3. Acceptance does not necessarily lead to support. We conducted a national survey of Australian residents to investigate acceptance of, and support for, the Australian carbon pricing policy before and after the 2013 federal election, and how perceptions of the policy, economic ideology, and voting behaviour affect acceptance and support. We found acceptance and support were stable across the election period, which was surprising given that climate policy was highly contentious during the election. Policy acceptance was higher than policy support at both times and acceptance was a necessary but insufficient condition of support. We conclude that acceptance is an important process through which perceptions of the policy and economic ideology influence support. Therefore, future climate policy research needs to distinguish between acceptance and support to better understand this process, and to better measure these concepts

Technical summary

The Working Group III (WGIII) contribution to the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) assesses literature on the scientific, technological, environmental, economic and social aspects of mitigation of climate change. It builds upon the WGIII contribution to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) and previous reports and incorporates subsequent new findings and research. Throughout, the focus is on the implications of its findings for policy, without being prescriptive about the particular policies that governments and other important participants in the policy process should adopt. In light of the IPCC's mandate, authors in WGIII were guided by several principles when assembling this assessment: (1) to be explicit about mitigation options, (2) to be explicit about their costs and about their risks and opportunities vis-a-vis other development priorities, (3) and to be explicit about the underlying criteria, concepts, and methods for evaluating alternative policies. This summary offers the main findings of the report

The European Union Emissions Trading System and the Market Stability Reserve: Optimal Dynamic Supply Adjustment

The supply of allowances in the European Union Emissions Trading System is determined within a rigid allocation programme. A reform of the EU ETS intends to make allowances allocation exible and contingent on the state of the system. We model the emissions market under adjustable allowance supply in a stochastic partial equilibrium framework and obtain closed form solutions for its dynamics. The model considers a supply control mechanism contingent on the number of allocated and unused allowances, as suggested by the European Commission. We derive analytical dependencies between the allowance allocation adjustment rate and the market equilibrium dynamics, which allows us to represent the quantity thresholds as quantiles for the number of allocated and unused allowances. Finally, we present an analytical tool for the selection of an optimal adjustment rate under both risk-neutrality and risk-aversion. We thereby provide an analytical foundation for the regulator's decision-making in the context of the EU ETS reform and give a novel perspective on the mechanism's overall design

Exports and Employment in Indonesia: The Decline in Labor-Intensive Manufacturing and the Rise of Services

Employment generation has been a challenge in Indonesia since the Asian financial crisis, especially in labor-intensive manufacturing. Drawing on work by James and Fujita (2000), this paper examines the impact of exports on jobs, based on an analysis of input–output tables over the period 1995–2005. It finds that fewer jobs were created through exports in manufacturing industries in 2005 than before the crisis, because of slower growth in manufacturing exports and a shift away from light industry. The slowdown is potentially costly due to the endemic elastic supply of unskilled labor. However, there was an increase in jobs in the services sector, partly because of indirect connections with the main export industries. This could be enhanced through greater domestic and international competition in services. The main constraints to job creation through exports appear on the supply side, especially those related to poor infrastructure, an uncertain investment climate, and tight labor regulations