102,580 research outputs found

    Transnational climate governance initiatives: designed for effective climate change mitigation?

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    The Paris Agreement of December 2015 set a highly ambitious target for global climate change mitigation, but it remains unclear how it will be reached, and the individual countries’ pledges do not add up to the overall target. Can transnational climate governance initiatives be expected to fill the gap? We assess 109 such initiatives based on four design criteria: existence of mitigation targets; incentives for mitigation; definition of a baseline; and existence of a monitoring, reporting, and verification procedure. About half of the initiatives do not meet any of these criteria, and not even 15% satisfy three or more. Many initiatives were created only for the purpose of networking. Orchestration by national governments and international organizations increases the number of criteria met. On average, the mitigation focus of new initiatives was highest during the “heyday” of the international climate policy regime between 2005 and 2010. While mitigation-oriented entrepreneurial initiatives are generally started only in response to existing regulation, subnational governments and NGOs show some attempts to go beyond that and compensate for insufficient regulation at the national and international level. Yet, given the low overall quality assessment, transnational climate governance initiatives cannot be expected to fill the “mitigation gap.

    Private Governance Responses to Climate Change: The Case of Global Civil Aviation

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    This Article explores how private governance can reduce the climate effects of global civil aviation. The civil aviation sector is a major contributor to climate change, accounting for emissions comparable to a top ten emitting country. National and international governmental bodies have taken important steps to address civil aviation, but the measures adopted to date are widely acknowledged to be inadequate. Civil aviation poses particularly difficult challenges for government climate mitigation efforts. Many civil aviation firms operate globally, emissions often occur outside of national boundaries, nations differ on their respective responsibilities, and demand is growing rapidly. Although promising new technologies are emerging, they will take time to develop and adopt. This Article argues that private initiatives can overcome many of these barriers. Private initiatives can motivate civil aviation firms to act absent government pressure at the national level and can create pressure for mitigation that transcends national boundaries. The Article argues that it is time to develop a private climate governance agenda for civil aviation and identifies examples of the types of existing and new initiatives that could be included in the effort. If public and private policymakers can overcome the tendency to focus almost exclusively on public governance, private initiatives can yield large and prompt emissions reductions from global civil aviation, buy time for more comprehensive government measures, and complement the government measures when they occur

    How Can Non-State Initiatives Help to Increase National Contributions under the UNFCCC?

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    The international governance landscape on climate change mitigation is increasingly complex across multiple governance levels. Climate change mitigation initiatives by non-state stakeholders can play an important role in governing global climate change and contribute to avoiding unmanageable climate change. It has been argued that the UNFCCC could and should play a stronger role in ‘orchestrating’ the efforts of these initiatives within the wider climate regime complex and thus inspire new and enhanced climate action. In fact, the Lima-Paris Action Agenda supporting cooperative climate action among state and non-state actors was supposed to be a major outcome of COP21. There is little doubt that successful mitigation initiatives can create a momentum for climate protection. What is missing, is a systematic analysis of how this momentum can feed back into the UNFCCC negotiation process, inspiring also enhanced and more ambitious climate mitigation by states in future iterations of the cycle of nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. This paper aims to close this gap: building on a structurational regime model, the article [1] develops a theory of change of how and through which structuration channels non-state initiatives can contribute to changing the politics of international climate policy; [2] traces existing UNFCCC processes and the Paris Agreement with a view to identifying entry points for a more direct feedback from non-state initiatives; and [3] derives recommendations on how and under which agenda items positive experiences can resonate within the UNFCCC negotiation process

    Transnational Climate Change Governance and the Global South

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    Alongside intergovernmental climate change negotiations, a groundswell of climate actions by cities, regions, businesses, investors, and civil society groups has emerged. These transnational actors seek to address mitigation and adaptation to climate change; independently, with each other and with governments and international organizations. Many have welcomed transnational climate initiatives as a crucial addition to the formal climate regime, contributing to a growing momentum to act on climate change. However, critics have raised concerns about whether transnational actors are genuinely interested in mitigation and adaptation, or whether they are they are representing business-as-usual as clean and green. Moreover, are transnational climate initiatives appropriately targeted to address needs of both developed and developing countries; do they exacerbate imbalances in global climate governance between the global North and South? This paper explores the multifaceted relation between developing countries and transnational climate governance. It discusses developing country engagement on the basis of their political support for transnational initiatives, their leadership of, and participation in transnational climate initiatives, and the implementation and performance of such initiatives from the perspective of the global South

    Climate-smart villages and progress in achieving household food security in Lushoto, Tanzania

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    Preliminary results from climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives in Lushoto climate-smart villages, Tanzania

    Enhancing Food Security in a Changing Climate in Africa

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    Climate and socio-ecological change scenarios are invaluable tools in developing appropriate response options for ensuring food security and human wellbeing in the future: evidence-based approach. Climate change necessitates research on crops, livestock and systems that are resilient to variability and extreme events. Prioritize and mainstream food security and nutrition issues into regional and national climate change adaptation and mitigation programmes and initiatives. Opportunities exist for the development of climate-proof and resilient food systems across Africa through technology diffusion, agronomic practices and innovations that can be optimized and scaled up

    Chapter 14 - Regional development and cooperation

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    This chapter provides an assessment of knowledge and practice on regional development and cooperation to achieve climate change mitigation. It will examine the regional trends and dimensions of the mitigation challenge. It will also analyze what role regional initiatives, both with a focus on climate change and in other domains such as trade, can play in addressing these mitigation challenges. The regional dimension of mitigation was not explicitly addressed in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Its discussion of policies, instruments, and cooperative agreements (Working Group III AR4, Chapter 13) was focused primarily on the global and national level. However, mitigation challenges and opportunities differ significantly by region. This is particularly the case for the interaction between development / growth opportunities and mitigation policies, which are closely linked to resource endowments, the level of economic development, patterns of urbanization and industrialization, access to finance and technology, and - more broadly - the capacity to develop and implement various mitigation options. There are also modes of regional cooperation, ranging from regional initiatives focused specifically on climate change (such as the emissions trading scheme (ETS) of the European Union (EU)) to other forms of cooperation in the areas of trade, energy, or infrastructure, that could potentially provide a platform for delivering and implementing mitigation policies. These dimensions will be examined in this chapter. Specifically, this chapter will address the following questions: - Why is the regional level important for analyzing and achieving mitigation objectives? - What are the trends, challenges, and policy options for mitigation in different regions? - To what extent are there promising opportunities, existing examples, and barriers for leapfrogging in technologies and development strategies to low-carbon development paths for different regions? - What are the interlinkages between mitigation and adaptation at the regional level? - To what extent can regional initiatives and regional integration and cooperation promote an agenda of low-carbon climate-resilient development? What has been the record of such initiatives, and what are the barriers? Can they serve as a platform for further mitigation activities

    Mitigation and adaptation to climate change

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    Climate change produces significant social and economic impacts in most parts of the world, thus global action is needed to address climate change. In this chapter, the different possibilities of mitigation are explored from different points of view, and analyse the possibilities of adaptation to climate change. First, substantial reduction of GHG emission is needed, on the other hand adaptation action must deal with the inevitable impacts. According to the assessment of the chapter, it is essential that coordinated actions be taken at an EU level. In our argumentation, a macroeconomic model is used for the cost- benefit analysis of GHG gas emissions reduction. The GHG emission structure is analysed on European and global level. Even in the case of a successful mitigation strategy there rest the long-term effects of climate change which will need a coherent adaptation strategy to be dealt with. Although certain adaptation measures already have been taken, these initiatives are still very modest, and insufficient to deal with the economic effects of climate change properly
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