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Although sharing some common origins with environmental justice, in recent years, climate justice has emerged as a separate domain, one that entails both greater uncertainties and greater temporal and spatial distance between its causes in human activities and climatic shifts or extreme events. This article situates climate justice in relation to environmental justice and wider justice debates. It reflects on the multi-scalarity of climate justice and its bi-dimensional character (the justice of adaptation and mitigation). It then explores three different variants of distributive justice – welfare, equity and equality distribution – through examples from both international climate negotiations and UK and China national energy efficiency retrofit policy. The article aims to illustrate the kinds of differences and problems that originate with three very different ways of interpreting the meaning of a just distribution of the benefits and burdens related to tackling human-origin climate change, and to show how these are in many cases being pitched against considerations of social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines projected climate impacts and national planning efforts in three major countries: the USA, UK and China. The three countries are in varying stages of planning for climate adaptation. Planning frameworks in all three countries suffer from a lack of specificity and urgency. To address this situation, the article recommends two measures. The first is the use of scenario planning, including consideration of high-impact scenarios, to address the downside risks of climate change. Planning in the UK has begun to make use of scenario analysis, although in a less comprehensive manner, while the USA had an earlier experiment in the use of the worst-case scenario as a planning tool. The second recommendation is to identify and prioritise impacts on vulnerable populations such as the elderly, the poor and coastal communities. This recommendation has roots in the US planning proposals, but also resonates with international human rights law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Global wind resources greatly exceed current electricity demand and the levelized cost of energy from wind turbines has shown precipitous declines. Accordingly, the installed capacity of wind turbines grew at an annualized rate of about 14% during the last two decades and wind turbines now provide ~6–7% of the global electricity supply. This renewable electricity generation source is thus already playing a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. Here we document trends within the industry, examine projections of future installed capacity increases and compute the associated climate change mitigation potential at the global and regional levels. Key countries (the USA, UK and China) and regions (e.g., EU27) have developed ambitious plans to expand wind energy penetration as core aspects of their net-zero emissions strategies. The projected climate change mitigation from wind energy by 2100 ranges from 0.3–0.8 °C depending on the precise socio-economic pathway and wind energy expansion scenario followed. The rapid expansion of annual increments to wind energy installed capacity by approximately two times current rates can greatly delay the passing of the 2 °C warming threshold relative to pre-industrial levels. To achieve the required expansion of this cost-effective, low-carbon energy source, there is a need for electrification of the energy system and for expansion of manufacturing and installation capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paris Agreement on climate change has calls for urgent, radical, and transformative actions in mitigation and adaptation, particularly in terms of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. There are many terms used to describe the process of reducing GHGs, including decarbonization, low carbon development (LCD) or low carbon transition (LCT). The conceptualization of these terms remains puzzling and there has not been any consensus to explain the meaning and their interrelationship. Clearer definition and conceptual boundaries are necessary to improve the coherence of overarching practices to cut CO 2 emission. The paper aims to review key concepts related to climate change mitigation related to the reduction of CO 2 and efforts toward net-zero emission in the academic literature, by (1) examining progress of the literature over time, (2) identifying geographical locus and sectoral focus of the literature, (3) determining the interrelationships between the key concepts. We use a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method for data collection by selecting peer-reviewed literature from Scopus and analyzing the data with content analysis and bibliometric analysis. The findings are, firstly, the publications of the literature are influenced by global and national climate change policies and the interest of scholars affiliated to institutions from major emitter countries. Therefore, the literature is mostly originating from countries that emit the most CO 2 while also implement mitigations to reduce CO 2 emission. Secondly, China is the country where studies are mostly focused and also where the authors are affiliated/located. However, publications from the United Kingdom are cited the most. Thirdly, there are three clusters of literature found, namely that LCD and LCT are the terms used to identify visions for climate mitigation, while decarbonization is the actions and processes to achieve either LCD or LCT (as the visions). • The dynamic of climate change policies influence the literature trend. • The literature is mostly originating from major CO 2 emitter. • Low carbon development and low carbon transition are visional terms. • Decarbonization indicates the processes of decoupling CO 2 to achieve the visions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]