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1.
It is generally agreed that the risk of catastrophic climate change can only be reduced if agents cooperate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the 21st Century. Previous economic experiments have suggested that sufficient cooperation can often be achieved providing individuals are adequately and convincingly informed of the consequences of their actions and the stakes involved. However, this previous work, has not allowed for the fact that in the real world agents vary in both: (1) their resources to mitigate climate change, and (2) the consequences that they face from climate change. We develop and expand the protocol of previous economic experiments to investigate the introduction of such combined asymmetries. We find that when inequality in resources is combined with a greater relative risk for poorer members, cooperation collapses, with tragic consequences. This is because the rich invest proportionally less into preventing climate change when they are less at risk. We also find, through the use of a post-game questionnaire, that those individuals who were more skeptical about climate change in the real world cooperated less in our games. Insofar as such experiments can be trusted as a guide to either people’s everyday behaviour or the interactions of nation states, these results suggest that voluntary cooperation to avoid climate catastrophe in the real world is likely to be hard to achieve.  相似文献   

2.
Recent increases in the accuracy of climate models have enhanced the possibilities for analyzing the impacts of climate change on society. This paper explores how the local, economic impacts of climate change can be modeled for a specific eco-region, the Western Sahel. The people in the Sahel are highly dependent on their natural resource base, and these resources are highly vulnerable to climate change, in particular to changes in rainfall. Climate models project substantial changes in rainfall in the Sahel in the coming 50 years, with most models predicting a reduction in rainfall. To connect climate change to changes in ecosystem productivity and local income, we construct an ecological–economic model that incorporates rangeland dynamics, grazing and livestock prices. The model shows that decreased rainfall in the Sahel will considerably reduce local incomes, in particular if combined with increases in rainfall variability. Adaptation to these climate change projections is possible if reductions in rainfall are followed by destocking to reach efficient grazing levels. However, while such a strategy is optimal from the perspective of society, the stocking rate is determined by individual pastoralists that face few incentives to destock.  相似文献   

3.
The economics (or lack thereof) of aerosol geoengineering   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  
Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are changing the Earth’s climate and impose substantial risks for current and future generations. What are scientifically sound, economically viable, and ethically defendable strategies to manage these climate risks? Ratified international agreements call for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Recent proposals, however, call for a different approach: to geoengineer climate by injecting aerosol precursors into the stratosphere. Published economic studies typically neglect the risks of aerosol geoengineering due to (i) the potential for a failure to sustain the aerosol forcing and (ii) the negative impacts associated with the aerosol forcing. Here we use a simple integrated assessment model of climate change to analyze potential economic impacts of aerosol geoengineering strategies over a wide range of uncertain parameters such as climate sensitivity, the economic damages due to climate change, and the economic damages due to aerosol geoengineering forcing. The simplicity of the model provides the advantages of parsimony and transparency, but it also imposes severe caveats on the interpretation of the results. For example, the analysis is based on a globally aggregated model and is hence silent on intragenerational distribution of costs and benefits. In addition, the analysis neglects the effects of learning and has a very simplistic representation of climate change impacts. Our analysis suggests three main conclusions. First, substituting aerosol geoengineering for CO2 abatement can be an economically ineffective strategy. One key to this finding is that a failure to sustain the aerosol forcing can lead to sizeable and abrupt climatic changes. The monetary damages due to such a discontinuous aerosol geoengineering can dominate the cost-benefit analysis because the monetary damages of climate change are expected to increase with the rate of change. Second, the relative contribution of aerosol geoengineering to an economically optimal portfolio hinges critically on, thus far, deeply uncertain estimates of the damages due to aerosol forcing. Even if we assume that aerosol forcing could be deployed continuously, the aerosol geoengineering does not considerably displace CO2 abatement in the simple economic optimal growth model until the damages due to the aerosol forcing are rather low. Third, substituting aerosol geoengineering for greenhouse gas emission abatement can fail an ethical test regarding intergenerational justice. Substituting aerosol geoengineering for greenhouse gas emissions abatements constitutes a conscious risk transfer to future generations, in violation of principles of intergenerational justice which demands that present generations should not create benefits for themselves in exchange for burdens on future generations.  相似文献   

4.
Despite the growing concern about actual on-going climate change, there is little consensus on the scale and timing of actions needed to stabilise the concentrations of greenhouse gases. Many countries are unwilling to implement mitigation strategies, at least in the short term, and no agreement on an ambitious global stabilisation target has yet been reached. It is thus likely that international climate policies will be characterized by a high degree of uncertainty over the stringency of the climate objective, and that some countries might delay their participation to global action. What additional economic costs will this delay in the adoption of mitigation measures imply? What would the optimal short-term strategy be given the uncertainty surrounding the climate policy to come? Is there a hedging strategy that decision makers can adopt to cope with delayed action and uncertain targets? This paper addresses these questions by quantifying the economic implications of delaying mitigation action, and by computing the optimal abatement strategy in the presence of uncertainty about a global stabilisation target (which will be agreed upon in future climate negotiations). Results point to short-term inaction as the key determinant for the economic costs of ambitious climate policies. They also indicate that there is an effective hedging strategy that could minimise the cost of climate policy uncertainty over the global stabilisation target: a short-term moderate climate policy would be a good strategy to reduce the costs of delayed action and to cope with uncertainty about the outcome of future climate negotiations. By contrast, failing to curb emissions in the short term imposes rapidly increasing additional costs of compliance.  相似文献   

5.
This editorial essay conveys a clear message: The overuse of our fossil fuel resources especially in the North, and the overpopulation in many parts of the South, result in an unacceptable stress to Earth. This manifests itself in some of the most serious threats to mankind, such as global climatic change, environmental degradation, food shortage, hunger, poverty, and migration. It is the purpose of this editorial essay to make a contribution toward a reduction of some of these threats, notably those from climatic change. Specifically, I present a tractable climatic and environmental protection strategy which is designed to give concrete answers to such seemingly simple questions as: What has to be done? (This depends e.g. on the concentration stabilization objective of the Rio Climate Convention, and the global warming ceiling of the Enquete-Commission of the German Parliament). By whom does it have to be done? (This addresses the secret of a successful protection strategy which involves a fair burden sharing among the world's countries). When does it have to be done? (This discusses the problem of setting tractable, i.e. differentiated and binding emission targets). How can it be done? (This relates to individual countries, states, and municipalities. It is demonstrated for Germany how her commitment of a 25 to 30% CO2 reduction by 2005 can be achieved.) Moreover, the question is addressed: How many people and how much fossil fuel use can our planet stand? The major result is that without self-restraint climate and ecosystem protection cannot be maintained, because it is incompatible with trends in the wasteful fossil fuel use in the North and strong population growth in the South. Finally, a plea is made to share responsibility on the road toward a sustainable future.  相似文献   

6.
Livelihoods in drylands are already challenged by the demands of climate variability, and climate change is expected to have further implications for water resource availability in these regions. This paper characterizes the vulnerability of an irrigation-dependent agricultural community located in the Elqui River Basin of Northern Chile to water and climate-related conditions in light of climate change. The paper documents the exposures and sensitivities faced by the community in light of current water shortages, and identifies their ability to manage these exposures under a changing climate. The IPCC identifies potentially increased aridity in this region with climate change; furthermore, the Elqui River is fed by snowmelt and glaciers, and its flows will be affected by a warming climate. Community vulnerability occurs within a broader physical, economic, political and social context, and vulnerability in the community varies amongst occupations, resource uses and accessibility to water resources, making some more susceptible to changing conditions in the future. This case study highlights the need for adaptation to current land and water management practices to maintain livelihoods in the face of changes many people are not expecting.  相似文献   

7.
Climate change,migration and adaptation in Funafuti,Tuvalu   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  
This paper shows the extent to which people in Funafuti – the main island of Tuvalu – are intending to migrate in response to climate change. It presents evidence collected from Funafuti to challenge the widely held assumption that climate change is, will, or should result in large-scale migration from Tuvalu. It shows that for most people climate change is not a reason for concern, let alone a reason to migrate, and that would-be migrants do not cite climate change as a reason to leave. People in Funafuti wish to remain living in Funafuti for reasons of lifestyle, culture and identity. Concerns about the impacts of climate change are not currently a significant driver of migration from Funafuti, and do not appear to be a significant influence on those who intend to migrate in the future.  相似文献   

8.
Weather conditions that influence natural resource-based tourist destinations are likely to be affected by climate change, but our understanding of how businesses and destinations manage for present and future conditions is limited. In this study we report on the relationships between weather and tourism activities in the Queenstown-Lake Wanaka region, South Island, New Zealand. Key stakeholder interviews and a workshop form the empirical basis of this paper. Coping range application ideas derived from ecological management literature are used to develop a framework to understand and inform thinking and strategies around how tourism businesses and destinations are currently responding to the weather and perhaps could in future respond to climate change. Results show that within a destination individual businesses have widely varying relationships with the weather, with each type of activity operating within its own coping range to particular environmental gradients, for example temperature. Coping, which can be observed outside the ‘ideal’ range of a particular environmental gradient, requires business adjustments so as to cope with increasingly marginal conditions, up to a Critical Stop Point – the ultimate threshold. The data suggest that increased need for adjustments impacts on business viability, and more planned adaptation measures would be necessary to increase viability under increasingly detrimental climatic conditions. Discussion at a destination level workshop indicates that at and beyond thresholds, keystone industry and destination level strategic adaptation planning is required to ensure the viability of the destination as a whole.  相似文献   

9.
What is the significance of the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali? The formal outcomes, especially the ‘Bali Action Plan’, are described and commented on, along with the challenges for negotiating a post-2012 agreement in Copenhagen during 2008 and 2009. The article concludes that the outcome of the Bali meeting is insufficient when compared to the nature of the challenge posed by climate change. However, it can nevertheless be considered a success in terms of ‘Realpolitik’ in paving the way for the negotiations ahead, because some real changes have been discerned in the political landscape. The challenges for the road towards Copenhagen are manifold: the sheer volume and complexity of the issues and the far-reaching nature of decisions such as differentiation between non- Annex I countries pose significant challenges in themselves, while the dependency on the electoral process in the USA introduces a high element of risk into the whole process. The emergence of social justice as an issue turns climate policy into an endeavour to improve the world at large—thereby adding to the complexity. And, finally, the biggest challenge is the recognition that the climate problem requires a global solution, that Annex I and non-Annex I countries are mutually dependent on each other and that only cooperation regarding technology in combination with significant financial support will provide the chance to successfully tackle climate change.  相似文献   

10.
Several questions concerning the general circulation for which satisfactory answers are not yet available are discussed. The focus is on the zonal mean heat balance, since problems in our understanding of this balance are a fundamental limitation on our ability to model climate and climate change. The questions are: How strong is the atmosphere's poleward heat transport? What are the relative roles of large-scale eddies and small-scale convection in stabilizing the mid-latitude atmosphere? What are the dynamical mechanisms that maintain the time mean zonal mean state in mid-latitudes? Some suggestions for addressing these questions are given.  相似文献   

11.
关于气候变化对社会经济系统影响的机理和途径的探讨   总被引：2，自引：1，他引：1  
本文基于考虑气候变化影响应与经济系统的特征时空尺度相匹配的观点,讨论了气候变化对经济系统影响的途径.认为:气候变化是年代际尺度的气温变化,直接影响的是冰冻圈、海平面、水资源、陆面状况、生态系统、微生物、人体健康等七个领域;觉察不到日变化、季节变化、年际变化而呈现出年代际变化的事物才是受全球变暖影响的事物;由于时间尺度不匹配,经济系统几乎不会受气候变化的直接影响;就间接影响而言,全球变暖导致的极端气候事件加剧和人类为应对与适应气候变化的积极响应,对经济系统的影响要显著得多.  相似文献   

12.
Australia's vulnerability to climate variability and change has been highlighted by the recent drought (i.e. the Big Dry or Millennium Drought), and also recent flooding across much of eastern Australia during 2011 and 2012. There is also the possibility that the frequency, intensity and duration of droughts may increase due to anthropogenic climate change, stressing the need for robust drought adaptation strategies. This study investigates the socio-economic impacts of drought, past and present drought adaptation measures, and the future adaptation strategies required to deal with projected impacts of climate change. The qualitative analysis presented records the actual experiences of drought and other climatic extremes and helps advance knowledge of how best to respond and adapt to such conditions, and how this might vary between different locations, sectors and communities. It was found that more effort is needed to address the changing environment and climate, by shifting from notions of ‘drought-as-crisis’ towards acknowledging the variable availability of water and that multi-year droughts should not be unexpected, and may even become more frequent. Action should also be taken to revalue the farming enterprise as critical to our environmental, economic and cultural well-being and there was also strong consensus that the value of water should be recognised in a more meaningful way (i.e. not just in economic terms). Finally, across the diverse stakeholders involved in the research, one point was consistently reiterated: that ‘it's not just drought’. Exacerbating the issues of climate impacts on water security and supply is the complexity of the agriculture industry, global economics (in particular global markets and the recent/ongoing global financial crisis), and demographic changes (decreasing and ageing populations) which are currently occurring across most rural communities. The social and economic issues facing rural communities are not just a product of drought or climate change – to understand them as such would underestimate the extent of the problems and inhibit the ability to coordinate the holistic, cross-agency approach needed for successful climate change adaptation in rural communities.  相似文献   

13.
The change in the Earth's climate caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may be the most important environmental legacy that we leave to our descendants.Global change raises difficult issues of equity between our generation and future generations, and between different communities within future generations. International law is accustomed to addressing the effects of intentional environmental change on people who are already alive. It needs to be augmented by principles of intergenerational equity. We have certain obligations to future generations to pass on a planet in no worse condition than we received it and to give them equitable access to its resources.This requires a global strategy for climate change which will prevent excessively rapid climate change, prevent or mitigate the damage caused by climate change, and help countries to adapt to climate change. We need to avoid imposing major costs on future generations for our own benefit.To implement this strategy will require enforceable norms of behavior, which should be embodied in a Declaration of Planetary Rights and Obligations to Future Generations, and implemented in appropriate treaties and national and local legislation. Agreements should be drafted in such a way that they can incorporate increases in scientific understanding, for example by the creation of scientific advisory committees.  相似文献   

14.
This paper presents a preliminary assessment of the relative effects of rate of climate change (four Representative Concentration Pathways - RCPs), assumed future population (five Shared Socio-economic Pathways - SSPs), and pattern of climate change (19 CMIP5 climate models) on regional and global exposure to water resources stress and river flooding. Uncertainty in projected future impacts of climate change on exposure to water stress and river flooding is dominated by uncertainty in the projected spatial and seasonal pattern of change in climate. There is little clear difference in impact between RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 in 2050, and between RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 in 2080. Impacts under RCP8.5 are greater than under the other RCPs in 2050 and 2080. For a given RCP, there is a difference in the absolute numbers of people exposed to increased water resources stress or increased river flood frequency between the five SSPs. With the ‘middle-of-the-road’ SSP2, climate change by 2050 would increase exposure to water resources stress for between approximately 920 and 3,400 million people under the highest RCP, and increase exposure to river flood risk for between 100 and 580 million people. Under RCP2.6, exposure to increased water scarcity would be reduced in 2050 by 22-24 %, compared to impacts under the RCP8.5, and exposure to increased flood frequency would be reduced by around 16 %. The implications of climate change for actual future losses and adaptation depend not only on the numbers of people exposed to changes in risk, but also on the qualitative characteristics of future worlds as described in the different SSPs. The difference in ‘actual’ impact between SSPs will therefore be greater than the differences in numbers of people exposed to impact.  相似文献   

15.
Pacific Salmon are anadromous fish that cross state and international boundaries in their oceanic migrations. Fish spawned in the rivers of one jurisdiction are vulnerable to harvest in other jurisdictions. The rocky history of attempts by the United States and Canada to cooperatively manage their respective salmon harvests suggests that such shared resources may present difficult challenges for effective adaptation to climate change. On June 30, 1999, the two nations signed an agreement which, if successfully implemented, may end several years of rancorous conflict. For the previous six years, they had been unable to agree on a full set of salmon "fishing regimes" under the terms of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. This conflict was sparked by strongly divergent trends in the abundance of northern and southern salmon stocks, and a consequent change in the balance of each nation's interceptions of salmon spawned in the other nation's rivers. The trends are attributable, in part, to the effects of large-scale climatic fluctuations. This case demonstrates that it may not be a simple matter to respond effectively to a climate change. Adaptation is difficult when a resource is exploited by multiple competing users who possess incomplete information. If, in addition, their incentives to cooperate are disrupted by the impacts of the climatic variation, dysfunctional breakdowns in management rather than efficient adaptation may ensue. Institutional factors will determine the extent to which the management of such resources can adapt effectively to climate variability or long-term climate change.  相似文献   

16.
Sustainable fisheries management into the future will require both understanding of and adaptation to climate change. A risk management approach is appropriate due to uncertainty in climate projections and the responses of target species. Management strategy evaluation (MSE) can underpin and support effective risk management. Climate change impacts are likely to differ by species and spatially. We use a spatial MSE applied to a multi-species data-poor sea cucumber/béche-de-mer fishery to demonstrate the utility of MSE to test the performance of alternative harvest strategies in meeting fishery objectives; this includes the ability to manage through climate variability and change, and meeting management objectives pertaining to resource status and fishery economic performance. The impacts of fishing relative to the impacts of climate change are distinguished by comparing future projection distributions relative to equivalent no-fishing no-climate-change trials. The 8 modelled species exhibit different responses to environmental variability and have different economic value. Status quo management would result in half the species falling below target levels, moderate risks of overall and local depletion, and significant changes in species composition. The three simple strategies with no monitoring (spatial rotation, closed areas, multi-species composition) were all successful in reducing these risks, but with fairly substantial decreases in the average profit. Higher profits (for the same risk levels) could only be achieved with strategies that included monitoring and hence adaptive management. Spatial management approaches based on adaptive feedback performed best overall.  相似文献   

17.
Assessing Climate Change Implications for Water Resources Planning   总被引：3，自引：0，他引：3  
Numerous recent studies have shown that existing water supply systems are sensitive to climate change. One apparent implication is that water resources planning methods should be modified accordingly. Few of these studies, however, have attempted to account for either the chain of uncertainty in projecting water resources system vulnerability to climate change, or the adaptability of system operation resulting from existing planning strategies. Major uncertainties in water resources climate change assessments lie in a) climate modeling skill; b) errors in regional downscaling of climate model predictions; and c) uncertainties in future water demands. A simulation study was designed to provide insight into some aspects of these uncertainties. Specifically, the question that is addressed is whether a different decision would be made in a reservoir reallocation decision if knowledge about future climate were incorporated (i.e., would planning based on climate change information be justified?). The case study is possible reallocation of flood storage to conservation (municipal water supply) on the Green River, WA. We conclude that, for the case study, reservoir reallocation decisions and system performance would not differ significantly if climate change information were incorporated in the planning process.  相似文献   

18.
Primary producers, including graziers, crop farmers and commercial fishers are especially vulnerable to climate change because they depend on highly climate-sensitive natural resources. Adaptation to climate change will make a major difference to the severity of the impacts experienced. However, individuals (resource users) can erect sometimes seemingly peculiar barriers to potential adaptation options that need to be addressed if adaptation is to be effective. Our aim was to understand the nature of barriers to change for cattle graziers in the northern Australian rangelands. We conceptualised barriers as adverse reactions where resource users are unlikely to contemplate adaptations that threaten core values or perceptions about themselves. We assumed that resource users that were more sensitive to climate change impacts—or more dependent on the resource—were more proximate to thresholds of coping and thus more likely to erect barriers, especially people with little adaptive capacity. Given that climate sensitivity and adaptive capacity are important components of vulnerability, our approach was to conduct a vulnerability assessment to identify potential but important barriers to change. Data from 240 graziers suggest that graziers in northern Australia might be especially vulnerable to climate change because their identity, place attachment, low employability, weak networks and dependents can make them sensitive to change, and their sensitivity can be compounded by a low adaptive capacity. We argue that greater attention needs to be placed on the social context of climate change impacts and on the processes shaping vulnerability and adaptation, especially at the scale of the individual.  相似文献   

19.
What could happen to the Netherlands if, in 2030, the sea level starts to rise and eventually, after 100 years, a sea level of 5 m above current level would be reached? This question is addressed by studying literature, by interviewing experts in widely differing fields, and by holding an expert workshop on this question. Although most experts believe that geomorphology and current engineering skills would enable the country to largely maintain its territorial integrity, there are reasons to assume that this is not likely to happen. Social processes that precede important political decisions – such as the growth of the belief in the reality of sea level rise and the framing of such decisions in a proper political context (policy window) – evolve slowly. A flood disaster would speed up the decision-making process. The shared opinion of the experts surveyed is that eventually part of the Netherlands would be abandoned.  相似文献   

20.
基于温度、降水、光照等指标,通过利用区域气候模式所预估的分辨率为1°(纬度)×1°(经度)的未来气候预估数据,对1981~2005年的基准期和RCP4.5、RCP8.5两排放情景下2069~2098年中国热量资源以及冬小麦种植界限、理论生育期和气候适宜种植分区的空间分布特征进行了对比分析。研究主要结论为:与基准期相比,两未来气候变化情景下我国热量资源、冬小麦种植条件与气候适宜性差异显著。且相比于RCP4.5情景,在RCP8.5情景下中国2069~2098年多数地区热量资源增加、冬小麦种植北界和南界北移东扩、可种植面积扩大,多数区域理论适宜播种期推迟、理论成熟期提前、潜在生长季缩短,且潜在生长季内的光—温—水配置使得冬小麦气候适宜性有所提高。但由于冬小麦为喜凉作物,对高温胁迫非常敏感,RCP8.5情景下更多的极端高温天气和不对称增温等因素带来的负面影响很可能抵消前述光—温—水配置所带来的有利影响,从而降低冬小麦的种植适宜性。因此,未来研究工作仍应致力于减缓气候变化,以保障我国粮食生产的安全。  相似文献   

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