Top Research Papers on Climate Change

Advancing future-oriented perspectives in political ecology and critical agrarian studies, this paper examines projected land use and land cover change (LULCC) dynamics in four ‘ archetypal ’ scenarios foregrounded by the IPCC for limiting global warming to 1.5°C by 2100. Focusing on the Global South, we explore how these archetypes project a radical reversal of historical LULCC and rural population trends, potentially implying a considerable rescaling of contemporary land rush dynamics. Taken together, land-based climate mitigation futures highlight risks related to the (re)production of rela...

A review of Negotiating Climate Change: The Inside Story of the Rio Convention.

ide (C02), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N20). The nature of the effect, and possible anthropogenic influences on it, have been the subject of much debate over the last few years. The likelihood and extent of anthropogenic changes were considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 1990) in its first assessment report, and a supplementary report in 1992 (Houghton et al, 1992). This led to the ratification of a Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992). The UK government’s response was set out in Climate Change: The UK Programme (1994). It is generally accepted that h...

Greenhouse gases emitted anywhere affect people everywhere, and they will do so for a very long time. Progress on an international response to climate change has been bedeviled by ethical, political, and economic fractures, highlighting the severe limitations of the Westphalian state system. Non-state actors have played a crucial role in negotiations; some are “internationalist,” whereas others are “globalist.” Climate change is inseparable from capitalism’s insatiable appetite for growth. The rise of China destabilizes previous understandings of the world, including those of global studies an...

It is obvious that individuals, however hard and focused their attempts, will not achieve enough critical mass to counteract the effects of climate change and that the problem needs to be tackled on a collective scale.

In this progress report on climate change, I examine the growing literature dealing with the proposal to engineer global climate through the deliberate injection of aerosols into the stratosphere. This is just one of a wide range of technology proposals to geoengineer the climate, but one in particular which has gained the attention of Earth System science researchers and which is attracting wider public debate. I review the current status of this technology by exploring a number of different dimensions of the proposal: its history and philosophical and ethical implications; how it is framed i...

40 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS JANUARY /FEBRUARY 2007 HE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIAtion for the Advancement of Science and the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, John P. Holdren focuses on the causes and consequences of environmental change, and energy technologies and policies. He is also director of the Woods Hole Research Center, which applies scientific and policy initiatives to environmental issues. The Bulletin's executive director Kennette Benedict recently spoke with Holdren in Chicago.

Over the past century global average temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C. Any substantial change in the Earth's temperature must be the result of a perturbation, or so-called radiative forcing, of the planet's energy balance. The equilibrium global temperature response to a particular amount of radiative forcing is termed the Earth's climate sensitivity. Once the Earth's energy balance is perturbed, feedbacks arise that act either to enhance or suppress the perturbation. The positive feedback arising from changes in the water vapor level in the atmosphere resulting from a change in tempe...

Three articles on the post‐Copenhagen world are presented, including statistical work that still needs to be done that was not done at the Copenhagen conference.

The Australian national election at the end of 2007 replaced a decade-long conservative government with a new, socially progressive government by a comfortable nationwide margin. This election has been widely reported as hinging on the progressive party's ability to successfully communicate about global climate change issues, and has even been heralded as the first national election campaign in recent history to turn on a scientific topic. However, analysis of the rhetoric used in the campaign cycle suggests that while climate change was the defining issue in this national campaign, in reality...

The influence of factors important in the process of climate change, such as increasing levels of light, UV radiation, atmospheric CO2 and temperature, changing patterns and frequencies of precipitation, and their predicted and observed effects on bryophyte ecophysiology, species distribution, diversity, richness, and abundance are outlined in the book.

The climate change policy debate has intensified as a result of several international developments. Potential opportunities for Africa are explored within the context of multi-lateral policy efforts embodied in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (‘UNFCCC’) and its Kyoto Protocol (supported by scientific understanding reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (‘IPCC’)). IPCC has reported that adverse impacts of climate change may be more severe than previously understood, particularly in Africa, but that technologies and means are available to address the ...

Global climate change is signifi cantly altering the structure and functioning of many ecosystems and, consequently, temporal and spatial patterns of population and species abundance (e.g. Stenseth et al ., 2005 ; Rosenzweig et al ., 2008 ). Signifi cant advances in the scientifi c understanding of climate change now make it clear that there has been a change in climate that goes beyond the range of natural variability. As stated in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the warming of the climate system is ‘unequivocal’ and it is ‘very like...

This paper reports on the findings of a research project investigating the nature of participation of secondary school students in a collaborative research programme. Four groups of students, aged 14 to 15 years old, from a secondary school in the United Kingdom (UK) participated in the study. The students involved in the programme took the role of researchers investigating their peers’ perceptions of climate change using video to visually record their findings. University researchers worked collaboratively with the school students and a teacher from the school through an approach that empower...

The scientific consensus on climate change's origins in human activities has begun to influence international law and corporate policies. Suitable for MBA and undergraduate students, this technical note is a compilation that replaces a three-part series of the same name (UVA-ENT-0036, -0037, and -0038) International concern over global climate change began in the late 20th century, when scientists saw a correlation among increasing atmospheric concentrations of certain gases, human activities emitting those gases, and an unusual increase in global ambient temperature readings. The scientific c...

Climate change surpasses the ability of any state to tackle on their own and requires global collective action. As a universal political body, the United Nations is indispensable to addressing climate change. It provides the arena for member states to discuss, deliberate, and decide; the institutional apparatus to support negotiations; and the platform and incentives for many actors to engage in creating and implementing agreements. UN institutions were critical to the identification of climate change as a global concern and the development of a formal regime adopted and supported by member st...

The World Health Organization (WHO) should now declare a public health emergency over the outbreak of cholera in Italy.

Climate change caused by the anthropogenic accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the air is affecting all life on earth and bearing upon human undertakings thereby representing the most complicated challenge of our time. Across cultures, the impacts of climate change affect women and men differently. Although women being disproportionately impacted by climate change, they play a key role in adapting and mitigating climate change. This is why UN-Climate Change negotiations have incorporated gender action plans to guarantee equal room and resources for women and men for decision-making and action...

This chapter considers two questions of distributive justice that arise when we face dangerous climate change. The first (the Just Target Question) concerns what balance to strike between ensuring that moral subjects are not harmed by climatic changes and ensuring that the policies required to prevent harmful climatic changes are not unduly onerous. The second (the Just Burden Question) concerns how the costs involved in combating dangerous climate change should be distributed among duty-bearers. The chapter identifies several methodological issues we need to confront to address these question...

This editorial is joining other medical journal editors on a “call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5°C, halt the destruction of nature, and protect health,” and will appear simultaneously in 233 scientific journals throughout the world in advance of this year's UN General Assembly, the UN Biodiversity Conference, and the UN Climate Change Conference.