This study explores the implications of shifting the narrative of climate policy evaluation from one of costs/benefits or economic growth to a message of improving social welfare. Focusing on the costs of mitigation and the associated impacts on gross domestic product (GDP) may translate into a widespread concern that a climate agreement will be very costly. This article considers the well-known Human Development Index (HDI) as an alternative criterion for judging the welfare effects of climate policy. We estimate what the maximum possible annual average increase in HDI welfare per tons of CO2 would be within the carbon budget associated with limiting warming to 2°C over the period 2015–2050. Emission pathways are determined by a policy that allows the HDI of poor countries and their emissions to increase under a business-as-usual development path, while countries with a high HDI value (>0.8) have to restrain their emissions to ensure that the global temperature rise does not exceed 2°C. For comparison, the well-known multi-regional RICE model is used to assess GDP growth under the same climate change policy goals.
Policy relevance
This is the first study that shifts the narrative of climate policy evaluation from one of GDP growth to a message of improving social welfare, as captured by the HDI. This could make it easier for political leaders and climate negotiators to publicly commit themselves to ambitious carbon emission reduction goals, such as limiting global warming to 2°C, as in the (non-binding) agreement made at COP 21 in Paris in 2015. We find that if impacts are framed in terms of growth in HDI per t CO2 emission per capita instead of in GDP, the HDI of poor countries and their emissions are allowed to increase under a business-as-usual development path, whereas countries with a high HDI (>0.8) must control emissions so that global temperature rise remains within 2°C. Importantly, a climate agreement is more attractive for rich countries under the HDI than the GDP frame. This is good news, as these countries have to make the major contribution to emissions reductions. 相似文献
Severe biases exist in state-of-the-art general circulation models(GCMs) in capturing realistic central-Pacific(CP) El Nino structures. At the same time, many observational analyses have emphasized that thermocline(TH) feedback and zonal advective(ZA) feedback play dominant roles in the development of eastern-Pacific(EP) and CP El Nino-Southern Oscillation(ENSO), respectively. In this work, a simple linear air-sea coupled model, which can accurately depict the strength distribution of the TH and ZA feedbacks in the equatorial Pacific, is used to investigate these two types of El Nino. The results indicate that the model can reproduce the main characteristics of CP ENSO if the TH feedback is switched off and the ZA feedback is retained as the only positive feedback, confirming the dominant role played by ZA feedback in the development of CP ENSO. Further experiments indicate that, through a simple nonlinear control approach, many ENSO characteristics,including the existence of both CP and EP El Nino and the asymmetries between El Nino and La Nina, can be successfully captured using the simple linear air-sea coupled model. These analyses indicate that an accurate depiction of the climatological sea surface temperature distribution and the related ZA feedback, which are the subject of severe biases in GCMs, is very important in simulating a realistic CP El Nino. 相似文献
In recent earthquakes in developing countries, severe damage was observed on reinforced concrete buildings. This study focuses on exterior beam-column joints with substandard beam rebar anchorage and seismic strengthening by installing wing walls. First, a series of experiments was conducted to investigate the seismic behavior of exterior joints with substandard beam rebar anchorage representing typical Bangladeshi buildings. Two 0.7-scaled exterior joint specimens were tested, and these specimens showed beam rebar anchorage failure and/or joint shear failure. Prior to strengthening of the joint, a series of pullout tests was conducted on postinstalled bonded anchors in low-strength concrete for strengthening design. Then, an experiment was performed to apply the strengthening method by wing walls to one of the exterior joint specimens to improve the integrity, and this method was intended to prevent the failure of beam rebar anchorage. The strengthening method is proposed to extend the development length of beam longitudinal bars by considering the embedment length along the wing walls. The test results verified the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed strengthening method to upgrade exterior RC beam-column joints with deficient beam rebar anchorage. 相似文献
黑潮是北太平洋副热带环流系统的一支重要的西边界流。前人对不同流段黑潮的季节和年际变化进行了诸多研究,然而基于不同数据所得结论仍存在差异,尤其是不同模式计算所得流量差别很大,而且以往研究往往着眼于某一流段,对不同流段黑潮变化之间的异同及其原因涉及较少。本文基于卫星高度计数据,评估了OFES(Ocean generalcir culation model For the Earth Simulator)和HYCOM(Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model)两个模式对吕宋岛和台湾岛以东黑潮季节与年际变化的模拟能力,进而对两个海域黑潮变化的异同及其物理机制进行了分析。结果表明:HYCOM模式对黑潮季节变化的模拟较好,而OFES模式对黑潮年际变化的模拟较好。吕宋岛以东黑潮和台湾岛以东黑潮在季节与年际尺度上的变化规律均不相同,且受不同动力过程控制。吕宋岛以东黑潮呈现冬春季强而秋季弱的变化规律,主要受北赤道流分叉南北移动的影响;而台湾岛以东黑潮呈现夏季强冬季弱的变化特点,主要受该海区反气旋涡与气旋涡相对数目的季节变化影响。在年际尺度上,吕宋岛以东黑潮与北赤道流分叉及风应力旋度呈负相关,当风应力旋度超前于流量4个月时相关系数达到了-0.56;而台湾岛以东黑潮的流量变化则受制于副热带逆流区涡动能的变化,且滞后于涡动能9个月时达到最大正相关,相关系数为0.44。本研究对于深入理解不同流段黑潮的多尺度变异规律及其对邻近海区环流与气候的影响具有重要意义,同时对于黑潮研究的数值模式选取具有重要参考价值。 相似文献
Climate change is a complex issue and means different things to different people. Numerous scholars in history, philosophy, and psychology have explored these multiple meanings, referred to as the plasticity of climate change. Building on psychological research that seeks to explain why meanings differ, I present an analytical framework that draws on adult developmental psychology to explore how meaning is constructed, and how it may become increasingly more complex across a lifespan in a nested manner, much like Russian dolls (or matryoshkas). I then use the framework to analyze photo voice data from a case study about local perspectives on climate change in El Salvador. The main finding from this analysis is that a developmental approach can help to make sense of why there is such plasticity of meanings about climate change. Using photos and their interpretations to illustrate these findings, I examine how perspective-taking capacities arrive at different meanings about climate change, based on the object of awareness, complexity of thought, and scope of time. I then discuss implications of this preliminary work on how developmental psychology could help climate change scholar-practitioners to understand and align with different climate change meanings and support local actors to translate their own meanings about climate change into locally-owned actions. 相似文献