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Following the Paris Agreement, virtually all countries worldwide have committed themselves to undertaking efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. Within the European Union (EU), the recent ‘Fit for 55’ policy package proposes ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies for all sectors as part of the EU's contribution to limiting global warming. Yet, it is unclear whether the proposed policies are sufficient for the EU to limit global warming to 1.5 °C and it remains an open policy problem how to translate global temperature targets into sector-specific emission budgets and further into sector-specific policies. Here, we derive GHG budgets for transport in EU27 and obtain GHG mitigation pathways for Europe consistent with 1.5 °C global warming. We do not provide a comprehensive assessment of the ‘Fit for 55’ transport package but we discuss the main policies for road transport in light of the GHG emission budgets, their level of ambition, and suggest amendments to these policies as well as improvements to the ‘Fit for 55’ package. Our results suggest that parts of the ‘Fit for 55’ for transport are still not ambitious enough to align with a 1.5 °C scenario. Key policy insightsA Paris-compatible residual carbon budget for EU transport is 10–12 Gt CO2.The budget implies net zero emissions for EU transport by 2044–2048 latest.We find the current ‘Fit for 55’ proposal for transport is not ambitious enough.A faster phase-out of cars and trucks with combustion engines is required and there is a need for ambitious standards for fast charging e-vehicles.CO2 pricing of transport is not a substitute but a complement to fleet targets. A Paris-compatible residual carbon budget for EU transport is 10–12 Gt CO2. The budget implies net zero emissions for EU transport by 2044–2048 latest. We find the current ‘Fit for 55’ proposal for transport is not ambitious enough. A faster phase-out of cars and trucks with combustion engines is required and there is a need for ambitious standards for fast charging e-vehicles. CO2 pricing of transport is not a substitute but a complement to fleet targets.

The perception of greater impact via new sinks, as opposed to through avoided emissions, has already led some large investors to focus on sink-related projects. This is a flawed perception when applied universally and carries a risk that effective routes to mitigation through avoiding emissions are side-lined. In reality, both emissions avoidance and emissions removal are needed, and both can be a cost-effective means of delivering mitigation.

Research paper on soil organic carbon and nitrogen storage andstabilization mechanisms under different crop diversification practices in semiarid rainfed and irrigated woody crops

The object of the study is sawdust as a potential raw material for climate change mitigation in the indoor environment. The method of the mixture was used to determine the specific heat capacity of the sawdust sample, while its thermal conductivity was determined using the Lee disc method. The results of the study showed that the specific heat capacity of the sawdust is 54.9271J·g–1·K–1and that of thermal conductivity is 0.12W/m·K. The implication of the results is that Sawdust needs about 54.9271J·g–1·K–1to raise its unit mass by 1 °C and a comparably very low thermal conductivity of 0.12 W/m·K. Sawdust can be used as a composite material for roofing, and ceilings to drastically reduce the rate at which the heat energy from the sun is transferred into the indoor environment and consequently reduce the effects of climate change on the indoor environment. Sawdust that is not properly managed or disposed can pose serious problems to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, fuel fire outbreaks and health problems such as severe allergic reactions. Therefore, discovering other reuse options for sawdust will reduce the problems it poses to the environment.

Measures that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions also have impacts on achieving other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Given the enormous challenge of achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and the SDGs, insight into these impacts provides information on how to improve the feasibility of climate change mitigation measures by maximizing the co-benefits and managing the risks of possible trade-offs across SDGs. In this paper, we explore the impact of 20 promising climate mitigation measures on achieving the other SDGs for 11 world regions. Using the IMAGE modelling framework, the paper explores the GHG emission reduction potential of these measures aggregated by the sector under three scenarios. Based on peer-reviewed articles, the impact of the measures on other SDGs is assessed for the top three sectors with the highest GHG reduction potential in each region. We conclude that the number of synergies between the selected climate change mitigation measures and other SDGs dwarf the number of trade-offs in all regions. The magnitude of these synergies and trade-offs, however, varies by regional and socio-economic context. In high- and middle-income regions, the mitigation measures show few trade-offs that are generally associated with technology choices that could aggravate inequality and impact biodiversity. In low-income regions, some measures, especially land-use related ones, could interfere with efforts to reduce poverty, end hunger and improve well-being, if not complemented by additional policies that aim to protect the poor from increasing food and energy prices.

The soil pool is the primary sink for carbon in mangrove wetlands and plays a major role in mitigating climate change. However, aquaculture pond expansions go further to disrupt carbon storage in mangroves. The aim of this study is to estimate the stock of soil organic carbon (SOC) in the mangrove area of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The mangroves of Sinjai District in South Sulawesi are a disturbed region with no previous study on SOC stock. We implemented a line transect method at five study sites, collected 15 soil cores at a depth of 0–15 cm, 15–30 cm, and 30–50 cm, and performed soil analysis using the Loss on Ignition method. We find that the mean value of SOC stock is 413.10±12.37 Mg C ha–1. More attention to the conservation and restoration of lost mangrove areas is a high priority. It may also increase the stock of SOC to mitigate climate change. This study will help to preserve the remaining mangroves.

Addressing urgent global climate change and inequality issues has been a major challenge for the ten AMS (ASEAN Member countries) given the diversity and local agendas with divergent political, economic, and social objectives. While regional policy frameworks prioritise harmonisation and inter-regional integration outcomes over national inequality and climate change policy goals, governments typically address the latter through discretionary policy add-ons that lead to policy fragmentation and competing fiscal goals that interfere with intermediate development plans. To achieve the aspired inequality outcomes (Regional Framework and Action Plan, ASEAN Declaration, 2013) and the ratified global climate targets (Paris Treaty 2015) simultaneously, such policy outcomes and commitments to collaborative policy action will need to be aligned within an integrated policy framework at the regional or global level, and externalities of economic activity internalised into a sustainable and inclusive fiscal model. Focusing on policy design, integration and evaluation aspects, this paper tests the hypothesis that, given the urgency of these issues, the ASEAN governments devised corrective and preventive measures to systematically mitigate these externalities through intervention at the policy level and multilateral coordination at the regional and global levels to achieve pro-green and pro-equity policy outcomes with a net social surplus. Adopting a qualitative methodology, this study conducts a structured literature search and subsequent document analysis, using advanced text mining techniques to extract, contextualise and map policy-relevant themes by geopolitical scope, policy intent and outcomes. Literature evidence confirmed that the ASEAN Member States have recognised and acknowledged the urgency of climate change and inequality challenges, and that these governments intervene at the local policy level and also engage in multilateral discussions, which lack formal commitment and transparency. This study could not produce literature evidence of a systematic approach by these governments internalising mitigation mechanisms into the fiscal policy frameworks to achieve the aspired inclusive and sustainable outcomes - by design, rather than discretionary policy add-ons - and thus, the hypothesis was rejected. Keywords: Sustainable fiscal policy, inclusive growth, climate change mitigation, policy integration, multilateral intervention, document analysis.

This study characterizes the spatiotemporal solar radiation and air temperature patterns and their dependence on the general atmospheric circulation characterized by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index in Germany from 1991 to 2015. Germany was selected as the study area because it can be subdivided into three climatologically different regions: the North German lowlands are under the maritime influence of the North and Baltic Seas. Several low mountain ranges dominate Germany’s center. In the south, the highest low mountain ranges and the Alps govern solar radiation and air temperature differently. Solar radiation and air temperature patterns were studied in the context of the NAO index using daily values from satellite and ground measurements. The most significant long-term solar radiation increase was observed in spring, mainly due to seasonal changes in cloud cover. Air temperature shows a noticeable increase in spring and autumn. Solar radiation and air temperature were significantly correlated in spring and autumn, with correlation coefficient values up to 0.93. In addition, a significant dependence of solar radiation and air temperature on the NAO index was revealed, with correlation coefficient values greater than 0.66. The results obtained are important not only for studies on the climate of the study area but also for photovoltaic system operators to design their systems. They need to be massively expanded to support Germany’s climate neutrality ambitions until 2045.

This paper considers one altruistic developed country and several heterogeneous developing countries. We demonstrate that the lack of coordination between countries in tackling climate change finds an optimal solution if developing countries can expect to receive development aid transfers from the developed country. The mechanism requires a sufficiently high level of altruism and specific timing, but a global coalition is not necessary. We also show that the developed country may democratically assign a delegate who is more altruistic than its median voter in order to benefit from the efficiency gain generated by positive development aid transfers., Environmental and Resource Economics, 84 (1), ISSN:0924-6460, ISSN:1573-1502

The climate impact of carbon capture and storage depends on how much CO2 is stored underground, yet databases of industrial-scale projects report capture capacity as a measure of project size. We review publicly available sources to estimate the amount of CO2 that has been stored by facilities since 1996. We organize these sources into three categories corresponding to the associated degree of assurance: (1) legal assurance, (2) quality assurance through auditing, and (3) no assurance. Data were found for 20 facilities, with an aggregate capture capacity of 36 Mt of CO2 year–1. Combining data from all categories, we estimate that 29 Mt of CO2 was geologically stored in 2019 and there was cumulative storage of 197 Mt over the period of 1996–2020. These are climate relevant scales commensurate with recent cumulative and ongoing emissions impacts of renewables in some markets, e.g., solar photovoltaics in the United States. The widely used capture capacity is in aggregate 19–30% higher than storage rates and is not a good proxy for estimating storage volumes. However, the discrepancy is project-specific and not always a reflection of project performance. This work provides a snapshot of storage amounts and highlights the need for uniform reporting on capture and storage rates with quality assurance.

Coastal wetlands in San Diego County have experienced a significant decline in their extent over the past century due to erosion, sea-level rise, and development. Understanding the historical and current conditions of these wetlands is essential for effective management and restoration efforts. Furthermore, assessing the economic value of the ecosystem services provided by these wetlands is crucial for making informed decisions regarding their conservation and restoration. This paper presents a detailed valuation of two ecosystem services provided by San Diego County wetlands: nursery habitats for California halibut and carbon sequestration through blue carbon ecosystems. The valuation is based on existing scientific literature and government reports, and a Monte Carlo simulation is employed to account for the uncertainties associated with the complex and dynamic nature of coastal wetlands. The results indicate that these wetlands provide substantial economic benefits to the California halibut commercial fishery, valued at almost $998 thousand annually. The net present value analysis suggests that these wetlands could generate over $30.7 million in net benefits to the commercial fishery through the end of the century, assuming the habitats remain intact. Additionally, the wetlands contribute almost $5 million annually in natural capital through the production of juvenile California halibut. Utilizing a social cost of carbon value of $120/metric ton of CO2, local eelgrass beds, salt marshes, and mudflats are valued at over $1.6 million annually, with over 50% coming from eelgrass beds. The net present value analysis suggests that these wetlands could generate over $50 million in net benefits via carbon sequestration through the end of the century, assuming the habitats remain intact. This detailed valuation approach provides valuable information for policymakers and the public, facilitating better decision-making and increased awareness of the importance of protecting and restoring coastal wetland ecosystems for their ecological and economic contributions.See full project here:https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/d3456f12100047b2a979df40a59c8357

Reducing agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is key to achieve overall climate policy goals. Effective and efficient policy instruments are needed to incentivize farmers' adoption of on-farm climate change mitigation practices. We compare action- and results-based policy designs for GHG reduction in agriculture and account for farmers' heterogeneous behavioral characteristics such as individual farming preferences, reluctance to change and social interactions. An agent-based bio-economic modeling approach is used to simulate total GHG reduction, overall governmental spending and farm-level marginal abatement cost of Swiss dairy and beef cattle farms under both action- and results-based policy designs. We find that total governmental spending associated with the compared policy designs depends on the cost and benefits of the considered measures as well as behavioral characteristics of farmers. More precisely, if farmers are reluctant to change, additional incentives are needed to increase adoption of a win-win measure. In such a case, targeting the payment on the cost of that particular measure (action-based design) instead of paying a uniform amount for abated emissions (results-based design) can lower governmental spending for agricultural climate change mitigation. Farm-level marginal cost of reducing GHG emissions are lower with results-based payments independent of the cost of measures. Moreover, we find that farmers' individual preferences and reluctance to change substantially lower the adoption of mitigation measures and hence overall GHG reduction potential of farms., Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, ISSN:2040-5790, ISSN:2040-5804

Drought and heat stress affect global wheat production and food security. Since these climate hazards are expected to increase in frequency and intensity due to anthropogenic climate change, there is a growing need for effective planning and adaptive actions at all timescales relevant to the stakeholders and users in this sector. This work aims at assessing the forecast quality in predicting the evolution of drought and heat stress by using user-relevant agro-climatic indices such as Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Heat Magnitude Day Index (HMDI) on a multi-annual timescale, as this time horizon coincides with the long-term strategic planning of stakeholders in the wheat sector. We present the probabilistic skill and reliability of initialized decadal forecast to predict these indices for the months preceding the wheat harvest on a global spatial scale. The results reveal the usefulness of the study in a climate services context while showing that decadal climate forecasts are skillful and reliable over several wheat harvesting regions. We would like to acknowledge financial support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (MED-GOLD; Grant No. 776467, EUCP; Grant No. 776613 and FOCUS-Africa; Grant No. 869575) and from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) as part of the project CLINSA (Grant No. CGL2017-85791-R). This study has also received support from C3S_34c (contract number: ECMWF/COPERNICUS/2019/C3S_34c_DWD) of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) operated by ECMWF. B.S.M. acknowledges additional financial support from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship (Grant No. 713673) and from a fellowship of ’la Caixa’ Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/IN17/11620038.

The world is experiencing an energy crisis and environmental issues due to the depletion of fossil fuels and the continuous increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. Microalgal biofuels are produced using sunlight, water, and simple salt minerals. Their high growth rate, photosynthesis, and carbon dioxide sequestration capacity make them one of the most important biorefinery platforms. Furthermore, microalgae's ability to alter their metabolism in response to environmental stresses to produce relatively high levels of high-value compounds makes them a promising alternative to fossil fuels. As a result, microalgae can significantly contribute to long-term solutions to critical global issues such as the energy crisis and climate change. The environmental benefits of algal biofuel have been demonstrated by significant reductions in carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur oxide emissions. Microalgae-derived biomass has the potential to generate a wide range of commercially important high-value compounds, novel materials, and feedstock for a variety of industries, including cosmetics, food, and feed. This review evaluates the potential of using microalgal biomass to produce a variety of bioenergy carriers, including biodiesel from stored lipids, alcohols from reserved carbohydrate fermentation, and hydrogen, syngas, methane, biochar and bio-oils via anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, and gasification. Furthermore, the potential use of microalgal biomass in carbon sequestration routes as an atmospheric carbon removal approach is being evaluated. The cost of algal biofuel production is primarily determined by culturing (77%), harvesting (12%), and lipid extraction (7.9%). As a result, the choice of microalgal species and cultivation mode (autotrophic, heterotrophic, and mixotrophic) are important factors in controlling biomass and bioenergy production, as well as fuel properties. The simultaneous production of microalgal biomass in agricultural, municipal, or industrial wastewater is a low-cost option that could significantly reduce economic and environmental costs while also providing a valuable remediation service. Microalgae have also been proposed as a viable candidate for carbon dioxide capture from the atmosphere or an industrial point source. Microalgae can sequester 1.3 kg of carbon dioxide to produce 1 kg of biomass. Using potent microalgal strains in efficient design bioreactors for carbon dioxide sequestration is thus a challenge. Microalgae can theoretically use up to 9% of light energy to capture and convert 513 tons of carbon dioxide into 280 tons of dry biomass per hectare per year in open and closed cultures. Using an integrated microalgal bio-refinery to recover high-value-added products could reduce waste and create efficient biomass processing into bioenergy. To design an efficient atmospheric carbon removal system, algal biomass cultivation should be coupled with thermochemical technologies, such as pyrolysis.

Within environmental governance regimes such as the United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), uncertainty surrounding forest carbon offset commensurability is often regarded as a technical failing that can be resolved through additional data collection or new scientific methods. Though efforts to reduce uncertainty through extensive carbon accounting has generated immense datasets, uncertainty surrounding the commensurability of forest carbon offsets remains, emerging from the neoliberal political economic context as much as from scientific data gaps. Drawing on an analysis of a REDD+ project in Indonesia’s peatlands, this article shows that incompatibilities between scientific uncertainty and financial uncertainty emerged through this forest carbon offset project and, more broadly, that incompatible uncertainty acts as a knowledge regime in the context of hegemonic discourses that connect Indonesia’s degraded peatlands to climate change. This article thus argues that in neoliberal land use-based climate change mitigation projects, it is not the inevitable, enduring presence of scientific or market-based uncertainty that stymies project implementation but the incompatibility of these two forms of uncertainty. By exploring how the drive for more data leads to more uncertainty, in turn spurring the pursuit of more data in lieu of other forms of project action, this article contributes to scholarship on the politics of knowing and un-knowing in environmental governance.

Economics takes an individualistic approach to human behaviour. This is reflected in the use of 'contingent valuation' surveys to conduct cost benefit analysis for economic policy evaluation. An individual's valuation of a policy is assumed to be unaffected by the burdens it places on others. We report a survey experiment to test this supposition in the context of climate change policy. Willingness to pay for climate change mitigation was higher when richer individuals were to bear higher costs than when, as is usual, no explicit information was provided about cost distribution. This result is inconsistent with the usual interpretation of contingent valuation data. It also suggests that the data may be biased indicators of policy acceptance. Additional survey questions suggest that a collective mode of reasoning is common.

Biomass and carbon content are essential indicators for monitoring forest ecosystems and their role in climate action, but their estimation is not straightforward. A typical approach to solve these limitations has been the estimation of tree or stand biomass based on forest inventory data, using either allometric equations or biomass expansion factors. Many allometric equations exist, but very few studies have assessed how the calculation methods used may impact outcomes and how this impact depends on genera, functional group, climate or forest structural attributes. In this study we evaluate the differences in biomass estimates yielded by the most widely used biomass equations in Spain. We first quantify the discrepancies at tree level and among the main forest tree species. We observed that the divergences in carbon estimations between different equations increased with tree size, especially in the case of hardwoods and for diameters beyond the range used to calibrate the equations. At the plot level, we found considerable differences between the biomass values predicted using different methods (above 25% in one out of three plots), which constitutes a warning against the uncritical choice of equations to determine biomass or carbon values. The spatial representation of the differences revealed geographical patterns related to the dominance of fast-growing species such as Eucalyptus or Pinus pinaster, with a minor effect of forest structure, and almost no effect of climate. Finally, we observed that differences were mostly due to the data source rather than the modelling approach or equation used. Based on our results, BEF equations seem a valid and unbiased option to provide nation-level estimations of carbon balance, although local equations should preferably be used if they are available for the target area. This work was funded by the LIFE CLIMARK project (LIFE16 CCM/ES/000065) and by the Spanish State Research Agency through the UMBRACLIM project (PID2019-111781RB-I00). The authors would like to thank Lluis Coll for helpful discussions during the conceptualization of the study and Pere Gelabert for his help in map design and creation. Special thanks to Miquel de Caceres, Jordi Vayreda and Jordi Martinez-Vilalta for the creation of the Catalan Forestry Lab and the gathering and release of the IEFC data.

COVID-19 is a severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and quarantines have led to significant industrial slowdowns among the world’s major emitters of air pollutants, with resulting decreases to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in nations such as China, India and US, deemed to be major sources of global CO2 emissions, as well. However, there are major concerns that these decreases in atmospheric pollution can be hampered as economies are reactivated. Historically, countries have weakened environmental legislations following economic slowdown to encourage renewed economic growth. Such a policy response now will likely have disproportionate impacts on global Indigenous people and marginalized groups within countries, who have already faced disproportionate impacts from COVID-19 and environmental pollution. Our “new normal” remain nimble enough to allow us to fine-tune our interventions, research tools and solutions-oriented research to quickly enough to stay ahead of the pandemic trajectory in the face of air pollution and climate change. Societal and behavioral changes to reduce these anthropogenic cumulative stressors should be advocated, while prioritizing the public health of marginalized groups around the world, promoting new approaches to champion environmental health along with educational programs addressed to the population. Bold government decisions can restart economies while pre-empting future inequities and committing to environmental protection in an era of COVID-19 and global change.

Globally, drastic biodiversity declines and the worsening climate crisis demand overhaul of existing land use policies which have failed to reconcile food production and environmental conservation. In Europe, most existing policies compensate farmers to voluntarily implement land-sharing measures, commonly referred to as wildlife-friendly farming, which seeks to deliver conservation benefits on the farmed land through agri-environment schemes (AES) offering a fixed price per hectare. Investment into sharing has continued despite the accumulation of evidence showing that, for the same amount of lost food production, substantially more would be delivered for conservation and climate change mitigation with the contrasting approach of land sparing, where high-yield farming allows large areas to be spared elsewhere in the landscape as (semi-)natural habitat. Following Brexit, the UK has the opportunity to rethink this approach; but until now policy decisions have had to be made without estimates of the relative taxpayer costs of using sharing and sparing to deliver target conservation outcomes. Addressing this critical research gap was the primary aim of this thesis, as follows. In this thesis, I sought to uncover the taxpayer and food production costs of delivering meaningful conservation outcomes with land sharing and sparing. First, I conducted a novel comparison of the costs of monitoring sharing and sparing schemes for compliance and effectiveness. Monitoring is a fundamental, though often overlooked, taxpayer cost. In terms of effectiveness monitoring, I found current monitoring levels to be insufficient to precisely determine the effects on wild species of sharing schemes; in contrast, the same effort could deliver relatively precise estimates of the much larger effects of sparing. Furthermore, turning to compliance monitoring, I found the cost-effectiveness of existing English AES could be vastly improved with more compliance monitoring; however, this may be politically unpopular with farmers. It is therefore notable that I also found relatively less money was wasted when monitoring sparing at a sub-optimal rate compared to sharing. Second, I used a discrete choice experiment involving 118 arable farmers to establish their willingness to accept (WTA) payment to participate in sharing and sparing schemes that delivered the same biodiversity and carbon outcomes. I found that all but the most farmland-tolerant outcomes were delivered at less taxpayer expense with sparing. Third, combining this assessment of farmer WTA with knowledge of how much schemes must be monitored, I compared the taxpayer costs of delivering the same environmental outcomes with fixed-price sharing and sparing schemes which paid all recruits at the WTA of the least-willing farmer required in the scheme to deliver the target outcome. I found that sparing delivered the same outcomes at less than half the taxpayer cost of sharing; and, importantly, sparing saw only 79% of the food production lost under sharing. Fourth, I examined the distribution of farmer stated WTA, finding that variation in responses was mostly driven by factors other than lost gross margin. Given marked inter-farmer variation in their stated WTA, variable-price schemes, which pay farmers their stated WTA rather than the rate required by the least-willing participant, offered savings to both sharing and sparing schemes. However, even under variable pricing, sharing was not cheaper than sparing in delivering our more farmland-sensitive outcomes. Finally, I examined whether a land-purchase strategy, where the government purchases land and then contracts organisations to manage and create habitat on it, would deliver sparing at less expense than a farm-subsidy approach. I found land purchase was more cost effective than the farm-subsidy approach if long timeframes, low discount rates and large budgets were considered; however the impacts on farming communities of largescale ownership changes warrant further consideration. To conclude, I found overwhelming evidence for UK arable farming that land sparing can deliver biodiversity and carbon outcomes at substantially lower cost than land sharing both in terms of taxpayer costs and lost food production. The relative costs of sharing would increase even more with consideration of species that do not tolerate farmland, in a country with a shorter history of agriculture where fewer habitat specialists have gone extinct compared the UK, and if the production required elsewhere to compensate greater volume of food production lost under sharing was taken into account. Furthermore, the effects of sharing may be near-impossible to precisely determine with current monitoring efforts and continued sub-optimal compliance monitoring would increase the costs of sharing-like options relatively more than the more sparing-like options of existing AES. Whilst variable pricing and land purchase may further reduce the costs of sparing, the costs of delivering meaningful environmental outcomes are most substantially reduced by pursuing a land-sparing, rather than land-sharing, approach. This work is of considerable significance to the UK government, given that prevailing land-sharing policy approaches can at best deliver less than half the environmental outcomes delivered by the same budget spent on land sparing., Cambridge Trust; Hughes Hall

Behavioral change is essential to mitigate climate change. To advance current knowledge, we synthesize research on interventions aiming to promote climate change mitigation behaviors in field settings. In a preregistered second-order meta-analysis, we assess the overall effect of 10 meta-analyses, incorporating a total of 430 primary studies. In addition, we assess subgroup analyses for six types of interventions, five behaviors, and three publication bias adjustments. Results showed that climate change mitigation interventions were generally effective ( d unadjusted = 0.31, 95% CI [0.30, 0.32]). A follow-up analysis using only unique primary studies, adjusted for publication bias, provides a more conservative overall estimate ( d = 0.18, 95% CI [0.13, 0.24]). This translates into a mean treatment effect of 7 percentage points. Furthermore, in a subsample of adequately powered large-scale interventions ( n > 9,000, k = 32), the effect was adjusted downward to approximately 2 percentage points. This discrepancy might be because large-scale interventions often target nonvoluntary participants by less direct techniques (e.g., “home energy reports”) while small-scale interventions often target voluntary participants by more direct techniques (e.g., face-to-face interactions). Subgroup analyses showed that interventions based on social comparisons or financial incentives were the most effective, while education or feedback was the least effective. These results provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art summary of climate change mitigation interventions, guiding both future research and practice.

Ecosystem restoration is an important means to address global sustainability challenges. However, scientific and policy discourse often overlooks the social processes that influence the equity and effectiveness of restoration interventions. In the present article, we outline how social processes that are critical to restoration equity and effectiveness can be better incorporated in restoration science and policy. Drawing from existing case studies, we show how projects that align with local people's preferences and are implemented through inclusive governance are more likely to lead to improved social, ecological, and environmental outcomes. To underscore the importance of social considerations in restoration, we overlay existing global restoration priority maps, population, and the Human Development Index (HDI) to show that approximately 1.4 billion people, disproportionately belonging to groups with low HDI, live in areas identified by previous studies as being of high restoration priority. We conclude with five action points for science and policy to promote equity-centered restoration., Bioscience, 73 (2), ISSN:0006-3568, ISSN:1525-3244

This paper examines how Canadian media have discussed the role of natural gas in climate change mitigation from 2016 to 2019. It also explicates different stakeholders' varying stances on the environmental impacts of North America's ongoing “shale gas boom,” as manifested in their conflicting attitudes toward designating unconventional gas as a bridge to a low-carbon future. The data in question consist of 99 articles published by Canadian media sources, all of which included explicit references to either “bridge fuel” or “transition fuel.” Through a qualitative thematic analysis, I found that more than half of the articles adopted the conventional definition of bridge fuel. Meanwhile, there are three less common, yet noteworthy interpretations arising out of the rest of the articles, which conflict with each other in terms of their views on the relationship between unconventional gas and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. Overall, the fact that bridge fuel references only appeared in a fraction of Canadian environmental and energy news reports during the target period suggests the issue's peripheral status in the Canadian media sphere. Given this situation, the paper ends by calling for more knowledge mobilization efforts to raise public awareness of the controversial factors underlying expanding unconventional gas production and consumption.

The quantification of the effect of climate change mitigation actions is avery useful exercise that can be used to meet a variety of objectives, such asinforming policy design, enhancing policy implementation, assessing policyeffectiveness, justifying budget allocation, and attracting climate finance. Itis also a reporting requirement according to the reporting framework of theUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) andthe Monitoring Mechanism Regulation of the European Union (EU) aboutclimate change relevant information. However, the reporting of emissionssavings associated to mitigation actions by EU Member States is not com-plete, according to recent technical reports of the European EnvironmentalAgency. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodological frameworkthat can be used to quantify the effect (i.e. emission reductions) of themitigation actions. It is based on comprehensive and transparent models andformulas that could be easily tracked and reproduced. The proposed frame-work could be easily applied by EU Member States, but also by other non-EUcountries, to enhance the reporting of climate change related informationto European Commission and UN bodies. By applying the methodologicalframework for Greece, as a case study, it was possible to estimate the effectof implemented policies and measures for historical years (ex-post analysis),but also to estimate the projected effect (ex-ante analysis) of implemented,adopted and planned policies for future years (e.g. 2030).

This is the registration of a scoping review protocol titled 'Measuring and valuing the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation: a scoping review protocol". This scoping review aims to identify the different approaches that have been used to measure and value health co-benefits in the climate change mitigation literature.

This article analyzes the acceptance of climate policy measures in the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam to understand how policy and planning interrelate with private and public interests. While legitimizing climate policy and measures, values can also cause conflict when operationalized locally. By analyzing value conflicts in public discourse, we gain insights into questions of environmental behavior and their influence on the acceptance of climate action. We report on quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis covering 410 articles from Dutch newspapers between 2015 and 2021 in the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam related to the energy transition, mobility, and urban greening. Our findings show that public discourse mostly remains abstract and detached from local contexts. As experts and politicians dominate the debate, the discourse mainly addresses science- and policy-related arguments, representing the public interest but reflecting only insufficiently private interests and the local (re-)distribution of benefits and burdens. Therefore, we attribute spontaneous protest to the lack of reference to differentiated values at the local level and find the argument of NIMBYism insufficient to explain residents’ opposition. Instead, our findings point to experts’ and decision-makers’ lack of recognition of the local “idea of place” and a community’s identity as an explanation for the sudden emergence of protests. Here, urban design may bridge the gap between policy and planning by translating technical and economic constraints into place-specific designs.

For his human rights capstone project, Eddie Dilworth created a guide to national environmental justice screening tools from the Center for Diseases Control (CDC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). These tools are meant to screen for communities that may face disproportionate burdens from climate change and environmental issues, and generally combine data on both environmental burdens, and socioeconomic factors to highlight these communities, including for additional research attention or government resources. However, it is challenging to read each of their 35+ page technical documentation reports and make an informed decision on which screening tool to use and what its limitations may be. This project thus aims to summarize the technical documentations of the tools, provide demonstrations of how to use them, and outline their main differences, in ArcGIS StoryMaps.

Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing the world today, with potentially catastrophic consequences if we fail to mitigate the emission of climate greenhouse gases (IPCC, 2021). Despite this, progress towards mitigating the climate crisis has been rather slow and current projections calculate a 1.4 – 2.0 °C warming mid-way through the century (Yuan et al., 2022). One major obstacle to implementing effective climate policies is the need for broad public acceptance. In democratic societies, public opinion can play a crucial role in shaping policy outcomes, and thus finding effective ways to shape this opinion is essential. Previous research has identified that one key factor in public support towards climate policies is the perception of policy effectiveness (Bergquist et al., 2022). If people believe that policies will be effective in addressing the problem of climate change, they are more likely to support them. This factor is even stronger than climate change concern, or risk perception, and is only dwarfed by the perceived fairness of the policy. These findings beg the question of how to successfully align the perceived and real policy effectiveness. One potential way could be employing simulations. Simulations have been shown to be an effective way of teaching complex information. A meta-analysis by Chernikova et al. (2020) showed that simulations overall had a large positive effect on learning complex skills in higher education. They argue the reason for this is that simulations can provide direct feedback in the interactive experience they are situated in. We argue that this effect of simulations on learning could also expand the understanding of climate change policies and could exceed the effect of other forms of communication, such as the provision of plain text. In this study, therefore, we aim to explore whether simulations can be used to influence people's knowledge and thus perception of policy effectiveness, and ultimately to increase public acceptance for effective climate policies. By investigating these issues, we want to contribute to a better understanding of the possibilities of simulations as a tool for influencing public attitudes and acceptance for climate policies. Ultimately, this research can help to pave the way for more effective and impactful climate policy communication.

Gabby Crooks’ capstone project aims to interrogate how the issue of climate migration has been approached at the international level and how treaty bodies like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Human Rights Committee have litigated this issue. She notes that while climate-induced migration has become increasingly relevant to the discourse surrounding the global climate crisis and migration worldwide, still, climate refugees are not a protected class according to international law, particularly in looking at the Refugee Convention. This project further analyzes case studies on climate-induced migration, in addition to looking to the future to see where climate-induced migration can be protected, especially as the climate crisis accelerates at a concerning pace, impacting millions of marginalized individuals globally.

Most people have difficulty estimating their carbon footprint, due to insufficient education about climate change. In addition, perception biases such as the better-than-average effect may play a role in individuals’ systematic underestimation of their carbon emissions. Our study aims to establish the existence of this bias concerning carbon footprint in the French population and to investigate whether correcting it enhances pro-environmental intentions. We conduct an online randomised trial (N = 1500) using a personal carbon footprint calculator, which informs users of their carbon footprint and compares it to the national average. The RCT includes 3 groups: a control group who does not calculate their carbon footprint, a treatment group in which participants only receive carbon footprint feedback, and a treatment group in which they receive carbon footprint feedback and a social comparison with the French average. We hypothesise that comparative feedback corrects participants’ beliefs, which can be affected by the better-than-average effect, and enhances pro-environmental intentions.

This work proposes a super-resolution pipeline to generate high resolution satellite imagery for a preferred point in time. We use a spatio-temporal generative model to perform super-resolution of low spatial resolution (LR) satellite imagery from the preferred time, conditioning on high resolution imagery (HR) from another time to generate HR satellite imagery for the preferred time. To train the spatio-temporal generative model, we curated the largest-ever super-resolution dataset of satellite imagery at sub-meter resolution, consisting of over 96, 000 image triplets. We present a proof-of-concept of this approach by evaluating the performance of our generated imagery on a sidewalk segmentation task. Our results demonstrate that our pipeline generates high spatial resolution images that are structurally similar to the original high resolution satellite imagery while accurately reproducing the style and content of the input low resolution imagery. Furthermore, our generated imagery outperforms LR imagery in the sidewalk segmentation task, providing compelling evidence for the utility and effectiveness of our approach. Since LR satellite imagery is available longitudinally at large geographical scale, researchers can use our pipeline to generate HR satellite imagery for their preferred time and location. Future work could leverage generated longitudinally available HR satellite imagery to longitudinally map transportation networks to inform and evaluate transportation planning.

Sumayo Hassan’s human rights capstone project investigates the impacts of climate change on pastoralist communities in the Horn of Africa region, which have undergone multiple devastating famines in past decades and currently have high rates of internally displaced persons due to climate related issues. She examines the direct impact of climate change on pastoralist communities, then assesses state behavior and government capacity to respond to these climate disasters. Her project presents a subaltern theory on the pastoralist groups and give recommendations for the international community’s response in supporting these vulnerable communities within a framework of justice and human rights.

Tesis CEINDO, Universidad San Pablo CEU, Facultad de Económicas. Programa de doctorado Derecho y Economía. Lectura 17-01-2023 Esta tesis tiene embargado el acceso al texto completo hasta el 17-01-2025 Los objetivos cada vez más ambiciosos para reducir emisiones globales pueden afectar al crecimiento económico, especialmente en los países en desarrollo. La experiencia de los países desarrollados en la reducción de emisiones de GEI evidencia resultados divergentes en cuanto al impacto de políticas de mitigación en la actividad económica. Los países con una mayor efectividad hasta el momento son los países europeos, que llevan reduciendo sus emisiones desde el año 1990 con tasas de crecimiento económico estables o crecientes. Esta tesis identifica y analiza los determinantes del crecimiento de las emisiones y su relación con el crecimiento económico utilizando el caso europeo como referencia. Con base en los hallazgos y conclusiones de la experiencia europea se analizan las perspectivas de desarrollo económico bajo en carbono en un caso de estudio de un país en desarrollo, en el contexto de los acuerdos climáticos alcanzados en la Convención Marco de Naciones Unidas para el Cambio Climático y el Acuerdo de París. The increasingly ambitious goals to reduce global emissions can affect economic growth, especially in developing countries. The experience of developed countries in reducing GHG emissions shows mixed results in terms of the impact of mitigation policies on economic activity. Countries that have been most effective so far are European countries, which have been reducing their emissions since 1990 with stable or growing economic growth rates. This thesis identifies and analyses the determinants of emissions growth and its relationship with economic growth using the European case as a reference. Based on the findings and conclusions from the European experience, the prospects for low-carbon economic development are analysed in a case study of a developing country, in the context of the climate agreements reached in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.

Blue foods–aquatic animals, plants, and algae cultivated or captured in freshwater and marine environments–are increasingly recognized as vital to include in the conversation on sustainable food systems under climate change. This paper synthesizes existing evidence on blue foods’ potential contribution to decarbonizing food systems by identifying four distinct levers with and around blue foods and presents key policy instruments through which the international community can utilize said levers in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding provided by EIT Climate-KIC, under “190451 PhD Catapult: Wood Construction in Climate Change Mitigation”. Furthermore, the authors are thankful to the staff at EIT Climate-KIC for their collaboration in the development of the summer school theme and the generous support during the recruitment of the participants. Grateful thanks are extended to the two coaches – Katrin Unger and Barbara Földi – as well as to the teachers who gave freely of their time to support this summer school. Grateful thanks are also extended to our stakeholders who enthusiastically engaged with the summer school over its two-week duration. Last, but by no means least, the authors would like to thank doctoral candidate Deepika Dahiya for her unstinting support and work in coordinating preparations for the summer school. Finally, the authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights and constructive feedback. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose : Doctoral candidates possess specialized knowledge that could support sustainability transitions. Doctoral education, however, often focusses on discipline-specific topics and working methods, making it difficult to “see the bigger picture”. This summer school on wood construction gathered doctoral candidates from different fields to explore how solutions to complex sustainability issues could be found by working together across disciplines and by engaging multiple stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to report the pedagogical approaches taken and to understand whether these fostered the candidates’ ability to develop systemic solutions and professional competency. Design/methodology/approach: Twenty doctoral candidates from various backgrounds participated in a two-week summer school organized by a consortium of four universities. Interdisciplinary groups worked on real-life challenges using a systemic approach to co-create tangible solutions. To support the creation of socio-technical innovations, stakeholders and experts from different fields were involved. The participants completed two questionnaires during the summer school to help elucidate their learning experiences. Findings : The doctoral candidates showed strong willingness to cooperate across disciplines, though they found it important to connect this learning experience to their research. The candidates reported that the experience enhanced their ability to work in a multidisciplinary capacity. The experience identified a solid basis for interdisciplinary learning principles that could be replicated. Originality/value: The summer school focussed on an innovative learning experience based on a systems thinking approach and the development of interdisciplinary capacity in the research-business ecosystem.

There is growing interest in aligning the wildlife conservation and restoration agenda with climate change mitigation goals. However, the presence of large herbivores tends to reduce aboveground biomass in some open-canopy ecosystems, leading to the possibility that large herbivore restoration may negatively influence ecosystem carbon storage. Belowground carbon storage is often ignored in these systems, despite the wide recognition of soils as the largest actively-cycling terrestrial carbon pool. Here, we suggest a shift away from a main focus on vegetation carbon stocks, towards inclusion of whole ecosystem carbon persistence, in future assessments of large herbivore effects on long-term carbon storage. Failure to do so may lead to counterproductive biodiversity and climate impacts of land management actions.

Solar thermal systems play a pivotal role in the building sector. However, for the development of sustainable energy systems, different parameters should be taken into account. The present article sets out to present a multidimensional approach. To this end, the first part of the article discusses energy policies, placing emphasis on solar thermal applications. The second part of the article is based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and evaluates the environmental performances of a thermal-energy-storage device and other components appropriate for solar thermal systems for buildings. The analysis has been based on global warming potential, cumulative energy demand, ReCiPe and USEtox. The results show that steel and copper are the materials which are responsible for the major part of the storage-device impact. Based on ReCiPe endpoint/with characterisation, steel and copper present 2.2E-03 DALY (damage to human health) and 5.9E-06 (species.yr) (damage to ecosystems). The results show that the metallic components have the highest environmental impacts. By involving recycling, a remarkable reduction in these impacts can be achieved. Issues related to building-integrated solar systems and future prospects are also discussed. Moreover, the avoided impacts due to the use of a solar thermal system instead of using a conventional electric heater for hot water production have been evaluated, considering multiple environmental indicators. The results based on the Spanish electricity mix have been compared with those based on the Italian electricity mix. In both cases, the findings verify that solar thermal systems offer considerable avoided environmental impacts.

Using the recently proposed concept of “design coalitions,” this paper analyzes stakeholder participation in a subnational U.S. climate change mitigation policy redesign process. We demonstrate the utility of design coalitions for analyzing policy design processes, contending that it provides an opportunity to examine the understudied “secondary beliefs” of actors as described by the advocacy coalition framework. Our case study consists of an iterative, inductive content analysis of written input to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative’s 2016 policy redesign process. We developed a typology of 12 distinct stakeholder types who coalesced in 19 separate design coalitions, each espousing a stance on one of 11 elements of the policy design. These coalitions were dynamic, with radically different sets of stakeholder types participating simultaneously in many different design coalitions without coordination, usually for their own unique reasons. We observe that, although the updated policy reflected many stakeholder’s stances, their influence was limited by their exclusion from the agenda-setting phase of this policy redesign process. In this critical era of climate mitigation policy proliferation, it is important to develop a better understanding of climate policy design coalitions and how they engage in and influence climate mitigation policy design processes.

Peatland rehabilitation is an urgent need in order to minimize the effects of peat degradation and to support climate change mitigation. However, the rehabilitation of degraded peatlands still faces many obstacles. This study aims to study the agroforestry system on peatlands applied by traditional communities as an effort to discover a peatland rehabilitation strategy. This research was conducted in Pilang, Tanjung Taruna, and Kalampangan Village from February to August 2019. The data in this study were obtained through field observations, interviews with the community, and Focus Group Discussion. The data was then synthesized using descriptive statistics. The results of data analysis showed that in the study area, six types of agroforestry systems were found. Communities develop different agroforestry systems at different types of peat depths. Farmers develop vegetable and fruit-based agroforestry on shallow peat, rubber-based agroforestry, annual crops and fruit on medium peat, fruit and rubber forestry plants on deep peat. Most farmers planted endemic species including Rubber (Havea braziliensis), Galam (Melaleuca leucadendra) and Gerunggang (Cratoxylum arborescens).The results of this study can be adopted as a peatland rehabilitation strategy since they are in accordance with the socio-culture of the local community and capable to accommodate economic and conservation interests.

Mitigation of global warming, energy security and industrial competitiveness urge the energy-intensive pulp and paper industry (PPI) to transform energy use practices. This study investigates how the PPI has responded to the need for the energy transition in the 2000s. Finland and Sweden as forerunners of energy-efficient operation and decarbonization of the PPI are used as target countries. Understanding of changes in energy consumption is complemented using decomposition analysis (Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index Method) and the energy efficiency index approach. Analysis of companies’ investments in energy technologies is used for explaining changes in energy production. Evidence of significant development towards the more sustainable operation of the PPI was found. Energy consumption per produced unit has decreased, i.e., energy efficiency has improved. Fossil fuels have been partially replaced with bio-based alternatives. Thus, the CO2 intensity has decreased substantially. The generation of renewable electricity has increased in both countries. Examples of Finland and Sweden indicate that the PPI has great potential to contribute to CO2 emission reduction worldwide in the future as energy efficiency can be further improved, and the share of fossil fuels can be decreased increasing the use of biofuels and self-generated green electricity at least in kraft pulp mills.

This work was supported by Marine Scotland – Scottish Government through the Scottish Blue Carbon Forum. The saltmarsh carbon storage potential is a key topic in blue carbon research and climate policy. Ecosystem service valuations provide valuable information to policymakers for habitat management and climate change mitigation policies. Yet, only few saltmarsh valuation studies have included the carbon storage service in the UK context. This paper investigates how the public values saltmarsh ecosystem services, focussing on the carbon storage service. We used a choice experiment to elicit the willingness to pay (WTP) of a representative sample of the Scottish public to support interventions that would maintain or improve the provision of these services. Furthermore, we tested the effect of information on individuals' preferences and WTP with a split sample approach where one group received a treatment in the form of additional information. We found that (i) all attributes had a significant influence on individuals' choices; (ii) both groups had, on average, a positive marginal WTP for all presented ecosystem services; (iii) the treated sample had, on average, no significantly different marginal WTP for carbon storage than the control group. This paper adds to the limited literature on the saltmarsh carbon storage ecosystem service and demonstrates a developed nation's public's openness to nature-based climate change mitigation solutions. Publisher PDF

The integration of solar energy into Germany's energy mix has multiplied over the last two decades. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to quantify the spatiotemporal variations of solar energy to efficiently promote photovoltaic systems’ spatial spreading and strengthen the stability of power grids. Only comprehensive information on surface incoming solar radiation's long-term small-scale variability can provide the desired decision support. Clouds, and to some extent aerosols, are essentially responsible for the observed changes in solar energy penetrating the atmosphere. Germany was used as an example in this work, where solar energy currently accounts for around 8 % of annual electricity generation. The daily values of a 25 year dataset (1991–2015) available from satellite measurements were analyzed, depicting the long-term, large-scale evolution of the surface incoming solar radiation and cloud dynamics on a small spatial scale (0.05° × 0.05°). The most significant long-term increase in solar radiation was observed in spring, mainly influenced by the seasonal changes in cloud cover. The pronounced annual cycle of solar input reinforces the need for storage systems to transfer the harvested solar energy to periods with minor solar input. Moreover, there is hardly any solar-solar complementarity in different regions because their inter-regime dynamics are similar and do not show any significant differences. The proposed methods for assessing complementarity show explicitly the areas where the solar potential is not yet fully exploited, and additional PV capacities should be built. From these results, it can be concluded that there is further potential for the complementary use of solar energy in Germany on the national level.

While climate change mitigation targets necessarily concern maximum mean state change, understanding impacts and developing adaptation strategies will be largely contingent on how climate variability responds to increasing anthropogenic perturbations. Thus far Earth system modeling efforts have primarily focused on projected mean state changes and the sensitivity of specific modes of climate variability, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. However, our knowledge of forced changes in the overall spectrum of climate variability and higher order statistics is relatively limited. Here we present a new 100-member large ensemble of climate change projections conducted with the Community Earth System Model version 2 to examine the sensitivity of internal climate fluctuations to greenhouse warming. Our unprecedented simulations reveal that changes in variability, considered broadly in terms of probability, distribution, amplitude, frequency, phasing, and patterns, are ubiquitous and span a wide range of physical and ecosystem variables across many spatial and temporal scales. Greenhouse warming will in particular alter variance spectra of Earth system variables that are characterized by non-Gaussian probability distributions, such as rainfall, primary production, or fire occurrence. Our modeling results have important implications for climate adaptation efforts, resource management, seasonal predictions, and for assessing potential stressors for terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

Peat forest plays a principal role in climate change mitigation in Indonesia. Considering the potential releases of GHGs from a forest fire and degraded peatland, it is important to conserve peatland forests. Besides being essential for ecological balancing, the role of peatland forest expands to the economic and social aspects. The purpose of this research was to calculate CO2 emissions that can be avoided by the community-based fire prevention and rewetting program. This research utilized spatial analysis to calculated avoided CO2 emissions in six villages in Central Kalimantan. Data and information for the calculation were generated from field observations, interviews, and desk study. Spatial analysis using Arc GIS 10.5 was applied to compute the incombustible areas. The result from the analysis found that fire prevention and rewetting programs managed to prevent approximately 1 million Mg C or equivalent to 3.7 million CO2. The program managed to prevent emission from the vulnerable area including swamp shrubs, plantations and dry land agriculture. The finding of this study suggests that community-based fire prevention and peatland rewetting programs could become a strategic program in climate change mitigation in Indonesia. Keywords: climate change mitigation, fire prevention, peatland rewetting, community based program, avoided CO2

Although some countries are gradually returning to production and life, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the world, further motivating recovery policies. Using a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, this study evaluates the environmental and economic impacts of COVID-19 on the world, both today and in the longer term. This study explores the post-pandemic impacts conditional on varied fiscal policies (including forgone revenue and additional spending) and their combination with a carbon tax. This study finds that the pandemic shocks in 2020 slowed regional economies worldwide, and a continued pandemic in 2021 will further stymie economic activity. Among the government’s recovery policies, indirect tax reduction has the best positive stimulus to regional economies; however, it is not conducive to low-carbon energy development and will also lead to an increase in CO2 and pollutant emissions. A post-pandemic green recovery plan could prioritize replacing indirect production taxes with taxes on GHG emissions, which would both improve economic turnover metrics and reduce environmental emissions in 2021. In the long run, this tax shift will not only minimize the economic damage to the global economy but also help governments around the world to get back on track in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The fact that a behavior can be instrumental for multiple goals does not logically entail that people are typically propelled into action for multiple reasons. On the contrary, goal-directed behavior in the real world is, in a given instance, aimed at one focal goal. In this article, I present the Campbell paradigm, in which a particular behavior is controlled by a single reason or goal. To identify the very reason (i.e. the focal goal behind a goal-directed behavior) and its motivating force, psychologists need to consider behavior-specific costs and whether other behaviors that are also instrumental for attaining the specific goal are realized as well. I situate my presentation in the context of climate change mitigation.