Understanding the resistance to carbon taxes: Drivers and barriers among the general public and fuel-tax protesters

Carbon taxes are generally well accepted in countries with significant experience thereof but there is still public resistance to raising them. We study attitudes toward carbon taxation and other environmental policy instruments in Sweden. We survey a national sample of the population as well as members of a large political movement that protests fuel taxes. Our results show that the motivations in both groups are alike: educational level, rural versus urban domicile, political orientation, and especially trust in government correlate with opinions on carbon taxes; household income does not appear to matter. Lack of trust in government and lack of belief in the Pigouvian mechanism appear as especially important motivations for protesters\u27 opposition. We find support for revenue refunding, but greater support, in both groups, for earmarking for climate use. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Climate Change: Models, Metrics and Meaning Making

This thesis, combining research in climate science and educational science, investigates different aspects of climate knowledge. It consists of five papers and covers three major topics: emission metrics, public understanding of atmospheric CO2 accumulation, and spatial modelling of natural resource use. In Paper I-II, we study emission metrics that compare the climate impact of different climate forcers in two different ways. For Paper I, we use Sea Level Rise (SLR) as the basis for comparison, proposing two novel emission metrics. We find that all examined climate forcers – even short-lived – have considerable influence on SLR on at least a century time scale. Paper II focuses on how the Climate-Carbon cycle Feedback (CCF) affects emission metric values, in relation to how the CCF caused by non-CO2 forcers is modeled. For emission pulses, we show that with an approach previously used to calculate climate metrics using linear feedback analysis for the CCF, the effect of it will persist basically forever, while with an approach based on an explicit carbon cycle model, the CCF effect by non-CO2 forcers eventually vanishes, leading to lower metric values for longer time-horizons. Paper III-IV, related to climate science literacy, focus on public understanding of atmospheric CO2 accumulation and its potential link to climate policy support. In Paper\ua0III, we identified five qualitatively different ways of reasoning about CO2 accumulation;\ua0only one of these is consistent with mass balance principles. We also found that task\ua0 formulation has a strong bearing on the assessment of understanding, but that strong climate policy support does not require that people can solve typical CO2 tasks. In Paper IV, we draw attention to a range of challenges that university students experience when reasoning about CO2 accumulation, ranging from cognitive to metacognitive and affective challenges. Most notable for the cognitive domain was the failure to understand how uptake of CO2 depends on emission pathways. In Paper V, we model low-income villagers’ spatial natural resource use while removing constraining assumptions on villagers’ behaviour. We find that removing commonly used constraints lead to higher degrees of heterogeneity among villagers’ spatial behaviour, especially for intermediate distance cases

Location choice for renewable resource extraction with multiple non-cooperative extractors: a spatial Nash equilibrium model and numerical implementation

Especially in lower-income countries, the distribution of renewable resources in open access settings often reflects the non-cooperative spatial extraction decisions of many individuals who spread out across a landscape. These individuals recognize tradeoffs between distance to the resource, density, and competition amongst extractors. In this paper we present a game theoretic model that explicitly accommodates such explicitly spatial non-cooperative behavior with respect to the extraction of a stationary renewable natural resource, such as a non-timber forest products or bivalvia (for example, oysters, clams), that is located in a two dimensional landscape. Villagers that have identical labor allocations and preferences are shown to undertake very different extraction pathways in equilibrium. For example, some may extract in more congested patches closer to the village while others may extract in less crowded but more distant patches. For many parameterizations, we find multiple spatial Nash equilibria that differ with respect to the number of villagers at each resource location, whether individual villagers extract from one or multiple locations, and the extent and spatial pattern of resource degradation. In addition to finding equilibria with widely different actions taken by identical extractors, the analysis here demonstrates the impact of simplifying assumptions for spatial decisions on predictions of policy impact, resource distributions, and conflict

Knowing how and knowing when: unpacking public understanding of atmospheric CO2 accumulation

It has been demonstrated that most people have a limited understanding of atmospheric CO 2 accumulation. Labeled stock-flow (SF) failure, this phenomenon has even been suggested as an explanation for weak climate policy support. Drawing on a typology of knowledge, we set out to nuance previous research by distinguishing between different types of knowledge of CO 2 accumulation among the public and by exploring ways of reasoning underlying SF failure. A mixed methods approach was used and participants (N = 214) were enrolled in an open online course. We find that ostensibly similar SF tasks show seemingly contradictory results in terms of people’s understanding of CO 2 accumulation. Participants performed significantly better on stock stabilization tasks that explicitly ask about the relationship between stocks and flows, compared with a typical SF task that does not direct the participants’ attention to what knowledge they should use. This suggests that people possess declarative and procedural knowledge of accumulation (knowing about the principles of mass balance, i.e., what and how to use them) but lack conditional knowledge of accumulation (knowing when to use these principles). Additionally, through a thematic analysis of answers to an open-ended question, we identified three overarching ways of reasoning when dealing with SF tasks: system, pattern, and phenomenological reasoning, providing additional theoretical insights to explain the large difference in performance between the different SF tasks. These more nuanced perspectives on SF failure can help inform interventions aimed at increasing climate science literacy and point to the need for more detailed explorations of public knowledge needed to leverage climate policy support

Spatial protected area decisions to reduce carbon emissions from forest extraction

Protected areas (PAs) can mitigate climate change by reducing carbon emissions that result from forest loss. Carbon emissions from forest degradation are a large component of forest loss and are often driven by the extraction decisions of resource-dependent households. PA policies must reflect how villagers use forests to be effective. Here, a spatial Nash equilibrium of extractors’ uncoordinated forest extraction pattern decisions establishes a baseline of forest-use patterns. Using that baseline, a manager chooses the location and enforcement level of PAs to maximize the avoided forest degradation in the landscape and in the PAs. Optimal PA locations depend on the labour market and the distance between forest patches. A combination of wage-improving projects and appropriately located PAs increases avoided forest degradation

Iohexol plasma clearance for measuring glomerular filtration rate in clinical practice and research: a review. Part 1: How to measure glomerular filtration rate with iohexol?

Published version. Source at http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ckj/sfw070 While there is general agreement on the necessity tomeasure glomerular filtration rate (GFR) inmany clinical situations, there is less agreement on the bestmethod to achieve this purpose.As the gold standardmethod for GFR determination, urinary (or renal) clearance of inulin, fades into the background due to inconvenience and high cost, a diversity of filtrationmarkers and protocols compete to replace it. In this review, we suggest that iohexol, a non-ionic contrast agent, is most suited to replace inulin as the marker of choice for GFR determination. Iohexol comes very close to fulfilling all requirements for an ideal GFRmarker in terms of low extra-renal excretion, low protein binding and in being neither secreted nor reabsorbed by the kidney. In addition, iohexol is virtually non-toxic and carries a low cost. As iohexol is stable in plasma, administration and sample analysis can be separated in both space and time, allowing access to GFR determination across different settings. An external proficiency programme operated by Equalis AB, Sweden, exists for iohexol, facilitating interlaboratory comparison of results. Plasma clearance measurement is the protocol of choice as it combines a reliable GFR determination with convenience for the patient. Single-sample protocols dominate, butmultiple-sample protocolsmay bemore accurate in specific situations. In lowGFRs one ormore late samples should be included to improve accuracy. In patients with large oedema or ascites, urinary clearance protocols should be employed. In conclusion, plasma clearance of iohexol may well be the best candidate for a common GFR determination method

Soil microbial CNP and respiration responses to organic matter and nutrient additions: evidence from a tropical soil incubation

Soil nutrient availability has a strong influence on the fate of soil carbon (C) during microbial decomposition, contributing to Earth's C balance. While nutrient availability itself can impact microbial physiology and C partitioning between biomass and respiration during soil organic matter decomposition, the availability of labile C inputs may mediate the response of microorganisms to nutrient additions. As soil organic matter is decomposed, microorganisms retain or release C, nitrogen (N) or phosphorus (P) to maintain a stoichiometric balance. Although the concept of a microbial stoichiometric homeostasis has previously been proposed, microbial biomass CNP ratios are not static, and this may have very relevant implications for microbial physiological activities. Here, we tested the hypothesis that N, P and potassium (K) nutrient additions impact C cycling in a tropical soil due to microbial stoichiometric constraints to growth and respiration, and that the availability of energy-rich labile organic matter in the soil (i.e. leaf litter) mediates the response to nutrient addition. We incubated tropical soil from French Guiana with a ¹³C labeled leaf litter addition and with mineral nutrient additions of +K, +N, +NK, +PK and +NPK for 30 days. We found that litter additions led to a ten-fold increase in microbial respiration and a doubling of microbial biomass C, along with greater microbial N and P content. We found some evidence that P additions increased soil CO² fluxes. Additionally, we found microbial biomass CP and NP ratios varied more widely than CN in response to nutrient and organic matter additions, with important implications for the role of microorganisms in C cycling. The addition of litter did not prime soil organic matter decomposition, except in combination with +NK fertilization, indicating possible P-mining of soil organic matter in this P-poor tropical soil. Together, these results point toward an ultimate labile organic substrate limitation of soil microorganisms in this tropical soil, but also indicate a complex interaction between C, N, P and K availability. This highlights the difference between microbial C cycling responses to N, P, or K additions in the tropics and explains why coupled C, N and P cycling modeling efforts cannot rely on strict microbial stoichiometric homeostasis as an underlying assumption

Comparing Climate Forcers on a Common Scale

The climate is changing at a rapid pace. Through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the world has agreed to hold the on-going temperature increase below 2 \ub0C. Climate change is caused by emissions of different atmospheric species (climate forcers). In order to meet the UNFCCC objective, major emission abatement measures are needed. To compare the climate effects of different measures, emissions of different climate forcers need to be compared on a common scale. Emission metrics are used for this purpose. In Paper I, we develop and analyse two new emission metrics based on the Sea Level Rise (SLR) that emissions of a given climate forcer cause. One of them is the Global Sea level rise Potential (GSP). The metrics are compared with the commonly used Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Global Temperature change Potential (GTP) metrics. Climate forcers with different atmospheric lifetimes are evaluated using an upwelling-diffusion energy balance model. All climate forcers, including short-lived forcers, have long-term influences on SLR. If we only account for the thermosteric part of SLR, GSP values fall in between GWP and GTP values. In Paper II, we compare two different approaches to including climate-carbon cycle feedbacks (CCF) for emission metrics. The IPCC AR5 approach to including CCF is based on Linear Feedback Analysis (LFA). The second approach is based on a coupled climate-carbon cycle model in which CCF is modelled by explicitly making the biosphere and ocean carbon reservoirs temperature dependent. We find that including CCF for non-CO2 climate forcers through the Explicit CCF (ECCF) approach gives higher GWP and GTP values than using the LFA approach, for short time horizons. While the opposite is true for long time horizons. With the LFA approach, a fraction of the indirectly induced atmospheric CO2, caused by an emission pulse of a non-CO2 forcer, stays in the atmosphere basically forever, while with the ECCF approach it eventually returns back to the unperturbed levels when the direct warming is gone. In Paper III, we develop and analyse a spatially explicit model of multiple independent villagers engaged in forest extraction. A spatial Non-Cooperative Equilibrium (NCE) of extraction patterns is analysed and compared to an equilibrium with coordinated villagers, for a range of spatial landscapes and model assumptions. Each villager chooses from where, and how much, to extract and whether to perform non-forest wage work part or full-time instead. We investigate the model assumptions, commonly adopted by earlier research, which include the use of a representative villager and only allowing the villager to extract from one location. We find a priori identical villagers to behave differently in equilibrium and show that forest extraction and degradation patterns depend on the model assumptions used