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Accounting guidelines exist for the recording of carbon flows in terrestrial and coastal ecosystems. Shelf sea sediments, while considered an important carbon store, have yet to receive comparable scrutiny. Here, we explore whether effective management of carbon stocks accumulating in shelf seas could contribute towards a nation’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. We review the complexities of carbon transport and fate in shelf seas, and the geopolitical challenges of carbon accounting in climate governance because of the transboundary nature of carbon flows in the marine environment. New international accounting guidance and governance frameworks are needed to prompt climate action.

In the past decade, human influence on the climate through increased use of fossil fuels has become widely acknowledged as one of the most pressing issues for the global community. For the United Kingdom, we suggest that these concerns have increasingly become manifest in a new strand of political debate around energy policy, which reframes nuclear power as part of the solution to the need for low-carbon energy options. A mixed-methods analysis of citizen views of climate change and radioactive waste is presented, integrating focus group data and a nationally representative survey. The data allow us to explore how UK citizens might now and in the future interpret and make sense of this new framing of nuclear power—which ultimately centers on a risk—risk trade-off scenario. We use the term “reluctant acceptance” to describe how, in complex ways, many focus group participants discursively re-negotiated their position on nuclear energy when it was positioned alongside climate change. In the concluding section of the paper, we reflect on the societal implications of the emerging discourse of new nuclear build as a means of delivering climate change mitigation and set an agenda for future research regarding the (re)framing of the nuclear energy debate in the UK and beyond.

It has been claimed that high social capital contributes to both positive public health outcomes and to climate change adaptation. Strong social networks have been said to support individuals and collective initiatives of adaptation and enhance resilience. As a result, there is an expectation that social capital could reduce vulnerability to risks from the impacts of climate change in the health sector. This paper examines evidence on the role social networks play in individuals’ responses to heat wave risk in a case study in the UK. Based on interviews with independently living elderly people and their primary social contacts in London and Norwich, we suggest that strong bonding networks could potentially exacerbate rather than reduce the vulnerability of elderly people to the effects of heat waves. Most respondents interviewed did not feel that heat waves posed a significant risk to them personally, and most said that they would be able to cope with hot weather. Bonding networks could perpetuate rather than challenge these narratives and therefore contribute to vulnerability rather than ameliorating it. These results suggest a complex rather than uniformly positive relationship between social capital, health and adaptation to climate change.

The Pacific Ocean covers almost half the Earth. Its eastwest axis is longest near the Equator, and it is here that the related processes of El Niqo and the Southern Oscillation, together known as ENSO, take place. El Niqo refers to the periodic warming of the surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific, while the Southern Oscillation refers to the fluctuation in air pressure differential between Darwin, Australia and Tahiti. What determines the periodicity of ENSO is the time it takes for pressure waves to cross from Indonesia to South America, and then bounce back again. Because the ocean is so wide, that process takes several years. Because there is so much water there, and water holds a lot of energy, ENSO phases can alter weather patterns around the world. Inter-annual climate variability of this sort has always existed. In terms of human experience, it is likely that people have and will continue to experience climate change not as a gradual rise in temperature, but rather as a shift in the frequency and intensity of particular weather events. Climatic risks and climate variability are a substantial drain on the economies of least developed countries, and indeed the effects of climate variability on society are significantly greater than the effects of climate change probably will be, at least for the next 30 years.

Background Most projections of climate change suggest an increased frequency of heatwaves in England over coming decades; older people are at particular risk. This could result in substantial mortality and morbidity. Objective To determine elderly people’s knowledge and perceptions of heat-related risks to health, and of protective behaviours. Methods Semi-structured interviews: 73 men and women, 72–94 years, living in their own homes in London and Norwich, UK. Results Few respondents considered themselves either old or at risk from the effects of heat, even though many had some form of relevant chronic illness; they did recognize that some medical conditions might increase risks in others. Most reported that they had taken appropriate steps to reduce the effects of heat. Some respondents considered it appropriate for the government to take responsibility for protecting vulnerable people, but many thought state intervention was unnecessary, intrusive and unlikely to be effective. Respondents were more positive about the value of appropriately disseminated advice and solutions by communities themselves. Conclusion The Heatwave Plan should consider giving greater emphasis to a population-based information strategy, using innovative information dissemination methods to increase awareness of vulnerability to heat among the elderly and to ensure clarity about behaviour modification measures.