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Climate change is becoming a defining factor for communities in South Asia. Forming one-fifth of the world population, the region increasingly faces climate-induced disasters such as floods, droughts, heatwaves, cyclones etc. This region also has one of the world's poorest people who struggle to cope with the rapidly changing climatic conditions. Agriculture still employs many people in the region, one of the worst-hit sectors. Agriculture will become untenable in some parts of the region due to climate change. Monsoon patterns have changed, and agriculture does not guarantee sustainable income for the vast majority. Many climate change adaptations have been initiated in the region in response to the threat of climate change. Scholars and practitioners feel that these adaptations must be transformative to be effective. In this paper, we examine eight such adaptations from three South Asian Countries – Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, from the lens of transformative adaptation. We found that no single adaptation initiative meets all the criteria for sustainable socio-ecological transformations. However, there is a significant overlap between different typologies of transformation as envisaged in the paper and literature. We conclude that the concept of socio-ecological transformation is new for South Asia, so integrating it into the programmes and policies is the need of the hour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, cities have become hubs for economic activity, productivity, and important platforms for achieving sustainable development goals. The potential of urban agriculture (UA) in improving urban local economies and urban micro-climate has been acknowledged in the literature. The study looked at how the concepts of UA, local economic development (LED), and climate change can be treated in unison. Based on the review of credible published papers on the various concepts of UA, LED, climate change and nature-based solutions (NBS), a proposed conceptual framework was developed in this paper showing the linkages. The paper established that UA could boost LED, build resilient urban settlements, and promote social inclusiveness, but with social challenges. It is therefore recommended that policymakers make UA a crucial aspect of their agenda in the coming years to address the local economic and climate challenges now and in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climatic events and other natural-related disasters experienced in the arid and semi-arid lands of northern Kenya negatively affect the pastoral livelihoods of the communities. Addressing vulnerability to climate shocks among pastoral communities of Kenya's Arid and Semi-lands presents a persistent challenge. Cash transfer programmes have increasingly grown as one mode of building household resilience. Understanding the role of cash transfer interventions on household resilience to climate shocks is key to policy programming. This paper aimed at determining the effects of cash transfers on household resilience to climate shocks. The paper evaluated the Hunger Safety Net Program, which is one of the largest unconditional cash transfer programs in Kenya. The Hunger Safety Net Program targeted poor people in northern Kenya including the counties of Turkana, Wajir, Marsabit, and Mandera. To establish the impact the paper compares households which received cash transfers with those that did not receive transfers. The panel fixed effects model was used to determine the effects of cash transfers on household resilience. The results indicate that cash transfers have positive significant effects on household resilience to climate shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Psychotraumatology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Climate change has become increasingly important in recent years. It is the outcome of the burning of fossil fuels that increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), over the last century. Mitigating the impacts of climate change requires a better understanding and assessment of the countries' economic decisions on the amount of CO 2 emissions. This paper assesses the variability between the different countries in the trends of CO 2 emissions and electricity consumption from 1975 to 2014, while identifying clusters of countries of similar trends over time. The novel methodology applied in this paper enables us to assess long-debated issues in climate literature. The temporal dynamic effects of electricity consumption and economic growth on CO 2 emissions across countries are studied using functional data analysis (FDA) methods. The latter have proven to be useful tools for visualising similarities and differences in the non-linear trends of CO 2 emissions without forcing linear trends and stationary relationships which can be unrealistic and misleading. The results indicate the possibility of identifying changes in the trends of CO 2 emissions and electricity consumption for a wide range of heterogeneous countries over the study period. The findings also reveal that economic growth puts a strain on the environment, where many high-income countries are still away from attaining economic-energy sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green bond market has significantly improved in recent years thanks to the development of financial instruments and the rising climate change concerns. Given this backdrop, this paper investigates the effects of returns in different financial markets, i.e. the United States Treasury Bonds, the Standard & Poor's stock market, the United States Dollar, Gold, Crude Oil, and Bitcoin on the Green Bond returns (the Standard & Poor's Green Bond Index) from September 17, 2014, to September 1, 2022. The results from the robust linear and machine learning estimators indicate that the returns of the United States Treasury Bonds and the United States Dollar are negatively related to the Green Bond returns. Meanwhile, Gold returns positively affect Green Bond returns. The quantile regression estimations of Machado–Santos Silva also show that these findings are valid in different quantiles. The paper also discusses policy implications related to climate change and the development of financial instruments to promote green investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Psychotraumatology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Disabled populations are disproportionally affected by the current climate and environmental crises. However, they are hardly included and their knowledge is neglected in processes addressing these challenges. To achieve the UN Agenda 2030, societies should actively engage with the values, experiences and knowledge held by people with disabilities in science and policy contexts. In this paper, we suggest that addressing 'deep' leverage points by 1) recognising diverse valuations of and connections to nature by different social groups (i.e. re-connecting to nature), 2) including disabled populations in decision-making and knowledge creation (i.e. re-structuring institutions), and 3) promoting inclusive education and knowledge generation (i.e. re-thinking knowledge production) can facilitate the development of inclusive transformation pathways and foster sustainable human-nature relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimating the economic risks of climate shocks and climate stressors on spatially heterogeneous cities over time remains highly challenging. The purpose of this paper is to present a practical methodology to assess the economic risks of climate change in middle-income cities to inform municipal climate response strategies. Building on a capital-based framework (CBF), spatially disaggregated baseline and future scenario scores for economic wealth and its exposure to climate change are developed for six different classes of capital across 77 major suburbs in Cape Town, South Africa. Capital-at-risk was calculated by combining relative exposure and capital scores across different scenarios, with population impacted for major suburbs and the city's eight main planning districts. The economic risk assessment presented here provides a generic approach to assist city managers through an enhanced understanding of the relative levels of capital endowment across the city vis-à-vis relative levels of exposure to climate-related hazards over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secondary cities are home to most of the world's urban populations vulnerable to climate change, yet researchers and policymakers have devoted less attention to them than large and megacities. To help address this gap, this paper explores the relationship between incomplete decentralized governance, climate change, and urban resilience. It does through the case studies of secondary cities of Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. Secondary cities are of importance because they are the fastest growing cities in the Global South but also because they have weaker capacity to address climate risks. Through these case studies, the paper draws comparisons between the different cases to look at the linkages between decentralization and urban resilience in secondary cities. Overall, it argues that climate governance, due to the retention of power and resources by central bureaucrats along with fragmented governance structures, and misaligned incentive structures which prioritize economic growth over climate protection have undermined resilience building and contributed to the uneven distribution of climate risks in these cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The climate change – inequality nexus has become an increasingly important concept advanced by inequality and sustainability experts as well as international organisations like the United Nations. In this perspective paper, two arguments are made to further our understanding of the nexus and to promote action on SDG 10 ("Reducing inequalities within and among countries") and SDG 13 ("Climate action"). First, climate change's status as a "core" planetary boundary as well as its embeddedness in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, calls for a wider discussion on environmental and ecological degradation in the context of inequality. Second, the concept of inequalities of opportunity freedoms, under the guise of the influential human capabilities framework, is well suited to make sense of the complexity and multidimensionality of the climate change – inequality nexus. To this end, some (and by no means all) causal links between climate change, wider environmental and ecological degradations, and inequality are analysed. The paper concludes by arguing in favour of a framework that can aptly capture the full complexity and multidimensionality of the climate change – inequality nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses opinion paper titled "Hydrology and change" by professor of hydrology Demetris Koutsoyiannis. It mentions Hurst-Kolmogorov (HK) statistical effect which is the focus of the paper and suggests invention of tools with HK effect for future day predictions. It also presents discussion on the physical changes along with time such as change in climatic conditions due to human activities including innovation in agriculture, industrial advancement and electronic revolution.

As global climate change becomes an increasing problem, so will supply shocks, whether in terms of suppression, mitigation, or adaptation. Economics is largely unprepared to entreat these. Supply shocks are often misunderstood as hyperinflations brought on by increased money creation instead of as a fundamental shortfall in habituated consumption. Entreating supply shocks will be more akin to returning Apollo 13 to Earth than it will be to burying bank notes. Modern Monetary Theory's roots provide a solution. MMT is fundamentally a theory that supposes that capacity is the only constraint upon the abilities of economies. MMT, outside of this, has argued that inflation effectively indicates that capacity is being strained. This paper suggests that current prices are being used as a proxy for capacity by both a congressional budget and an MMT approach. It hopes to develop MMT in terms of its institutionalist roots. This article will point out some of the issues that arise with the use of prices as a proxy for capacity—and inflation as a measure of its limits. The paper's primary concern is to determine how society might fit into a lettuce wrap: a consumption space bounded by universal subsistence and zero-non-renewable resource use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the transformation of the glacial isthmus between Sørkapp Land (southern peninsula) and the remainder of Spitsbergen from 1900 to 2023. The region distinguishes itself with notable environmental and landscape transformations since the early twentieth century, the post-Little Ice Age. These ongoing transformations are poised to swiftly convert the Sørkapp Land peninsula into an island, driven by the decline of the glacial isthmus connecting Sørkapp Land to the rest of Spitsbergen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article delves into the multifaceted relationship between climate change, air quality, and respiratory health, placing a special focus on the process of particle deposition in the lungs. We discuss the capability of climate change to intensify air pollution and alter particulate matter physicochemical properties such as size, dispersion, and chemical composition. These alterations play a significant role in influencing the deposition of particles in the lungs, leading to consequential respiratory health effects. The review paper provides a broad exploration of climate change's direct and indirect role in modifying particulate air pollution features and its interaction with other air pollutants, which may change the ability of particle deposition in the lungs. In conclusion, climate change may play an important role in regulating particle deposition in the lungs by changing physicochemistry of particulate air pollution, therefore, increasing the risk of respiratory disease development. Climate change influences particle deposition in the lungs by modifying the physicochemical properties of particulate air pollution, thereby escalating the risk of respiratory disease development. It is crucial for healthcare providers to educate patients about the relationship between climate change and respiratory health. People with conditions such as asthma, COPD, and allergies must understand how changes in weather, air pollution, and allergens can exacerbate their symptoms. Instruction on understanding air quality indices and pollen predictions, along with recommendations on adapting everyday activities and medication regimens in response, is essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology & Society is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology & Society is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This is a perspective, about the future climate policy of Pakistan, to improve the harvest of Green Climate Funds (GCF). This paper takes upon the calculation of climate financing potential in the context of the energy sector of Pakistan by estimating the potential of becoming a net-zero sector in Pakistan's Economy. The study has identified several options for the government to reallocate the energy mix and tie the energy demand targets with climate targets for a green future of Pakistan. The study has used basic excel tools to calculate facts from the available data sets in Pakistan. The study found that, if Pakistan chooses to shift from dirty sources of energy production to the use of cleaner inputs for energy production, Pakistan can generate a significant amount of climate finance by reducing the emissions from energy production, which are recordable, traceable, and can be evaluated by any of the third-party evaluating organization. The initial cost for Pakistan will cause some discrepancies in some of the macroeconomic indicators and may also cause budget imbalances it will surely help the economy to achieve the targets of becoming a net-zero economy and be able to harvest Green Climate Funds in long term with much faster rate, which can overpass the investments made or being made in this sector and will create a significant amount jobs in the economy, which will be green jobs, promoting environmental friendly output and sustainable growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change impact on sovereign debt management has become an issue of great concern. The aim of this paper is to analyse the changes in the traditional approach of sovereign debt managers in the face of the pursued climate policy and different scenarios of climate liabilities for 2050. We follow a novel three-fold research approach: 1) assessment of the estimated level of current climate liabilities based on the Fiscal Risk Matrix; 2) performing forward-looking climate debt projections over the timeframe 2025-2050 for the EU countries; 3) conducting case study research on EU countries, to identify the sovereign climate debt management activities undertaken so far and to define a series of good-practice guidelines. Findings indicate a growing role of the climate financial mechanisms in sovereign debt management. In particular, our climate scenario approach reveals those scenarios in which a country's fiscal position indicators are more vulnerable from the standpoint of rising public expenditure due to the country's inability to manage CO2 gas emissions. Each country is responsible for its climate pathway by 2050 and this will be mainly determined by the timeliness, efficacy and appropriateness of the public policies and measures implemented to mitigate climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is aimed at reviewing literature on the significance of soybeans production in the face of the changing climates in Africa. Using literature from the secondary sources, the paper reviewed how Africa can alleviate poverty by growing soybeans amongst the many legumes due to its multiplicity effect (including easily accessed market due to its high demand, enhancing soil fertility, easy to manage, high protein levels which rural people need most as it is cheaper compared to meat). Africa's majority population gets their livelihoods from agriculture and this in itself shows how important the sector is, yet the continent is faced with food insecurities, poor livelihoods, and high malnutrition levels in the midst of changing climate that is compounding their productivity levels. Achieving sustainable food security and livelihoods for millions of poor producers and consumers across Africa where people are living on $2 a day or less, remains a serious problem, exacerbated by the challenges of malnutrition, climate change, and poor technologies. Soybeans as a legume can play an important role in ensuring sustainable food security for both the current and future generations across the continent. Soybeans farming is important in Africa, where small‐scale agricultural systems dominate the food production landscape, as it is a source of inexpensive protein and nutrients to rural households as well as natural fertilization for the soil. Also, the symbiotic nitrogen fixation properties of legumes (soybeans) mean that they are suitable for cultivation on a wide variety of soils in changing climates. Despite this, small-scale farmers are still faced with the following factors; lack of credit funds, recycling of seeds as tested seeds are way too expensive, among which hinders their adoption levels of soybean production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Psychotraumatology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With increased urbanization and the impacts of climate change, cities around the world are making resilience-building a priority. Simultaneously, advances in technology have enabled the creation of City Digital Twins (CDTs). Informed by a literature review and interviews with resilience and Digital Twin experts, this paper explores how CDTs might support the development of more resilient urban communities. First, the various definitions of urban resilience, smart cities and CDTs are described. Second, the paper explores how characteristics of CDTs make them uniquely equipped to facilitate (1) a better understanding of complex phenomena, (2) the imagination of possible futures and (3) collaboration between stakeholders. Finally, the technical requirements and challenges of CDT implementation are discussed, including (1) identifying priority hazards and users, (2) collecting and managing data, (3) integrating different models and (4) ensuring usability. The paper concludes by emphasizing the important role of stakeholders in shaping CDTs that can be successfully integrated by the communities they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2022 was a year of crises, not just one but multiple intersecting crises that caused traumatic stress in billions of people worldwide. COVID-19 is still not over. New wars have started, and the climate change impact is bigger than ever. Will the Anthropocene be an era of continued crises? This past year the European Journal of Psychotraumatology (EJPT) has again tried to contribute to how to prevent or treat the consequences of these major crises as well as other events and we will continue to do so the year to come. For instance, we will have special issues or collections addressing these big issues, such as climate change and traumatic stress, or early intervention after trauma or in times of conflict. In this editorial, we also present the past year's excellent journal metrics regarding reach, impact, and quality and the ESTSS EJPT award finalists for best paper of 2022 and look forward to 2023. 2022 was a year of multiple intersecting crises causing traumatic stress to billions of people around the world. European Journal of Psychotraumatology (EJPT) aims to contribute to how to understand, prevent or treat the consequences of these major crises. EJPT's editorial team again achieved excellent journal metrics regarding reach, impact, and quality in 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African subsistence livestock farmers rely heavily on traditional mitigation and coping mechanisms to deal with the effects of drought. However, these methods have proven ineffective in managing the full impact of drought. Consequently, policymakers are increasingly interested in promoting Index-based Pasture Insurance (IBPI). This paper aims to assess subsistence livestock farmers' preferences for IBPI. A simple random sampling method was used to select 110 subsistence livestock farmers for data collection. A discrete choice experiment—Conditional Logit and Latent Class models and incentivized lottery games were used to elicit preferences for insurance contracts and loss aversion. The findings indicate that subsistence livestock farmers have a favourable attitude toward IBPI contracts that protect against drought-related pasture degradation. The Conditional Logit model shows that farmers prefer transparent contracts that reimburse with feed and vouchers rather than cash. However, they derive negative marginal utility from basis risk and premium. However, the Latent Class model reveals heterogeneous preferences for IBPI among farmers. Farmers are also loss-averse, but loss aversion did not influence their preference for IBPI. Therefore, the primary recommendation for insurance providers is to consider customizing IBPI attributes to increase adoption among subsistence farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the impact of climate change, the use of both energy and resources that lock in future energy use is receiving heightened attention. New Zealand has lagged behind many similar countries in not requiring an explicit energy certification for dwellings. This paper reviews the form of energy certification used by similar countries and discusses the potential impact of applying the various forms to New Zealand dwellings. Specifically, it compares how different forms of comparison, or normalisation, value the features of a home and implicitly rate which dwellings are considered 'like' each other. Of the 85 buildings compared none received consistent rankings across all the normalisation methods and only one was in the 'better' half of the data under all nine of the normalisation methods used. Some of the forms of normalisation systematically advantaged large dwellings, and others small dwellings. Since normalisation methods can be chosen to value certain aspects of dwelling design, there needs to be a discussion about what we value in dwellings in order to determine which method(/s) would be appropriate for New Zealand. The main purpose of this paper is to alert social scientists of the need to have this value-based discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The climate change adaptation field has evolved considerably in recent years. Important contributions have been made, with scholars developing methods for assessing vulnerability in different countries and communities, documenting broad strategies for adaptation and identifying opportunities for and barriers to adaptation as well as ways to enhance adaptive capacity. Issues of sustainability are, however, not readily argued and embraced. Predominantly, our analysis exposes that current adaptation discourse, particularly in Africa, offers a narrow conceptualisation of sustainability. The paper argues for a clear framework of sustainability in adaptation discourse which encompasses awareness to contextual aspects in responding to climate variability and change as well as resilience aspects. The paper also calls for an expansion of the knowledge base around the concept of 'climate-smart agriculture' towards effectively incorporating sustainability aspects in climate change adaptation discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies CO2 emissions at a global level. The authors use Dynamic Optimisation to derive the minimum penalty cost on countries every single time. They then use an Imputation Distribution Procedure to allocate the minimum penalty cost among countries. Their work provides the extension of the Shapley value cost allocation as a penalty to reduce CO2 emissions. The paper has implications for how to provide initiatives to improve cooperation on reducing CO2 emissions at an international level. Results show that a reduction in cost of only one country can be harmful for other countries. In this way, some countries can end up or worse off in a case where all countries experience a uniform decrease in their penalty cost. Therefore, the findings of this work suggest a low penalty-cost scenario that helps the countries fight for pollution reduction and provide fruitful links for policy-makers. They show that the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol could be implemented by the Shapley value cost allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Discussion on the Opinion Paper Hydrology and change" by Arie Ben-Zvi published in the 2014 issue of the journal.

This paper seeks to measure farmers' perceptions on climate variations, and examine the effects of such variations on cassava production in Ghana. Using a three-stage sampling technique involving cluster, stratified, and simple random sampling techniques, structured questionnaires were administered to 252 smallholder cassava farmers in the Awutu Senya District of the Central Region, Ghana. This was supplemented with focus group discussion sessions with male and female cassava farmers for the purpose of triangulating the quantitative and qualitative data. The study showed an overwhelming 98% of respondents, comprising 57% males, and 43% females, acknowledging to have noticed changes in the weather patterns over the last 30 years. While 85% of respondents said rainfall was decreasing, 75% said the rains did not come at the expected time, with 58% of them saying reduced rainy periods were the noticeable changes. Respondents attributed the changes in weather patterns to environmental degradation (72%), natural phenomenon (15%), and punishment by God (1%). Majority of them (97%) said they had suffered from decreasing yields in cassava as a result of seasonal variations in temperature and rainfall. The paper makes a strong case for activities that will bridge the knowledge-and-skill gap between male and female farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rockfalls influence the safety of the surrounding infrastructure and the normal operation of transportation lines. The application of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology is a new method of rock-fall monitoring and disaster prediction. This paper introduces a novel method to velocity estimation of rock-fall target utilizing SAR with low pulse repetition frequency (PRF) sampling. As is known to us, when PRF is less than the Doppler spectrum bandwidth, rock-fall target suffer both Doppler centroid frequency ambiguity and Doppler spectrum ambiguity. Under this condition, the traditional velocity estimation method in the Doppler domain is out of action. To solve above problem, this paper designs an improved reconstruction filter bank to reconstruct the Doppler spectrum of rock-fall target, and then Doppler in-band energy and Doppler out-of-band energy ratio of rock-fall target is utilized to estimate the velocity of rock-fall target. Simulation experiment results show the effectiveness of proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Potential changes in hydro-meteorological events have been causing mass damage to the economy and lives. Among several other factors, the progression of climate change over a long time is expected to cause non-stationarity in annual maximum rainfall. Understanding the characteristics of annual maximum rainfall series is crucial for coastal cities as they are highly vulnerable due to the greatly varying weather patterns. In this paper, we propose stationary and non-stationary methods to model the effect of non-stationarity on the differing duration of annual maximum rainfall and demonstrate the impacts on nine coastal cities spread across the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal stretch of India. The Bayesian inference parameter estimation technique was used. It was found that while stationary models often fit well for longer-duration rainfall, non-stationary models often best fit the short duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is becoming an increasing concern for many communities, particularly coastal communities subject to tidal and sea-level flooding. As a result, shoreline municipalities walk a fine line between protecting their communities and allowing more development. A prime example of this dilemma is the port city of Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Despite being ground zero for sea-level flooding, the city has seen rapid real estate development growth. This paper analyzes a survey conducted with Urban Land Institute (ULI) members in the Charleston region to understand how the real estate community is coping with and combating flooding impacts. Results show that while residential real estate developers are rethinking their development patterns, commercial developers are slow to recognize the threat of climate change impacts. The paper concludes with suggestions for policies and practices to address these threats, strengthen Charleston's commercial real estate, and better prepare the city for a safe, prosperous future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a visual analysis of the environmental webpages of 20 global companies, considered to be the world's greatest polluters in terms of their carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Our aim is to determine how these companies build a public reputation as environmentally concerned agents in relation to climate change. The analysis is based on the theoretical and methodological propositions put forward by Critical Discourse Analysis, ecolinguistics and multimodal analysis. More specifically, we take into account Kress and van Leeuwen's grammar of visual design, which enables us to describe and classify the images on webpages and to determine how these images are used to enforce certain narratives and ideologies. The paper also develops a comparative study of promotional strategies and the level of development and communicative efficiency of the sustainability webpages of Western and non-Western companies, on the one hand, and of global companies and environmental NGOs on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shares findings from a detailed empirical analysis of seven development projects in Kenya that supported remote pastoral communities facing food insecurity and other difficulties linked to environmental degradation and climate change. The projects sought to address these challenges by trialing various livelihood innovations in partnership with communities. These project activities were assessed using a tailored cost–benefit analysis methodology to identify those offering the best use of scarce funds, thus informing future policy and programing for such areas. This evidence suggests that (a) the difficulties communities face are creating a desperate situation, and (b) some of the innovations trialed hold promise while others are problematic. The evidence presented includes an array of local voices that vividly convey community-level dynamics and prospects. This evidence is set in context using the literatures on human security and its wider impacts, notably migration from the Sahel. This analysis found the circumstances of pastoral communities can significantly impact neighboring regions, with ongoing instability posing a threat while smart interventions that create local opportunities offer more synergistic outcomes. The paper concludes by calling for greater recognition of the options facing such communities and their wider significance as a basis for scaled up support measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review paper focuses on the question of what will happen to the future water resource system of Grand Renaissance Dam of Ethiopia based on the projected hydrology of the Upper Blue Nile River basin. For this, the hydrological extremes, the baseline hydrological trends, and projected hydrological extremes of the Upper Blue Nile River basin were reviewed from various published and unpublished sources. Changes in the future hydrology of the Upper Blue Nile River basin due to climate change or any other natural or manmade modification of the river basin deserve concerted attention in the future water resources system of the Grand Renaissance Dam of Ethiopia, because the water resources of the dam mainly depend on the water potential nature of the Upper Blue Nile River basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid climate change is impacting water resources in Afghanistan. The consequences are poorly known. Suitable mitigation and adaptation strategies have not been developed. Thus, this paper summarizes current status of knowledge in relation to Afghan water resources. More than 130 scientific articles, reports and data sources are synthesized to review the potential impacts of climate change on the cryosphere, streamflow, groundwater and hydrological extremes. The available information suggests that Afghanistan is currently witnessing significant increases in temperature, less so precipitation. There is evidence of shifts in the intra-annual distribution of streamflow, with reduced summer flows in non-glaciated basins and increased winter and spring streamflow. However, in the short-term there will be an increase in summer ice melt in glaciated basins, a "glacial subsidy", which sustains summer streamflow, despite reduced snow accumulation. The future prognosis for water resources is likely to be more serious when this glacier subsidy ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrological Sciences Journal/Journal des Sciences Hydrologiques is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In response to the pandemic of COVID-19, various unexpected environmental impacts in many countries have been rising. Millions of gloves and masks are used and thrown away daily around the globe. Incorrect disposal of COVID-19 waste without disinfection preparation could expose people and healthcare personnel to the possibility of spreading the infection of coronaviruses. This article finds an appropriate way to disinfect the waste of coronavirus-infected items by involving various physical factors, chemical and biological or physiological factors. Policymakers must immediately adopt disinfection technology to achieve green recovery of covid-19 waste that encourages development and sustains climate change. Regarding previously published papers and research results, this article intends to investigate the plastic pollution research status before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and outline safely disinfecting COVID-19 plastic waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, our world has experienced significant disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, impacting human activities and the global environment. This paper explored air quality changes in Ukraine due to COVID-19, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine using on-demand with a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach. During the COVID-19 pandemic, strict quarantine policies in Ukraine led to a 2% reduction in tropospheric NO2 concentration before the lockdown and 4% during the lockdown period. Cities like Kyiv, Donetsk, and Dnipro exhibited reductions of 5%, 11%, and 16%, respectively. Total SO2 column concentration decreased by 6% before the lockdown and 2.5% during the lockdown period, except in high population density areas. Kyiv showed the highest reduction of 17% in SO2 concentration, while Donetsk and Dnipro exhibited an 11% reduction. However, during the Russian invasion, there was a significant increase in tropospheric NO2 concentration in heavily destroyed Kharkiv while most eastern regions experienced a reduction. The total SO2 column was 48% higher before the war but reduced throughout the country after the war, except for in Kyiv and a few central regions. These findings can contribute to analyzing air pollution and building digital twin simulations for future reconstruction scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is an important driver of migration, but little research exists on whether migrant communities in the U.S. identify climate change-related factors as reasons for migrating. In 2021, we conducted a multidisciplinary, collaborative project to better understand the nexus of climate change and immigrant health in the Atlanta area. This paper presents one arm of this collaboration that explored both the role of climate change in decisions to immigrate to Georgia and the ways that climate change intersects with other possible drivers of migration. First generation migrants from Latin America were recruited primarily through CPACS Cosmo Health Center and were invited to participate in an intake survey and an in-depth interview. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Findings suggest that while participants may not have explicitly identified climate change as a primary reason for migration, in both surveys and in-depth interviews, participants reported multiple and intersecting social, economic, political, and environmental factors that are directly or indirectly influenced by climate change and that are involved in their decisions to migrate. The narratives that emerged from in-depth interviews further contextualised survey data and elucidated the complex nexus of climate change, migration, and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In striving to achieve the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda, governments have the opportunity to implement their climate and sustainability goals more coherently. Such coherence requires the coordination of interdependent policies across different policy fields, sectors and actors. This paper explores how governments design and implement synergic solutions to concomitantly achieve both international agendas. With the empirical cases of Germany and South Africa, we investigate two independent approaches to the synergic solution of a just energy transition, whereby countries aim to phase out coal as a means to tackle climate change while also ensuring that the achievement of other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is not hindered. Methodologically, we apply a deductive qualitative approach consisting of literature review, semi-structured interviews, and content analysis. To that end, we examine relevant policies and institutional arrangements by applying a combined conceptual framework of energy justice and just transition in both countries. We find major challenges in overcoming environmental, economic and social burdens of the coal phase-out, especially related to jobs and inequality (SDGs 8, 10) and the Water-Energy-Food-Land nexus (SDGs 2, 6, 7, 15). Through the selection of Germany and South Africa, we illustrate how countries with different political, social and economic backgrounds strive to manage such a transition. Our developed framework and case-studies' findings point towards important considerations when designing just energy transition pathways, such as ensuring inclusiveness in decision-making, thoroughly assessing social, economic and environmental impacts, and adequately coordinating across different actors and the local, provincial and national levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper briefly reviews recent and current approaches to the formulation and implementation of urban housing policies in towns and cities in the global South, with emphasis on local government-community participation and partnerships. It looks ahead into the implications of the lasting impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and tenets of climate change that will constitute the 'New Normal'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UNFCC on climate change specifies that all nations must follow the rule of 'common' with differentiation regarding their responsibilities for the protection of the global environmental system. Recently, the formulation and stability of the IEA have been increased in the literature by applying the concept of game theory to make the climate agreements successful at the national and the international level. This study provides a novel evolutionary game theoretic model of self-enforcing IEA to overcome the free rider problem. The fundamental difference between our paper and existing literature is that we examine enforcement within a model as IEA has a governing authority while the typical model of enforcement involves a government enforcing a rule that it has imposed. For this purpose, we assign countries into different grades according to their pollution levels, consider a combination of rewards and penalties, use replicator dynamics to derive the conditions for the population steady state, and examine how the proposed regulatory mechanism fares in this steady state. This framework enables us to avoid the free rider and renegotiation problems as well as the rationality assumption. We establish the condition for evolutionary stability. The global environmental problem is managed effectively as a reward-punishment scheme and the monitoring frequency of IEA fulfills this condition. Our results provide an allocation principal with stable conditions under which countries get more benefits by monitoring the IEA and stability of the grand coalition holds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reliance on petroleum derivatives and the increasing trend of fuel consumption in the transport sector have brought attention to biofuels as a measure to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, enhance energy security and boost economic development. The incentive for utilizing biofuels is their potential to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions compared to fossil fuels. Biofuels are considered to be carbon-neutral, regarding the direct CO2 emissions associated with their combustion, on the grounds that the carbon dioxide absorbed by the plants through photosynthesis is equivalent to the CO2 released during their combustion. However, a part of the carbon of biofuels may have a fossil origin and therefore, it is responsible for "non-neutral" CO2 emissions. This was recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its guidelines for greenhouse gas inventories. Nevertheless, specific guidance of how to estimate fossil CO2 emissions per each type of biofuel, in order to facilitate the work of emission inventory compilers and practitioners, is neither available in the IPCC guidelines nor in the scientific literature. The purpose of this paper is to define a higher tier method to estimate the associated CO2 emissions with the fossil carbon content of biofuels, aiming to cover all possible biofuel types that are mainly used nowadays to replace diesel and gasoline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low-carbon future is a global challenge; it requires local answers that take into account the different conditions and specificities of individual regions. The Alps are one of the most sensitive areas to the transition to a low-carbon future owing to the effects of climate change, and the abundance of natural resources for the production of renewable energy. Generating and spreading awareness in this region is still a key issue for the implementation of a sustainable transition. This paper presents the application of a strategic planning approach (visioneering) to encourage a regional response in an alpine region (Cadore, Italy). The purpose of the empirical research is to improve the regional approach by stimulating social learning, by testing the visioneering approach and through use of related visual material. The conclusions show that visioneering can impact on a regional approach effectively by clarifying the individual's role in the transition, and the actions that the region and individuals can effectively take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores efforts to coordinate strategies promoting sustainable development - with specific focus on mobility and transport in climate change mitigation - across administrative boundaries in the city and county of Göttingen, Germany. The paper questions the possibility to develop and align strategic objectives and implementation across administrative boundaries when relying on short-term project funds. The experiences of key stakeholders in Göttingen are presented, with reference to empirical data from a document and interview study. Results indicate that reliance on short-term, project-based funding from external sources offers both opportunities and challenges for locally and regionally integrated strategy formulation and implementation. Five factors shaping the strategy space of actors are used to frame the analysis, with findings suggesting the need for further research on how local authorities overcome capacity and resource limitations, particularly with respect to complex challenges such as climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change impact search methodologies, for a single hydro-meteorological record, are based mostly on probabilistic, statistical and stochastic processes. The application of these methodologies requires some restrictive assumptions for their validation, which may not be embedded in the structure of the record. Either transformations or approximations are taken into consideration, with idealization and simplification assumptions. In this paper, a series of conceptual trend polygon methodologies are presented without mathematical expression or restrictive assumptions. These are serial, cross- and double polygonal trend methods, in addition to trend star graphs. They help in identifying, interpreting and calculating monthly shifts, producing useful scientific information that cannot be obtained by the classical monotonic trend identification approaches. The methodology is applied to hydro-meteorological series from different regions of the world including precipitation and discharge records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Horn of Africa is at stake concerning climate change. The considerable population size of the Horn of Africa is a pastoral community living out of livestock and small farmers living in subsistence agricultural production. The loss of livestock and harvests resulting from a drought causes the deprivation of millions of citizens. The effect has triggered mass migration within and several offshore destinations. The question is, while Africa produces a low carbon emission, remains the primary victims of climate change. Africa lacks resources and technical expertise to respond to the devastating effects of climate change. This study aims to analyse the agency of climate change as a social and political process. Therefore, this paper seeks remedies on how to avert climate change threats by examining the collective responsibilities and different stakeholders. The article would conduct an inquiry on the responsibility of industrial nations vis-à-vis climate change. The paper employs a qualitative research method to explores how to mitigate climate change threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Iberian Peninsula is a climate change hotspot, where the temperature is increasing faster than the global annual mean surface temperature, with the largest reduction of precipitation. Consequently, freshwater availability is expected to decrease substantially. In this context, freshwater systems are especially vulnerable in terms of meeting the water demands and ecosystem requirements we know today. In this paper, we present an extension of the eco-engineering decision scaling (EEDS) method to explore trade-offs in agricultural and ecologic metrics at the catchment scale across a range of unknown future hydrological and climate states. The extended EEDS method evaluates current water resource management rules focusing on agricultural and ecologic objectives, identifies climate hazards that make the system fail and assesses climate risk in three time horizons for the design of adaptation measures. The case study is the Serpis River basin, Spain, where 72% of available water is used for agricultural purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]