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Copyright of Review of African Political Economy is the property of Review of Political Economy (ROAPE) 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 Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale is the property of Berghahn Books 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 Forestry Chronicle is the property of Canadian Institute of Forestry 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 paper reviews the potential and barriers of demand-side mitigation options in the agricultural sector based on the recent academic literature and on a survey conducted on a sample of 788 respondents living in France. The mitigation potential of such measures as reducing losses in the food supply chain and shifting diets toward less animal products is estimated to be particularly high, higher, in particular, than supply-side mitigation options. However, to ensure that these measures do not entail a reduction in protein intake, these estimations should consider both caloric and protein units, and take into account the digestibility differentials between protein sources. Our survey shows that people are relatively reluctant to eat more sustainably, preferring to reduce their emissions in other areas such as housing or equipment. This relative reluctance is mainly due to individual perceptions linked to health concerns, taste or habits. Some obstacles could easily be overcome through well-designed policies aiming to, for example, advertise a lower consumption of red meat for health benefits. National governments are, however, rather inactive on this topic, leaving the initiative to the civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing boreal forests for effective climate change mitigation requires comprehension of the full spectrum of climate regulation services that they provide, which includes both the storage of carbon and exchanges of heat and moisture with the atmosphere. It is increasingly recognized that surface albedo is the most important biogeophysical mechanism by which the boreal forest directly influences the global energy balance. Forest management decisions that influence age class and species distributions affect not only the carbon sink capacity, but also the albedo (and hence climate services) of the forested landscape. Disregarding albedo and how it is influenced by management decisions can have profound implications for the effectiveness of any climate change mitigation policy involving active forest management. Here, we explore, analyze, and compare the albedo predicted by simple empirical models with in situ and remotely sensed albedo observations in regions outside the region in which the models were originally developed (southeastern Norway), including boreal Canada and Europe. We find that the models are robust in their ability to predict the longer term interannual trends in the mean winter-summer albedo amplitude, the rapid albedo evolution in young stands, and the timing of seasonal transitions and weak with respect to capturing interannual albedo changes linked to seasonal climate variability and phenology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Forest Research is the property of Canadian Science Publishing 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 Irrigation & Drainage is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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.)

What are relevant urban development investment strategies for improving building energy efficiency (BEE) and decarbonizing the urban district heating supply in rapidly urbanizing China? Different trajectories of BEE and energy supply technologies are compared in the urban context in a northern Chinese city. Vigorous improvement of BEE will significantly enhance the prospective financial capacity to facilitate deployment of backstop technologies (e.g. carbon capture and storage) in order to decarbonize the energy supply and achieve the long-term targets of low-carbon buildings. Carbon finance instruments should be used to facilitate public policy to accompany the necessary transition in the urban development process. The government-run efficiency procurement scheme will overcome the problem of insufficient incentive and high transaction costs associated with individual Clean Development Mechanism projects. Appropriate investment strategies (allocation of financial resources over the time frame) will allow local governments to harness the large potentials of carbon emissions mitigation while minimizing the risk of long-term technical lock-in in the built environment in Chinese cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of renewable energy in climate change mitigation is explored through a review of 162 recent medium- to long-term scenarios from 15 large-scale, energy-economic and integrated assessment models. The current state of knowledge from this community is assessed and its implications drawn for the strategic context in which policymakers and other decision-makers might consider renewable energy. The scenario set is distinguished from previous ones in that it contains more detailed information on renewable deployment levels. All the scenarios in this study were published during or after 2006. Within the context of a large-scale assessment, the analysis is guided primarily by four questions. What sorts of future levels of renewable energy deployment are consistent with different CO2 concentration goals? Which classes of renewable energy will be the most prominent energy producers and how quickly might they expand production? Where might an expansion in renewable energy occur? What is the linkage between the costs of mitigation and an expansion of renewable energy? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keeping the global temperature increase below 2°C will require concerted mitigation action by both developed and developing countries. In the UN Framework Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen Accord, developed countries have an obligation to provide finance for mitigation measures in developing countries. Estimates of incremental investment and incremental costs for mitigation action in developing countries are reviewed. These estimates cover developing countries as a group, individual countries and specific sectors. Many mitigation measures are more capital-intensive but have lower operating costs than the technologies they replace, so the incremental investment exceeds the incremental cost. There is no agreed basis for determining how much international financial support should be provided for mitigation measures in developing countries. Although the amount of international funding needed cannot be determined from the available analyses, it is likely to lie between the estimates of incremental cost and the incremental investment. The few estimates of incremental mitigation costs available suggest that these costs will rise substantially over the next two decades and exceed US$100 billion by 2030. The promises to increase international climate funding significantly over the next decade are encouraging, but it is not yet possible to determine whether the promised funding will be sufficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]