ALBERT

Description: This chapter provides an overview of the transhumanist movement, its origins, its main figures and its main positions. It then highlights the fact that transhumanism shows little concern for environmental issues, as it is mostly focused on individual bodies, health and longevity. Finally, this chapter examines how transhumanists activists or related academics address contemporary ecological disasters, focusing on the human engineering hypothesis first, and then the “good Anthropocene” and its connections with some aspects of the debate on solar geoengineering.

Description: Today, populism is widely understood to entail an exclusionary conception of “the people” that threatens climate change action. While this threat is real, I argue that populism itself can be understood as a response to perceived exclusion and marginalization, making it possible to conceptualize a more heterogeneous conception of populism’s “people.” Examining two approaches to climate change action rooted in contrasting conceptions of the people and the elite, I argue that climate justice organizing offers a promising effort to construct a heterogeneous people and offers a powerful critique of the elite representation of climate change action in which “we are all in this together.” Yet along with this promise, climate justice organizing must navigate tensions that are inescapable within any populist formation. One neglected thread of populist history and theory offers resources for doing so; in the final section of this paper, I explore its relevance to climate justice today.

Description: The debate on how to evaluate and manage risks focuses on three major strategies: (Renn O. EMBO Rep 8:303–305, 2007, Renn O. Risk governance. Coping with uncertainty in a complex world. Earthscan, London, 2008a; Stirling A. On ‘Science’ and ‘Precaution’ in the management of technological risk. Volume I: synthesis study, report to the eu forward studies unit by European Science and Technology Observatory (ESTO), EUR19056EN. IPTS, Sevilla. Available at: ftp://ftp.jrc.es/pub/EURdoc/eur19056IIen.pdf, 1999): (1) risk-based approaches, including, numerical thresholds (NOEL standards, performance standards, etc.); (2) reduction activities derived from the application of the precautionary principle (examples are ALARA, i.e., as low as reasonably achievable, BACT, i.e., best available control technology, containment in time and space, or constant monitoring of potential side-effects); and (3) standards derived from discursive processes such as roundtables, deliberative rulemaking, mediation or citizen panels. Experience demonstrates that there is no simple recipe for assessing, evaluating and managing risks. In view of complex cause-effect relationships, diverse attitudes and preferences as well as variations in interests and values, risks must be considered as physically as well as socially heterogeneous phenomena that preclude standardized evaluation and handling. Therefore, a coherent concept for evaluation and management is needed that ensures the integration of social diversity and multidisciplinary approaches into institutional routines and standardized practices. The main objective of this paper is to explore the potentials and the limitations of an approach to risk assessment and management that has been labelled the “precautionary principle”. In its most simple version, precaution requires risk managers to err on the safe side. This includes rather accepting false negative (that risks are less severe than assumed) than false positive assessments (that risk are more severe than assumed). However, such a simple definition does not specify to what degree false negatives are socially tolerable, nor does it allow a discussion about future benefits that could potentially compensate for uncertain risks. The following sections will review main positions on precaution and point out the present practice in the European Union, which has adopted the precautionary principle as a major legal guideline for its risk management practice. The paper concludes with suggestions for aligning the precautionary principle and the concept of responsible innovation.

Description: Policy advice for dealing with major crises has focussed on two concepts: resilience and sustainability. The article introduces the term resilience and explains its application in different disciplines. Furthermore, it explores the relationship between resilience and sustainability, illustrates the various concepts that are associated with each term and suggests an integrative approach that is based on the ideal of maintaining critical services for reaching humane living conditions for present and future generations based on fair distribution rules and inclusive governance processes.

Description: Emission inventories are a critical basis for air quality and climate modeling, as well as policy decisions. Non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) are key precursor compounds in ozone and secondary organic aerosol formation. Accurately representing NMVOCs in emission inventories is crucial for understanding atmospheric chemistry, the impact of policy measures, and climate projections. Improving NMVOC representation in emission inventories is fraught with challenges, ranging from the lack of (long-term) NMVOC measurements, limited efforts in updating emission factors, to the diversity of NMVOC species reactivity. Here we take an initial step to evaluate the representation of urban NMVOC speciation in an emission inventory (EDGARv4.3.2 and EDGARv6.1) at the global level. To compare the urban measurements of NMVOCs to the emission inventory estimates, ratios of individual NMVOCs to acetylene are used. Owing to limitations in measurement data and grouping of NMVOCs in emission inventories, the comparison includes only a limited number of alkanes, alkenes, and aromatics. Results show little to no agreement between the ratios in the observations and those in the global emission inventory for the species compared (r2 0.01–0.20). This could be related to incorrect speciation profiles and/or spatial allocation of NMVOCs to urban areas. Regional emission inventories show better agreement among the ratios (r2 0.43–0.70). The inclusion of oxygenated species in NMVOC measurements, as well as greater global coverage of measurements could improve representation of NMVOC species in emission inventories, and a mosaic of regional inventories may be a better approach.

Description: The international UN Climate Change conferences known as “Conferences of the Parties (COPs)” have an enormous convening power and are attended annually by tens of thousands of actors working on climate change topics from a wide range of perspectives. In the COP spaces outside of the formal negotiations, the communication culture is dominated by “side events,” a format that relies heavily on conventional presentations and panels that can be informative, but is generally not conducive to mutual engagement, reflection, or dialogue. There is an urgent need for new dialogue formats that can better foster learning and community-building and thereby harness the enormous latent potential for climate action represented by the diverse stakeholders that gather at the COP. Against this backdrop, and drawing on our experience with the development and implementation of the Co-Creative Reflection and Dialogue Spaces at COP25, COP26, and COP27, we make recommendations for further developing the communication culture of the COPs. At the level of individual sessions, we provide recommendations for designing participatory dialogues that can better support reflection, interconnection, and action orientation. In addition, we offer guidance for scaling up these practices, for instance through networks and communities of practice to support a shift of the overall communication culture of the COPs. Our recommendations focus on interactions and exchanges that unfold outside of the formal negotiation sessions, with a view toward enabling and accelerating transformative action by non-state actors.

Description: In response to the climate and biodiversity crisis, the number of transdisciplinary research projects in which researchers partner with sustainability initiatives to foster transformative change is increasing globally. To enable and catalyze substantial transformative change, transformative transdisciplinary research (TTDR) is urgently needed to provide knowledge and guidance for actions. We review prominent discussions on TTDR and draw on our experiences from research projects in the Global South and North. Drawing on this, we identify key gaps and stimulate debate on how sustainability researchers can enable and catalyze transformative change by advancing five priority areas: clarify what TTDR is, conduct meaningful people-centric research, unpack how to act at deep leverage points, improve engagement with diverse knowledge systems, and explore potentials and risks of global digitalization for transformative change.

Description: This article explores the role of energy in regionalization processes, assessing the case of natural gas finds in the Eastern Mediterranean (East Med). It makes three observations. First, we show that energy resources are a defining factor in shaping a region by rearranging the interactions and networks of actors involved in regionalization processes. Second, we demonstrate that such “energization” processes are not only—and not even primarily—attributable to security practices pursued by state actors. Regionalization underpinned by energy as the key governance object is characterized by a variety of actors, including governments, but also international energy companies, investors, consumers, and regulators. Third, we posit that regionalization processes cannot be fully understood without appreciating the importance of existing global and regional governance frameworks and the values ascribed to the physical resource by international market forces. The findings call on International Relations to go beyond analyzing the East Med energy region through the prism of security studies, which arguably is a function of both theoretical path dependence and a lack of attention to the insights from energy studies. Instead, a multidisciplinary research agenda promises to strengthen academic inquiry into regionalization dynamics in the East Med and the role of regions in world politics more broadly.

Description: As climate targets tighten, all countries must transition toward a renewable electricity system, but conflicts about generation and infrastructure deployment impede transition progress. Although the triggers of opposition are well studied, what people want remains understudied. We survey citizen preferences for a renewable electricity future through a conjoint analysis among 4,103 individuals in Denmark, Portugal, Poland, and Germany. With our study we go beyond the Likert scale survey approach specifically seeking trade-offs and contextualized preferences for regional electricity system designs. We show the importance of identifying both the ‘‘least preferred’’ and ‘‘most preferred’’ solutions and highlighting the possibility of identifying very different systems with identical utility. Lastly, our research actively bridges the divide between social aspects and techno-economic modeling, promoting their integration. We show that the most preferred system design in all four countries is a predominantly regional one, based on rooftop solar, communally owned, and not relying on transmission expansion.

Description: Various analyses show that right-wing populist parties (RWP) tend to be sceptical of climate science and policy. This points to a blank space in the dominant analyses of populism: their blindness towards society-nature relations. This paper aims to develop an approach grounded in Cultural Political Economy (CPE) that can be used to decipher the mediation of RWP within the context of economic, political, and cultural developments as well as society–nature relations. Against this background, the argument is developed that RWP is concerned not only with countering migration and processes of societal liberalisation, but also with defending an existing way of life that is firmly rooted in the destructive appropriation of nature. As a current of right-wing politics, RWP defends the imperial mode of living by expressing scepticism towards the existence of anthropogenic climate change. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the political economy of RWP by linking the dimensions of social domination with the appropriation of nature.

Description: Governments and international organizations are increasingly using public funds to mobilize and leverage private finance for climate projects in the Global South. An important international organization in the effort to mobilize the private sector for financing climate mitigation and adaptation in the Global South is the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The GCF was established under the UNFCCC in 2010 and is the world’s largest dedicated multilateral climate fund. The GCF differs from other intergovernmental institutions through its fund-wide inclusion of the private sector, ranging from project design and financing to project implementation. In this paper, we investigate private sector involvement in the GCF through a qualitative exploratory research approach. We ask two main questions: Do private sector projects deliver on their ambitious goals? What are the tensions, if any, between private sector engagement and other principles of the GCF (most importantly the principles of country ownership, mitigation/adaptation balance, transparency, and civil society participation)? This paper argues that private sector involvement does not provide an easy way out of the financial constraints of public climate financing. We show that the GCF fails to deliver on its ambitious goals in private sector engagement for a number of reasons. First, private sector interest in GCF projects is thus far underwhelming. Second, there are strong tradeoffs between private sector projects and the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) principles of country ownership, transparency, and civil society participation. Third, private sector involvement is creating a mitigation bias within the GCF portfolio. Fourth, while the private sector portfolio is good at channeling funds to particularly vulnerable countries, it does so mostly through large multi-country projects with weak country ownership. Fifth, there is a danger that private climate financing based on loans and equity might add to the debt burden of developing countries, destabilize financial markets, and further increase dependency on the Global North.

Description: Real-world labs are witnessing continued growth and institutionalization in the field of transformation-oriented sustainability research, as well as in adjacent disciplines. With their experimental research agendas, these labs aim at sustainability transformations, however, there is still a need to improve the understanding of their impacts. Drawing from this Special Issue’s contributions, we offer a broad overview of the impacts achieved by various real-world labs, highlight the diverse areas and forms of impact, and elucidate strategies as well as mechanisms for achieving impact. We present methodological advances, and address common challenges along with potential solutions for understanding and realizing impact.

Description: Policymakers and governments increasingly frame climate protection in terms of green growth, arguing that continued economic growth and climate protection are complementary and mutually beneficial. With such framing, governments hope to overcome the global common goods problem associated with climate change and to enable higher ambition on climate action within and across states. Yet, no empirical evidence to date has been provided on how widespread the support for green growth is in international climate politics. This paper, therefore, investigates which countries employ green growth framings at UNFCCC negotiations, and whether this relates to domestic factors, in particular economic structure, level of development and climate impacts. We conduct panel-data analysis on green growth positions derived from hand-coding a unique dataset of High-level Segment statements at the Convention of the Parties (COPs) from 2010 to 2019 for 151 countries. The results reveal that, to date, green growth proponents are those countries with the most advanced national clean energy technology (CET) capacities–as measured by the Green Complexity Index. The findings highlight that green growth is not promoted by all countries at international climate negotiations. Key policy insights In international climate negotiations, climate protection is increasingly framed as a green growth opportunity to motivate global ambition. Clean Energy Technology (CET) leading countries are more likely to use green growth framings than other less-technologically advanced peers and those with high exposure to climate risks. Mechanisms to support green growth pathways for all countries should be scaled up, including technology transfer and finance to foster local capacities and human capital. Given that green growth framings are not universally endorsed, further emphasis should be placed on additional co-benefits of climate action beyond economic growth, such as food and energy security, adaptation and resilience-building.

Description: Real-world laboratories (RwLs) are gaining further traction as a means to achieve systemic impacts towards sustainability transformation. To guide the analysis of intended impacts, we introduce the concept of leverage points, discerning where, how, and to what end RwLs intervene in systems. Building on conceptual reasoning, we further develop our argument by exploring two RwL cases. Examining RwLs through the lens of the leverage points opens the way for a balanced and comprehensive approach to systemic experimentation. We invite RwL researchers and practitioners to further advance RwLs’ transformative capacity by targeting the design and emerging direction of a system, contributing to a culture of sustainability.

Description: Observed climate changes in Pacific island countries (PICs) are causing detrimental effects on the health of communities. Increased frequency and intensity of cyclones, more extremely hot days, and changes in rainfall patterns can change the geographic distribution of vector-borne diseases, decrease food and water security and safety, and strain health service capacity. These impacts are projected to worsen with additional climate change in the absence of strong and effective mitigation and adaptation measures. Health vulnerability and adaptation assessments conducted in twelve PICs in 2014 highlighted significant knowledge gaps on the national health risks of climate change and on adaptation implementation and policy translation. We synthesize recent research to identify approaches to support evidence-based policymaking to increase resilience of health systems in the Pacific. Broad areas where further and substantial investment and support are needed include: (i) health workforce capacity development; (ii) enhanced surveillance and monitoring systems, and (iii) research to enhance understanding of risks and effective interventions and their subsequent translation into practice and policy. Finally, health facilities need urgent upgrades; many are old and located in coastal areas, and are heavy users of coal-fired electricity.

Description: We study the impact of California’s cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions in the electricity and industrial sectors. We use US state-level panel data covering the period 2005–2019 and apply the synthetic control method to construct an optimal counterfactual for per capita emissions in each sector. In our experiment, emissions in the power sector fall below counterfactual emissions by 48%. In the industrial sector, the state’s emissions are 6% higher than those of the synthetic control unit by the end of the observation period. Thus, cap-and-trade failed to deliver decarbonization across both sectors. While the abatement in the power sector was facilitated by complementary policies and driven by a switch from natural gas to renewables, California’s policy mix has disincentivized emission reductions in the industrial sector.

Description: This chapter focuses on the maintenance of waste infrastructures in urban areas, arguing that waste infrastructures and their maintenance should be made more visible to allow for a more extensive, ethical engagement with waste. This contribution claims that cities need to approach the (re)design of municipal waste infrastructures through dynamic maintenance and reflexive repair, wherein waste, repair and maintenance are understood as discursive processes. Waste infrastructures and their maintenance are mostly invisible in daily interactions in cities in High-Income Countries, despite the diversities in waste practices, such as collection and processing. Invisibility is an intended outcome of the design and operation of these infrastructures, stemming from a nineteenth-century waste imaginary called ‘the tidy city’. Current municipal waste infrastructures are kept invisible, upholding beliefs and practices that disvalue waste. While visions have been proposed that challenge this disvalue, few of them have been able to materialise in stratified municipal waste management systems. This engagement is seen as a first step in challenging modern notions of dirt and waste. Visibility is a (new) design criterion for municipal waste infrastructures, a criterion that the authors relate to waste-affirming beliefs and practices, elaborating on anthropological perspectives on dirt and waste.

Description: Little consideration has been given to the process of technological change in political theory. Given that ideas about this process play an important role in many strands of normative political thought, and are especially crucial to climate change politics, this is a remarkable oversight. It risks political theory being irrelevant to climate change mitigation. The implications of this oversight for political theory are explored here through an analysis of the liberalism-ecologism debate. The article argues that attempts to green liberalism – to move it beyond environmentalism – cannot succeed while liberalism is silent about technological change. More broadly, given that most political theory traditions make claims about technological change, claims crucial to their worldviews and normative goals, it argues that much more theorisation of the concept is necessary. Especially now that they shape how the world understands climate change mitigation, contests over the meaning of technological change are intensely political contests. Political theory needs to get much more involved.

Description: Deep-sea mining (DSM) will be highly energy-intensive and produce myriad emissions, including greenhouse gases (GHG). By and large, the emissions arising from DSM activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction (‘The Area’) do not yet fall within the remit of any international agreement and are thus unregulated. To close this gap, two incisive steps need to be taken. First, States must decide under which international regime(s) they want to regulate GHG-emissions from DSM operations (forum choice). Second, they must select the means to mitigate emissions (instrument choice). Forum and instrument choice should be decided in tandem as forum choice tends to influence instrument choice and vice versa. We explore the various possibilities and argue that the International Seabed Authority (ISA) is the most suitable forum, as it could implement a harmonized and targeted approach for this unique sector. We recommend that the ISA commission a technical study to assess the amount of GHG emissions expected to arise from DSM activities in the Area and evaluate the costs and benefits of implementing and enforcing various policy instruments. Such an exercise is both urgently needed and timely, particularly as the ISA is currently formulating the rules for mineral exploitation.

Description: This paper addresses the need for effective and fair codes of conduct for public-good-oriented transdisciplinary processes. These processes are characterized by the production of socially robust orientations (SoROs) through mutual learning and developing better action strategies by merging knowledge from practice and science. We argue that transdisciplinary processes should be governed by an appropriate social rule system that comprises codes of conduct for collaboration (CCC) in transdisciplinary discourses. In our view, participants in a transdisciplinary process must (1) follow rules of mutuality between science and practice (accepting the otherness of the other) and (2) enable the use and integration of knowledge from science and practice (e.g., through responsibility and/or co-leadership at all levels of a project). This requires (3) a protected discourse arena similar to an expanded Chatham House Rule that facilitates the generation of groundbreaking, novel ideas for sustainable transition. In transdisciplinary processes, CCC are based on these three perspectives and can be explicitly introduced yet require cultural and situational adaptations. Many aspects of transdisciplinary processes, such as legal status (e.g., who owns the data generated, whether it is a group or formal organization), are often unclear and need further investigation.

Description: Sustainability research emphasizes the importance of intervening with both individual and organizational behaviours as well as the systems that shape them to create sustainability transformations. However, to date there is a lack of studies that bridge the divide between small case-based interventions and global systems at broader scales, and the complex interactions across scales and processes. This paper works with a leverage points framework to consider systems transformation. It focuses on four individual sustainability interventions in the textile sector and explores how they are embedded within a complex set of nested systems, and how these connected systems shape the transformative potential of the interventions. By using an onion metaphor for systems with several onion layers representing the current textile sector and its multiple connected and nested systems, we integrate and reflect across four in-depth case studies, conducted over a period of 3 years, using a range of empirical research approaches. The findings show that the studied interventions all target multiple deep leverage points within their target systems of production and consumption. All are limited in fulfilling their transformative potential by a range of barriers that we trace back to the economic and policy and regulation systems that they are embedded within. The economic system enforces a paradigm of consumption-based growth, and the policy and regulation system fails to either support change, or restrict unsustainable behaviours. Our findings demonstrate the need to think across systems scales to understand leverage points and transformative change; our nested systems approach is one way to do so. We outline two promising pathways for sustainability transformations: (1) focussing on how to create spillover effects of favourable interventions in sub-systems to push outwards against the constraints of the current policy and regulation, and economic systems; and (2) by targeting actors and interventions within the policy and regulation and economic systems to create change in the paradigms and design they embody and enforce on the systems nested within them.

Description: Social-ecological transformation has become an important concept in the face of profound planetary crises (loss of biodiversity, climate crisis). Recently, the needs for social scientific transformation research have become more clearly defined. We reflect on the role of the social sciences and the humanities in democratically shaping social transformation in interaction with other sectors of society. Finally, we sketch three examples that illustrate the kind of new methodological and institutional approaches to be pursued.

Description: Superconducting cables have been proven in a variety of pilot projects and utility installations, demonstrating several of their advantages, including compact size and low energy losses, which can make the technology economically attractive for certain applications. It is clear though that different applications impose different requirements and challenges, but also opportunities for the cables. An interesting application is high-power DC transfer at medium voltage (MVDC). The high-current capability of the superconductor allows for a reduction in voltage while maintaining or increasing the power transfer level. In this way, one MVDC superconducting cable can replace one or more conventional high-voltage DC cables. In the European project Superconducting cables for sustainable energy transition (SCARLET), two types of MVDC cables will be developed, one based on HTS and one on MgB2 materials. Additionally, protection requirements will be considered, including the development of a modular DC fault current limiter for 10 kA. A main motivation for the development is the elimination of costly high-voltage converter stations when going from high to medium voltage, e.g., for offshore wind power plants. Another feature is the combined hydrogen and electricity transmission from generation sites to industry or mobility end users. This paper describes the superconducting MVDC cable concept as well as the main challenges and research needed to develop and type test the cables.

Description: Crises may act as tipping points for decarbonization pathways by triggering structural economic change or offering windows of opportunity for policy change. We investigate both types of effects of the global financial and COVID-19 crises on decarbonization in Spain and Germany through a quantitative Kaya-decomposition analysis of CO2 emissions and through a qualitative review of climate and energy policy changes. We show that the global financial crisis resulted in a critical juncture for Spanish CO2 emissions due to the combined effects of the deep economic recession and crisis-induced structural change, resulting in reductions in carbon and energy intensities and shifts in the economic structure. However, the crisis also resulted in a rollback of renewable energy policy, halting progress in the transition to green electricity. The impacts were less pronounced in Germany, where pre-existing decarbonization and policy trends continued after the crisis. Recovery packages had modest effects, primarily due to their temporary nature and the limited share of climate-related spending. The direct short-term impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on CO2 emissions were more substantial in Spain than in Germany. The policy responses in both countries sought to align short-term economic recovery with the long-term climate change goals of decarbonization, but it is too soon to observe their lasting effects. Our findings show that crises can affect structural change and support decarbonization but suggest that such effects depend on pre-existing trends, the severity of the crisis and political manoeuvring during the crisis.

Description: The combination of liquid hydrogen and superconducting cables presents a unique opportunity to distribute both hydrogen and bulk electricity in the same infrastructure. In particular, liquid hydrogen around 20 K is ideally suited for cooling the MgB2 superconductor, resulting in a compact power cable that also leaves sufficient place for the hydrogen flow. Such a hybrid system operating in the MVDC range at 25 kV and 20 kA constitutes one of the main goals of the European project SCARLET. After a description of the rationale and benefits of the electricity - hydrogen system, various possible applications and a first distribution system are presented. Furthermore, the different cable components already designed are discussed along with the research challenges and general strategy for the development.

Description: Mainstream Online Social Networks (OSNs) face extensive criticism for their revenue model and its negative consequences for users and societies. While experts often discuss alternative OSN models, little is known about potential users’ evaluations of different OSN models. To close this research gap, the present study investigates how non-expert individuals, i.e., potential users, evaluate mainstream OSNs and expert-proposed alternative models. Next to the general evaluations of different models, individual differences among users open to various OSN models were explored. Three OSN scenarios were created based on interviews with experts from academia and industry and presented to samples of German adolescents (N = 1166) and adults (N = 878): one describing the “status quo”, one “option” model similar to the model currently considered by Meta, and one describing a “public-service” broadcasting OSN. Participants rated each characteristic of the “status quo” scenario, indicated their willingness to pay for each of the three OSN models, and specified their preferred OSN model next to providing sociodemographic information. Replicated across both samples was that the “status quo” scenario received predominantly negative evaluations. Further replicated across both samples was that most participants were willing to pay for a “public-service” OSN and chose this model as the preferred one. Only a few significant relations of sociodemographic variables were observed. Consistently replicated across both samples, men rated various characteristics of the “status quo” scenario more positively, and women were more likely to prefer the “public-service” OSN. Some differences between the two samples also emerged. In summary, both adolescents and adults demonstrated receptivity to alternative OSN models, especially a public-service broadcasting OSN. Most sociodemographic factors had limited influence indicating potential widespread adoption if such an alternative was implemented – at least in Germany. Consequences arising from such a model for platform design, policy, regulation, and governance are discussed.

Description: The potential for renewable energy to encourage sustainable development raises high hopes for the future among countries in the Global South. However, there has been less research on how energy transitions are perceived outside of the Global North and democratic contexts. This paper explores attitudes towards the energy transition in Jordan, where expert interviews reveal that a strong renewable energy industry has emerged from top-down government efforts to reduce energy dependency and costs. We perform an in-person household survey with 320 respondents in areas with different transition risks and benefits, and then test a series of hypotheses using regression analysis. In the four communities surveyed, income stress and climate concern influence attitudes, as well as perceptions of community benefits. National-level concerns also matter, including energy dependency and energy costs for all Jordanians. Our results highlight the importance of context: findings from the North are not universal and understanding transitions in the Global South requires studying them in their own right. Policy insights Jordanian policymakers should reverse their policy of blocking renewables to avoid public backlash. Jordanian policymakers and funders should promote projects in communities with high economic dependence on the fossil fuel industry to ensure local support in areas facing transition risks. Policymakers should highlight collective, not just individual benefits of transitions, as perceptions of community and country benefits increase support. Policymakers in highly energy-dependent countries like Jordan should frame renewables as an answer to local and national challenges such as high energy prices. Actors wishing to promote clean energy support in different contexts should investigate local dynamics to build communication strategies that frame transitions appropriately. Jordanian policymakers should reverse their policy of blocking renewables to avoid public backlash. Jordanian policymakers and funders should promote projects in communities with high economic dependence on the fossil fuel industry to ensure local support in areas facing transition risks. Policymakers should highlight collective, not just individual benefits of transitions, as perceptions of community and country benefits increase support. Policymakers in highly energy-dependent countries like Jordan should frame renewables as an answer to local and national challenges such as high energy prices. Actors wishing to promote clean energy support in different contexts should investigate local dynamics to build communication strategies that frame transitions appropriately.

Description: Die EU und die USA tun sich schwer mit ihrem „Club für grünen Stahl“. Es hakt an unterschiedlichen Vorstellungen zum Design, an den ungleichen Ausgangslagen und nicht zuletzt an einer drohenden Wiederwahl Donald Trumps. Aber schon ein Minimalkonsens würde zeigen, dass zwei führende Handelsmächte es ernst meinen mit dem Klimaschutz in der Stahlindustrie, ist Charlotte Unger vom RIFS überzeugt.

Description: Technologies for Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) only represent climate solutions in as much as they go hand in hand with deep emissions reductions. The (future) availability of CCUS and CDR technologies does not mean we can delay or avoid phasing out fossil fuels if we are to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C or even 2°C. Likewise, the expansion of renewable energy technologies will be nowhere near adequate for meeting agreed-upon climate targets unless fossil fuels are simultaneously ramped down. Up until now, renewables have been largely in addition to, rather than substituting for fossil fuels. Achieving our climate and broader sustainable development goals will require transformations that go beyond energy systems and reevaluate the structures and institutions behind our patterns of consumption, mobility, and food production, among others.

Description: The global steel sector is responsible for 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, highlighting the need for significant changes in production practices and the adoption of low-carbon breakthrough technologies to achieve net-zero emissions. This study was conducted to explore positive tipping points at the company level, taking into account socio-political, economic and industry pressures that initiate the tipping process. The study operationalizes tipping points using the Triple Embededdness Framework, which incorporates indicators from the socio-political and economic environment, as well as the industry regime of companies. An analysis is performed of secondary data from four steel companies: BlueScope (Australia), POSCO (South Korea), voestalpine (Austria), and U.S. Steel (USA). The findings indicate that voestalpine is on the verge of reaching a positive tipping point, and POSCO is also on a promising track. In contrast, both BlueScope and U.S. Steel are lagging behind. In the tipping process, national policies play a critical role in expediting the transition to low-carbon steel production for frontrunners, while global climate policy has a greater leverage by influencing producers who operate in a less stringent national policy context. Additionally, the customer demand for low-carbon steel serves as a driving force for innovation and can incentivize steelmakers to produce low-carbon products.

Description: Increasing interconnectedness, along with the effects of climate change and other global risk drivers, has led to mounting systemic risks in the complex systems that characterize our world. Systemic risks, with their cascading impacts and long-term sustainability concerns, necessitate transformative approaches to manage their effects across system scales and dimensions. To date, however, an “operationalization gap” impedes translating between propositions for transformative change and policy options for addressing systemic risk. Here, we propose combining systemic risk analyses with local approaches, prominently including knowledge co-production, to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of complex systems. This combined approach can support stakeholders in designing transformative risk management and adaptation interventions that balance individual and higher-order interactions, incorporate diverse viewpoints, and thus manage systemic risks and leverage transformation potential more effectively. Furthermore, we suggest that a risk-layering approach can help differentiate, prioritize, and orchestrate these options for incremental and transformative changes.

Description: Some forty years ago, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS) created an unusual regime for states to collectively manage common natural resources on the international seabed beyond national jurisdiction (known as the Area) through the International Seabed Authority (ISA). In the intervening years, scientists have increasingly been warning about the serious environmental risks of mining seabed minerals. At this pivotal point in time, when states are negotiating whether or not to allow seabed mining, this essay explores the risk of undermining by mining, that is, contravening international marine environmental law and the obligations and responsibilities of states thereunder by allowing commercial mining activities to commence. We argue that allowing seabed mining in the Area at this juncture, when so much about the deep ocean remains unknown, would risk frustrating a host of measures, achievements, and progress to enhance marine environmental protection, particularly in areas beyond national jurisdiction. We begin with an overview of the ISA and its work to date, before discussing potential interactions between seabed mining and marine environmental law and policies, with a particular focus on the new ocean biodiversity agreement. We conclude by urging states to take cognizance of their overarching duty to protect and preserve the marine environment and ensure that all decisions taken with respect to seabed mining are consistent with their obligations and responsibilities under international law.

Description: Real-world laboratories have become a recognised research format for addressing sustainability challenges. In these transdisciplinary settings, actors from civil society, local government, and academia work together using a transdisciplinary research approach to jointly experiment and learn about sustainability transformations. While these labs are considered to have potential, their impact has not yet been fully measured. Therefore, in our paper we explore the case of the Zukunftsstadt Lüneburg 2030+ process to uncover the impacts that this long-term effort has generated over the past eight years. By examining the process and its design features from three analytical perspectives, we identify emergent impacts in three dimensions: education, governance, and the lab as an actor for sustainability. Based on our case study, we suggest that real-world labs contribute to sustainability on a local level, beyond the intentional experiments, through impacts that emerge over the course of the joint operation of the lab.

Description: Numerous scientific reports have evidenced the transformation of the earth system due to human activities. These changes – captured under the term ‘Anthropocene’ – require a new perspective on global law and policy. The concept of ‘earth system law’ situates law in an earth system context and offers a new perspective to interrogate the role of law in governing planetary challenges such as climate change. The discourse on earth system law has not yet fully recognised courts as actors that could shape climate governance, while climate litigation discourse has insufficiently considered aspects of earth system law. We posit that courts play an increasingly influential climate governance role and that they need to be recognised as Anthropocene institutions within the earth system law paradigm. Drawing on a set of prominent climate cases, we discuss five inter-related domains that are relevant for earth system law and where the potential influence of courts can be discerned: establishing accountability, redefining power relations, remedying vulnerabilities and injustices, increasing the reach and impact of international climate law and applying climate science to adjudicate legal disputes. We suggest that their innovative work in these domains could provide a basis for positioning courts as planetary climate governance actors.

Description: Germany, the European Union member state with the largest fiscal space and its leading manufacturer of industrial goods, is pursuing an ambitious hydrogen strategy aiming at establishing itself as a major technology provider and importer of green hydrogen. The success of its hydrogen strategy represents not only a key element in realizing the European vision of climate neutrality but also a central driver of an emerging global hydrogen economy. This article provides a detailed review of German policy, highlighting its prominent international dimension and its implications for the development of a global renewable hydrogen economy. It provides an overview of the strategy's central goals and how these have evolved since the launch of the strategy in 2020. Next, it moves on to provide an overview of the strategy's main areas of intervention and highlights corresponding policy instruments. For this, we draw on a comprehensive assessment of hydrogen policy instruments, which have been systematically analyzed and coded. This was complemented by a detailed analysis of policy documents and information gathered in six interviews with government officials and staff of key implementing agencies. The article places particular emphasis on the strategy's international dimension. While less significant in financial terms than domestic hydrogen-related spending, it represents a defining feature of the German hydrogen strategy, setting it apart from strategies in other major economies. The article closes with a reflection on the key features of the strategy compared to other important countries, identifies gaps of the strategy and discusses important avenues for future research.

Description: In two recent South African cases, Indigenous communities successfully challenged proposed fossil fuel exploration activities by the Shell petroleum company off South Africa's pristine West Coast. In contrast to earlier climate litigation cases in South Africa, the litigants relied specifically on their Indigenous rights and knowledge. In this case note, we highlight the ways in which the two courts engaged with the communities' cultural beliefs and practices as well as their knowledge related to sustainability and how this relates to protecting their livelihoods, cultural practices and identities that are threatened by the proposed activities. We highlight the important role played by Indigenous communities in the climate movement and argue that, in the future, Indigenous and related considerations could provide a strong basis for climate litigation in South Africa and potentially contribute to efforts to protect Indigenous communities against the activities of carbon majors.

Description: This article presents an enhanced emission module for the PALM model system, which collects discrete emission sources from different emission sectors and assigns them dynamically to the prognostic equations for specific pollutant species as volumetric source terms. Bidirectional lookup between each source location and cell index are maintained through using a hash key approach, while allowing all emission source modules to be conceived, developed and operated in a homogeneous and mutually independent manner. An additional generic emission mode has also been implemented to allow the use of external emission data in simulation runs. Results from benchmark runs indicate a high level of performance and scalability. Subsequently, a module for modelling parametrized emissions from domestic heating is implemented under this framework, using the approach of building energy usage and temperature deficit as a generalized form of heating degree days. An model run has been executed under idealized conditions by considering solely dispersion of PM10 from domestic heating sources. The results demonstrate a strong overall dependence on the strength and clustering of individual sources, diurnal variation in domestic heat usage, as well as the temperature deficit between the ambient and the user-defined target temperature. Vertical transport contributes additionally to a rapid attenuation of daytime PM10. Although urban topology plays a minor role on the pollutant concentrations at ground level, it has a relevant contribution to the vertical pollutant distribution.

Description: Key message: A decolonial approach is needed to fulfil IASC’s commitment to recognizing that Traditional Knowledge, Indigenous Knowledge and academic scientific knowledge are co-equal and complementary knowledge systems that all can and should inform its work (website ICARP IV, retrieved October 2023). This document summarizes key recommendations for actions regarding five themes: 1. Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination as a prerequisite for high-quality Arctic research 2. Ethics, methods and methodology as key for decolonial research 3. Indigenous-led research in design and practice 4. Indigenous Peoples’ co-equal participation in Arctic research funding structures and decision-making for securing decolonial Arctic research in practice 5. Funding for Co-Creative and Indigenous-Led Arctic Research

Description: In this paper, the authors discuss the role of China in the emerging geopolitics of hydrogen. It begins with a review of China's external energy policy and its evolution over the past decades, highlighting China's transition to a net-energy importer as an important inflection point in that process. It then goes on to describe the main pillars of China's national hydrogen policy. Building on this the paper provides and overview of China's external hydrogen policy and how this aligns with both its broader energy foreign policy and its hydrogen policy objectives. The paper finds that China’s hydrogen strategy – both internal and external – are still at an emergent stage. National targets remain modest, and policy remains ambiguous regarding the preferred production pathway. China’s long-term vision clearly emphasizes the role of renewable hydrogen to help balance an energy system dominated by wind and solar energy. However, current policy provides ample space for the promotion of other forms of hydrogen production. Rather, than a strong, centralized policy approach, local and provincial governments along with SOEs have been driving investment and policy experimentation in the sector, which includes efforts to boost fossil-based hydrogen production.

Description: Sustainability projects are being promoted around the world with a large dose of spectacle, including those in the Arabian Peninsula where governments have invested heavily in large greening projects and events. This article examines these spectacular projects in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which are typically dismissed by Western observers as mere PR and ‘greenwashing.’ Moving past this simplistic critique, I contextualize ‘sustainability spectacle’ as a broad cultural phenomenon, with deep roots in Western countries. Based on ethnographic research on sustainability events, sites, and initiatives in the UAE, I show how ‘post-oil’ greening initiatives use sustainability spectacle to promote a positive narrative about the ‘modern’ national self, and reflect the growing international imperative to be green.

Description: Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) offers flexible and decarbonized power generation and is one of the few dispatchable renewable technologies able to generate renewable electricity on demand. Today (2018) CSP contributes only 5TWh to the European power generation, but it has the potential to become one of the key pillars for European decarbonization pathways. In this paper we investigate how factors and pivotal policy decisions leading to different futures and associated CSP deployment in Europe in the years up to 2050. In a second step we characterize the scenarios with their associated system cost and the costs of support policies. We show that the role of CSP in Europe critically depends on political developments and the success or failure of policies outside renewable power. In particular, the uptake of CSP depends on the overall decarbonization ambition, the degree of cross border trade of renewable electricity and is enabled by the presence of strong grid interconnection between Southern and Norther European Member States as well as by future electricity demand growth. The presence of other baseload technologies, prominently nuclear power in France, reduce the role and need for CSP. Assuming favorable technological development, we find a strong role for CSP in Europe in all modeled scenarios: contributing between 100TWh to 300TWh of electricity to a future European power system. This would require increasing the current European CSP fleet by a factor of 20 to 60 in the next 30 years. To achieve this financial support between € 0.4-2 billion per year into CSP would be needed, representing only a small share of overall support needs for power-system transformation. Cooperation of Member States could further help to reduce this cost.

Description: Simulating the ozone variability at regional scales using chemistry transport models (CTMs) remains a challenge. We designed a multi-model intercomparison to evaluate, for the first time, four regional CTMs on a national scale for Germany. Simulations were conducted with LOTOS-EUROS, REM-CALGRID, COSMO-MUSCAT and WRF-Chem for January 1st to December 31st, 2019, using prescribed emission information. In general, all models show good performance in the operational evaluation with average temporal correlations of MDA8 O3 in the range of 0.77-0.87 and RMSE values between 16.3 mu g m3 and 20.6 mu g m- 3. On average, better models' skill has been observed for rural background stations than for the urban background stations as well as for springtime compared to summertime. Our study confirms that the ensemble mean provides a better model-measurement agreement than individual models. All models capture the larger local photochemical production in summer compared to springtime and observed differences between the urban and the rural background. We introduce a new indicator to evaluate the dynamic response of ozone to temperature. During summertime a large ensemble spread in the ozone sensitivities to temperature is found with (on average) an underestimation of the ozone sensitivity to temperature, which can be linked to a systematic underestimation of mid-level ozone concentrations. During springtime we observed an ozone episode that is not covered by the models which is likely due to deficiencies in the representation of background ozone in the models. We recommend to focus on a diagnostic evaluation aimed at the model descriptions for biogenic emissions and dry deposition as a follow up and to repeat the operational and dynamic analysis for longer timeframes.

Description: Why do exercises in collaborative governance often witness more impasse than advantage? This paper suggests putting power at center stage and focusing the analysis on the micro level. It is by looking at the daily ‘minutiae’ of collaboration, and at the dynamics (here called flows of power) that they set off, that we can gain insights into failures of collaborative arrangements. To enable a power-sensitive and process-oriented analysis of collaborative governance, the paper develops an analytical framework for the empirical exploration of collaborative governance at the micro level. The framework examines how design choices at the outset of collaboration are re-interpreted, challenged, and transformed by micro-dynamics taking place over the course of the arrangement. The article argues that a process-oriented investigation of how collaboration evolves and unfolds over time elucidates the subtleties of power, which may be overlooked if we only consider outcomes rather than the processes that engender these outcomes. The work is based on an abductive research approach and illustrates the analytical possibilities of the framework by zooming in on an exemplar of a collaborative arrangement for planning the route of a high-voltage electricity line in Germany.

Description: The Tibetan Plateau is a global hotspot of stratospheric intrusion, and elevated surface ozone was observed at ground monitoring sites. Still, links between the variability of surface ozone and stratospheric intrusion at the regional scale remain unclear. This study synthesized ground measurements of surface ozone over the Tibetan Plateau and analyzed their seasonal variations. The monthly mean surface ozone concentrations over the Tibetan Plateau peaked earlier in the south in April and May and later in the north in June and July. The migration of monthly surface ozone peaks was coupled with the synchronous movement of tropopause folds and the westerly jet that created conditions conducive to stratospheric ozone intrusion. Stratospheric ozone intrusion significantly contributed to surface ozone across the Tibetan Plateau, especially in the areas with high surface ozone concentrations during their peak-value month. We demonstrated that monthly variation of surface ozone over the Tibetan Plateau is mainly controlled by stratospheric intrusion, which warrants proper consideration in understanding the atmospheric chemistry and the impacts of ozone over this highland region and beyond.

Description: Transdisciplinary processes deal with transdisciplinary problems that are (i) complex, (ii) societally relevant, (iii) ill-defined, and (iv) real-world problems which often show a high degree of ambiguity resulting in contested perceptions and evaluations among and between scientists and practitioners. Therefore, they are susceptible to multiple trade-offs. Transdisciplinary processes construct socially robust orientations (SoROs) particularly for sustainable transitioning. The integration of science and practice knowledge on equal footing (1) is considered the core of transdisciplinary processes. Yet other forms of knowledge integration contribute essentially to construct SoROs. Individuals may (2) use different modes of thought; (3) refer to various cultures with diverse value and belief systems; and (4) problems are perceived and prioritized based on roles and interests. Coping with transdisciplinary problems, (5) purposeful differentiation and integration and (6) an integration of evolutionary evolving codes of representing knowledge are necessary. Finally, (7) what systems to integrate requires consensus-building among participating scientists and practitioners. This paper is Part I of a two-part publication. It provides a conceptualization of the different types of knowledge integration. Part II analyzes tasks, challenges, and barriers related to different types of knowledge integration in five transdisciplinary processes which developed SoROs for sensitive subsystems of Germany affected by the irresponsible use of digital data.

Description: Millions of people are exposed to enhanced levels of nitrogen dioxide in urbanized areas, leading to severe health effects. Moreover, nitrogen oxides contribute to the formation of ozone and particulate matter, and as such have wider health related impacts. A substantial reduction of nitrogen oxides may offer considerable health benefits for the human society. As a first step, this requires a detailed understanding of source sector contributions to nitrogen oxide levels. Whereas many regions have information on the local (traffic) contributions, the source contributions to the rural and urban background levels are commonly not available. In this study we compared and evaluated the results of two source attribution techniques to quantify the contribution of 5 source sectors to background nitrogen oxide levels across Germany. The results of a labelling technique were compared to brute force simulations with variable emission reduction percentages. The labelled NO2 source contributions of the main sectors averaged for all urban background stations are road transport (45 ± 5%), non-road transport (24 ± 6%), energy & industry (20 ± 3%), households (10 ± 6%), and the remaining source sectors (1 ± 1%). For the brute force technique, the explained mass differs from the unperturbed baseline concentration after scaling the impact of each sensitivity simulation to 100%. The attributed concentration of NO2 is lower in urban background areas (−3 ± 5%) and larger in the rural background (4 ± 6%) than that of the labelling. Largest deviations up to −15% are calculated for the major cities along the Rhine and Main. The annual average overestimation for NO is about 53 ± 24% for urban and 40 ± 26% for rural background sites based on a 20% reduction of emissions. On shorter time scales the differences are larger. These deviations are caused by (the lack of) regime changes in the titration of ozone, most notably present at ozone-limiting conditions during nocturnal winter periods. As a consequence, the differences between the methodologies are larger for smaller emission reduction percentages applied in the brute force technique. Similarly, for small-sized emission source sectors larger deviations were found compared to large-sized sector categories. Hence, applying the brute force technique for the source attribution for a single sector should be avoided as there is no way to verify for consistency and quantify the error for the sector and total explained contribution. We recommend applying the labelling approach to estimate sector contributions in forthcoming studies for nitrogen oxides.

Description: The focus of the paper is to use a single weibo from a user to predict whether the user account is verified, referred to as verified account prediction, on Sina Weibo. To the best of our knowledge, verified account prediction on Sina Weibo has not been studied. For better understanding of the prediction problem, a comprehensive data analysis of weibos related to verified accounts is conducted first. Then, verified account prediction is formulated as a sequence learning problem. Specifically, a weibo from a user is represented as a sequence of feature values by feature hashing and whether the user account is verified is the corresponding label to predict. A deep learning approach is proposed for solving verified account prediction in this formulation. The proposed approach significantly outperforms the shallow learning methods in the comparisons in terms of accuracy and F1 by large margins in the experiments.

Description: The establishment of thresholds is integral to environmental management. This paper introduces the use of thresholds in the context of deep-seabed mining, a nascent industry for which an exploitation regime of regulations, standards and guidelines is still in the process of being developed, and for which the roles and values of thresholds have yet to be finalised. There are several options for integrating thresholds into the International Seabed Authority's regulatory regime, from being stipulated in regulations to being part of a mining contract, each option having its own advantages and disadvantages. Here we explore the range of ways that thresholds can be derived, set out the challenges in translating ecological and management data into thresholds, highlight factors for acceptance and operationalisation of thresholds in deep-seabed mining, and explain the necessity of refining thresholds as knowledge on impacts to features improves. Some comparable marine industries already use thresholds and these could potentially be used as starting points for the development of thresholds for deep-seabed mining. In order to be acceptable to the wide range of deep-seabed mining stakeholders, thresholds need to strike a balance among levels of harm acceptable by society, levels of environmental precaution justifiable by governments, scientific robustness, and operational practicality.

Description: Transdisciplinary problems are complex, ill-defined, societal real-world problems with high ambiguity that are contested and require multiple trade-offs. Part I of this paper showed that transdisciplinary processes include seven types of knowledge integration: system (ontological), epistemological, cultural, cognitive, social conflict, evolutionary (levels of representation), and complexity-theory-based types of knowledge integration. The epistemological integration of the different modes of reasoning from science and practice is a unique selling point of the transdisciplinary process. Part II presents five transdisciplinary processes for the responsible use of digital data in different vulnerable/sensitive subsystems of Germany (mobility, health, agriculture, SME, and social media). Between 10 and 18 participants (equally representing science and practice in each group) synchronously constructed socially robust orientations as pillars of a white book. We elaborate that outcomes of a transdisciplinary process can be improved, and barriers diminished by reflecting on which of the seven types of knowledge integration are applied (see Part I). This is done for the six phases of a transdisciplinary process: (1) triggering, (2) initiation, (3) preparation, (4) planning, (5) core, and (6) post-processing. We particularly address researchers and practitioners who seek insights into how the production and integration of knowledge can be improved by transdisciplinary processes.

Description: At the root of much of the deforestation, land rights violations, human rights abuses and ultimately the continuation of unequal, neocolonial North-South relations are the two-fold phenomena of global market pressures for extractivism and mass production of resources and the militarization of response to social conflicts created by these activities. We will investigate the ‘new’ extractivism economic activities from the perspective of the violence perpetrated by assemblages of power against indigenous protest movements in the Peruvian Amazon region. Specifically, we will probe a grassroots’ response to the way Peru’s elites have integrated the country within the global economic system: we focus on Indigenous peoples’ protests in 2008-9 against the new regulation to open the Amazon for development of resources by private companies carried out by Peru’s President Alan García, on the grounds that it represented a threat to their natural resources and livelihood.

Description: Communities around the world are facing climate change impacts with coastal communities being particularly vulnerable. While there is a growing awareness of the pivotal role of culture in adaptation, there is a lack of practical approaches for the incorporation of culture in adaptation planning. Skills and knowledge for today´s adaptation challenges can be drawn from cultural heritage since the confrontation with climatic changes and extreme weather events are an elementary feature in human history. We argue that cultural heritage is a rich resource in this context and describe five functionalities of heritage. It can be used to transfer knowledge, to process loss, to strengthen community resilience, to change paradigms in adaptation practice, and to find socially accepted solutions in post-disaster reconstruction. The transdisciplinary research project Sinking Cities: Cultural Heritage as a transformational resource focuses on the potential of cultural institutions and artists in using heritage to support climate adaptation in coastal communities.

Description: Ground-based observational characterization of atmosphere aerosols over Central Asia is very limited. This study investigated the columnar aerosol characteristics over Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, a background site in Central Asia using the long-term (∼14 years: August 2007–November 2021) data acquired with the Cimel sunphotometer. The mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) and Ångström exponent (AE) during the observation period were 0.14 ± 0.10 and 1.19 ± 0.41, respectively. Both AOD and AE varied across seasons, with highest AOD in spring (0.17 ± 0.17). Regarding the aerosol types, clean continental aerosols were dominant type (65%), followed by mixed aerosols (∼19%), clean marine aerosols (∼14%), dust (0.8%), and urban/industrial and biomass burning aerosol (0.7%). The aerosol volume size distribution was bimodal indicating the influence of both anthropogenic and natural aerosols with clear dominance of coarse mode during the spring season. Mainly dust and mixed aerosols were present during high aerosol episodes while the coarse mode aerosol volume concentration was 7.5 (strong episodes) and ∼19 (extreme episodes) times higher than the whole period average. Aerosol over this background sites were from local and regional sources with some contribution of long-range transport.

Description: After decades of ineffective state-led global climate governance that has been dominated by mostly short-term Northern political and corporate interests, we are now witnessing an increased recognition of the planetary scale of the climate crisis and its impacts on present and future life on Earth. The Anthropocene is argued to be the new geological epoch and is associated with fast-approaching planetary boundaries and a new understanding of promethean humans as a powerful geological force. The Anthropocene introduces a new context for thinking about the climate crisis and its associated multiple patterns of differentially distributed injustices, including the temporal aspects of justice. At the same time, the climate crisis prompts the need to embark on new strategies to ensure a safe and just operating space for all present and future generations within planetary limits. While traditionally marginalized in national, regional and United Nations political fora, and largely ignored by the high rhetoric of multilateral environmental agreements that have been unable to operationalize intergenerational justice in day-to-day governance, young people are now actively claiming their position as representatives of present and future generations. They do so through protests, but also through more formal avenues to deliberately assert claims for intergenerational justice. One increasingly popular and often successful strategy is climate litigation. In this paper, we explore the shift in understanding and the practicing of intergenerational justice in the deep time context of the Anthropocene, and how young people are becoming more powerful political actors that use climate litigation to ensure intergenerational justice. We briefly reflect on the 2021 decision of the German Constitutional Court in Neubauer et al versus Germany as an example of successful youth-led climate litigation.

Description: Low concentrations of pollutants may already be associated with significant health effects. An accurate assessment of individual exposure to pollutants therefore requires measuring pollutant concentrations at the finest possible spatial and temporal scales. Low-cost sensors (LCS) of particulate matter (PM) meet this need so well that their use is constantly growing worldwide. However, everyone agrees that LCS must be calibrated before use. Several calibration studies have already been published, but there is not yet a standardized and well-established methodology for PM sensors. In this work, we develop a method combining an adaptation of an approach developed for gas-phase pollutants with a dust event preprocessing to calibrate PM LCS (PMS7003) commonly used in urban environments. From the selection of outliers to model tuning and error estimation, the developed protocol allows to analyze, process and calibrate LCS data using multilinear (MLR) and random forest (RFR) regressions for comparison with a reference instrument. We demonstrate that the calibration performance was very good for PM1 and PM2.5 but turns out less good for PM10 (R2 = 0.94, RMSE = 0.55 μg/m3, NRMSE = 12 % for PM1 with MLR, R2 = 0.92, RMSE = 0.70 μg/m3, NRMSE = 12 % for PM2.5 with RFR and R2 = 0.54, RMSE = 2.98 μg/m3, NRMSE = 27 % for PM10 with RFR). Dust events removal significantly improved LCS accuracy for PM2.5 (11 % increase of R2 and 49 % decrease of RMSE) but no significant changes for PM1. Best calibration models included internal relative humidity and temperature for PM2.5 and only internal relative humidity for PM1. It turns out that PM10 cannot be properly measured and calibrated because of technical limitations of the PMS7003 sensor. This work therefore provides guidelines for PM LCS calibration. This represents a first step toward standardizing calibration protocols and facilitating collaborative research.

Description: Gas flaring is an environmental problem of local, regional and global concerns. Gas flares emit pollutants and greenhouse gases, yet knowledge about the source strength is limited due to disparate reporting approaches in different geographies, whenever and wherever those are considered. Remote sensing has bridged the gap but uncertainties remain. There are numerous sensors which provide measurements over flaring-active regions in wavelengths that are suitable for the observation of gas flares and the retrieval of flaring activity. However, their use for operational monitoring has been limited. Besides several potential sensors, there are also different approaches to conduct the retrievals. In the current paper, we compare two retrieval approaches over an offshore flaring area during an extended period of time. Our results show that retrieved activities are consistent between methods although discrepancies may originate for individual flares at the highly temporal scale, which are traced back to the variable nature of flaring. The presented results are helpful for the estimation of flaring activity from different sources and will be useful in a future integration of diverse sensors and methodologies into a single monitoring scheme.

Description: Tropospheric ozone (O3) concentrations depend on a combination of hemispheric, regional, and local-scale processes. Estimates of how much O3 is produced locally vs. transported from further afield are essential in air quality management and regulatory policies. Here, a tagged-ozone mechanism within the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with chemistry (WRF-Chem) is used to quantify the contributions to surface O3 in the UK from anthropogenic nitrogen oxide (NOx ) emissions from inside and outside the UK during May-August 2015. The contribution of the different source regions to three regulatory O3 metrics is also examined. It is shown that model simulations predict the concentration and spatial distribution of surface O3 with a domain-wide mean bias of -3.7 ppbv. Anthropogenic NOx emissions from the UK and Europe account for 13 % and 16 %, respectively, of the monthly mean surface O3 in the UK, as the majority (71 %) of O3 originates from the hemispheric background. Hemispheric O3 contributes the most to concentrations in the north and the west of the UK with peaks in May, whereas European and UK contributions are most significant in the east, south-east, and London, i.e. the UK's most populated areas, intensifying towards June and July. Moreover, O3 from European sources is generally transported to the UK rather than produced in situ. It is demonstrated that more stringent emission controls over continental Europe, particularly in western Europe, would be necessary to improve the health-related metric MDA8 O3 above 50 and 60 ppbv. Emission controls over larger areas, such as the Northern Hemisphere, are instead required to lessen the impacts on ecosystems as quantified by the AOT40 metric.

Description: The COVID-19 pandemic as a disruptive event was initially considered an opportunity for a transformation towards more sustainable lifestyles. In two telephone surveys with more than 1000 participants each, this study explored in October 2020 and May 2021 how people in Germany experienced the COVID-19 related lockdown restrictions. Specifically, the study investigated how the respondents felt their lives had been impaired during the pandemic, which changes they had experienced as particularly bothersome and which ones they perceived to be beneficial. A second objective was to analyze how these perceptions related to either the respondents’ urge to return to “normal” or, in contrast, to their openness towards lifestyle changes. A third objective was to identify structural characteristics that would explain differences in perception and assessment of lifestyle changes. Overall, the study found that by 2021, the pandemic had impacted people more negatively than in 2020. Most respondents missed social contacts, traveling and cultural events. Among the positive changes, working from home and spending less money for useless things were particularly prominent. A third of the participants agreed that they would like to question their behavior before the pandemic and live more consciously. Apart from slight differences in gender, age and, most importantly, academic background, socio-economic characteristics hardly help explain why some people were more open to change than others. Therefore, a cluster analysis was conducted with the result that respondents with stronger pro-environmental attitudes were more open to change, no matter how much they felt affected by the pandemic. These findings indicate that when routines are disrupted, pro-environmental personal values and education contribute to the openness for alternative lifestyle choices.

Description: Introduction Current urban and transport planning practices have significant negative health, environmental, social and economic impacts in most cities. New urban development models and policies are needed to reduce these negative impacts. The Superblock model is one such innovative urban model that can significantly reduce these negative impacts through reshaping public spaces into more diverse uses such as increase in green space, infrastructure supporting social contacts and physical activity, and through prioritization of active mobility and public transport, thereby reducing air pollution, noise and urban heat island effects. This paper reviews key aspects of the Superblock model, its implementation and initial evaluations in Barcelona and the potential international uptake of the model in Europe and globally, focusing on environmental, climate, lifestyle, liveability and health aspects. Methods We used a narrative meta-review approach and PubMed and Google scholar databases were searched using specific terms. Results The implementation of the Super block model in Barcelona is slow, but with initial improvement in, for example, environmental, lifestyle, liveability and health indicators, although not so consistently. When applied on a large scale, the implementation of the Superblock model is not only likely to result in better environmental conditions, health and wellbeing, but can also contribute to the fight against the climate crisis. There is a need for further expansion of the program and further evaluation of its impacts and answers to related concerns, such as environmental equity and gentrification, traffic and related environmental exposure displacement. The implementation of the Superblock model gained a growing international reputation and variations of it are being planned or implemented in cities worldwide. Initial modelling exercises showed that it could be implemented in large parts of many cities. Conclusion The Superblock model is an innovative urban model that addresses environmental, climate, liveability and health concerns in cities. Adapted versions of the Barcelona Superblock model are being implemented in cities around Europe and further implementation, monitoring and evaluation are encouraged. The Superblock model can be considered an important public health intervention that will reduce mortality and morbidity and generate cost savings for health and other sectors.

Description: Indicator frameworks for urban water sustainability are very diverse, with tools designed for different practical use cases and employing different assessment approaches. This creates a complex landscape that scholars and practitioners must successfully “orienteer” so that they may effectively apply the literature to develop theory and/or manage practical problems of sustainability. Based on a systematic analysis of indicator frameworks for urban water sustainability, this paper presents an overview of framework designs and current design trends. Five key framework design decisions and respective options are outlined, and the patterns in and implications of their use are discussed. While the decisions were identified based on material for assessing urban water sustainability, the categories of decisions and options are relevant to environmental sustainability more broadly. The paper is aimed at framework users looking for an overview of different framework designs and their benefits and drawbacks and framework designers interested in common options, current trends, and difficulties.

Description: In academia and political debates, the notions of ‘degrowth’ has gained traction since the dawn of the 21st century. While some uncertainty around its exact definition remains, research on degrowth revolves around the idea of reducing resource and energy throughput as a unifying theme. We employ a mixed-methods design to systematically review the scientific peer-reviewed English literature from 2008 to 2022 that refers to ‘degrowth’ or ‘post-growth’ in title, keywords or abstract (N = 951). We find a lack of concrete distributional and monetary policy proposals in the sample analyzed, and a low overall degree of collaboration among authors in relation to degrowth's age and size. The scientific peer-reviewed literature analyzed can be grouped into seven clusters along two major gradients, one along methodology (qualitative-quantitative) and the other along scale-of-analysis (individual-societal). We conclude that the academic literature about degrowth would benefit from a more prominent discussion of the political implications of its ideas and proposals, and that in particular the debate about distributional policy implications of degrowth should be more prominent and concrete, with a stronger focus on distributional policies in a degrowing economy.

Description: Salient, long-term solutions to address global environmental change hinge on management strategies that are inclusive of local voices and that recognize the array of values held by surrounding communities. Group-based participatory processes that involve deliberation of multiple stakeholders with varying perspectives—particularly social learning—hold promise to advance inclusive conservation by identifying and creating a shared understanding of the landscape. However, few studies have empirically investigated how the value basis of stakeholder deliberation changes over time in relation to social learning. This study provided a novel platform for local stakeholders from Interior Alaska to deliberate on landscape change and associated management practices in ways that shifted their value orientations. In particular, we used a pre-test, post-test experimental design involving mixed methods to measure how different types of values changed as a result of social learning through an online discussion forum. We found evidence that social learning: 1) activated shared values that were previously hidden through building a relational understanding of others, and 2) shifted values that spanned three levels of psychological stability. As hypothesized, social values that represented expressed preferences for landscape change were most likely to shift in association with social learning. Conversely, shifts in individual values towards self-transcendence required learning to go beyond the discussion forum and be situated within the participants’ broader communities of practice. Overall, this longitudinal study highlights how social learning facilitated through deliberation presents opportunities to identify shared values and spark value shifts across stakeholder groups, thus incorporating diverse viewpoints into decision-making about global environmental change.

Description: The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region frequently experiences ozone pollution events during the summer and autumn seasons. High-concentration events are typically related to synoptic weather patterns, which impact the transport and photochemical production of ozone at multiple scales, ranging from the local to regional scale. To better understand the regional ozone pollution problem, studies on ozone source attribution are needed, especially regarding the contributions of sources at different vertical heights based on tagging the region or time periods. Between September 3 and 8, 2020, an episode of ozone concentration anomaly high was observed in Hefei through ground-based stations and ozone Lidar. The mechanism behind this event was uncovered through synoptic weather pattern analysis and using the Weather Research and Forecasting Chemistry model (WRF-Chem). Because an approaching typhoon caused variable wind direction, the O3-rich air masses (ORMs) arising from the YRD region were transported to Hefei via the nocturnal residual layer and descended to the ground through horizontal advection and vertical mixing processes the next day. Based on geographic source tagging, the anthropogenic NOx emissions (ANEs) from local and regional sources were the main contributors to the heavy ozone pollution over Hefei on September 6. Furthermore, the intra-regional transported ozone from southern Jiangsu (SJS), southern Anhui (SAH), and Zhejiang (ZJ) in the YRD was the main driving factor of the surface and upper atmosphere ozone pollution. Based on time period tagging, The ozone generated due to ANEs from September 3 to 5 significantly contributed to this episode. It is important to pay attention to the impact of ANEs on September 5 on the surface peak ozone concentration the following day (i.e., September 6). Our findings provide significant insights into the regional ozone transport mechanism in the YRD and optimization of measures to prevent and control heavy ozone pollution on spatiotemporal scales.

Description: Artificial intelligence (AI) systems carry risks and opportunities for environmental sustainability. The use of AI systems, for instance, can result in both software-related (direct) as well as application-context-related (indirect) resource use. Stakeholders are expected to play a role in understanding and steering the environmental effects of AI systems. However, the processes and anticipated outcomes of stakeholder involvement in AI system lifecycles are not clear. We provide a non-exhaustive scoping review of six software and AI sustainability frameworks with respect to their recognition of environmental sustainability and the role of stakeholders in dealing with environmental sustainability. This serves to develop recommendations for future research on how stakeholder involvement can help firms and institutions design and use more sustainable AI systems.

Description: This Perspective article presents a novel, participatory scenario development method for studying the energy transition. It shows how moving towards transdisciplinarity can inform formal scenario analysis and enhance modelling by engaging stakeholders and scientific communities to co-develop energy transition scenarios. The innovative approach combines participatory elements of morphological analysis with formal cross-impact balance analysis (CIB), and it was tested at a series of energy transition scenario workshops held in 2021 both virtually and in person. Focusing on the first workshop of the series, we present the resulting data collection strategy and critically reflect on the analytical potential of the approach. We highlight the advantage of CIB in grasping the complexity and the multi-scale nature of the energy transition, as it enables computing of how different driving forces interact. We also demonstrate that leveraging morphological analysis for data collection in participatory scenario workshops yields a more participatory approach to CIB. Some limitations notwithstanding, the insights from the scenario workshops following the novel approach suggest further avenues for improving the process of online participatory scenario methods. This holds significant potential for empirical research under the conditions of a global pandemic and for scenario analysis more generally.

Description: For three consecutive five-year plans since 2006, China has worked on building up an internationally competitive CSP industry and value chain. One big milestone in commercializing proprietary Chinese CSP technology was the 2016 demonstration program of 20 commercial-scale projects. China sought to increase and demonstrate capacities for domestic CSP technology development and deployment. At the end of the 13th five-year period, we take stock of the demonstrated progress of the Chinese CSP industry towards delivering internationally competitive CSP projects. We find that in January 2021, eight commercial-scale projects, in total 500 MW, have been completed and three others were under construction in China. In addition, Chinese EPC’s have participated in three international CSP projects, although proprietary Chinese CSP designs have not been applied outside China. The largest progress has been made in molten-salt tower technology, with several projects by different companies completed and operating successfully: here, the aims were met, and Chinese companies are now at the global forefront of this segment. Further efforts for large-scale demonstration are needed, however, for other CSP technologies, including parabolic trough - with additional demonstration hindered by a lack of further deployment policies. In the near future, Chinese companies seek to employ the demonstrated capabilities in the tower segment abroad and are developing projects using Chinese technology, financing, and components in several overseas markets. If successful, this will likely lead to increasing competition and further cost reductions for the global CSP sector.

Description: Employing mineral carbonation products as a cementitious substitute could reduce the cement industry’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, a transition toward low-emission cement requires financially competitive cement production at standardized product specifications. Aiming to tackle this challenge, we modeled and optimized a direct mineral carbonation process. In detail, we embedded a mechanistic tubular reactor model in a mineral carbonation process and imposed product specifications based on the European cement standard in the optimal design formulation. In the next step, we considered the business case of blended cement consisting of ordinary Portland cement and the mineral carbonation product that could be categorized as CEM II in the European cement standard. We computed the minimum production cost and GHG emissions of the produced blended cement by using Bayesian optimization to find Pareto optimal operating conditions of the mineral carbonation process. Our results showed that the cost of mineral carbonation in the cement industry can be competitive while cutting the GHG emissions by up to 54%.

Description: The impact of aerosols, especially the absorbing aerosols, in the Himalayan region is important for climate. We closely examine ground-based high-quality observations of aerosol characteristics including radiative forcing from several locations in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), the Himalayan foothills and the Tibetan Plateau, relatively poorly studied regions with several sensitive ecosystems of global importance, as well as highly vulnerable large populations. This paper presents a state-of-the-art treatment of the warming that arises from these particles, using a combination of new measurements and modeling techniques. This is a first-time analysis of its kind, including ground-based observations, satellite data, and model simulations, which reveals that the aerosol radiative forcing efficiency (ARFE) in the atmosphere is clearly high over the IGP and the Himalayan foothills (80–135 Wm−2 per unit aerosol optical depth (AOD)), with values being greater at higher elevations. AOD is 〉0.30 and single scattering albedo (SSA) is ∼0.90 throughout the year over this region. The mean ARFE is 2–4 times higher here than over other polluted sites in South and East Asia, owing to higher AOD and aerosol absorption (i.e., lower SSA). Further, the observed annual mean aerosol-induced atmospheric heating rates (0.5–0.8 Kelvin/day), which are significantly higher than previously reported values for the region, imply that the aerosols alone could account for 〉50 % of the total warming (aerosols + greenhouse gases) of the lower atmosphere and surface over this region. We demonstrate that the current state-of-the-art models used in climate assessments significantly underestimate aerosol-induced heating, efficiency and warming over the Hindu Kush – Himalaya – Tibetan Plateau (HKHTP) region, indicating a need for a more realistic representation of aerosol properties, especially of black carbon and other aerosols. The significant, regionally coherent aerosol-induced warming that we observe in the high altitudes of the region, is a significant factor contributing to increasing air temperature, observed accelerated retreat of the glaciers, and changes in the hydrological cycle and precipitation patterns over this region. Thus, aerosols are heating up the Himalayan climate, and will remain a key factor driving climate change over the region.

Description: This editorial to the special issue: Transregional Configurations of Just Energy Transitions explores how discourses on justice are interrelated and influence transformation paths at different levels of society. We propose a spatial perspective that puts energy transitions and place-based research into context. For many years, discussions about the transformation of the energy sector focused on the climatological necessity of phasing out fossil fuels and on the technical and economic feasibility of doing so. In this special issue, we aim to reverse this logic: phasing out fossil fuels has become feasible, but phasing out the political, cultural, and social legacy of fossil fuel is a prerequisite for a just transition. The collection of articles contributes to place-based research, focusing on peripheral and fossil fuel producing regions in the global North and South. We also broaden the relational perspective on regional energy transitions by closely linking spatial and moral dimensions. The articles and this editorial show that the emergence of a region as a political arena or even as an institutional actor in climate and energy policy coincides with spatially defined (in)justice claims. In practical terms, this also means that a broader range of justice claims and regional spaces must be critically examined and incorporated into the design of energy transformations.

Description: This paper outlines the development and operation of Yeti, a bottom-up traffic emission inventory framework written in the Python 3 scripting language. A generalized representation of traffic activity and emission data affords a high degree of scalability and flexibility in the use and execution of Yeti, while accommodating a wide range of details on topological, traffic, and meteorological data. The resulting traffic emission data are calculated at a road-level resolution on an hourly basis. Yeti is initially applied to traffic activity and fleet composition data provided by the senate administration for the city of Berlin, which serves as the region of interest, where the Yeti-calculated emissions are highly consistent with officially reported annual aggregate levels, broken down according to different exhaust and non-exhaust emission modes. Diurnal emission profiles on select road segments show not only the dependence on traffic activities but also on road type and meteorology. These road-level emissions are further classified on the basis of vehicle categories and Euro emission classes, and the results obtained confirmed the observations of the city of Berlin and subsequent rectifications.

Description: Politisch Verantwortliche, die vor gesamtgesellschaftlichen Herausforderungen wie der Entwicklung einer wirksamen Klimapolitik stehen, sind aufgrund der Komplexität und Tragweite der Materie mehr denn je auf die Beteiligung von Stakeholdern und Bürger*innen angewiesen. Dies gilt insbesondere für die kommunale Ebene. In diesem Beitrag zeigen wir auf, welche Potenziale in der prozeduralen Integration von Stakeholder- und Bürger*innenbeteiligung liegen und wie diese Kombination in der Praxis gelingen kann. Dazu bereiten wir zunächst die theoretischen und praktischen Kernmerkmale der verbreiteten Beteiligungsinstrumente Bürger*innenrat und Runder Tisch auf. Anschließend analysieren wir zwei empirische Fallstudien, in denen jeweils sowohl eine Stakeholdergruppe als auch eine nach dem Zufallsprinzip geloste Bürger*innengruppe im Rahmen eines Gesamtprozesses gemeinsam Empfehlungen für klimapolitische Maßnahmenkataloge erarbeitet haben. Unsere Analyse zeigt, dass integrierte Gesamtbeteiligungsprozesse bei einer sorgfältigen Strukturierung der Interaktionen zwischen Stakeholdern und zufällig ausgewählten Bürger*innen sowie einem toleranten Umgang mit auftretenden Dissensen sachlich fundierte und politisch wirksame Ergebnisse erzielen können.

Description: Political decision-makers, who face challenges for society such as the development of an effective climate policy, are more dependent than ever on the participation of stakeholders and citizens due to the complexity and scope of the matter. This is especially true at the municipal level. In this paper, we show what potential lies in the procedural integration of stakeholder and citizen participation and how this combination can succeed in practice. To this end, we first review the theoretical and practical core features of the widespread participation instruments of citizens’ assemblies (mini-publics) and stakeholder Round Tables. Following this conceptual part, we analyze two empirical case studies in which both a stakeholder group and a randomly selected group of citizens jointly developed recommendations. Our analysis shows patterns and preconditions of participation theory and practice that may influence the success of such integrated efforts for bringing citizens and stakeholders together.

Description: Climate change is strongly impacting Arctic marine ecosystems, and the Arctic coastal communities whose identities, traditions and livelihoods are closely interconnected with the marine environment. The Ecosystem Approach (EA) is a promising approach for understanding and managing the occurring shifts in the Arctic marine ecosystems. Based on our analysis, we find that assessments conducted by international and regional instruments and institutions, most notably the Arctic Council, as well as the wealth of Indigenous knowledge present in the region, provide valuable starting points for the implementation of EA in the Arctic. Yet, mechanisms for translating knowledge into joint coordinated and integrated action in accordance with EA are currently lacking. Our analysis suggests that incremental steps can be taken now to promote the implementation of EA, while working to establish a more comprehensive governance framework. In our view, bottom-up initiatives may provide the most promising avenue for promoting the application of EA in the region under the current geopolitical circumstances. Support by civil society, Indigenous and conservation organizations, as well as global momentum will be necessary to coordinate, finance and elevate community-driven initiatives. Other opportunities we identify for advancing EA is to engage with sectoral management bodies and to advance EA through climate change adaptation measures.

Description: This article discusses a dilemma of welfare states in the ecological transition. While the principle of “sustainability” is increasingly accepted, there are very different concrete declinations of it. I identify two broad interpretations of sustainability and corresponding paths of social change. The dominant approach, promoted by governments, businesses, and international organizations focuses on inclusive green growth. It aims to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation and seeks to make the transition to a green economy as socially inclusive as possible. In this context, “enabling” social policies mainly focus on employment promotion. The second approach, mostly embraced by heterodox academics and social movements, involves a deeper social-ecological transformation which attempts to lower the priority of economic growth and employment. Accordingly, the role of capacitating welfare states is to enable all individuals to flourish in a post-productivist society. I argue that while the second approach is normatively superior to the first one, it is also more difficult to realize, generating a dilemma for future-oriented politics.

Description: Vast black carbon (BC) emissions from sub-Saharan Africa are perceived to warm the regional climate, impact rainfall patterns, and impair human respiratory health. However, the magnitudes of these perturbations are ill-constrained, largely due to limited ground-based observations and uncertainties in emissions from different sources. This paper reports multiyear concentrations of BC and other key PM2.5 aerosol constituents from the Rwanda Climate Observatory, serving as a regional receptor site. We find a strong seasonal cycle for all investigated chemical species, where the maxima coincide with large-scale upwind savanna fires. BC concentrations show notable interannual variability, with no clear long-term trend. The Δ14C and δ13C signatures of BC unambiguously show highly elevated biomass burning contributions, up to 93 ± 3%, with a clear and strong savanna burning imprint. We further observe a near-equal contribution from C3 and C4 plants, irrespective of air mass source region or season. In addition, the study provides improved relative emission factors of key aerosol components, organic carbon (OC), K+, and NO3-, in savanna-fires-influenced background atmosphere. Altogether, we report quantitative source constraints on Eastern Africa BC emissions, with implications for parameterization of satellite fire and bottom-up emission inventories as well as regional climate and chemical transport modeling.

Description: Evaluating the embodied environmental impact of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology has been an important topic in addressing the sustainable development of renewable energy. While monetization of environmental externality is a remaining issue, which should be carried out in order to allow for an easy-to-understand comparison between direct economic and external cost. In this study, the environmental impact of solar PV power is monetized through conversion factors between midpoint and endpoint categories of life cycle analysis and the monetization weighting factor. Then, the power generation capacity and generation life of PV and coal-fired power plants are assumed to be consistent in order to compare the total cost of PV and coal-fired power generation. Results show that the cost of PV technology is higher than coal-fired in 2026 to 2030, taking into account environmental external costs and production costs. However, by 2030, the total cost of coal-fired power will be higher than that of solar PV. The life span cost per kWh is $3.55 for solar PV and $116.25 for coal-fired power. Although solar PV power seems more environmentally effective than coal-fired power in the life span, our results reveal the high environmental external cost of producing solar photovoltaic modules, which reminds us to pay more attention to the environmental impact when conducting cost-benefit analysis of renewable technologies. Without incorporating the environmental cost, the real cost of renewable technology will be underestimated.

Description: The expansion of renewable energies not only lowers carbon emissions, it also redistributes resources among actors. This article argues that green industrialization – specifically, manufacturing and the development of renewable energy technologies — creates economic gains that impact political processes and increase renewable energy policy ambition. Building on a combined framework of policy feedback and global value chain literature, we see domestic value creation as a key determinant of coalition strength and learning effects for policymakers. We analyze the relationship of value chain involvement to policy ambition using panel data on countries’ manufacturing and innovation activities in the wind and solar industry from 2010 to 2018. The results show a positive technology policy feedback mechanism, implying that higher local value creation leads to more ambitious renewable energy policies. These first large-N findings support previous case studies on the importance of green growth for raising policy ambition; it implies that transformative policies fostering value creation could create a virtuous cycle for policy ambition. We further propose an interdisciplinary research agenda to shed light on the role of value chain dynamics for policy feedback mechanisms across different political economies.

Description: There is a growing number of national, subnational and even company targets for net-zero emissions of CO2 in support of the Paris Climate Agreement goals of limiting the global average temperature increase within 1.5 °C by 2100. The challenges faced by developing countries in achieving net-zero emissions targets are, however, very prominent due to their common desire for rapid economic growth, improved socio-economic conditions, and greater climate resilience. In addition, this has to overcome many constraints related to the competitiveness, acceptability, and sustainability of proposed and planned low-carbon initiatives. It is thus very important to understand the economic and technical characteristics of net-zero emissions concepts and pathways. The constraints can best be addressed if actual and transparent co-benefits related to these initiatives are identified and reflected during their implementation. Here we employ the Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) to examine Nepal’s recently introduced ‘Long-term Strategy for Net-zero Emissions’ and to estimate anticipated co-benefits in terms of reducing air pollutants emission and enhancing energy security and energy equity. Under the reference scenario (REF), the annual CO2 emission is expected to increase from 23 MtCO2 in 2019 to 79 MtCO2 in 2050 with significant increase in air pollutants emissions in the range of 60% (Organic Carbon) to 183% (SO2), increase in energy import dependency, reaching electricity consumption per capita below one-quarter of the world average. Under the ‘With Additional Measures (WAM)’ strategy scenario, air pollutants would be reduced in the range of 70% (Organic Carbon) to 85% (Black Carbon) respectively, in 2050 as compared to the REF. Similarly, it results drastic improvement in energy security indicators and energy equity. It is expected that the findings of this study will provide useful input to policymakers, private sector, societal actors and researchers in support of successful implementation of the initiatives for sustainable socio-economic transformation pathways.

Description: Mini-lateral ‘clubs’ occupy an increasingly prominent place in the international environmental governance landscape. Yet few studies have looked at how differences between clubs influence the results they produce. This paper aims to fill this gap in understanding by testing hypotheses on how different clubs' membership constellations and leadership (connected to large events) affect ambitions in outcome documents of the G7 and the G20. It tests those hypotheses by employing text and data analytic techniques to compare stated ambitions in environmental documents of G7 and G20 over the past two decades. The analysis reveals that the G7’s language is generally stronger than the G20; and that strategic leadership connected to large events may contribute to raising those ambitions. These findings highlight the importance of mini-lateral clubs as forms of environmental governance and, more generally, illustrates the use of text mining in environmental governance research.

Description: New particle formation (NPF) and subsequent particle growth are important sources of condensation nuclei (CN) and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). While a number of observations have shown positive contributions of NPF to CCN at low supersaturation, negative NPF contributions were often simulated. Using the observations in a typical coastal city of Qingdao, we thoroughly evaluate the simulated number concentrations of CN and CCN using a NPF-explicit parameterization embedded in WRF-Chem model. In terms of CN, the initial simulation shows large biases of particle number concentrations at 10–40 nm (CN10–40) and 40–100 nm (CN40–100). By adjusting the process of gas-particle partitioning, including mass accommodation coefficient of sulfuric acid, the phase changes of primary organic aerosol emissions and the condensational amount of nitric acid, the concomitant improvement of the particle growth process yields a substantial reduction of overestimates of CN10–40 and CN40–100. Regarding CCN, SOA formed from the oxidation of semi-volatile and intermediate volatility organic vapors (SI-SOA) yield is an important contributor. In the original WRF-Chem model with 20 size bins setting, the yield of SI-SOA is too high without considering the differences in oxidation rates of the precursors. Lowering the SI-SOA yield results in much improved simulations of the observed CCN concentrations. On the basis of the bias-corrected model, we find substantial positive contributions of NPF to CCN at low supersaturation (~0.2 %) in Qingdao and over the broad areas of China, primarily due to the competing effects of increasing particle hygroscopicity surpassing that of particle size decrease. This study highlights the potentially much larger NPF contributions to CCN on a regional and even global basis.

Description: Social lives are lived prospectively with intent and visions of what will, could and should be. Importantly, this social futurity is not merely hoped for, expected or anticipated but it is also enacted continuously in everyday and institutional practices. To encompass this central feature in studies of social life poses significant challenges for all evidence-based knowledge systems, given that the future is not yet and as such not considered factual. This means it cannot be known with certainty. Knowledge about it therefore tends primarily to be constructed, calculated and modelled from past-based evidence. In my reflections I examine some of the difficulties and anomalies that arise for engagement with the full complexity of this fundamental aspect of existence and explore alternative modes of engagement.

Description: Nepal is 100% dependent on imported petroleum products as it has no as yet viable proven reserve. The import of petroleum is increasing at an alarming rate (15.2% annually) which is creating not only a burden on the national economy but also raising the issue of energy supply security and environmental degradation. In this study, eleven distinct significant indicators have been used to evaluate the energy security status of the country. Since there is no such detailed quantification of indicators carried out in previous research, this study can be a significant input to policymakers and planners. It also explores the policy intervention measures to improve energy security status in the context of a developing country that is increasingly dependent on imported commercial fuels. Five different scenarios have been developed considering 2017 as a base year and 2040 as an end year with different economic growth rates 4.5%, 7.2% and 9.2% as main driving parameter. Two additional policy intervention scenarios (Policy-I and Policy-II), prioritizing electrification to enhance energy security, have been analyzed. The energy demands have been projected using the Model for Analysis of Energy Demand (MAED), while the Low Emission Analysis Platform (LEAP) tool has been used to analyze the supply, the energy supply requirement, fuel import dependence, cost, as well as the size of power plant requirement under different scenarios. The results manifest that there would be a reduction in Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES) requirement by 1.14% and 8.7% under policy-I and Policy-II scenarios respectively in the year 2040, compared to the reference scenario (7.2%) resulting in improved energy security, economic vulnerability, and GHG mitigation. It indicates that the use of indigenous renewable energy resources mainly hydro is indispensable for ensuring the energy security of Nepal.

Description: Digitalization of industrial production, also known as Industry 4.0, may have profound environmental impacts, raising both hopes and fears with regards to the environmental friendliness of manufacturing. We investigate the relationship between Industry 4.0 and manufacturing energy intensity using panel data covering 15 countries and 8 manufacturing sectors or clusters for the years 2012–2020, providing insights for three different variables related to Industry 4.0. Firstly, we find a significant negative association (−0.059 in the preferred specification) between robot density and energy intensity. Secondly, we find a significant positive association (+0.025 in the preferred specification) between digital capital intensity and energy intensity. Lastly, the relationship between the share of companies employing ICT specialists and energy intensity is insignificant in our data sample. We thus highlight the potentially varying effects of Industry 4.0 on manufacturing energy intensity, encouraging further investigations to provide a more nuanced view of the environmental impacts of digital technology utilization in industry.

Description: The complexity and importance of environmental, societal, and other challenges require new forms of science and practice collaboration. We first describe the complementarity of method-driven, theory-based, and (to the extent possible) validated scientific knowledge in contrast to real-world, action-based, and contextualized experimental knowledge. We argue that a thorough integration of these two modes of knowing is necessary for developing ground-breaking innovations and transitions for sustainable development. To reorganize types of science–practice collaborations, we extend Stokes’s Pasteur’s quadrant with its dimensions for the relevance of (i) (generalized) fundamental knowledge and (ii) applications when introducing (iii) process ownership, i.e., who controls the science–practice collaboration process. Process ownership is a kind of umbrella variable which comprises leadership (with the inflexion point of equal footing or co-leadership) and mutuality (this is needed for knowledge integration and developing socially robust orientations) which are unique selling points of transdisciplinarity. The extreme positions of process ownership are applied research (science takes control) and consulting (practice takes process ownership). Ideal transdisciplinary processes include authentic co-definition, co-representation, co-design, and co-leadership of science and practice. We discuss and grade fifteen approaches on science–practice collaboration along the process ownership scale and reflect on the challenges to make transdisciplinarity real.

Description: Probabilistic seismic hazard estimates are a key ingredient of earthquake risk mitigation strategies and are often communicated through seismic hazard maps. Though the literature suggests that visual design properties are key for effective communication using such maps, guidelines on how to optimally design hazard map are missing from the literature. Current maps use color palettes and data classification schemes which have well-reported limitations that may inadvertently miscommunicate seismic hazard. We surveyed the literature on color and classification schemes to identify design criteria that have empirical support for communicating hazard information. These criteria were then applied to redesign the seismic hazard map for Germany. We isolated several communication goals for this map, including essential properties about moderate-hazard seismic regions and a critical hazard threshold related to the German seismic building codes. We elucidate our redesign process and the selection of new colors and classification schemes that satisfy the evidence-based criteria. In a mixed-methods survey, we evaluate the original and redesigned seismic hazard maps, finding that the redesign satisfies all the communication goals, and improves users’ awareness about the spatial spread of seismic hazard, relative to the original. We consider practical implications for the design of hazard maps across the natural hazards.

Description: Renewable energy changes the geopolitics of energy: whereas access to fossil fuel resources were key in the past, control over technology and industry will be key in the future. Consequently, different scholars have predicted that a growing focus on renewables will increase or decrease conflict in the energy sector, with no consensus on which is most likely. Here, we investigate the degree of conflict in renewable energy technology (RET) trade by analyzing data on 7041 trade conflicts 1995–2020, guided by two sets of theory-driven hypotheses. We show that RET trade is associated with more, longer, and more intense trade conflicts than other trade conflicts for 1995–2016. This supports the neorealist, geo-economic view of countries being willing to risk conflict to increase their share of a market rather than avoiding conflicts to increase the overall market size. It also contradicts the view that renewables will reduce conflict: at least in the past and regarding trade, it has increased rather than decreased conflict. For 2017–2020, this trend is reversed and RET trade became significantly less conflictive than other trade. Our findings imply that improved conflict-resolution institutions for RET are needed. We also suggest establishing specific institutions to govern trade in immature technologies.

Description: Concentrating solar power (CSP) is one of the few scalable technologies capable of delivering dispatchable renewable power. Therefore, many expect it to shoulder a significant share of system balancing in a renewable electricity future powered by cheap, intermittent PV and wind power: the IEA, for example, projects 73 GW CSP by 2030 and several hundred GW by 2050 in its Net-Zero by 2050 pathway. In this paper, we assess how fast CSP can be expected to scale up and how long time it would take to get new, high-efficiency CSP technologies to market, based on observed trends and historical patterns. We find that to meaningfully contribute to net-zero pathways the CSP sector needs to reach and exceed the maximum historical annual growth rate of 30%/year last seen between 2010-2014 and maintain it for at least two decades. Any CSP deployment in the 2020s will rely mostly on mature existing technologies, namely parabolic trough and molten-salt towers, but likely with adapted business models such as hybrid CSP-PV stations, combining the advantages of higher-cost dispatchable and low-cost intermittent power. New third-generation CSP designs are unlikely to play a role in markets during the 2020s, as they are still at or before the pilot stage and, judging from past pilot-to-market cycles for CSP, they will likely not be ready for market deployment before 2030. CSP can contribute to low-cost zero-emission energy systems by 2050, but to make that happen, at the scale foreseen in current energy models, ambitious technology-specific policy support is necessary, as soon as possible and in several countries.

Description: Germany's Energiewende aims to have 80 percent of the nation's electricity generated from renewables by 2030. One promising approach to building acceptance lies in the involvement of citizens by collaboratively determining and creating CE projects. Through an idealistic lens, CE reflects energy democracy of, by, and for the people. However, CE projects in Germany have faltered for years. While structural causes undoubtedly exist, another crucial reason lies in the project structure. We found that membership is not proportionately represented and members hold divergent attitudes towards CE. We conclude that more diversified projects for various groups of participants should be promoted.

Description: The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) is a coordinating framework, started in 2010, that includes a series of standardized climate model experiments aimed at understanding the physical processes and projected impacts of solar geoengineering. Numerous experiments have been conducted, and numerous more have been proposed as “test-bed” experiments, spanning a variety of geoengineering techniques aimed at modifying the planetary radiation budget: stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, surface albedo modification, cirrus cloud thinning, and sunshade mirrors. To date, more than 100 studies have been published that used results from GeoMIP simulations. Here we provide a critical assessment of GeoMIP and its experiments. We discuss its successes and missed opportunities, for instance in terms of which experiments elicited more interest from the scientific community and which did not, and the potential reasons why that happened. We also discuss the knowledge that GeoMIP has contributed to the field of geoengineering research and climate science as a whole: what have we learned in terms of intermodel differences, robustness of the projected outcomes for specific geoengineering methods, and future areas of model development that would be necessary in the future? We also offer multiple examples of cases where GeoMIP experiments were fundamental for international assessments of climate change. Finally, we provide a series of recommendations, regarding both future experiments and more general activities, with the goal of continuously deepening our understanding of the effects of potential geoengineering approaches and reducing uncertainties in climate outcomes, important for assessing wider impacts on societies and ecosystems. In doing so, we refine the purpose of GeoMIP and outline a series of criteria whereby GeoMIP can best serve its participants, stakeholders, and the broader science community.