Most recent papers:

• Artful climate change communication: overcoming abstractions, insensibilities, and distances.
  Harriet Hawkins, Anja Kanngieser.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. July 11, 2017
  This article considers how visual and sonic art creates encounters through which audiences can experience climate change. Building on reviews published in WIREs Climate Change on images, films, drama, climate science fiction, and other literary forms, we examine how audio and visual art addresses the enduring problems of climate change communication. We begin with three of these problems: climate change's often abstract nature, the distances in time and space between those who cause climate change and the places its effects are felt, and forms of human–environmental relations that shape how climate is understood. We reflect on how, through a combination of vision and sound, art creates sensory experiences that tackle these challenges. In querying how our artistic examples bring about environmental engagements, we combine an analysis of the representations and narratives of these works with an appreciation of their aesthetic form—in short, how these art pieces activate emotional and experiential responses. While we recognize the limits of what art can do, especially the gallery‐based forms of work we study here, we argue that spending time exploring the encounters that art creates helps us to understand what it brings to the communication of climate change. It also demonstrates how lessons learnt about sensory experience, affect, and emotions might be more widely applied to the analysis of cultural forms—from literature to films—and their role in climate change communication. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e472. doi: 10.1002/wcc.472 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.A paper exploring how audio‐visual art might help tackle some of the challenges of communicating climate change.

  July 11, 2017   doi: 10.1002/wcc.472   open full text
• Is climate change a new kind of problem? The role of theology and imagination in climate ethics.
  Forrest Clingerman, Kevin J. O'Brien.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 13, 2017
  Some scholars and activists assume that climate change is entirely sui generis: a brand new kind of problem that calls for new kinds of thinking and activism. Others communicate the seriousness of climate change by arguing that it is prefigured by the biggest events in human history, such as the moral crime of slavery or the political challenge of World War II. While the choice between these two frames for climate change is often implicit, it shapes the research and arguments that follow. This can be illustrated by examining Christian theology and ethics: Those theologians who see climate change as sui generis tend to embrace the inevitability of apocalyptic change, increasing instability, and an Anthropocene age that calls for new kinds of religion and spirituality. Those who see climate change as prefigured, by contrast, tend to emphasize the continued relevance of established religious traditions, in particular their commitments to social justice and their opposition to destructive political and economic structures. The two approaches offer different frames for climate change and different theological imaginations of the problem. When the question of whether climate change is new and the imaginaries that question inspires are explicit, arguments in theology and ethics are clearer and more defined. Interdisciplinary connections then suggest that this exercise of exploring how climate change is framed, characterized, and imagined will be relevant to a wide range of scholars and activists. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e480. doi: 10.1002/wcc.480 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Perhaps the most important conclusion … is not to suggest whether climate change is an old or new problem, but to ask whether discourse about climate change is best served by seeing it as an old or a new problem. From the People's Climate March rally in New York City, September 21, 2014. Photograph by Alejandro Alvarez, licensed by CC BY‐SA 4.0.

  June 13, 2017   doi: 10.1002/wcc.480   open full text
• Trajectories of exposure and vulnerability of small islands to climate change.
  Virginie K.E. Duvat, Alexandre K. Magnan, Russell M. Wise, John E. Hay, Ioan Fazey, Jochen Hinkel, Tim Stojanovic, Hiroya Yamano, Valérie Ballu.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. May 31, 2017
  This article advocates for a dynamic and comprehensive understanding of vulnerability to climate‐related environmental changes in order to feed the design of adaptation future pathways. It uses the trajectory of exposure and vulnerability (TEV) approach that it defines as ‘storylines of driving factors and processes that have influenced past and present territorial system exposure and vulnerability to impacts associated with climate variability and change.’ The study is based on the analysis of six peer‐reviewed Pacific island case studies covering various geographical settings (high islands vs low‐lying reef islands, urban vs rural) and hazards associated with climate variability and change; that addressed the interactions between natural and anthropogenic driving factors; and adopted multidecadal past‐to‐present approaches. The findings emphasize that most urban and rural reef and high islands have undergone increasing exposure and vulnerability as a result of major changes in settlement and demographic patterns, lifestyles and economies, natural resources availability, and environmental conditions. The article highlights three generic and successive periods of change in the studied islands’ TEV: from geopolitical and political over the colonization‐to‐political independence period; to demographic, socio‐economic, and cultural from the 1960s to the 1980s; culminating in the dominance of demographic, socio‐economic, cultural, and environmental drivers since the 1980s. Based on these empirical insights, the article emphasizes the existence of anthropogenic‐driven path‐dependency effects in TEV, thus arguing for the analysis of the temporal dimensions of exposure and vulnerability to be a prerequisite for science to be able to inform policy‐ and decision‐making processes toward robust adaptation pathways. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e478. doi: 10.1002/wcc.478 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. South Tarawa atoll, Kiribati (credit: V.K.E. Duvat)The South Tarawa Urban District (STUD), stretching 35 km on the southern rim of Tarawa Atoll in Kiribati (Central Pacific), experienced a dramatic increase in its Trajectory of Exposure and Vulnerability (TEV) to climate‐related hazards over the last decades to century, mainly due to the centralization of political power, key services and work opportunities, and to population growth, which have all together caused widespread environmental degradation. More generally, it illustrates the processes at work in Pacific atolls’ urban districts and islands. This article advocates for a temporal and comprehensive understanding of the main drivers of TEV to climate‐related environmental changes so as to capture latency phenomena in social systems and related path‐dependency effects. The paper then concludes for the TEV approach to be a pre‐requisite for science to be able to inform policy‐ and decision‐making processes towards robust adaptation pathways.

  May 31, 2017   doi: 10.1002/wcc.478   open full text
• Rethinking the green state beyond the Global North: a South African climate change case study.
  Sangeetha Chandrashekeran, Bronwen Morgan, Kim Coetzee, Peter Christoff.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. May 31, 2017
  This study focuses on the role of the South African state in environmental governance, with particular reference to transformations in political authority and processes of capital accumulation. Our approach underscores the importance of analyzing state environmental efforts both empirically and normatively, in order to understand the underlying drivers of state policies that perpetuate or ameliorate environmental degradation. The tension between economic and ecological values lies at the heart of South Africa's approach to mitigation. We evaluate South Africa's performance on climate change mitigation policies and programs and show that while, empirically, South Africa may appear to be a partial or emerging green state, its performance is weak when assessed against normative frameworks. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e473. doi: 10.1002/wcc.473 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. We assess South Africa's policy performance using the following criteria: institutionalization of ecological values; state capacity for environmentally beneficial outcomes; ecological modernization; and democratic participation. We argue that South Africa has tentatively moved towards becoming a green state. However initiatives suffer from weak implementation and enforcement, and well‐entrenched patterns of energy‐intensive accumulation persist.

  May 31, 2017   doi: 10.1002/wcc.473   open full text
• Up and down with climate politics 2013–2016: the repeal of carbon pricing in Australia.
  Kate Crowley.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. March 02, 2017
  The 2013 election of Australia's conservative Abbott Coalition (Liberal and National parties) government saw the repeal of carbon pricing, (which had previously been implemented by the Labor government in 2012), assume the first order of business. This Focus article reviews expert and political commentary and analysis of the repeal, and provides an overview of the Abbott government's dismantling and attempted dismantling of other climate initiatives. It reviews commentary and critiques of the government's substitute Direct Action (DA) policy and its capacity to reduce emissions. The views of the international community on the Abbott government's repositioning of Australia's climate policy are considered, as are the prospects of achieving effective emissions reduction policy under Abbott's successor, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. The paper notes the role of the Senate in both assisting and frustrating government reforms, as well as aspects of policy continuity that could see a form of carbon pricing revived in future. It explores the correlation between the political ascension of Tony Abbott and his rejection of carbon pricing, whether his substitute DA mechanism will effectively reduce emissions, and the adequacy of Australia's current global climate policy aspirations. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e458. doi: 10.1002/wcc.458 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. The Abbott Government's climate policy dismantling in 2013‐16 has left Australia without adequate mechanisms to respond to or to mitigate climate change

  March 02, 2017   doi: 10.1002/wcc.458   open full text
• Should there be future people? A fundamental question for climate change and intergenerational justice.
  Pranay Sanklecha.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. February 17, 2017
  The effects of climate change will be felt far into the future, long after currently living people have stopped existing. A popular way of understanding what this means ethically is to conceptualize the issue in terms of intergenerational justice: currently living people have duties of justice toward future generations to not wrongfully harm them, or duties to reduce the risk of violating the rights future people will have when they exist. In this article I show that this depends on assumptions about the existence, identity, and number of future people. I argue for the relevance and importance of ethically investigating these assumptions; in particular of asking: should humanity continue to exist? I argue that this ethical investigation is necessary to properly and fully understand the ethical challenges that climate change creates. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e453. doi: 10.1002/wcc.453 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  February 17, 2017   doi: 10.1002/wcc.453   open full text
• Characterizing half‐a‐degree difference: a review of methods for identifying regional climate responses to global warming targets.
  Rachel James, Richard Washington, Carl‐Friedrich Schleussner, Joeri Rogelj, Declan Conway.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. January 24, 2017
  The Paris Agreement long‐term global temperature goal refers to two global warming levels: well below 2°C and 1.5°C above preindustrial. Regional climate signals at specific global warming levels, and especially the differences between 1.5°C and 2°C, are not well constrained, however. In particular, methodological challenges related to the assessment of such differences have received limited attention. This article reviews alternative approaches for identifying regional climate signals associated with global temperature limits, and evaluates the extent to which they constitute a sound basis for impacts analysis. Four methods are outlined, including comparing data from different greenhouse gas scenarios, sub‐selecting climate models based on global temperature response, pattern scaling, and extracting anomalies at the time of each global temperature increment. These methods have rarely been applied to compare 2°C with 1.5°C, but some demonstrate potential avenues for useful research. Nevertheless, there are methodological challenges associated with the use of existing climate model experiments, which are generally designed to model responses to different levels of greenhouse gas forcing, rather than to model climate responses to a specific level of forcing that targets a given level of global temperature change. Novel approaches may be required to address policy questions, in particular: to differentiate between half degree warming increments while accounting for different sources of uncertainty; to examine mechanisms of regional climate change including the potential for nonlinear responses; and to explore the relevance of time‐lagged processes in the climate system and declining emissions, and the resulting sensitivity to alternative mitigation pathways. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e457. doi: 10.1002/wcc.457 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. What methods are available for extracting regional climate changes at 1.5°C and 2°C? We explore the options and challenges.

  January 24, 2017   doi: 10.1002/wcc.457   open full text
• Understanding the rhetoric of climate science debates.
  Lynda Walsh.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. December 29, 2016
  Scientists and policymakers alike frequently call for the elimination of rhetoric from discussions of climate science. These calls betray some fundamental misunderstandings about the 2500‐year‐old art of rhetoric. Once these are dispelled, it becomes apparent that what we need for effective climate‐science debate is not less rhetoric but more: that is, more sensitivity to the political frame within which every debate takes place and how that frame shapes deliberation; more awareness of the unstated values and assumptions supporting statements made on all sides; more ways to link climate to stakeholders’ daily lives, values, and decisions. This article briefly introduces readers to the history and theory of rhetoric for two purposes: (1) explaining the various and sometimes contradictory ways in which this ancient discipline shapes the communication of climate science and (2) providing readers with a few simple but powerful tools for coping with climate debates. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e452. doi: 10.1002/wcc.452 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. The “stases” or rhetorical levels of argument in climate‐change debates.

  December 29, 2016   doi: 10.1002/wcc.452   open full text
• Climate change as a ‘hyperobject’: a critical review of Timothy Morton's reframing narrative.
  Elizabeth Boulton.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 03, 2016
  Climate policy, climate communication and cognitive science researches have identified that better ways of conveying the climate change story are needed; specifically, a new frame or narrative is required. There are also increasing calls for the arts and humanities to play a greater role in the ‘meaning‐making’ task around climate change. Philosopher and literary theorist Timothy Morton has created a new approach, one which frames global warming as a ‘hyperobject’. Morton's work demonstrates the value of artistic and philosophical approaches in helping people perceive climate change, as well as understand how it may feel. It opens up a potentially crucial discussion about ontology (the study of ‘Being’ and existence) illuminating the difficult emotional and conceptual territory humans must cross. His work is intended to awaken people abruptly but debate exists as to whether Morton's approach is too harsh and disempowering, or whether it is the spur required for humans to adjust cognitively and emotionally to a new climate reality. Morton's frame vividly captures human vulnerability, but his association of vulnerability with shame and humiliation is concerning. Morton's narrative style, brilliantly evocative at times, is at others contentiously obscure. While this engenders what may be a necessary experience of dislocation, it also risks rendering his more valuable ideas impenetrable to many readers. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:772–785. doi: 10.1002/wcc.410 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 03, 2016   doi: 10.1002/wcc.410   open full text
• (Mis)communicating climate change? Why online adaptation databases may fail to catalyze adaptation action.
  Carrie L. Mitchell, Sarah L. Burch, Patrick A. Driscoll.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. May 19, 2016
  Over the last decade a plethora of action‐oriented research projects has been conducted in developing countries, exploring how to effectively adapt to the anticipated impacts of climate change. Many intergovernmental agencies and development organizations have chosen to disseminate their research results via online databases. It is unclear, however, whether these databases are useful in terms of actual adaptation planning and implementation. A systematic review of online databases has found at least 64 databases and tools online related to climate change adaptation. Despite the abundance of databases, this analysis reveals that the existing body of online databases generally lack the structure and mechanics to identify, extract, and synthesize both effective and ineffective climate change adaptation practices, projects, programs, and policies. Even relatively basic information, such as identification of projects’ projected versus actual costs is absent, which are crucial decision‐making criteria particularly in developing country contexts where resource constraints are significant. In this paper we evaluate these online tools with a focus on identifying features that potentially could contribute to knowledge sharing and successful exchange of climate change adaptation projects and practices within a developing country context. We conclude the paper with recommendations for how to improve efforts to communicate climate change research, such as more nuanced needs assessments of potential users of databases. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:600–613. doi: 10.1002/wcc.401 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  May 19, 2016   doi: 10.1002/wcc.401   open full text
• The durability of building materials under a changing climate.
  Mark C. Phillipson, Rohinton Emmanuel, Paul H Baker.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. May 19, 2016
  Weathering of materials leads to degradation of the fabric of buildings which if left unchecked will lead to an increase in the rate, and possibly severity, of degradation. Adjustments to maintenance regimes could accommodate marginal changes to degradation rate. However, for significant increases in degradation rate, adaptations may be required. Globally, any new deterioration mechanisms are unlikely. However, in the future previously insignificant problems may start to become significant at a local level, for which there is a lack of local knowledge or experience. Adaptation in the context of existing buildings is a means to further protect the existing fabric, to consolidate performance and control the rate of deterioration. This adaptation goes beyond the scope of enhanced maintenance. For historic buildings, there will be tension between the need to conserve the building and simultaneously adapt in the face of increased climate change driven weathering. Impact studies are needed to identify priorities for adaptation by identifying the scale and impact of degradation‐related defects for the future building stock. Such studies need to be integrated with authoritative information on projected future climate. Adaptation of building design is needed to ensure new buildings consider performance in both current and future climates. A whole‐life approach to building design is needed. To achieve this building standards, building codes need to be developed which consider future climate design. Traditional vernacular styles may offer an opportunity for learning design lessons and adapting design practices that could help facilitate appropriate climate protection. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:590–599. doi: 10.1002/wcc.398 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  May 19, 2016   doi: 10.1002/wcc.398   open full text
• Bayesian estimation of climate sensitivity using observationally constrained simple climate models.
  Roger W. Bodman, Roger N. Jones.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. April 22, 2016
  One‐dimensional simple climate models (SCMs) play an important role within a hierarchy of climate models. They have largely been used to investigate alternative emission scenarios and estimate global‐mean temperature change. This role has expanded through the incorporation of techniques that include Monte Carlo methods and Bayesian statistics, adding the ability to generate probabilistic temperature change projections and diagnose key uncertainties, including equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). The latter is the most influential parameter within this class of models where it is ordinarily prescribed, rather than being an emergent property. A series of recent papers based on SCMs and Bayesian statistical methods have endeavored to estimate ECS by using instrumental observations and results from other more complex models to constrain the parameter space. Distributions for ECS depend on a variety of parameters, such as ocean diffusivity and aerosol forcing, so that conclusions cannot be drawn without reference to the joint parameter distribution. Results are affected by the treatment of natural variability, observational uncertainty, and the parameter space being explored. In addition, the highly simplified nature of SCMs means that they contain a number of implicit assumptions that do not necessarily reflect adequately the true nature of Earth's nonlinear quasi‐chaotic climate system. Differences in the best estimate and range for ECS may be partly due to variations in the structure of the SCMs reviewed in this study, along with the selection of data and the calibration details, including the choice of priors. Further investigations and model intercomparisons are needed to clarify these issues. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:461–473. doi: 10.1002/wcc.397

  April 22, 2016   doi: 10.1002/wcc.397   open full text
• Beyond special circumstances: climate change policy in Turkey 1992–2015.
  Ethemcan Turhan, Semra Cerit Mazlum, Ümit Şahin, Alevgül H. Şorman, A. Cem Gündoğan.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. March 07, 2016
  The contours of Turkey's climate policy have remained almost intact over the past two decades. Being an Annex I party without any mitigation commitments, Turkey maintains a peculiar position under UNFCCC. Subsequent to 12 years of delay in signing both the Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, Turkey had the highest rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions among the Annex I countries with 110.4% upsurge in the period 1990 and 2013. Yet with the new climate regime now in place, the country's mitigation pledges fall short of expectations both in terms of realistic projections and its ambition to step up in the post‐2020 period. Climate policies in Turkey, an EU candidate and OECD founding member with a growing economy, remain under‐investigated. Although the country has a wide range of policies and institutions in place, it shows limited progress in addressing climate change. Based on evidence from the literature, we observe that climate policies operationalize in Turkey insofar as they do not directly confront developmental ambitions, leaving policy diffusion with limited success. To provide a historic overview, we focus on climate policy development, actors, processes, and contemporary trends. Evidence shows that these are highly ridden with the politics of special circumstances: a notion that Turkey employs to refrain from bindings commitments. In order to go beyond special circumstances discourse, we argue the need for a bold policy shift in Turkey, a country subject to adverse impacts of climate change and high‐carbon lock‐in risk due to development policy preferences. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:448–460. doi: 10.1002/wcc.390 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  March 07, 2016   doi: 10.1002/wcc.390   open full text
• Brazilian climate politics 2005–2012: ambivalence and paradox.
  Eduardo Viola, Matías Franchini.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. May 22, 2014
  Climate change has become a powerful social and political driver of our time. Within this context, progressive national and international societies are faced with a central challenge: how can reformist forces become strong enough to bypass the efforts of conservative forces and initiate a rapid and profound response to the climate crisis? This article reviews the politics of climate change in Brazil between 2005 and 2012 with reference to this central societal challenge, focusing on reformist and conservative actors such as economic and social forces, as well as the role of the government. This review identifies three periods: first, 2005–2008, when reformist forces grew strongly from a weak base; second, 2009–2010, when there was a peak in influence of reformist forces, while at the same time as conservative forces were growing strong; and third, 2011–2012, when conservative forces became predominant and were strongly supported by the government. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article.

  May 22, 2014   doi: 10.1002/wcc.289   open full text
• Ice sheets as interactive components of Earth System Models: progress and challenges.
  Miren Vizcaino.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. May 12, 2014
  One of the major impacts of anthropogenic climate change is sea level rise. Reliable estimates of the contribution of ice sheets to future sea level rise are important to policy makers and the civil society. In addition to sea level rise, ice sheet changes can affect the global climate through modified freshwater fluxes in the areas of deep‐water convection. Also, ice sheets modify local and large‐scale climate through changes in surface albedo and in their own topography. In the past, ice sheets have played a fundamental role in shaping climate and climate transitions. Despite their strong interactions with the climate system, they are not yet standard components of climate models. First attempts have been made in this direction, and it is foreseeable that in several years ice sheets will be included as interactive components of most models. The main challenges for this coupling are related to spatial and temporal resolution, ice sheet initialization, model climate biases, the need for explicit representation of snow/ice surface physics (e.g., albedo evolution, surface melt, refreezing, compaction), and coupling to the ocean component. This article reviews the main processes contributing to the ice sheet mass budget, the suite of ice sheet–climate interactions, and the requirements for modelling them in a coupled system. Focus is given to four major subjects: surface mass balance, ice sheet flow, ocean–ice sheet interaction, and challenges in coupling ice sheet models to climate models. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article.

  May 12, 2014   doi: 10.1002/wcc.285   open full text
• The politics of climate change in the UK.
  Neil Carter.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. January 31, 2014
  Between 2006 and 2010 climate change rose rapidly up the UK political agenda and the Labour Government, with cross‐party support, introduced major changes in domestic climate and energy policy, including the landmark Climate Change Act 2008, which represented an important step toward the UK becoming a low carbon economy. Cross‐party consensus was initially sustained by the Conservative‐Liberal Democrat Coalition, before growing criticism from the political right began to turn climate change into an increasingly partisan issue, thereby weakening the commitment of David Cameron to climate leadership. The article examines the transition of climate change from low politics to high politics, assessing the role of public opinion, the media, business, environmental groups, and party competition in overcoming the obstacles to progressive climate change and energy policy. The roles of party politics and of individual political leadership are identified as critical factors in raising the profile of climate change and delivering radical policy change. The significance of the growing partisan divisions over climate change is assessed. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflict of interest for this article.

  January 31, 2014   doi: 10.1002/wcc.274   open full text
• Public engagement with climate change: the role of human values.
  Adam Corner, Ezra Markowitz, Nick Pidgeon.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. January 21, 2014
  A long history of interdisciplinary research highlights the powerful role that human values play in shaping individuals' engagement with environmental issues. That certain values are supportive of proenvironmental orientation and behavior is now well established. But as the challenge of communicating the risks of climate change has grown increasingly urgent, there has been a rise in interest around how values shape public engagement with this issue. In the current paper, we review the growing body of work that explores the role of human values (and the closely related concept of cultural worldviews) in public engagement with climate change. Following a brief conceptual overview of values and their relationship to environmental engagement in general, we then provide a review of the literature linking value‐orientations and engagement with climate change. We also review both academic and ‘gray’ literature from civil society organizations that has focused on how public messages about climate change should be framed, and discuss the significance of research on human values for climate change communication strategies. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article.

  January 21, 2014   doi: 10.1002/wcc.269   open full text
• Pricing carbon: the politics of climate policy in Australia.
  Kate Crowley.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 21, 2013
  This article provides an overview of the politics of climate policy with a focus on carbon pricing politics under recent Australian Labor governments. It reviews and explains the impact of politics upon climate policy and draws attention to the influence of the fossil fuel lobby. It reviews historical context, including early, failed attempts to set and pursue emissions reduction; the domestic and international recalcitrance of neoliberal leaders; and the recent shift to embrace carbon pricing. It considers the impact of politics upon climate policy outcomes, piecing together political and policy efforts to price carbon, and drawing attention to the agenda setting of the Australian States and Territories, and of Kevin Rudd both as Labor opposition leader and as Prime Minister. It argues that the capacity of industry to thwart effective carbon pricing was only checked by institutional influences once Labor assumed minority government in 2010. In these circumstances, Labor relied upon the Australian Greens, not only to support in part its government in office, but also to pass legislation in the Senate where the Greens hold the balance of power. Under these circumstances, carbon pricing could be negotiated and agreed upon by a Multi‐Party Committee on Climate Change (MPCCC) comprising the government and its parliamentary supporters, including independents and the Greens. Whilst political and economic interests have largely shaped Australia's climate change agendas, it is concluded that policy shifts are nevertheless possible where there is a propitious combination of political, normative, and institutional influences. WIREs Clim Change 2013. doi: 10.1002/wcc.239 Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 21, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.239   open full text
• Targeting and tailoring climate change communications.
  Ann Bostrom, Gisela Böhm, Robert E. O'Connor.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 18, 2013
  Social marketing studies suggest that targeting segments of the population, by assessing and addressing their values and motives for actions in the design of communications, can improve the effectiveness of health and environmental communications efforts. Guidance for climate change communication now routinely proposes targeting specific audience segments as a fundamental principle, despite ambiguity regarding what specific behaviors to target and a lack of empirical evidence for specific strategies. Audience segmentation strategies proposed to date for climate change communications resemble those used in other social marketing efforts, but can be proprietary or opaque, with little data on the effects of implementing them. Insufficient evidence exists to systematically demonstrate the effectiveness of targeting or tailoring climate change communications per se, other than by reference to related research on health and environmental risk communications. Meta‐analyses with systematic literature reviews, however, demonstrate that health risk communications can be more effective at changing attitudes and behaviors if they are tailored to the individual recipients' beliefs about their self‐efficacy. The advent of technology‐enabled microtargeting is rapidly expanding the opportunities for tailoring and targeting climate change communications and for adding to what we know from using them to make them effective. WIREs Clim Change 2011 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.214 Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 18, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.234   open full text
• Contrasting frames in policy debates on climate change adaptation.
  Art Dewulf.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 14, 2013
  The process by which issues, decisions, or events acquire different meanings from different perspectives has been studied as framing. In policy debates about climate change adaptation, framing the adaptation issue is a challenge with potentially far‐reaching implications for the shape and success of adaptation projects. From the available literature on how the meaning of climate change adaptation is constructed and debated, three key dimensions of frame differences were identified: (1) the tension between adaptation and mitigation as two contrasting but interrelated perspectives on climate change; (2) the contrast between framing climate change adaptation as a tame technical problem, and framing climate change as a wicked problem of governance; and (3) the framing of climate change adaptation as a security issue, contrasting state security frames with human security frames. It is argued that the study of how climate change adaptation gets framed could be enriched by connecting these dimensions more closely with the following themes in framing research: (1) how decision‐making biases that to framing issues as structured technical problems; (2) the process of scale framing by which issues are situated at a particular scale level; and (3) the challenge of dealing with the variety of frames in adaptation processes. WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:321–330. doi: 10.1002/wcc.227 Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 14, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.227   open full text
• The politics of climate change in Germany: ambition versus lobby power.
  Axel Michaelowa.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 14, 2013
  In 30 years of climate policy in Germany, a high level of declared ambition has coexisted with an eclectic mix of climate policy measures. Well‐organized lobbies were either exempt from policy instruments such as the energy tax or directly benefitted from them, as in the case of the renewable feed‐in tariff or windfall profits from free allocation of emissions allowances. As a result, German emissions mitigation is much more costly than it would have to be. Moreover, the challenges because of the imminent phase‐out of nuclear power are increasing due to failures in a number of relevant policy fields such as offshore wind, grid reinforcement, and carbon capture and storage (CCS). WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:315–320. doi: 10.1002/wcc.224 Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 14, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.224   open full text
• The politics of climate change in China.
  Ye Qi, Tong Wu.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 14, 2013
  This article reviews recent studies on the politics of climate change in China. We explain the evolution of policy‐making and implementation processes and mechanisms over the past two decades, and discuss how they have eventuated in contemporary trends and challenges. Within the unitary hierarchy of the Chinese political system, the central government is responsible for making major policies, and subnational and local governments are responsible for the implementation. The policy‐making process is characterized by a consensus building at the center, in contrast to the open public and partisan debate in Western democracies. Climate policy implementation has been based on a so‐called ‘target responsibility system’, which disaggregates targets amongst all levels of local governments and related enterprises. While this system has proven effective in achieving the national targets set by the central government, the high costs associated with it have been a source of concern. The key challenge in making and implementing climate policy is to balance economic growth and environmental protection. This challenge is of critical importance in central–local political interactions. Clean energy development has been proposed as a ‘win–win’ solution to help balance economic development and climate change mitigation, and to satisfy both central and local government prerogatives, but the sustainability of such a model is questioned when the global and domestic economy experience difficulties. The central government is trying to translate its consensus in climate change and green development into priorities for local governments through policy pilots and market instruments; the real results will soon be seen. WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:301–313. doi: 10.1002/wcc.221 Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 14, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.221   open full text
• Lessons from adaptation to sustain freshwater environments in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia.
  J. Pittock.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 14, 2013
  Governance of Australia's Murray–Darling Basin (the Basin) is frequently lauded as an example to other river managers globally. Freshwater environments in the Basin are particularly vulnerable to water scarcity and change. In this paper, governmental responses are assessed to draw global lessons on climate change adaptation for rivers. A range of climate change adaptation measures for freshwater ecosystem conservation in the Basin are outlined namely: higher, long‐term allocations of water to the environment; reviewing water allocation on a cyclical basis; allocating an equal or greater share of available water to the environment in dry years; and environmental works and measures to use less water to conserve wetlands. Examples of poor translation of science into policy that do not adequately consider the risks, costs, and benefits of adaptation interventions are explored. Adaptation policy in the Basin illustrates the risks of heavy reliance on infrastructure, of the high costs of trade‐offs between environmental measures versus socio‐economic and political concerns, and of dependence on too few measures. Lessons include the need for rigorous evaluation of risks, costs, and benefits to minimize perverse outcomes, and for adequate incentives and penalties for implementation of adaptation policies across governance scales. It is concluded that rather than a focus on only a few interventions, such as environmental flows, better adaptation practice requires deployment of a suite of different but complementary measures that spreads risk and maximizes resilience to climate variability and change. WIREs Clim Change 2011 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.230 Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 14, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.230   open full text
• Firm and industry adaptation to climate change: a review of climate adaptation studies in the business and management field.
  Martina K. Linnenluecke, Andrew Griffiths, Monika I. Winn.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 11, 2013
  Firms and industries will have a central role in supporting societal adaptation to the physical impacts of climate change, especially in more directly affected sectors such as agriculture, forestry, construction, or transportation. However, the business and management field has repeatedly been criticized for its lack of engagement with climate change as a pressing issue, and adaptation to the physical impacts of climate change in particular. Our review of adaptation studies in the business and management field suggests that most firm and industry adaptation studies focus on how firms adjust to changing business conditions because of the emergence of new competitors, new products, and markets or because of changed political, economic, and legal conditions; they largely exclude firm adjustments to the changing dynamics of the natural environment. Studies on firm and industry adaptation to climate impacts specifically are beginning to emerge, but they are sparse. There is still little cross‐disciplinary work integrating findings from the natural sciences into business thinking. We also find few considerations of the implications and consequences of climate change for firms and industries to date. This article provides an overview over the existing literature on firm adaptation to climate change, outlines research gaps, and suggests pathways for future research. WIREs Clim Change 2011 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.214 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 11, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.214   open full text
• Community‐based adaptation: a review of past and future challenges.
  Tim Forsyth.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 10, 2013
  Community‐based adaptation (CBA) is a form of adaptation that aims to reduce the risks of climate change to the world's poorest people by involving them in the practices and planning of adaptation. It adds to current approaches to adaptation by emphasizing the social, political, and economic drivers of vulnerability, and by highlighting the needs of vulnerable people. Critics, however, ask how lessons from local adaptive responses can be ‘upscaled’ to wider spatial scales and risks; whether CBA can represent local people fairly; and if successful CBA can be assessed. This article summarizes these debates, and uses these questions to present a framework for advancing CBA more fully within formal policy processes. The article argues that CBA should not be seen as an overly localist approach to risk assessment, but instead forms part of a trend of linking international development and climate change policies. This trend seeks to explain the risks posed by climate change more holistically within development contexts, and aims to increase the range and usefulness of adaptation options. WIREs Clim Change 2013. doi: 10.1002/wcc.231 Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 10, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.231   open full text
• Climate science, Russian politics, and the framing of climate change.
  Elana Wilson Rowe.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. June 10, 2013
  Historical studies have shown how Soviet scientists figured in politics in unexpected ways. However, little research has been done on the interplay between scientific expert knowledge and contemporary Russian policymaking. This article reviews existing research on a question central to understanding Russia's positions on climate change: What is the relationship between expert knowledge and politics in Russia today? We first address the narratives and practices that have emerged around environmental problems and the science–policy interface in Russia and the Soviet Union more generally and then provide a brief overview of Russia's international and domestic climate politics. How climate change has been framed in the Russian media and the role that scientists have played in these framings and in the Russian policymaking process more generally is then examined. Conceptually, this review draws upon scholarly work in Science and Technology Studies and international relations on the politics of scientific reception. WIREs Clim Change 2013. doi: 10.1002/wcc.235 Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  June 10, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.235   open full text
• A bibliometric analysis of climate engineering research.
  Christopher W. Belter, Dian J. Seidel.
  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change. May 30, 2013
  The past five years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of media and scientific publications on the topic of climate engineering, or geoengineering, and some scientists are increasingly calling for more research on climate engineering as a possible supplement to climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. In this context, understanding the current state of climate engineering research can help inform policy discussions and guide future research directions. Bibliometric analysis—the quantitative analysis of publications—is particularly applicable to fields with large bodies of literature that are difficult to summarize by traditional review methods. The multidisciplinary nature of the published literature on climate engineering makes it an ideal candidate for bibliometric analysis. Publications on climate engineering are found to be relatively recent (more than half of all articles during 1988–2011 were published since 2008), include a higher than average percentage of nonresearch articles (30% compared with 8–15% in related scientific disciplines), and be predominately produced by countries located in the Northern Hemisphere and speaking English. The majority of this literature focuses on land‐based methods of carbon sequestration, ocean iron fertilization, and solar radiation management and is produced with little collaboration among research groups. This study provides a summary of existing publications on climate engineering, a perspective on the scientific underpinnings of the global dialogue on climate engineering, and a baseline for quantitatively monitoring the development of climate engineering research in the future. WIREs Clim Change 2013. doi: 10.1002/wcc.229 DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of NOAA, the Department of Commerce, or the US Government. Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

  May 30, 2013   doi: 10.1002/wcc.229   open full text