Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement and the costs of delayed action     

Matthew Winning  James Price  Paul Ekins  Steve Pye  James Glynn  Jim Watson 《Climate Policy》2019,19(8):947-958

Current country-level commitments under the Paris Agreement fall short of putting the world on a required trajectory to stay below a 2°C temperature increase compared to pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Therefore, the timing of increased ambition is hugely important and as such this paper analyses the impact of both the short and long-term goals of the Paris Agreement on global emissions and economic growth. Using the hybrid TIAM-UCL-MSA model we consider the achievement of a 2°C target against a baseline of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) while also considering the timing of increased ambition of the NDCs by 2030 and the impacts of cost reductions of key low-carbon technologies. We find that the rate of emissions reduction ambition required between 2030 and 2050 is almost double when the NDCs are achieved but not ratcheted up until 2030, and leads to lower levels of economic growth throughout the rest of the century. However, if action is taken immediately and is accompanied by increasingly rapid low-carbon technology cost reductions, then there is almost no difference in GDP compared to the path suggested by the current NDC commitments.

Key policy insights

• Delaying the additional action needed to achieve the 2°C target until 2030 is shown to require twice the rate of emissions reductions between 2030 and 2050.

• Total cumulative GDP over the century is lower when additional action is delayed to 2030 and therefore has an overall negative impact on the economy, even without including climate change damages.

• Increased ratcheting of the NDC commitments should therefore be undertaken sooner rather than later, starting in conjunction with the 2023 Global Stocktake.

• Early action combined with cost reductions in key renewable energy technologies can reduce GDP losses to minimal levels (<1%).

• A 2°C future with technological advancements is clearly possible for a similar cost as a 3.3°C world without these advances, but with lower damages and losses from climate change.

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Cross-Calibrating Sunspot Magnetic Field Strength Measurements from the McMath–Pierce Solar Telescope and the Dunn Solar Telescope     

Fraser T. Watson  Christian Beck  Matthew J. Penn  Alexandra Tritschler  Valentín Martinez Pillet  William C. Livingston 《Solar physics》2015,290(11):3267-3277

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Quantitative cooling histories from stranded diffusion profiles     

E. B. Watson  D. J. Cherniak 《Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology》2015,169(6):1-14

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A fresh framework for the ecology of arid Australia     

S.R. Morton  D.M. Stafford SmithC.R. Dickman  D.L. DunkerleyM.H. Friedel  R.R.J. McAllisterJ.R.W. Reid  D.A. RoshierM.A. Smith  F.J. WalshG.M. Wardle  I.W. Watson  M. Westoby 《Journal of Arid Environments》2011,75(4):313-329

A revised set of propositions about ecology in arid Australia is presented, based on research literature since publication of Stafford Smith and Morton (1990). Fourteen propositions distil our argument that most features of the Australian deserts are explicable in terms of two dominant physical and climatic elements: rainfall variability, leading to extended droughts and occasional flooding rains; and widespread nutrient poverty. Different landscapes within the arid zone show these features to varying degrees, and so it is important to think about different places separately when considering our propositions. Plant life-histories strongly reflect temporal patterns of soil moisture; because Australian deserts receive more variable rainfall than most others, there is a distinctive spectrum of life-histories. Low levels of phosphorus (together with abundant soil moisture on irregular occasions) favour plants producing a relative excess of carbohydrate (C). In turn, C-rich plant products sometimes lead to fire-prone ecosystems, assemblages dominated by consumers of sap and other C-based products, and abundant detritivores (particularly termites). Fluctuations in production due to variable rainfall provide openings for consumers with opportunistic life-histories, including inhabitants of extensive but ephemeral rivers and lakes. Most consumer species exhibit some dietary flexibility or utilise more dependable resources; these strategies give rise to greater stability in species dynamics and composition of assemblages than might first be imagined under the variable rainfall regime. Aboriginal people have had long-standing ecological influence as they accessed resources. For each proposition we suggest the extent to which it is ‘different’, ‘accentuated’ or ‘universal’ in comparison with other deserts of the world, recognising that this categorisation is in need of critical testing. Further tests of each proposition are also suggested to fill the many gaps that still exist in our knowledge of the structure and functioning of Australia’s deserts.  相似文献   

Stewardship of things: The radical potential of product stewardship for re-framing responsibilities and relationships to products and materials     

Ruth Lane  Matt Watson 《Geoforum》2012,43(6):1254-1265

In the context of broad-based concerns about the need to move towards a more sustainable materials economy, particularly as they are expressed in debates around Ecological Modernisation (EM), we argue that product stewardship has radical potential as a means to promote significant change in the relationship between society and the material world. We focus on two important dimensions that have been neglected in approaches to product stewardship to date. Firstly, we argue that immanent within the basic concept of stewardship is a problematisation of dominant understandings of property ownership in neoliberal market economies. In the space opened up by notions of stewardship, different ways of enacting both rights and responsibilities to products and materials emerge which have potential to advance the sustainability of material economies. Secondly, through exploration of existing expressions of product stewardship, we uncover a neglected scale of action. Both policy and dominant articulations of EM focus primarily on the efficiency of production processes; and secondarily, the attitudes and behaviours of individual consumers. Missing from this is the ‘meso-scale’ of social collectives including households, neighbourhoods, more distributed communities and small scale social enterprises. Based on a review of existing research from Australia and the UK, including our own, we argue that understanding of embedded practices of material responsibility at the household scale can both reinvigorate the concept of product stewardship as a potentially radical intervention, and reveal the potential of the meso-scale as a challenging but worthwhile realm of policy intervention.  相似文献   

The AuScope geodetic VLBI array   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

J. E. J. Lovell  J. N. McCallum  P. B. Reid  P. M. McCulloch  B. E. Baynes  J. M. Dickey  S. S. Shabala  C. S. Watson  O. Titov  R. Ruddick  R. Twilley  C. Reynolds  S. J. Tingay  P. Shield  R. Adada  S. P. Ellingsen  J. S. Morgan  H. E. Bignall 《Journal of Geodesy》2013,87(6):527-538

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SDSS J150722.30+523039.8: a cataclysmic variable formed directly from a detached white dwarf/brown dwarf binary?     

S. P. Littlefair  V. S. Dhillon  T. R. Marsh  B. T. Gänsicke  I. Baraffe  C. A. Watson 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,381(2):827-834

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In Situ Underwater Electronic Holographic Camera for Studies of Plankton     

Hongyue Sun Hendry  D.C. Player  M.A. Watson  J. 《Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Journal of》2007,32(2):373-382

In this paper, we describe an underwater electronic holographic camera (eHoloCam) that has been developed for in situ studies of the distribution and dynamics of plankton and other marine organisms and particles. The eHoloCam uses an Nd-YAG pulsed laser to freeze-frame fast moving particles and a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) sensor for high-resolution image capture. Digital holograms and holographic videos are recorded at rates from 5 to 25 Hz over a period of several hours. Data is stored locally on an embedded computer. The eHoloCam is capable of recording all organisms and particles located in a water volume of 36.8 cm³ in a single hologram frame. The recorded holographic videos may subsequently be reconstructed numerically at a desired image plane. The main optical and mechanical specifications for eHoloCam are also described. To record electronic holographic videos of marine organisms, the eHoloCam was deployed from a towed sampling frame [autorecording instrumented environmental sampler (ARIES)] on the research vessel RV Scotia at speeds up to 4 kn (about 2 mldrs^-1) in the North Sea off the Shetland Isles. Various images of marine organisms obtained from this deployment are shown, together with preliminary measurements on the distribution of Calanus copepods.  相似文献   

First results from the Very Small Array – III. The cosmic microwave background power spectrum     

Paul F. Scott  Pedro Carreira  Kieran Cleary  Rod D. Davies  Richard J. Davis  Clive Dickinson  Keith Grainge  Carlos M. Gutiérrez  Michael P. Hobson  Michael E. Jones  Rüdiger Kneissl  Anthony Lasenby  Klaus Maisinger  Guy G. Pooley  Rafael Rebolo  José Alberto Rubiño-Martin †  Pedro J. Sosa Molina  Ben Rusholme ‡  Richard D. E. Saunders  Richard Savage  An&#;e Slosar  Angela C. Taylor  David Titterington  Elizabeth Waldram  Robert A. Watson §  Althea Wilkinson 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2003,341(4):1076-1083

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ULTRACAM photometry of the eclipsing cataclysmic variable OU Vir     

W. J. Feline  V. S. Dhillon  T. R. Marsh  M. J. Stevenson  C. A. Watson  C. S. Brinkworth 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,347(4):1173-1179

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