ALBERT

Description: This spatio-temporal dataset contains capacity factors timeseries for locations on a grid with 50km edge length in Europe. The data is resolved in one hour timesteps and comprises the years 2000--2016. It has been generated using Renewables.ninja and is based on MERRA-2 reanalysis data. For each of the ~2700 onshore location, it contains one time series for onshore wind turbines and five time series for PV installations with different orientations and tilts. PV time series exist for (1) installations on open fields, (2) installations on all possible rooftops, (3) south-facing and flat rooftops, (4) east- and west-facing rooftops, (5) north-facing rooftops. For each of the ~2800 offshore location there is one timeseries for offshore wind turbines. Two GeoTIFF files contain spatial information of onshore and offshore locations. For each of the three technologies -- onshore wind, offshore wind, and PV -- there is one NetCDF file determining the temporal dimension and containing the data. The GeoTIFF and NetCDF files are linked through unique IDs for all locations. This data serves as input data to euro-calliope, a model of the European electricity system.

Description: Aerosol radiative properties using recently available high-quality columnar aerosol data collected at several AERONET sites in South Asia, with a focus on pollution outflow from continental South Asia observed over Hanimaadhoo in Maldives, a small island in northern Indian Ocean are quantified. The seasonal mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) over Hanimaadhoo is ≥ 0.3 (except ca. 0.2 during monsoon season), and single scattering albedo (SSA) is 〉 0.90 in all seasons. Fine mode aerosols contribute dominantly to AOD. SSA decreases as a function of wavelength due to influence of continental aerosols, except during the monsoon season when its spectral trend reverses due to increase in dust. Carbonaceous aerosols dominate (〉90%) contribution to absorption AOD (AAOD). Black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC) contribute 〉75% and 〈25%, respectively, to AAOD due to carbonaceous aerosols. The observed seasonal mean aerosol radiative forcing at the surface (ARFSFC), at the top of the atmosphere (ARFTOP) and in the atmosphere (ARFATM) is 〉 −25 Wm-2, 〉−20 Wm-2 and ~+20 Wm-2, respectively. Aerosol loading and atmospheric heating have increased over this background site over the last decade. A regional-scale analysis of aerosol properties and radiative effects across and surrounding the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) shows that AOD is ≥ 0.3 over entire region, and aerosols reduce seasonally 30–50 Wm-2 of solar radiation reaching the surface, contributing significantly to solar dimming effect. The atmospheric solar heating rate due to aerosols (HR) is ≥ 1 K day−1 across IGP. These high ARFs, ARFESFC and HR, and increasing trends have significant implications to climate and hydrological cycle over South Asia and beyond.

Description: You may have heard about minerals on the bottom of the ocean. The UK Government sponsors several exploration contracts for UK Seabed Resources (a subsidiary of the American aerospace and security company Lockheed-Martin) in the Pacific Ocean to look for them. These minerals come from the so-called ‘Area’, the deep seafloor beyond the limits of national jurisdiction and far out in the global ocean. This ‘Area’ and its mineral resources represent the ‘common heritage of mankind’. The Law of the Sea Convention, UNCLOS (1982) determines that rather than a free-for-all, this last piece of ocean floor outside the jurisdiction of any coastal state belongs to mankind as a whole and shall be administered in such a way that benefits all, considering in particular the needs of developing countries.

Description: The international health crisis has exposed a serious problem for energy systems – we’re not taking renewable energy technology seriously as a critical asset. Most solar panels today are made in China, and a shortage of key components means that Europe is now facing major delays in new installations. Wind power faces a double whammy – manufacturing is down, and countries may not have the personnel and parts locally to keep systems running. Countries should aim to build up national clean tech infrastructure in the same way that they ensure strategic reserves of fossil fuels.

Description: Transport is the problem child of climate policy (see Haas & Richter 2020, Der Verkehr. Das Sorgenkind der Klimapolitik, in: POLITIKUM 2, 46-53). While emissions reductions have been achieved across every other sector since 1990, transport-related emissions have climbed by 3.7 percent between 1990 and 2018.

Description: This study assesses the impacts of fossil-fuel power plants in Turkey on people’s health. It quantifies the cobenefits of decarbonising Turkey’s power sector with renewable energy for unburdening Turkey’s health system, in terms of health cost savings and reduction in premature deaths. This research study has been carried out in the context of the COBENEFITS project, which assesses a range of socio-economic co-benefits of renewable energy, in addition to the benefits of reducing energy sector greenhouse gas emissions, when compared to conventional energy systems.

Description: Many teams have developed a wide range of numerical or categorical indicators of progress in the implementation of the SDG targets. But these indicators cannot identify why target goals have not been accomplished, whether or how they do or do not do justice to the social and cultural context in which they are applied, and how newly emerging social dynamics affect indicators. Nor do they provide means for resolving conflicting values and making balanced trade-offs. Our starting point in examining why we have not been successful in progressing towards sustainability is that the sustainability conundrum is primarily a societal, rather than an environmental problem. Our present emphasis is to maintain our way of life while minimizing its impact, hoping that such a minimization strategy would make the world more sustainable. Reducing for example the extent of pollution but keeping the same industries alive would not be sufficient for a transformation towards sustainability. Instead we should ask “How did we come to this point and what practices, in our societies and in our science, need to change to make progress towards sustainability?” To answer these questions, one needs to go much further back than usual in the history of western societies to identify the societal, scientific, technological and environmental co-evolutionary dynamics that have brought us to the current conundrum. And the fact that most societal challenges are of the “wicked” kind, as well as the need to decide among many societal options and many future pathways that may lead to positive results require that we seriously engage in using “Complex Systems” approaches. It is up to our scientific community to identify these pathways, and we need to move fast!

Description: This IASS study takes an in-depth look at Covid-19's impacts on the global energy sector, and then zooms in to the country level to see individual country effects and responses. The case studies are compiled by energy researchers in Argentina, China, Germany, India, Israel, and the United States.

Description: Aerosol emissions from human activities are extensive and changing rapidly over Asia. Model simulations and satellite observations indicate a dipole pattern in aerosol emissions and loading between South Asia and East Asia, two of the most heavily polluted regions of the world. We examine the previously unexplored diverging trends in the existing dipole pattern of aerosols between East and South Asia using the high quality, two-decade long ground-based time series of observations of aerosol properties from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), from satellites (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI)), and from model simulations (Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2). The data cover the period since 2001 for Kanpur (South Asia) and Beijing (East Asia), two locations taken as being broadly representative of the respective regions. Since 2010 a dipole in aerosol optical depth (AOD) is maintained, but the trend is reversed—the decrease in AOD over Beijing (East Asia) is rapid since 2010, being 17% less in current decade compared to first decade of twenty-first century, while the AOD over South Asia increased by 12% during the same period. Furthermore, we find that the aerosol composition is also changing over time. The single scattering albedo (SSA), a measure of aerosol’s absorption capacity and related to aerosol composition, is slightly higher over Beijing than Kanpur, and has increased from 0.91 in 2002 to 0.93 in 2017 over Beijing and from 0.89 to 0.92 during the same period over Kanpur, confirming that aerosols in this region have on an average become more scattering in nature. These changes have led to a notable decrease in aerosol-induced atmospheric heating rate (HR) over both regions between the two decades, decreasing considerably more over East Asia (− 31%) than over South Asia (− 9%). The annual mean HR is lower now, it is still large (≥ 0.6 K per day), which has significant climate implications. The seasonal trends in AOD, SSA and HR are more pronounced than their respective annual trends over both regions. The seasonal trends are caused mainly by the increase/decrease in anthropogenic aerosol emissions (sulfate, black carbon and organic carbon) while the natural aerosols (dust and sea salt) did not change significantly over South and East Asia during the last two decades. The MERRA-2 model is able to simulate the observed trends in AODs well but not the magnitude, while it also did not simulate the SSA values or trends well. These robust findings based on observations of key aerosol parameters and previously unrecognized diverging trends over South and East Asia need to be accounted for in current state-of-the-art climate models to ensure accurate quantification of the complex and evolving impact of aerosols on the regional climate over Asia.

Description: Some scholars have labeled the financial structures that faced a run during the 2007-9 Financial Crisis as ‘shadow banking system’ and have connected it to the emergence of new monetary instruments. This was the starting point for thinking about various forms of private debt as ‘shadow money’. Since then several shadow money theories have emerged, with seemingly different conceptualizations of shadow money. We argue that, despite different terminology and intellectual ancestry, these theories generally agree on three key criteria that define shadow money. A financial instrument must be met by a demand that considers it an alternative to established forms of money, has to trade at par to higher-ranking forms of money and must be created through a swap of private debt certificates (IOUs). Based on these criteria, we look at four instruments to discuss how and under what conditions they correspond, or have corresponded, to those criteria. These are money market fund shares, overnight repurchase agreements, assetbacked commercial papers and foreign exchange swaps. We show that the disagreement over what instruments to count as shadow money lies in the level of strictness in applying those criteria on real-world financial instruments. If we are mathematically strict, none of the instruments can be categorized as shadow money. If we allow for more empirical variation, then all of the instruments correspond to the definition.

Description: International authorities are increasingly recognizing that utilizing the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from various industries can assist strategies for mitigating climate change. In developing novel carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies they aspire to contribute to circular economy targets and reduce consumption of fossil‐based raw materials. However, the potential economic effects of CCU on industrial value chains remain unclear. Hence, this study investigates the economic expectations placed on those actors currently conducting research and development (R&D) in CCU. The aspired levels of economic performance are identified through a systematic literature review of 19 policy advice reports and 15 scientific papers. Qualitative directed content analysis is conducted, based on an R&D input–output–outcome system. First, we identify three relevant groups of value chain actors by clustering industrial sectors: (a) equipment manufacturers, (b) high‐emitting producers, and (c) producers of materials and fuels. Then, we derive a criteria list from the review. Finally, the analysis reveals how CCU innovations are anticipated to impact different industries: Equipment manufacturers could contribute to economic growth. For high‐emitting producers, CCU provides one option for “surviving” sustainability transitions. Meanwhile, material and fuel producers need to act as “problem solvers” by offering competitive ways of utilizing CO2. We conclude by identifying research gaps that should be addressed to better understand the economic and social dimensions of CCU and to increase the chances of such innovations contributing to broader sustainability transformations of industrial and energy systems.

Description: In order to advance ongoing efforts in the (still emerging) field of marine restoration, different forms of knowledge must be combined: not only the biological and technical aspects, but also the social and cultural dimensions of marine restoration efforts. This calls for a newly combined array of methods that allows for a bridging of these different knowledge dimensions. Drawing on our experiences from the ongoing knowledge transfer processes of the INTERNAS project (Scientific Transfer of the results of INTERNational Assessments in the field of Earth and Environmental Research into the German policy context), we provide an overview of methods that were used to link global recommendations with localized marine restoration schemes and policy options. Using a mixed methods approach, we were able to capture and understand the pathways of knowledge transfer from globally synthesized scientific knowledge to local realities related to protecting and enhancing marine biodiversity in Germany. With this structured knowledge transfer approach, actionable solutions for marine conservation and restoration activities could be tailored to the specific national and regional circumstances. Using participatory methods, framework conditions like ecological, social, legal, and sectoral value judgment dimensions can be identified. This allows for the development of concerted solutions and creates a common ground for good governance towards marine restoration. When scientists engage not only as experts but also as reflexive facilitators in such participatory processes, it is ensured that more inclusive forms of knowledge are fostered that are necessary to better anticipate the potentials and likely pitfalls that marine restoration efforts may encounter. We conclude that existing knowledge on ecosystems, their goods and services as well as societal expectations need to be understood from the onset in any kind of marine restoration effort.

Description: The involvement of early career researchers (ECRs) has been limited during the past Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment cycles. We conducted a global survey among ECRs and interviewed key experts of the IPCC process. Our results show that ECRs are highly motivated to become actively involved in the IPCC process but face a number of barriers to contribute. Mutually beneficial ways forward on how ECRs could contribute are outlined here, and recommendations to implement these paths are suggested to IPCC as well as to ECRs. Concluding, we show that ECRs have great potential to actively contribute to the IPCC process for the continuity of the IPCC as well as to climate science in general.

Description: This opinion article offers insights into the geopolitics of the ongoing global energy transition. In doing so, it draws heavily on a workshop in Berlin in late 2018, and a subsequent paper in the journal Nature. Four scenarios are presented. First, the “Big Green Deal” offers a positive story of the future, under the assumption that there will be a multilateral approach to tackling climate change. Second, “Dirty Nationalism” explores the fallout of nations choosing to turn inward and pursue a short‐term, protectionist, and self‐interested agenda. Third, “Technology Breakthrough” illustrates how a technological leap forward could lead to a great power rivalry and distinct regional energy blocs. Finally, “Muddling On” investigates the outcome of an energy transition that reflect business as usual. By comparing and contrasting the different scenarios, the article highlights the potential winners and losers of the different scenarios, and the geopolitical consequences. It also sketches the implications for policy, theory, and scenario thinking more broadly.

Description: This study reports comprehensive analysis of seasonal and inter-annual variations of aerosol properties (optical, physical and chemical) and radiative effects over Pokhara Valley in the foothills of central Himalayas in Nepal utilizing the high-quality multi-year columnar aerosol data observed recently from January 2010 to December 2017. This paper focusses on the seasonal and inter-annual variations of chemical (composition), and absorption properties of aerosols and their radiative effects. The single scattering albedo (SSA) either decreases as a function of wavelength or remains independent of wavelength. The seasonal mean aerosol absorption optical depth (AAOD) exhibits a behavior opposite to that of SSA. Carbonaceous aerosols (CA) dominate (≥60%) aerosol absorption during the whole year. Black carbon (BC) alone contributes 〉60% to AAODCA while brown carbon (BrC) shares the rest. The absorbing aerosol types are determined to be BC, and mixed (BC and dust) only. Dust as absorbing aerosol type is absent over the Himalayan foothills. The ARFSFC is ≥ -50 Wm-2 except in monsoon almost every year. The ARFATM is ≥ 50 Wm-2 during winter and pre-monsoon in all the years. ARFESFC, ARFETOA and ARFEATM follow a similar pattern as that of ARF. High values of ARFE at SFC, TOA and ATM (except during monsoon when values are slightly lower) suggest that aerosols are efficient in significantly modulating the incoming solar flux throughout the year. The annual average aerosol-induced atmospheric heating rate (HR) over Pokhara is nearly 1 K day−1 every year during 8-year observation, and is highest in 2015 (∼2.5 K day−1). The HR is about 1 K day−1 or more over all the locations in IGP during the year. These quantitative results can be used as inputs in global/regional climate models to assess the climate impact of aerosols, including on regional temperature, hydrological cycle and melting of glaciers and snowfields in the region.

Description: A sustainability transition in line with achieving global climate goals requires the implementation of win-win strategies (WWS), i.e. socioeconomic activities that enable economic gains while simultaneously contributing to climate change mitigation or adaptation measures. Such strategies are discussed in a variety of scientific communities, such as sustainability science, industrial ecology and symbiosis and circular economy. However, existing analyses of win-win strategies tend to take a systems perspective, while paying less attention to the specific actors and activities, or their interconnections, which are implicated in win-win strategies. Moreover, they hardly address adaptation WWS. To address these gaps and support the identification and enhancement of WWS for entrepreneurs and policy-makers, we propose a typology of WWS based on the concept of a value-consumption chain, which typically connects several producers with at least one consumer of a good or service. A consideration of these connections allows an evaluation of economic effects in a meso-economic perspective. We distinguish 34 different types of WWS of companies, households and the state, for which 23 real-world examples are identified. Further, contrary to prevailing views on the lack of a business case for adaptation, we do identify real-world adaptation WWS, though they remain underrepresented compared with mitigation WWS. Our typology can be used as an entry point for transdisciplinary research integrating assessment of individual transformative socioeconomic activities and highly aggregated approaches assessing, e.g. the macro-economic effects of WWS.

Description: Eco-efficiency enhancement is an inherent requirement of green development and an important indicator of high-quality development in general. It aims to achieve the coordinated development of nature, the economy, and society. Therefore, eco-efficiency measurements should focus on not only total factor input, but also process analysis. Based on the “full world” model in ecological economic theory, this study constructed a theoretical framework for a composite economic-environmental-social system that reflects human welfare and sustainability. To this end, using network data envelopment analysis (DEA), this study established a staged eco-efficiency evaluation model that uses economic, environmental, and social factors to measure the overall and staged eco-efficiency of China’s provinces from 2003 to 2016 and analyze its spatiotemporal characteristics. A geographically weighted regression (GWR) model was also used to analyze the influencing factors of eco-efficiency changes and the spatial differentiation in their effect intensity. The findings were as follows: (1) China’s overall eco-efficiency is still at a low level. It varies significantly from region to region, and only three regions are at the frontier of production. The eastern region has the highest eco-efficiency, followed by the central region, and the gap between the central and western regions has gradually narrowed. In terms of staged efficiency, the level of eco-efficiency in the production stage is less than in the environmental governance stage, which is less than that in the social input stage. (2) In terms of the efficiency of each stage, the efficiency level of the production stage showed a downward trend throughout the entire process, and the decline in the central and western regions was more obvious. The social input stage and the environmental governance stage both showed upward trends. The social input stage showed a higher level, and the increase was relatively flat during the period of study. Efficiency continued to rise during the environmental governance stage from 2003 to 2010 and rose overall, but with some fluctuations from 2011 to 2016. (3) Geographically weighted regression showed that the effects of the influencing factors on eco-efficiency had obvious spatial heterogeneity. The factors affecting overall, production stage, and social input eco-efficiency were, in order of effect intensity from high to low, economic growth level, marketization level, and social input level. In terms of environmental governance, social input level had the greatest impact, followed by economic growth; marketization level did not show a significant impact.

Description: A recent article in this journal claimed to assess the socio-technical potential for onshore wind energy in Europe. We find the article to be severely flawed and raise concerns in five general areas. Firstly, the term socio-technical is not precisely defined, and is used by the authors to refer to a potential that others term as merely technical. Secondly, the study fails to account for over a decade of research in wind energy resource assessments. Thirdly, there are multiple issues with the use of input data and, because the study is opaque about many details, the effect of these errors cannot be reproduced. Fourthly, the method assumes a very high wind turbine capacity density of 10.73 MW/km2 across 40% of the land area in Europe with a generic 30% capacity factor. Fifthly, the authors find an implausibly high onshore wind potential, with 120% more capacity and 70% more generation than the highest results given elsewhere in the literature. Overall, we conclude that new research at higher spatial resolutions can make a valuable contribution to wind resource potential assessments. However, due to the missing literature review, the lack of transparency and the overly simplistic methodology, Enevoldsen et al. (2019) potentially mislead fellow scientists, policy makers and the general public.

Description: In May 2020 I was a guest on an episode of the TV show "Planet Wissen" dedicated to "Pathways out of the Plastic Flood". It was an opportunity for me to talk about the preliminary results of our work in the ENSURE project on "Plastic: Social Perception and Behaviour Patterns". The journalist Andrea Wojtkowiak had sent me a few questions in advance, but - as is so often the case - there wasn't enough time to discuss everything in detail during the programme itself. So for all those interested in the issue of plastic, here are the more in-depth answers.

Description: Monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) is critical for the success of marine conservation and management, but effective MCS remains challenging. This is especially true for the deep and distant waters of marine areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), which are characterised by a fragmented governance framework and reliance on flag States to ensure control over vessels. A range of existing international instruments, institutions and guidelines are relevant to MCS in ABNJ, while traditional approaches to MCS – on board observers, logbooks and surveillance planes – are increasingly being supplemented by a range of innovative new technological tools. States at the United Nations (UN) are currently negotiating an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) for the conservation and sustainable use of the biological diversity of marine areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) and there is a growing interest in how MCS tools and policies can contribute to the management of this vast global commons. The negotiations therefore provide an important opportunity to learn from the wealth of experience gained to date and strengthen existing provisions, thereby facilitating harmonised and efficient MCS that can ultimately ensure effective implementation of rules on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity. Against this background, this report explores how the BBNJ negotiations can strengthen MCS in ABNJ and highlights how MCS can contribute to the implementation of the new instrument. The report provides an overview of existing legal frameworks, technological tools and MCS initiatives, and highlights some of the challenges to effective MCS. The report provides some suggested pathways for strengthening MCS in ABNJ, as well as three concrete proposals for provisions that could be included in the future international instrument: 1) Reinforcing MCS flag State obligations in the text and ensuring the principles and related obligations of cooperation and coordination, transparency and reporting are applied throughout the agreement; 2) Specifying that a clearing-house mechanism will serve as a platform to share good MCS practices, exchange data on MCS activities and match capacity-building needs in relation to MCS tools and methods for assessment; and 3) Requiring States parties to submit a MCS strategy together with proposals for area based management tools (ABMTs) and marine protected areas (MPAs) that considers the possible technological tools and institutional arrangements available to ensure compliance.

Description: This report presents 100 research questions that have been identified by scientific experts as key priorities for Social Science and Humanities (SSH) research on renewables, in order to inform and support EU-funded research and innovation leading to achieve climate-neutrality by 2050. The questions together aim: To promote SSH research that contributes to better understanding the meaning and conditions of just transitions to renewables-based energy systems, by recognising the social conditions and consequences of using and further implementing renewable energy technologies.

Description: This is the second version of CSP.guru produced during the openCSP project. The Noor Energy 1 project and Dubai and Cerro Dominador in Chile were updated to reflect recent developments. Both projects were checked for the role of colocated PV on their economics, and expected generation was deleted to reflect the fact that CSP-only generation is unknown. The GPS locations were converted to decimal for better handling. Additional data on the Chinese CSP stations was included based on information from Chuncheng Zang and Alina Gilmanova.

Description: Decarbonising heating supply is an important part of the global energy transition, and a vital step towards mitigating climate change. We analyse the transformative potential of German and UK heating sector decarbonisation policies. We deploy Transformative Environmental Policy [TEP], originally developed to guide policy development, as an analytical framework to discuss how and to what extent both countries’ heating sector policy strategies promote the necessary radical reconfiguration of the socio-technical system of heating supply. TEP suggests a systemic approach for such reconfigurations, addressing technologies, social practices, institutions and infrastructures as well as combining experimental support of innovation with governance approaches for the phase-out of unsustainable technologies and practices. Our comparative analysis of German and UK decarbonisation strategies concludes that such elements can be identified in both strategies, although to different degrees. The analysis points to considerable deficiencies, such as a lack of phase-out policies, insufficient low-carbon building standards and a neglect of non-technical system elements.

Description: This Discussion Paper discusses the implications of the European Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan for plastic and packaging waste. According to a recent report, each European Union (EU) inhabitant generated 172.6 kg of packaging waste in the year 2017, 19% of which was made of plastic. Amid growing concerns about the environmental effects of such consumption habits, the regulation of packaging waste and plastic has moved to higher up the legislative agenda of the EU in recent years.

Description: This summary for decision makers is based on the report ‘Ecological Baselines of the Southeast Atlantic and Southeast Pacific – Status of Marine Biodiversity and Anthropogenic Pressures in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction’ and provides consolidated information on key biological and ecological features of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) in the Southeast Atlantic as well as highlights key pressures placed upon it by human activities. ABNJ include the water column (the high seas) and the seabed (the Area) outside of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of coastal States and cover about half of the Earth’s surface. This summary is intended to inform relevant actors and stakeholders to support their understanding of the function and importance of marine biological diversity in ABNJ and the need to for appropriate conservation and management measures. The report was prepared as part of the Strengthening Regional Ocean Governance for the High Seas (‘STRONG High Seas’) project – funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) through the International Climate Initiative (IKI).

Description: This report explores how the co-benefits of renewable energy and energy efficiency saving measures can play an active role in connecting the Mexican energy transition with key processes and commitments for development that have been determined by the country itself. These include the National Development Plan (NDP) for 2019-2024 as well as climate goals or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), to which Mexico is committed under the Paris Agreement. This study, published in conjunction with the project Enhancing the Coherence of Climate and Energy Policies in Mexico (CONECC), offers quantitative evidence of the co-benefits of two routes (scenarios) for energy transition as related to the Energy Transition Law (LTE). These vary in scope however, revealing how the co-benefits of renewable energy and energy efficiency can help to play an active role in achieving national development goals.

Description: How can science and business help build sustainable societies? This question took centre-stage at the second Global Sustainability Strategy Forum (GSSF), held on 22 - 24 March 2020. The event did not take place in Bangkok as previously planned due to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, 25 leading experts from business and sustainability science came together online to discuss how the two sectors could work together more effectively.

Description: The implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is indispensable for building a sustainable and just future for all humans and our planet. The SDGs are global goals. However, their implementation equally calls for action by a variety of actors in government, business, and civil society. Thus, policy making as well as industrial innovation efforts need to be designed to facilitate rather than hinder the implementation of the SDGs. Consequently, it is necessary to ensure that the possible environmental, economic, and societal impacts of technological innovations aiming for public support and funding in research, development, and market implementation are aligned with the respective objectives of the SDGs. Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) applications are an example of such innovations. By capturing and utilizing CO2, they are intended to have positive impacts on economy, society, and environment. Next to industries’ own efforts to advance such technologies, CCU is currently funded by governments in several countries, and such funding is likely to increase. Therefore, an assessment of the compatibility of CCU technologies with the SDGs is as much necessary as it is overdue. Hence, this paper elucidates on how CCU might contribute to or hinder the delivery of the SDGs. By comparing CCUs against the SDGs, it can be concluded that, under certain conditions, they might deliver contributions to several SDGs. The main contributions are expected within the context of energy transition processes, and in societal advancements that are linked to technological progress. For eight out of the seventeen SDGs, positive and indirect negative effects can be predicted. Therefore, the development and implementation of CCU aligned with the SDGs poses a challenge for policy makers when designing frameworks and funding schemes. Specific risks need to be monitored and considered in policy making. This paper therefore argues that the SDGs should be used as a framework for assessing potential societal effects of CCU technologies. The findings demonstrate that such an approach is necessary in order to identify and enhance the positive (and avoid indirect negative) effects that CCU technologies might have on people, prosperity and planet.

Description: The use of carbon dioxide as a feedstock for a broad range of products can help mitigate the effects of climate change through long‐term removal of carbon or as part of a circular carbon economy. Research on capture and conversion technologies has intensified in recent years, and the interest in deploying these technologies is growing fast. However, sound understanding of the environmental and economic impacts of these technologies is required to drive fast deployment and avoid unintended consequences. Life cycle assessments (LCAs) and techno‐economic assessments (TEAs) are useful tools to quantify environmental and economic metrics; however, these tools can be very flexible in how they are applied, with the potential to produce significantly different results depending on how the boundaries and assumptions are defined. Built on ISO standards for generic LCAs, several guidance documents have emerged recently from the Global CO2 Initiative, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that further define assessment specifications for carbon capture and utilization. Overall agreement in the approaches is noted with differences largely based on the intended use cases. However, further guidance is needed for assessments of early‐stage technologies, reporting details, and reporting for policymakers and nontechnical decision‐makers.

Description: As the Italian case suggests, addressing the democratic deficit of European institutions is critical if we are to prevent this crisis from forging the end of the European Union.

Description: Prototype implementation for authoring a reference database of the indicator catalog. Utilizes the DMX Application Framework as web-based collaboration environment. The binary release attached is the dmx-plugin promut-indicator-sets-0.3.0.jar OSGI-bundle which can be installed through dropping it into the bundle-deploy folder of your DMX installation.

Description: This worked example is part of a series of examples that are designed to provide practical guidance to the application of the Techno-Economic Assessment and Life Cycle Assessment Guidelines for CO2 Utilization. This worked example provides guidance on best practices and potential pitfalls in the production of a LCA inventory utilizing one or more sources of primary/secondary data. The worked example highlights the dangers of “picking and mixing” data by showing how derived results can vary significantly resulting in inconsistencies and uncertainty when considering direct comparisons for products/services and functions. The worked example considers a CO2 to nitrogen rich fertilizer pathway, with 18 inventories produced for assessment.

Description: The COBENEFITS Policy Report for Vietnam compiles key findings from the COBENEFITS Vietnam Assessment series, quantifying the co-benefi ts of decarbonising Vietnam’s power sector in view of future-oriented employment and skills development and energy access, unlocking development in rural areas related to a less carbon-intensive power sector. The COBENEFITS Vietnam Assessment series can be accessed through www.cobenefi ts.info. Building on the opportunities presented, the report formulates a set of policy actions to allow government institutions to create an enabling political environment to unlock the social and economic co-benefi ts of the new energy world of renewables for the people of Vietnam. The policy options were generated through a series of roundtable dialogues and government consultations with government institutions, industry associations, and expert and civil society organisations during 2019 and 2020.

Description: The outbreak of COVID-19 has completely changed the European Union’s internal geopolitical landscape, including in the energy domain. The political and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has made internal geopolitical and geo-economic drivers even more relevant than before. Countries like Italy and Spain are expected to be among the most affected, having the higher death tolls and the biggest economic and social costs, which risks exacerbating populist and nationalist movements and political parties. Anti-EU feelings and a North-South political divide risk to re-emerge and intensify, re-opening the wounds of the financial crisis. Because the COVID-19 crisis implies a significant shift in the EU’s geopolitical and energy geopolitics’ landscape, the scope of this deliverable has been expanded to reflect the new context. Sufficiently high climate ambitions are another enabler of CSP development, because they hinder the use of fossil power plants as a backup of fluctuating renewables and supply of electricity demand exceeding the realizable potential of other renewables. Hence, CSP with its additional advantage of dispatchability becomes more important under such conditions.

Description: This paper makes the case for integrated ecosystem-based management, which combines value creation and the safeguarding of ecosystem health. Drawing lessons from previous successes and failures, the paper identifies existing impediments in policy and practice and lays out a set of steps and guiding principles towards successfully integrated ocean management. It assesses current opportunities to accelerate progress and the impact of these opportunities on jobs and equity. It assesses current opportunities to accelerate progress and the impact of these opportunities on jobs and equity.

Description: While calls for cross-sectoral collaboration have become a recurrent motif in sustainability-oriented policymaking and research, the practical realization of such processes presents significant challenges. The hope for “collaborative advantage” often gets traded for the experience of “collaborative impasse”, namely those moments in which collaboration gets stuck. To better understand the reasons underlying such impasses, the study focuses on the impact of facilitation artefacts—objects designed and used in collaborative practices. The study proposes an analytical heuristic of collaborative practices to investigate the data collected in an explorative study, tracing artefacts across three different communicative modes of deliberation. Detailed analysis of the case, grounded in audio–visual material, semi-structured interviews, photo documentation, and participatory observation, shows that such artefacts substantially influence the structure of the emerging interaction order in a given setting, and that unscripted and unsituated artefacts might contribute to reinforcing those communicative patterns that collaboration aims to contrast. The study identifies three relevant practices in facilitation work, in order to steer emerging interaction orders away from exclusionary dynamics: scripting, situating, and supervising. Although emerging from the micro-analysis of artefacts, these practices might apply to other spheres of collaboration and serve as orientation for successful collaborative processes.

Description: Climate change has been labelled the human rights challenge of the twenty-first century. Loss and damage resulting from climate change, in particular, poses a severe threat to the human rights of affected communities. However, the international response to climate change under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has thus far insufficiently taken human rights into account, contributing to policy outcomes inadequate to protecting communities affected by loss and damage. This article proposes the adoption of a human rights-based approach as a strategic tool for policymakers to strengthen the international response to loss and damage. The approach builds on the existing obligations of Parties under international and regional human rights treaties and provides a method for systematically integrating human rights that goes beyond mere mainstreaming of human rights. Specifically, the article identifies opportunities for anchoring such an approach under the Warsaw International Mechanism and key mechanisms for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Conversely, it considers the integration of loss and damage in the work of relevant human rights bodies, specifically the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Description: This report provides guidance to decision makers in all types of public and private organizations involved in the planning and development of CCU. It is prepared within the scope of the CO2nsistent project funded by the Global CO2 Initiative and EIT Climate-KIC, and is based on the published TEA and LCA Guidelines v.1. This report provides user-centered guidance on how to commission and understand TEA and LCA studies for CCU, and how to determine whether existing studies are eligible to be used in a decision making process. Another primary goal of this report is to ensure that disciplinary expertise is effectively taken up by decision makers and all potential audiences. The remainder of this document is structured in two parts. Part A introduces the reader to the concept of TEA and LCA studies: What types of input can such assessments provide for decision making? What are the limitations of their explanatory power? This part focuses on the goal and scope definition for such studies, and on other aspects that are particularly relevant for decision making. The document presents how the decision maker (or commissioner) and the assessment practitioner can jointly set the various assessment phases. These terms are explained in the boxes below. The approach and main components of TEA and LCA studies are described, with the specific goal of making the most sensitive disciplinary concepts clear and comprehensible to all audiences. Part B consists of practical tools to guide actors interested in commissioning TEA and LCA studies, and to support decision makers when evaluating and assessing TEA and LCA studies submitted by third parties. A series of consecutive steps, displayed as decision trees, provide support for checking the completeness of key aspects and requirements of TEA and LCA studies.

Description: Indicators are an essential component of national strategies and policies relating to energy transition and regulation. Both China and Germany are expected to take the lead on the global effort to achieve clean energy and a reduction in GHG emissions. A better understanding of the institutional environment in both countries will guide those who follow them. By using text analysis, we have examined the main energy indicators used in official strategies and policies and divided them into ten categories. We have found that both countries value renewable energy as a solution to energy transition, although in China “non-fossil energy” appears more often in political documents, and “nuclear energy” is valued as an important source. In Germany, short-, medium- and long-term indicators are clearly stated and are consistent over time and between documents. Meanwhile, in China the indicators and targets are updated every five years, which fits with the rapid domestic development of the country but fails to provide a clear long-term vision. We argue that the roots of such differences can be found in governance systems, the global energy market, and national political and economic priorities, and that international cooperation is needed to standardize energy indicators so that the global energy transition can be navigated more effectively.

Description: Environmental concerns were raised from the very onset of discussions concerning the extraction of metalliferous ores from the deep sea, but most studies have targeted the expected impacts on the benthic communities only. The first section of this study compiles possible impacts of deep seabed mining activities on pelagic organisms. Several processes of mining-related activities were identified that can potentially affect the pelagic environment. Some of these processes will assumedly have only minor effects on the pelagic and benthopelagic communities, for example substrate removal and deposition of material. Most others will severely interfere with pelagic and benthopelagic fauna, at least locally. Some impacts will be directly lethal, but most will impair processes associated with feeding, growth and reproduction, which can ultimately lead to smaller standing stocks, altered communities and loss of biodiversity. The actual scale of effects remains unknown until the pelagic ecosystem is better investigated and the technology becomes specified. In the second section, the guidance provided by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for baseline studies, environmental impact assessment (EIA) and monitoring in connection with prospecting and exploration of deep-sea mineral resources is reviewed in the light of potential threats to the pelagic ecosystem. Although the ISA recommendations request assessments not only of benthic, but also of pelagic communities, the recommendations remain unspecific in most cases; possible links between benthic and pelagic communities and their consequences for impact assessments are not considered. Some recommendations for modifications and additions to the existing guidelines are presented.

Description: On October 1st, 2019, the CO2nsistent Project (co-financed by the Global CO2 Initiative and EIT Climate-KIC) and the PHOENIX Initiative jointly organized a workshop in Brussels on the topic of CO2 utilization technology and assessment methodologies such as Techno-Economic and Life Cycle assessment (TEA and LCA). The event brought together LCA and TEA practitioners, national and European policy agencies, and the corporate field. To stimulate and enhance participation, diverse session formats were offered: thematic presentations by experts, a panel discussion, as well as a break-out session modeled on the “world café” method. The foci of the day were two-fold: Learning how to support European policymakers when assessing the environmental and economic aspects of CO2 utilization, and initiating an exchange with parallel European initiatives conducting research on CCU assessment methodologies and their environmental and economic perspectives. The event shed light on some unresolved issues raised by industrial actors with regard to the upcom-ing European policy and funding mechanisms (such as ETS Phase IV and Innovation Fund), while national and European decision-makers described the difficulties they face when evaluating CO2 utilization. The current ETS rules are inadequate to properly quantify the climate benefits of indus-trial CCU application, while the Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) lacks requirements for broad-er environmental and social assessments. Workshop participants broadly agreed that the harmoniza-tion of LCA approaches could help to quantify the extent to which CCU can contribute to achieving the GHG emission targets described in the REDII, should address all environmental aspects, and can provide sound guidelines for implementing CCU in the ETS. At the same time, solution-oriented collaborations with LCA and TEA experts (e.g. the CO2nsistent group and others) were considered and examined, also with regard to new instruments and strategies to reduce complexity for policy-makers. The event also aimed at expanding the networks between the organizers and relevant actors in the field, with a particular focus on national and European policymakers. Members of CO2nsistent, LCA4CCU and the Joint Research Centre – all of whom are engaged in CCU assessment methodol-ogies – scrutinized alignments of proposed solutions and elaborated on specific divergences such as low-TRL technology. The likelihood that this effort could ultimately lead to standards for LCA and TEA for CCU was extensively debated with the direct support of the French (AFNOR) and German (DIN) associations for standardization.

Description: euro-calliope models the European electricity system with each location representing an administrative unit. It can be built on three spatial resolutions: on the continental level as a single location, on the national level with 34 locations, and on the regional level with 497 locations. On each node, renewable generation capacities (wind, solar, bioenergy) and balancing capacities (battery, hydrogen) can be built. In addition, hydro electricity and pumped hydro storage capacities can be built up to the extent to which they exist today. All capacities are used to satisfy electricity demand on all locations which is based on historic data. Locations are connected through transmission lines of unrestricted capacity. Using Calliope, the model is formulated as a linear optimisation problem with total monetary cost of all capacities as the minimisation objective. All elements of euro-calliope can be manipulated either by changing the configuration in config/default.yaml or by manipulating the build workflow before building the model.

Description: Best Paths, the largest research project in the field of energy financed under the European Union's 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration, explored new avenues for delivering reliable power in Europe through the large-scale integration of renewable energy. The project ended in September 2018, having united 38 partners from 11 countries around five large-scale demonstrations to validate the technical feasibility, costs, impacts and benefits of various grid technologies. One of these five demonstration areas focused on validating high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) superconducting links capable of transporting large amounts of electricity — on the multi-gigawatt scale.

Description: Climate change and climate-altering technologies pose an emerging risk governance challenge involving risk-risk trade-offs both regarding potential outcomes as well as governance choices. Trade-offs characterize not only various emergent governance and policy design choices but also how research is conducted and communicated. This chapter identifies numerous risks and trade-offs and offers several steps that could be pursued in the near-to medium-term to gradually overcome trade-offs and strengthen opportunities for governance strategies that attenuate multiple risks. Many of these steps aim at strengthening capacities for anticipation, cooperation, and joint decision-making, which would appear essential qualities for addressing the risk-risk trade-offs posed by climate change and countervailing risks associated with potential CDR and SRM applications. Suggested measures in the context of governance processes include: strengthening capacities for international inter-agency collaboration, coordination, and learning; proactively exploring how specific governance challenges match particular international agencies’ mandates; conducting policy impact assessments in the context of national mitigation policy planning. Suggested measures in the realm of research, research funding, and research governance include: enabling more diverse, transdisciplinary research; supporting the international exchange of expertise; enabling continuous science-policy conversations; conducting research to generate insights on potential interlinkages in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Description: Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are increasingly employed as a tool to protect Europe’s swiftly declining marine biodiversity. However, despite increasing coverage, MPA effectiveness and equity is considered highly variable. Concurrently, Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM)—that is, management that aims to protect, restore, or enhance the resilience and sustainability of an ecosystem to ensure sustainable flows of ecosystem services and conserve its biodiversity—is growing in prominence. We applied EBM in the Faial-Pico Channel, a 240 km2 MPA in the Azores, Portugal, to assess whether EBM can protect biodiversity whilst meeting diverse stakeholder and policy goals. Collaborating with local stakeholders and policy-makers, this chapter documents the steps of EBM: identifying integrative policy and stakeholder objectives, understanding the social-ecological system, scenario development, and identification and evaluation of EBM measures and policies. We find that stakeholder co-creation and collaboration is a key strength of EBM and should be strengthened in the Faial-Pico Channel. We find that local stakeholders support effective and equitable EBM of MPAs by clearly identifying challenges and priorities, co-creating solutions, providing low-cost knowledge and expertise, and through ongoing monitoring, enforcement, and evaluation of the impact of management.

Description: The environmental crisis due to air pollution, high CO2 emissions, noise from traffic and soil ceiling requires profound changes to the car-dependent transport system. This article examines the political dynamics of German transport politics, focusing on the National Platform for Electric Mobility (NPE). It focusses on actor constellations and the conflicts that arise, as well as the temporal dynamics, within the electric mobility debate. The findings suggest that the NPE contributed to a narrow understanding of a mobility transformation based on electric cars, but is better described as ecological modernization. Within this narrow framework, a fundamental conflict unfolds between strong advocates versus those slowing down the ecological modernization of the car. A third group demands at least a partial departure from the automobile-centered model, but remains marginalized within the NPE. Aside from this core conflict, members of the NPE struggled over the location for battery cell production, the introduction of a purchase grant known as the environmental bonus, and the expansion of battery recharging infrastructure. These issues illustrate that discussions within the NPE relate to the political debates about the future of mobility, which have intensified in Germany in recent years. However, to date, such potentials have been limited to narrow auto-modernization, excluding a wider and more fundamental rethink of future mobility concepts.

Description: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an important process for evaluating the effects of development, and to assist decisions to effectively manage potential deep-sea mining (DSM). However, although EIA is a widely used and accepted approach, there has been considerable debate over its effectiveness. In this paper, we summarise some of the key problems raised by previous EIA reviews, as well as examining several EIAs carried out in recent years for DSM, and highlight issues identified by management agencies. Scientific shortcomings are discussed, and recommendations provided on ways to improve performance. These include inadequate baseline data, insufficient detail of the mining operation, insufficient synthesis of data and the ecosystem approach, poor assessment and consideration of uncertainty, inadequate assessment of indirect impacts, inadequate treatment of cumulative impacts, insufficient risk assessment, and consideration of linkages between EIA and other management plans. The focus of the paper is on scientific limitations, but we also consider some aspects of their application to elements of process and policy.

Description: We perform a source attribution for tropospheric and ground-level ozone using a novel technique that accounts separately for the contributions of the two chemically distinct emitted precursors (reactive carbon and oxides of nitrogen) to the chemical production of ozone in the troposphere. By tagging anthropogenic emissions of these precursors according to the geographical region from which they are emitted, we determine source–receptor relationships for ground-level ozone. Our methodology reproduces earlier results obtained via other techniques for ozone source attribution, and it also delivers additional information about the modelled processes responsible for the intercontinental transport of ozone, which is especially strong during the spring months. The current generation of chemical transport models used to support international negotiations aimed at reducing the intercontinental transport of ozone shows especially strong inter-model differences in simulated springtime ozone. Current models also simulate a large range of different responses of surface ozone to methane, which is one of the major precursors of ground-level ozone. Using our novel source attribution technique, we show that emissions of NOx (oxides of nitrogen) from international shipping over the high seas play a disproportionately strong role in our model system regarding the hemispheric-scale response of surface ozone to changes in methane, as well as to the springtime maximum in intercontinental transport of ozone and its precursors. We recommend a renewed focus on the improvement of the representation of the chemistry of ship NOx emissions in current-generation models. We demonstrate the utility of ozone source attribution as a powerful model diagnostic tool and recommend that similar source attribution techniques become a standard part of future model intercomparison studies.

Description: A multi-scale modelling system was developed to provide hourly NOx concentration fields at a building-resolving scale in the urban area of Modena, a city in the middle of the Po Valley (Italy), one of the most polluted areas in Europe. The WRF-Chem model was applied over three nested domains and employed with the aim of reproducing local background concentrations, taking into account meteorological and chemical transformation at the regional scale with nested resolutions of 15 km, 3 km and 1 km. Conversely, the PMSS modelling system was applied to simulate 3D air pollutant dispersion, due to traffic emissions, with a very high-resolution (4 m) on a 6 km × 6 km domain covering the city of Modena. The methodology employed to account for anthropogenic emissions relies on two different strategies. Traffic emissions were based on a bottom-up approach using emission factors suggested by the European Environmental Agency with traffic fluxes estimated by the PTV VISUM model in the urban area of Modena, combined with direct traffic flow measurements performed between October 28 and November 8, 2016 which was used for the hourly vehicle modulation. Other anthropogenic emissions were taken from the TNO-MACC III inventory at the scales resolved by the WRF-Chem model. Simulations were performed for the same period whereby the traffic measurement campaign was carried out. 2 m temperature and 10 m wind speed were captured quite well by the WRF-Chem model with statistical metrics in line with similar case studies related to the Northern Italy. The NOx concentrations reproduced in the Po Valley area by WRF-Chem were on average simulated reasonably well with a general negative bias in almost all the examined rural background monitoring stations. Additionally, the deployment of an emission inventory at the original resolution (7 km) highlighted that increasing resolution from 3 km to 1 km does not generally improve the model performance. Nevertheless, simulated and observed NOx hourly concentrations in the urban area of Modena exhibit a large agreement in particular for urban traffic site where detailed traffic emission estimations proved to be very successful in reproducing the observed NOx trend. At urban background stations, despite a general underestimation of the observed concentrations, the combination of WRF-Chem with PMSS provided daily pattern in line with observations. The analysis of the modelled NOx daily cycle pointed out also that at both traffic and background urban stations the morning NOx peak concentration was on average underestimated. This could be explained with an overestimation of mixing phenomena between 07:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. by WRF-Chem which leads to a greater dispersion of NOx along the vertical and thus a morning underestimation. The statistical analysis showed finally that PMSS combined with WRF-Chem at both the resolutions (3 km and 1 km) and at both traffic and background sites fulfilled standard acceptance criteria for urban dispersion model evaluation, confirming that the proposed multi-modelling system can be employed as a tool to support environmental policies, epidemiological studies and urban mobility planning.

Description: An EU Border Carbon Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) may bring severe economic consequences to countries without the resources to adapt to a low-carbon paradigm. The EU should therefore consider possible policy risks and involve third-country stakeholders in CBAM policy design; use CBAM revenues to fund decarbonisation in at-risk countries; and build emissions reporting requirements around existing international obligations.

Description: A multi-scale energy systems modelling framework

Description: This factsheet presents key findings from the 2019/2020 COBENEFITS Assessment Series. Although the national COBENEFITS assessments vary in their applied methodologies and are based on different national scenarios, similar trends can be drawn from the results: If policymakers around the world take the necessary decisions to "build back better" with renewable energy now, they can harness significant co-benefits for their countries.

Description: Early warning systems (EWSs) have been effective in reducing loss of life and injury associated with extreme weather events, but it is less clear what influence they have on other household decisions. Some research has identified increased productivity in rainfed farming from using weather and climate information, but much less is known about fishing communities, where livelihoods also depend heavily on the weather. This paper begins to fill this gap by examining the range of socio-economic benefits associated with improvements in EWSs in coastal areas of Tanzania, including for fishing communities and the marine sector. It uses the Triple Dividend of Resilience (TDR) framework, developed by ODI, the World Bank and the London School of Economics, to capture the direct, indirect and co-benefits of investments in disaster risk reduction.

Description: The ocean crisis is urgent and central to human wellbeing and life on Earth; past and current activities are damaging the planet's main life support system for future generations. We are witnessing an increase in ocean heat, disturbance, acidification, bio‐invasions and nutrients, and reducing oxygen levels. Several of these act like ratchets: once detrimental or negative changes have occurred, they may lock in place and may not be reversible, especially at gross ecological and ocean process scales. Each change may represent a loss to humanity of resources, ecosystem function, oxygen production and species. The longer we pursue unsuitable actions, the more we close the path to recovery and better ocean health and greater benefits for humanity in the future. We stand at a critical juncture and have identified eight priority issues that need to be addressed in unison to help avert a potential ecological disaster in the global ocean. They form a purposely ambitious agenda for global governance and are aimed at informing decision‐makers at a high level. They should also be of interest to the general public. Of all the themes, the highest priority is to rigorously address global warming and limit surface temperature rise to 1.5°C by 2100, as warming is the pre‐eminent factor driving change in the ocean. The other themes are establishing a robust and comprehensive High Seas Treaty, enforcing existing standards for Marine Protected Areas and expanding their coverage, especially in terms of high levels of protection, adopting a precautionary pause on deep‐sea mining, ending overfishing and destructive fishing practices, radically reducing marine pollution, putting in place a financing mechanism for ocean management and protection, and lastly, scaling up science/data gathering and facilitating data sharing. By implementing all eight measures in unison, as a coordinated strategy, we can build resilience to climate change, help sustain fisheries productivity, particularly for low‐income countries dependent on fisheries, protect coasts (e.g. via soft‐engineering/habitat‐based approaches), promote mitigation (e.g. carbon storage) and enable improved adaptation to rapid global change.

Description: Gene editing tools are ‘revolutionizing’ microbiological research. Much of the public debate focuses on the possibility of human germ line applications. The use of genome editing to alter non-human animals, however, will have more immediate impacts on our daily lives. Genome edited animals are used for basic biological and biomedical research and could soon play a role in the livestock industry and ecosystem management. Genome editing thus provides an occasion to rethink societal narratives about the relationships between humans and other animals. Even though the technique can be easily incorporated as an example into a conventional storyline about the development of the modern life sciences as striving for control over nature, it can also help to highlight the anthropocentric biases expressed in these narratives and demonstrate the continuities between humans and other animals.

Description: Sunlight reflection and carbon removal proposals for “climate engineering” (CE) confront governance challenges that many emerging technologies face: their futures are uncertain, and by the time one can discern their shape or impacts, vested interests may block regulation, and publics are often left out of decision-making about them. In response to these challenges, “responsible research and innovation” (RRI) has emerged as a framework to critique and correct for technocratic governance of emerging technologies, and CE has emerged as a prime case of where it can be helpfully applied. However, a critical lens is rarely applied to RRI itself. In this review, we first survey how RRI thinking has already been applied to both carbon removal and sunlight reflection methods for climate intervention. We examine how RRI is employed in four types of activities: Assessment processes and reports, principles and protocols for research governance, critical mappings of research, and deliberativev and futuring engagements. Drawing upon this review, we identify tensions in RRI practice, including whether RRI forms or informs choices, the positionalities of RRI practitioners, and ways in which RRI activities enable or disable particular climate interventions. Finally, we recommend that RRI should situate CE within the long arc of sociotechnical proposals for addressing climate change, more actively connect interrogations of the knowledge economy with reparative engagements, include local or actor-specific contexts, design authoritative assessments grounded in RRI, and go beyond treating critique and engagement as “de facto” governance.

Description: How closely do learning rate estimates measure the thing they are supposed to measure – technological progress – and to what extent are they affected by technology-external factors? We investigated how exchange rates affect learning measurements and developed a method to solve the problem.

Description: Across the world, democracies are suffering from a disconnect between the people and political elites. In communities where jobs and industry are scarce, many feel the government is incapable of understanding their needs or addressing their problems. The resulting frustration has fueled the success of destabilizing demagogues. To reverse this pattern and restore responsible government, we need to reinvigorate democracy at the local level. But what does that mean? Drawing on examples of successful community building in cities large and small, from a shrinking village in rural Austria to a neglected section of San Diego, Reconstructing Democracy makes a powerful case for re-engaging citizens. It highlights innovative grassroots projects and shows how local activists can form alliances and discover their own power to solve problems.

Description: Understanding the physical and biogeochemical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere is a vital component of environmental and Earth system research. The ability to predict and respond to future environmental change relies on a detailed understanding of these processes. The Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) is an international research platform that focuses on the study of ocean-atmosphere interactions, for which Future Earth is a sponsor. SOLAS instigated a collaborative initiative process to connect efforts in the natural and social sciences related to these processes, as a contribution to the emerging Future Earth Ocean Knowledge-Action Network (Ocean KAN). This is imperative because many of the recent changes in the Earth system are anthropogenic. An understanding of adaptation and counteracting measures requires an alliance of scientists from both domains to bridge the gap between science and policy. To this end, three SOLAS research areas were targeted for a case study to determine a more effective method of interdisciplinary research: valuing carbon and the ocean’s role; air-sea interactions, policy and stewardship; and, air-sea interactions and the shipping industry.

Description: To tackle the plastic problem, the worldwide campaign ‘Plastic Free July’ aims at encouraging people to reduce single-use plastics during the month of July. To get people started with new behavior patterns, so-called ‘windows of opportunity’—periods where people become open for new experiences—are expected to matter. Therefore, the current study evaluated if an arbitrary month that is framed as an opportunity for change can interrupt people in their daily routines and reduce plastic consumption. An online survey (n = 509) with repeated measures (n = 366) was conducted including one experimental and one control group. The experimental group was invited to reduce their single-use plastic consumption during July in line with the ‘Plastic Free July’ campaign. Results revealed that, in this action period, single-use plastic consumption was slightly but significantly lower in the experimental than in the control group, which did not receive any information about ‘Plastic Free July’. The campaign seemed to be more effective for participants with low pro-environmental identity. Path analysis revealed that plastic consumption (prior to the intervention) was significantly predicted by perceived difficulty, habits, and pro-environmental identity. Policy support was predicted by problem awareness, pro-environmental identity and perceived barriers. We conclude with recommendations for plastic-free purchase and policy support.

Description: As the international community rallies around Net-Zero emissions targets, there is increasing interest in the development of governance for Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs), a range of proposed approaches which involve removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It has been pointed out that the governance development process should include “opening up” the discussion of NETs governance, moving the debate beyond the bounds of technocratic, neoliberal discourse and thereby paving the way for more responsible, inclusive governance of technologies. The implication is that there is a constitutive and qualitative link between discourse and governance – that governance development is shaped by discourse. However, so far there has been limited work done to link empirical mapping of the discursive structures in different spheres of the NETs debate to theoretically-informed anticipation of how these structures may influence governance development. This paper presents a sociology-of-knowledge (SKAD) discourse analysis of a series of interviews with UK representatives from the industry/policy interface about what they consider to be appropriate governance instruments for NETs. Linking discursive structures to governance development using the concept of governmentality, the paper critically discusses how a set of political, economic and ethical discursive structures currently underpinning the industry and policy spheres of the UK NETs debate may be shaping governance development. The paper shows what types of discourse/knowledge and social actors are being privileged/excluded within the structure of the UK NETs debate, and highlights ways in which discursive mapping can play a key emancipatory role in “opening up” governance development processes.

Description: Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) offers flexible and decarbonised power generation and is - as a solar power-based balancing opportunity – able to contribute to the transition towards sustainable and stable future electricity systems. To have this technology available for the generation portfolio in Europe when it will be needed, certain conditions in the electricity systems have to be met. In this report, we shed a light on key factors and pivotal decisions for successful CSP deployment in Europe. From the wide range of factors that are relevant for CSP deployment in Europe’s future electricity system, we elaborate in particular on the effect of cooperation, demand-side management, electricity grid expansion, decarbonisation ambition, technology cost developments of CSP and competing technologies, sector coupling, and increasing shares of fluctuating renewables and nuclear phase-out on CSP deployment. This assessment condenses many different outcomes of the MUSTEC project so far and is based on the policy pathway elaboration (WP7) and the core findings from the integrated model-based assessment (WP8). Compiled from these MUSTEC research activities, we present in this report the key drivers and policy decisions that are needed for effective CSP deployment in Europe in the coming years up to 2050.

Description: In line with its commitments to lower carbon emissions under the Paris Agreement and its own 2030 Climate & Energy Framework, the European Union (EU) has committed to increase the share of renewable energy use-around 15% in 2018-to be at least 32% by 2030. Achieving this will require a major reconfiguration of current energy systems in what could be seen as an example of a socio-technical transition or, more specifically, of an 'energy transition'. The key driver of this transition will be the electrification of heating and mobility functions. However, owing to the intermittent nature of most renewable energy sources (RES), this will need to be accompanied by the increased decentralisation and digitalisation of electricity networks. Existing energy system modelling softwares can simulate the dynamics of many of these processes. Nevertheless, they generally do not adequately capture the social and ecological aspects of the technologies that will drive this transition. Accordingly, the report aims to identify ways that future modelling applications-such as the ENVIRO and QTDIAN modules to be developed within the current project-can be used to address this gap and what information, theories, frameworks and methodologies exist that can guide such processes. Section 2 reveals that hydropower looks set to be replaced by wind energy as the dominant RES for electricity generation in the EU. Several other technologies, particularly solar photovoltaic and bioenergy, are also predicted to contribute. Changes in the mix of energy supply technologies is expected to be accompanied by changes at the energy demand end, most notably via the increased integration of digital technology to form 'smart grid' networks. The functionality of such networks relies heavily on devices that can attenuate electrical energy in order to address the intermittency issues of RES and many technologies, old and new, are available at all scales. Understanding these trends will allow us to identify the energy supply and energy demand technologies that should best be considered within the forthcoming modelling studies. Similarly, it is recognised that achieving a just and sustainable energy transition will also require changes within society itself. Accordingly, a selection of six key social trends relating to the energy transition are identified. Collectively, these trends suggest that addressing issues of social acceptance, democracy and justice are likely to greatly improve the success of transition processes. An understanding of these trends will allow us to identify the drivers and constraints that apply to modelling processes and data relating to past trends will be used to guide the formulation of specific modelling scenarios. A number of frameworks and theories that can be used to conceptualise the social processes and processes of technological emergence within broader energy transition processes are discussed in section 3. Firstly, the four main theoretical foundations for visualising transitions are identified as the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), the Technological Innovation System (TIS), Strategic Niche Management (SNM) and Transition Management (TM). All four-and the MLP in particular-can be used to understand how structural changes occur in energy systems and how to guide sustainable energy transition processes. In any case, as these frameworks do not fully represent exchanges between societies and the ecosystem, so-called socio-ecological system (SES) frameworks are also discussed. Lastly, two approaches for quantifying the rates of technological progress and market impact for burgeoning technologies are discussed. Together, it is hoped that this information can be used to conceptualise and predict the myriad potential transition pathways that are to be developed using the ENVIRO and QTDIAN modules. This is perhaps particularly true of the QTDIAN module which specifically aims to use theoretical insights from these sources to guide the formulation of a series of new model toolboxes. While qualitative methods have tended to dominate the approaches taken to transition theory in the past, section 4 presents a summary of six existing frameworks and approaches that have found use in the quantitative modelling of energy transitions. The first of these-the use of integrated assessment models (IAMs)-involves the integration of multiple existing quantitative models, is already widely employed to simulate transition scenarios at larger scales and is perhaps the most relevant to the current project. The remaining five model categories are a group of more abstract frameworks and approaches that attempt to model complex systems, behaviours and dynamics, often at finer levels of detail. This includes agent-based models (ABMs)-the most commonly used to date-as well as the broadly classified group of complex systems models, evolutionary economics models, socio-ecological systems models and system dynamics models. Most of these are not able to model the social-cultural, organisational, institutional and political aspects of a system, their interplay, or their feedbacks with the surrounding environment, underlining the need for further development. Nevertheless, the overview of the current status quo in real-world transition modelling provides an understanding of the available options for the development of the ENVIRO and QTDIAN modules. It also provides an element of contextual background to other modelling activities within the SENTINEL project as a whole, particularly those involving ABM and IAM approaches. The findings of the report will act as the foundation for the development of the ENVIRO and QTDIAN modules that will allow social and ecological factors and impacts to be integrated into the energy system modelling platform of the SENTINEL project. It will also serve to open doors to the continued integration of social and environmental factors into future energy system models by demonstrating the ways in which societal and technological trends can be integrated into energy system modelling projects.

Description: In this report, we identify the needs of the energy model users and the users of energy model results in policy, industry, civil society, and science, both in the present and future. Based on a comprehensive literature review, qualitative interviews in five European jurisdictions, a survey, and a workshop, we identify what different user groups need from energy models: What types of questions, input, and results are useful to them? We also identify user needs regarding the modeling platform of SENTINEL: How do we need to define such a platform to make it worthwhile for potential users?

Description: The mobility sector poses multiple challenges for sustainable development. Its large contribution to climate change, its impacts on the local environment through noise, pollutants, and land consumption, and its ambiguous role as both a facilitator of social participation and a potential multiplier of social inequalities reveal the necessity for structural transformation. In order to gain a better understanding of the mobility transitions to come, this article takes the capability of language to construct perceptions of reality as a starting point. Building on the mobility culture framework, it employs narrative analysis to understand not only how the current mobility sector is perceived, but also what kind of future changes are envisioned in discourses on urban mobility. It does so by comparatively analyzing German daily newspapers and public events on mobility over the course of one year to illustrate that the car-centered city may be a persistent guiding principle, but transformational urban mobility narratives are increasingly emerging in public debates. These transformational narratives could ultimately lead not only to a change of discursive structures and constructed meanings, but a transformation of urban mobility culture itself.

Description: As the forerunner and policy test field of the sustainable development, the sustainable development pilot zones are an important strategy for China to explore the mechanism and model of the coordinated development of human and land in different regional units. However, the impact of sustainable development pilot zones, especially on the improvement of environmental efficiency, needs to be assessed. In this paper, 187 prefecture-level cities in China were taken as samples (22 sustainable development pilot zones and 165 nonpilot ones). Firstly, the environmental efficiency of 187 prefecture-level cities between 2006 and 2016 was measured by data envelopment analysis (DEA). Then, the effect of construction of sustainable development pilot zones on environmental efficiency was assessed using the difference-in-difference (DID) model. The assessment results were further verified by propensity score matching with difference-in-difference (PSM-DID). In addition, the impact mechanism of construction of the sustainable development pilot zones on the environmental efficiency was discussed. Results show that the environmental efficiency of sustainable development pilot zones is 27.7∼31.7% greater than that of nonsustainable one, which is mainly attributed to the environmental regulation and industrial structure adjustment.

Description: We present a Strengths, Vulnerability, and Intervention Assessment related to Digital Threats (SVIDT) method, which provides a problem structuring and decision support for organizational vulnerability and resilience management with respect to changes of the digital transition. The method starts from (i) a multi-level actor analysis, (ii) identifies strengths and weaknesses of organizations, (iii) constructs digital threat scenarios and provides judgment-based expert assessments on the organization's vulnerability, (iv) develops intervention scenarios for tangible threat scenarios, and (v) suggests win-win action scenarios when referring to the multi actor system analysis as for strategic management. A first validation and application includes a structural analysis of the response patterns and a quantitative and qualitative appraisal of the organizations’ managers. This validation is based on an application of the method to 18 German and Austrian organizations of different types and magnitude. We show how the basic concepts of vulnerability (i.e., sensitivity, exposure adaptive capacity) can be quantitatively operationalized when constructing consistent combinations of threat and intervention scenarios. The validation approaches indicate that the method provides meaningful data and assessments and that the managers provided a positive feedback on the method and the recommendations which they received. It is further deliberated whether the assessment method supports organizations’ specified resilience management in an overly complex, systemic digital transition in a (semi) quantitative manner. In addition, we discuss needs for future research regarding practical utility of SVIDT, as well as the positioning of SVIDT in relation to soft operational methods and other methods of operational research.

Description: The Anthropocene as a new planetary epoch has brought to the foreground the deep-time interconnections of human agency with the earth system. Yet despite this recognition of strong temporal interdependencies, we still lack understanding of how societal and political organizations can manage interconnections that span several centuries and dozens of generations. This study pioneers the analysis of what we call “deep-time organizations.” We provide detailed comparative historical analyses of some of the oldest existing organizations worldwide from a variety of sectors, from the world’s oldest bank (Sveriges Riksbank) to the world’s oldest university (University of Al Quaraouiyine) and the world’s oldest dynasty (Imperial House of Japan). Based on our analysis, we formulate 12 initial design principles that could lay, if supported by further empirical research along similar lines, the basis for the construction and design of “deep-time organizations” for long-term challenges of earth system governance and planetary stewardship.

Description: Grid integration remains one of the key challenges related to the worldwide expansion of distributed renewable energy systems. This paper presents innovative measures for increasing the hosting capacity of distribution grids with a focus on the medium-voltage grid, based on representative interviews with leading large-scale distribution system operators (DSOs) from Germany. For grid optimization, DSOs have implemented dynamic voltage control in substations, adapted the grid structure for renewables, applied the “N minus zero” rule for planning grid operation and used the capability of renewable energy systems to provide reactive power. For grid expansion, DSOs have installed voltage regulators, voltage-regulated distribution transformers, substations used exclusively for renewables, and express feeders that connect substations with the generation centers. This practical experience should also prove relevant for other countries currently planning the expansion of distributed renewable energy systems.

Description: How do emerging powers gain inclusion into club institutions, i.e. institutions with selective memberships that deliberately seek to avoid universality? We present a framework that highlights three factors: an emerging power’s ‘fit’ to the club’s logic of exclusivity, the club’s possession of goods of value to the emerging power, and the ability of the emerging power to incentivize the club to open up via different strategies. We hypothesize that, due to the selection effect of choosing to seek inclusion in a club, emerging powers will seek integration using integrative strategies such as co‐optation and persuasion. We apply the framework to analyse the case of China’s inclusion – along with several other countries – as a State Observer in the Arctic Council in 2013. While China did use largely integrative strategies, the political background to the decision to open up to new observers reveals latent features of power bargaining. Moreover, it is unclear whether observer status has been sufficient to satisfy China. The case highlights the significance of observers in international organizations as well as the importance of clubs’ logics of exclusivity to their ability to adapt to international power shifts.

Description: Expertise in research integration and implementation is an essential but often overlooked component of tackling complex societal and environmental problems. We focus on expertise relevant to any complex problem, especially contributory expertise, divided into ‘knowing-that’ and ‘knowing-how.’ We also deal with interactional expertise and the fact that much expertise is tacit. We explore three questions. First, in examining ‘when is expertise in research integration and implementation required?,’ we review tasks essential (a) to developing more comprehensive understandings of complex problems, plus possible ways to address them, and (b) for supporting implementation of those understandings into government policy, community practice, business and social innovation, or other initiatives. Second, in considering ‘where can expertise in research integration and implementation currently be found?,’ we describe three realms: (a) specific approaches, including interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, systems thinking and sustainability science; (b) case-based experience that is independent of these specific approaches; and (c) research examining elements of integration and implementation, specifically considering unknowns and fostering innovation. We highlight examples of expertise in each realm and demonstrate how fragmentation currently precludes clear identification of research integration and implementation expertise. Third, in exploring ‘what is required to strengthen expertise in research integration and implementation?,’ we propose building a knowledge bank. We delve into three key challenges: compiling existing expertise, indexing and organising the expertise to make it widely accessible, and understanding and overcoming the core reasons for the existing fragmentation. A growing knowledge bank of expertise in research integration and implementation on the one hand, and accumulating success in addressing complex societal and environmental problems on the other, will form a virtuous cycle so that each strengthens the other. Building a coalition of researchers and institutions will ensure this expertise and its application are valued and sustained.

Description: Technological and policy solutions for transitioning to a fossil-free society exist, many countries could afford the transition, and rational arguments for rapid climate action abound. Yet effective action is still lacking. Dominant policy approaches have failed to generate action at anywhere near the rate, scale or depth needed to avoid potentially catastrophic futures. This is despite 30 years of climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and wide-ranging actions at national, transnational and sub-national levels. Practitioners and scholars are, thus, increasingly arguing that also the root causes of the problem must be addressed – the mindset (or paradigm) out of which the climate emergency has arisen. Against this background, we investigate decision-makers’ views of the need for a different mindset and inner qualities that can support negotiating and activating climate action, along with factors that could enable such a mindset shift. Data were collected during participatory workshops run at the 25th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP25) in 2019, and comprise surveys, as well as social media communication and semi-structured interviews with COP attendees. Our results underline vast agreement among participants regarding the need for a mindset shift that can support new ways of communication and collaboration, based on more relational modes of knowing, being and acting. They also suggest the emergence of such a mindset shift across sectors and contexts, but not yet at the collective and systems levels. Finally, they highlight the importance of transformative skills and the need for experimental, safe spaces. The latter are seen as a visible manifestation and enabler that can support agency for change through shared self-reflection, experience and practice. We present a transformative skills framework, and conclude with further research needs and policy recommendations.

Description: This study, based on new and high quality in situ observations, quantifies for the first time, the individual contributions of light-absorbing aerosols (black carbon (BC), brown carbon (BrC) and dust) to aerosol absorption over the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) and the Himalayan foothill region, a relatively poorly studied region with several sensitive ecosystems of global importance, as well as highly vulnerable populations. The annual and seasonal average single scattering albedo (SSA) over Kathmandu is the lowest of all the locations. The SSA over Kathmandu is 〈 0.89 during all seasons, which confirms the dominance of light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols from local and regional sources over Kathmandu. It is observed here that the SSA decreases with increasing elevation, confirming the dominance of light absorbing carbonaceous aerosols at higher elevations. In contrast, the SSA over the IGP does not exhibit a pronounced spatial variation. BC dominates (≥75%) the aerosol absorption over the IGP and the Himalayan foothills throughout the year. Higher BC concentration at elevated locations in the Himalayas leads to lower SSA at elevated locations in the Himalayas. The contribution of dust to aerosol absorption is higher throughout the year over the IGP than over the Himalayan foothills. The aerosol absorption over South Asia is very high, exceeding available observations over East Asia, and also exceeds previous model estimates. This quantification will be valuable as observational constraints to help improve regional simulations of climate change, impacts on the glaciers and the hydrological cycle, and will help to direct the focus towards BC as the main contributor to aerosol-induced warming in the region.

Description: Renewable electricity can fully decarbonise the European electricity supply, but large land requirements may cause land-use conflicts. Using a dynamic model that captures renewable fluctuations, I explore the relationship between land requirements and total system cost of different supply-side options in the future. Cost-minimal fully renewable electricity requires some 97,000 km2 (2% of total) land for solar and wind power installations, roughly the size of Portugal, and includes large shares of onshore wind. Replacing onshore wind with offshore wind, utility-scale PV, or rooftop PV reduces land requirements drastically with only small cost penalties. Moving wind power offshore is most cost-effective and reduces land requirements by 50% for a cost penalty of only 5%. Wind power can alternatively be replaced by photovoltaics, leading to a cost penalty of 10% for the same effect. My research shows that fully renewable electricity supply can be designed with very different physical appearances and impacts on landscapes and the population, but at similar cost.

Description: Based on an extensive synthesis of semi-structured interviews, media content analysis, and reviews, this article conducts a qualitative meta-analysis of more than 560 sources of evidence to identify 38 visions associated with seven different low-carbon innovations – automated mobility, electric vehicles, smart meters, nuclear power, shale gas, hydrogen, and the fossil fuel divestment movement – playing a key role in current deliberations about mobility or low-carbon energy supply and use. From this material, it analyzes such visions based on rhetorical features such as common problems and functions, storylines, discursive struggles, and rhetorical effectiveness. It also analyzes visions based on typologies or degrees of valence (utopian vs. dystopian), temporality (proximal vs. distant), and radicalism (incremental vs. transformative). The article is motivated by the premise that tackling climate change via low-carbon energy systems (and practices) is one of the most significant challenges of the twenty-first century, and that effective decarbonization will require not only new energy technologies, but also new ways of understanding language, visions, and discursive politics surrounding emerging innovations and transitions.

Description: In the face of multiple crises of ecology, economy, and social equity, the question of how to democratically transform toward a more sustainable society is high on the political agenda as well as pertinent to academic research. The first part of this introductory article to the special issue provides a brief overview of contemporary interrelated debates on sustainability, democracy, and transformation. It discusses the main concepts, themes, and questions that are part of the highly diverse and constantly evolving body of literature on the topic, as well as differences regarding analytical frames and normative underpinnings. The overview shows that the literature remains largely silent about supporting theories of change, ontologies, methodologies, and principles—and/or the ways in which transformation, sustainability, and democracy are interrelated. The second part of this article introduces the contributions to this special issue. The special issue is guided by three overarching questions: what can we say about the possibilities and problems of democratically enacting changes toward greater social, ecological, economic, and political sustainability in societies? Which analytic frames are useful for evaluating change, including its democratic and sustainability quality? Where do evaluations and judgments derive their analytical and normative legitimacy from?

Description: Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent.

Description: The very beginning of collaborative research endeavors often lies in politically difficult and practically challenging entanglements. The purpose of this paper is to empirically capture and theoretically conceptualize these entanglements. I trace the power-driven prefiguration of my own role in a transdisciplinary project and argue that the early moments (the ‘phase zero’) of collaborative research are entwined with a tacit, tactical, and relational form of control. In a process that I call ‘scripting control,’ actors seek to co-determine what a project may become, without being able to forecast or backcast a pathway to get there. Collaborators mutually launch counter-scripts and tacitly shape the possibility space that constrains or enables subsequent interactions. My own transdisciplinary involvement illustrates, however, that counter-scripts proposed by latecomers can fail if the project has passed the phase zero. This argument extends the current use of scripts in Science and Technology Studies to also involve temporal power dynamics. Moreover, in sustainability studies, my argument contributes to a growing critique against the imaginary of co-design, which promotes a managerial idea of ordering collaborative processes in a socially and epistemically inclusive way.

Description: Increasingly abundant big data and artificial intelligence applications are restructuring economic activities and daily life. This is epitomized in the notion of the smart city, and especially visible on our streets, where e-scooters or pool-riding services are added every month and reshape our mobility. It’s a time of experimentation and that may be a good thing. Yet, there are also signs of discontent, raising the question of how big data can be managed and organized in a way that reduces congestion and improves the daily travel routines of millions of citizens, supports the wider public good while also leveraging Israel’s potential as a start-up nation. Here, we take the example of smart mobility in Israel to investigate how integrated data management can multiply the benefits of big data applications, while effectively managing risks. We find that integrated data platforms offer an opportunity to leverage benefits if three key design principles are followed: 1) open (but not necessarily free) data access; 2) maintaining the privacy, agency and participation of individuals, users, and the public; and 3) tailoring mobility services to meet well-defined goals of public policy.

Description: An ecosystem approach to the management of human activities in the marine environment began to feature as a normative concept in international instruments in the 1980s, beginning with the pioneering Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. While an implicit basis for the ecosystem approach can be found in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, much of the additional conceptual development at the global level has occurred within the framework of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. The subsequent widespread acceptance of the ecosystem approach has been described as a response to the failure of reactive and fragmented sectoral and zonal approaches to environmental protection and management. A consensus has emerged that a paradigm shift in thinking is needed, whereby traditional modalities of governance are replaced by proactive, integrative and holistic approaches involving adaptive management and greater cooperation between States, international institutions and other stakeholders in order to achieve effective and long-term, coherent implementation of policies across sectors. This chapter will discuss the origins and evolution of the ecosystem approach in international law, which can now be found in a wide range of international and regional instruments, including the regional seas conventions, fisheries management agreements, as well as the ongoing negotiations to develop an internationally legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction. Finally, challenges to the operationalization of the concept in practice will be discussed.

Description: Extended abstract for speed talk

Description: Renewable energy (RE) technologies for electricity generation are a central pillar of energy sector decarbonisation strategies worldwide. Public policies to promote their diffusion have been in place in developed economies since 1980, and, since the 2000s, a growing number of emerging countries began implemented such policies. The Latin American countries have been proactive in RE promotion, but few attempts have been made to evaluate the results. This article proposes an econometric analysis of the effectiveness of RE policies, based on panel data for 20 Latin American and 30 European countries, over 20 years. The results converge for the influence of promotion policies in general: they have a positive and statistically significant effect on RE investment, being the principal determinant in both regions. Nevertheless, on their own, tax incentives are insufficient to assure the deployment of RE technologies. This article also highlights specificities in policy approaches and motivations across both regions and explains why auction became the main instrument in Latin American countries.

Description: The 13C isotopic ratio of methane, δ13C of CH4, provides additional constraints on the CH4 budget to complement the constraints from CH4 observations. The interpretation of δ13C observations is complicated, however, by uncertainties in the methane sink. The reaction of CH4 with Cl is highly fractionating, increasing the relative abundance of 13CH4, but there is currently no consensus on the strength of the tropospheric Cl sink. Global model simulations of halogen chemistry differ strongly from one another in terms of both the magnitude of tropospheric Cl and its geographic distribution. This study explores the impact of the intermodel diversity in Cl fields on the simulated δ13C of CH4. We use a set of GEOS global model simulations with different predicted Cl fields to test the sensitivity of the δ13C of CH4 to the diversity of Cl output from chemical transport models. We find that δ13C is highly sensitive to both the amount and geographic distribution of Cl. Simulations with Cl providing 0.28 % or 0.66 % of the total CH4 loss bracket the δ13C observations for a fixed set of emissions. Thus, even when Cl provides only a small fraction of the total CH4 loss and has a small impact on total CH4, it provides a strong lever on δ13C. Consequently, it is possible to achieve a good representation of total CH4 using widely different Cl concentrations, but the partitioning of the CH4 loss between the OH and Cl reactions leads to strong differences in isotopic composition depending on which model's Cl field is used. Comparing multiple simulations, we find that altering the tropospheric Cl field leads to approximately a 0.5 ‰ increase in δ13CH4 for each percent increase in how much CH4 is oxidized by Cl. The geographic distribution and seasonal cycle of Cl also impacts the hemispheric gradient and seasonal cycle of δ13C. The large effect of Cl on δ13C compared to total CH4 broadens the range of CH4 source mixtures that can be reconciled with δ13C observations. Stronger constraints on tropospheric Cl are necessary to improve estimates of CH4 sources from δ13C observations.

Description: One response to the numerous governance challenges faced with respect to the oceans, a shared space, is the creation of international organizations. Typically comprising of representations from member States and with pre-defined mandates, international organizations strive to resolve specific issues. This chapter will provide a categorical overview of these organizations and examine how they operate in isolation, as well as interact with each other, in striving to protect the marine environment. Given the institutional complexity surrounding the individual regimes that create them, the outcomes arrived at by most international organizations occasionally do not represent the collective interests of all member States. Nevertheless, the existence of a common avenue in which marine environmental problems can be raised and discussed as a whole has indeed resulted in the adoption of notable measures to address those problems. Such outcomes would not have been possible without the mechanics that are peculiar to international organizations. Ultimately, this analysis demonstrates the extent to which international organizations formulate the law of the sea and discern some patterns on how their efforts has advanced the protection of the marine environment in recent years.

Description: Energy efficiency measures and the deployment of renewable energy are commonly presented as two sides of the same coin—as necessary and synergistic measures to decarbonize energy systems and reach the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. Here, we quantitatively investigate the policies and performances of the EU Member States to see whether renewables and energy efficiency policies are politically synergistic or if they rather compete for political attention and resources. We find that Member States, especially the ones perceived as climate leaders, tend to prioritize renewables over energy efficiency in target setting. Further, almost every country performs well in either renewable energy or energy efficiency, but rarely performs well in both. We find no support for the assertion that the policies are synergistic, but some evidence that they compete. However, multi-linear regression models for performance show that performance, especially in energy efficiency, is also strongly associated with general economic growth cycles, and not only efficiency policy as such. We conclude that renewable energy and energy efficiency are not synergistic policies, and that there is some competition between them.

Description: Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and through the Paris Agreement, there is a commitment to keep global temperature rise this century to well below two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels. This will require a variety of strategies, including increased renewable power generation, broad-scale electrification, greater energy efficiency, and carbon-negative technologies. With increasing support worldwide, innovations in carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies are now widely acknowledged to contribute to achieving climate mitigation targets while creating economic opportunities. To assess the environmental impacts and commercial competitiveness of these innovations, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA) are needed. Against this background, guidelines (Version 1.0) on LCA and TEA were published in 2018 as a valuable toolkit for evaluating CCU technology development. Ever since, an open community of practitioners, commissioners, and users of such assessments has been involved in gathering feedback on the initial document. That feedback has informed the improvements incorporated in this updated Version 1.1 of the Guidelines. The revisions take into account recent publications in this evolving field of research; correct minor inconsistencies and errors; and provide better alignment of TEA with LCA. Compared to Version 1.0, some sections have been restructured to be more reader-friendly, and the specific guideline recommendations are renamed ‘provisions.’ Based on the feedback, these provisions have been revised and expanded to be more instructive.

Description: The poster outlines PhD project and presents guiding research questions, mapping uncertainties and approach and methodology leading to planned aim of PhD project; Reconceptualising Arctic Fossil Fuel Resource Uncertainty.

Description: One of the most important questions arising from the painful corona crisis is: how can we make the economic case for investing in a green, healthy and just recovery for people and the planet? The COVID-19 pandemic offers many lessons, despite the early stage of global responses. For me, the most important one is the inevitable truth that we will not be able to promote an inclusive and durable recovery without addressing the root causes of this pandemic. While most of the public attention goes to a much awaited vaccine, there is also great value in understanding long-term and preventive measures. In this article, I highlight the Planetary health approach, which has the advantage of “multi-solving” several crises at once, such as the one linked to climate change, biodiversity, food systems, and social inequalities.

Description: Rural energy consumption not only significantly affects the national economy but also informs us about the living conditions of rural residents. A comprehensive survey of households in the agropastoral area of Qinghai Province was conducted from 2017 to 2018 to identify its energy consumption characteristics. In this paper, a typical household energy flow model was established. The results show that 1) the proportion of noncommercial energy in the agropastoral area of Qinghai Province is 52.89%, and it is affected by the ‘returning farmland to forest’ (RFF) policy and the ‘returning grazing land to grassland project’ (RGLGP). Furthermore, the household energy consumption structure has shifted from traditional biomass to coal and a combination of other energy sources. 2) Households of different cultural backgrounds have different energy consumption patterns. 3) High-income households consume more energy and have more frequent energy flows compared with low-income households. The results of this survey will help policymakers and scholars to formulate strategies for energy conservation and more effectively assess energy policies.

Description: The negotiations for an international legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of BBNJ provides a unique opportunity to strengthen international MCS provisions. This can be done through the fu-ture BBNJ treaty (Cremers et al., 2020a) but also through existing frameworks, including at the regional level. In this context, this re-port offers recommendations to the Member States of the Permanent Commission for the South Pacific (CPPS) with a view to supporting decisions on how MCS can be strength-ened in the region.

Description: This is a write-up of an expert workshop held in November 2019 jointly organised by the IASS and UBA. It summarises the state of knowledge on ground-level ozone in Germany, identifies research gaps, and makes recommendations for action to reduce ground-level ozone.

Description: Superconducting links are an innovative solution for bulk power transmission, distinguished by their compact dimensions, high efficiency and small environmental footprint. As with any new technology field, there is a large amount of design possibilities for such links, each of them having a profound impact on the system configuration. For instance, changing the material can imply a change in the working temperature from 20 to 70 K and has consequences on the maximum link length. This article presents the dichotomic decision possibilities for the optimized design of a high-power superconducting link, focusing on some of the key components of the cable system. The complex design optimization process is exemplified using the European project Best Paths, in which the first 3-gigawatt-class superconducting cable system was designed, optimized, manufactured, and successfully tested.