Greenhouse gas emissions are fundamental both to the world’s energy system and to its food production. The production of CO2, the predominant gas implicated in climate change, is intrinsic to fossil fuel combustion; specifically, thermal energy is generated by breaking the chemical bonds in the carbohydrates oil, coal, and natural gas and oxidizing the components to CO2 and H2O. One cannot have cheap energy without carbon dioxide emissions. Similarly, methane (CH4) emissions, an important greenhouse gas in its own right, are necessary to prevent the build-up of hydrogen in anaerobic digestion and decomposition. One cannot have beef, mutton, dairy, or rice without methane emissions. Climate change is the mother of all externalities: larger, more complex, and more uncertain than any other environmental problem. The sources of greenhouse gas emissions are more diffuse than any other environmental problem. Every company, every farm, every household emits some greenhouse gases. The effects are similarly pervasive. Weather affects agriculture, energy use, health, and many aspects of nature—which in turn affects everything and everyone. The causes and consequences of climate change are very diverse, and those in low-income countries who contribute least to climate change are most vulnerable to its effects. Climate change is also a long-term problem. Some greenhouse gases have an atmospheric life-time measured in tens of thousands of years. The quantities of emissions involved are enormous. In 2000, carbon dioxide emissions alone (and excluding land use change) were 24 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (tCO2).

/pdf/the-economic-effects-of-climate-change-554ikwofp2.pdf

The Economic Effects of Climate Change

The food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste

Cities are key sites where climate change is being addressed. Previous research has largely overlooked the multiplicity of climate change responses emerging outside formal contexts of decision-making and led by actors other than municipal governments. Moreover, existing research has largely focused on case studies of climate change mitigation in developed economies. The objective of this paper is to uncover the heterogeneous mix of actors, settings, governance arrangements and technologies involved in the governance of climate change in cities in different parts of the world.

The paper focuses on urban climate change governance as a process of experimentation. Climate change experiments are presented here as interventions to try out new ideas and methods in the context of future uncertainties. They serve to understand how interventions work in practice, in new contexts where they are thought of as innovative. To study experimentation, the paper presents evidence from the analysis of a database of 627 urban climate change experiments in a sample of 100 global cities.

The analysis suggests that, since 2005, experimentation is a feature of urban responses to climate change across different world regions and multiple sectors. Although experimentation does not appear to be related to particular kinds of urban economic and social conditions, some of its core features are visible. For example, experimentation tends to focus on energy. Also, both social and technical forms of experimentation are visible, but technical experimentation is more common in urban infrastructure systems. While municipal governments have a critical role in climate change experimentation, they often act alongside other actors and in a variety of forms of partnership. These findings point at experimentation as a key tool to open up new political spaces for governing climate change in the city.

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1386297/1/1386297.pdf

A survey of urban climate change experiments in 100 cities

The countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol have pledged to limit global warming by reducing the demand for fossil fuels. But what about supply? If suppliers do not react, demand reductions by a subset of countries are ineffective. They simply depress the world price of carbon and induce the environmental sinners to consume what the Kyoto countries have economized on. Even worse, if suppliers feel threatened by a gradual greening of economic policies in the Kyoto countries that would damage their future prices; they will extract their stocks more rapidly, thus accelerating global warming. The paper discusses the remaining policy options against global warming from an intertemporal supply-side perspective.

/pdf/public-policies-against-global-warming-a-supply-side-2nh4lcmsy4.pdf

Public policies against global warming: a supply side approach

(2008). The implications of projected climate change for freshwater resources and their management. Hydrological Sciences Journal: Vol. 53, No. 1, pp. 3-10.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1623/hysj.53.1.3

The implications of projected climate change for freshwater resources and their management

The Review's executive summary states that "the Review first examines the evidence on the economic impacts of climate change itself, and explores the economics of stabilizing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The second half of the Review considers the complex policy challenges involved in managing the transition to a low-carbon economy and in ensuring that societies can adapt to the consequences of climate change that can no longer be avoided".

The report's main conclusion is that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change considerably outweigh the costs.

https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc13733/m2/1/high_res_d/stern%20report.pdf

Hannah Wanjie

Papers

Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change