Overcoming Vulnerability in the Life Course - Reflections on a Research Program

This chapter reflects on the twelve-year Swiss research program, “Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives” (LIVES). The authors are longstanding members of its scientific advisory committee. They highlight the program’s major accomplishments, identify key ingredients of the program’s success as well as some of its challenges, and raise promising avenues for future scholarship. Their insights will be of particular interest to those who wish to launch similar large-scale collaborative enterprises. LIVES has been a landmark project in advancing the conceptualization, measurement, and analysis of vulnerability over the life course. The foundation it has provided will direct the next era of scholarship toward even greater specificity: in understanding the conditions under which vulnerability matters, for whom, when, and how. In a process-oriented life-course perspective, vulnerability is not viewed as a persistent or permanent condition but rather as a dormant condition of the social actor, activated in particular situations and contexts

Options for fostering increasing ambition levels under the Paris Article 6.4 mechanism : discussion paper

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement establishes mechanisms for Parties to "pursue voluntary cooperation in the implementation of their nationally determined contributions to allow for higher ambition in their mitigation and adaptation actions [...]" (Article 6.1). I. e. the mechanisms are explicitly designed to foster higher ambition. However, without additional guidance and rules, the economic incentives of carbon markets may work against increasing host country ambition. For example, setting ambitious NDC targets may directly reduce the amount of mitigation outcomes that go beyond the NDC target and that a host country can transfer abroad. The report presents four options on how the risks can be ad-dressed and ambition can be increased: (1) Strengthening reporting, transparency and comparability; (2) Reconciling the design of the Article 6.4 mechanism with ambition raising of host countries; (3) Supporting the host country to raise ambition through the Article 6.4 mechanism; (4) Fostering the acquiring country to raise ambition through the Article 6.4 mechanism. These options are assessed and recommendations are provided on how they could be implemented

Design options for the new international market mechanism under article 6.4 of the Paris agreement

In this project commissioned by the German Environment Agency, important aspects of the mechanism under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement were examined in more detail. This mechanism is to succeed the CDM under the Kyoto Protocol from 2021 onwards, but it will contain decisive improvements, especially with regard to a robust accounting of emission reductions and better integration into the national climate policy of the host country. The report is addressed to the international experts, in particular to the delegates to the climate conference and observers, and is therefore written in English. A German summary is included. The following topics are covered: How does the mechanism achieve an overall reduction of global emissions? Are there opportunities to use benchmarks to establish baselines? Can contributions to increasing ambition be made by using Art. 6.4? What contribution can the voluntary market make to increasing ambition in the future? Introduction of incentives for the participation of private companies under Art. 6.4 of the PA. The role of the Art. 6.4 mechanism on the way to a net zero emission world. The project provides a contribution to the general discussion in the EU as well as to the Article 6 - Negotiations under the UNFCCC. It is a contribution that presents backgrounds and interrelationships for individual questions concerning the design of the new market mechanisms under Article 6 and can thus contribute to a more informed decision-making process.Since there are, however, several different ways of designing a mechanism that can avoid double counting and provide incentives for increasing ambition, this project is only one of several current contributions to the international discussion

Overcoming Vulnerability in the Life Course-Reflections on a Research Program

This chapter reflects on the twelve-year Swiss research program, “Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives” (LIVES). The authors are longstanding members of its scientific advisory committee. They highlight the program’s major accomplishments, identify key ingredients of the program’s success as well as some of its challenges, and raise promising avenues for future scholarship. Their insights will be of particular interest to those who wish to launch similar large-scale collaborative enterprises. LIVES has been a landmark project in advancing the conceptualization, measurement, and analysis of vulnerability over the life course. The foundation it has provided will direct the next era of scholarship toward even greater specificity: in understanding the conditions under which vulnerability matters, for whom, when, and how. In a process-oriented life-course perspective, vulnerability is not viewed as a persistent or permanent condition but rather as a dormant condition of the social actor, activated in particular situations and contexts.Peer reviewe