Framework Convention on Climate Change

Food systems contribute 19%–29% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, releasing 9,800–16,900 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2008. Agricultural production, including indirect emissions associated with land-cover change, contributes 80%–86% of total food system emissions, with significant regional variation. The impacts of global climate change on food systems are expected to be widespread, complex, geographically and temporally variable, and profoundly influenced by socioeconomic conditions. Historical statistical studies and integrated assessment models provide evidence that climate change will affect agricultural yields and earnings, food prices, reliability of delivery, food quality, and, notably, food safety. Low-income producers and consumers of food will be more vulnerable to climate change owing to their comparatively limited ability to invest in adaptive institutions and technologies under increasing climatic risks. Some synergies among food security, adaptati...

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/881annurev.pdf

Climate Change and Food Systems

The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The Lancet Commission report

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2960854-6.pdf?code=lancet-site

Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health

Predicting the impacts of climate change on species is one of the biggest challenges that ecologists face Predictions routinely focus on the direct effects of climate change on individual species, yet interactions between species can strongly influence how climate change affects organisms at every scale by altering their individual fitness, geographic ranges and the structure and dynamics of their community Failure to incorporate these interactions limits the ability to predict responses of species to climate change We propose a framework based on ideas from global-change biology, community ecology, and invasion biology that uses community modules to assess how species interactions shape responses to climate change

/pdf/a-framework-for-community-interactions-under-climate-change-1m7evwm8jl.pdf

A framework for community interactions under climate change

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(09)60935-1.pdf

Managing the health effects of climate change

Managing the health effects of climate

Rumination appears to predict and maintain posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but evidence for a causal effect is lacking. This experimental study investigated the impact of manipulating film-rel...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.5127/jep.019511

The Effect of Rumination on Intrusive Images and Mood: An Experimental Investigation Using the Trauma Film Paradigm

The emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic has required a rapid acceleration of policy decision making, and raised a wide range of ethical issues worldwide, ranging from vaccine prioritisation, welfare and public health ‘trade-offs’, inequalities in policy impacts, and the legitimacy of scientific expertise.
This paper explores the legacy of the pandemic for future science-advice-policy relationships by investigating how the UK government’s engagement with ethical advice is organised institutionally. We provide an analysis of some key ethical moments in the UK Government response to the pandemic, and institutions and national frameworks which exist to provide ethical advice on policy strategies.
We draw on literature review, documentary analysis of scientific advisory group reports, and a stakeholder workshop with government ethics advisors and researchers in England.
We identify how particular types of ethical advice and expertise are sought to support decision making. Contrary to a prominent assumption in the extensive literature on ‘governing by expertise’, ethical decisions in times of crisis are highly contingent.
The paper raises an important set of questions for how best to equip policymakers to navigate decisions about values in situations characterised by knowledge deficits, complexity and uncertainty. We conclude that a clearer pathway is needed between advisory institutions and decision makers to ensure ethically-informed debate.

https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/downloadpdf/journals/evp/aop/article-10.1332-174426421X16596928051179/article-10.1332-174426421X16596928051179.pdf

Ethical moments and institutional expertise in UK Government COVID-19 pandemic policy responses: where, when and how is ethical advice sought?

Countries are increasingly looking to ‘digitalise’ how public services are delivered, with welfare-to-work and public employment services being key sites of reform. It is hoped that digitalisation can achieve efficient, effective, and targeted services for those in need and there is now a growing body of research on both the opportunities and pitfalls associated with this transition to digital welfare states. However, as a concept, ‘digitalisation’ remains ambiguously defined, hindering understanding of the distinct ways that discrete technological innovations are reshaping citizens' access to social protection and the role of street-level discretion in welfare administration. Drawing on interviews with expert informants from three countries pioneering digital reforms, this study aims to better understand what digitalisation entails for the delivery of activation. We identify three discrete modes of ‘digitalisation’ in welfare-to-work programmes: virtual engagement (remote activation), transactional automation (self-activation), and digital triaging (targeted activation). Far from digitalisation heralding the automation and curtailment of frontline discretion, the different modes reshape frontline delivery and citizens' access to social protection in specific ways. 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/spol.12939

Sarah C. Ball

Papers

Managing the health effects of climate change

Managing the health effects of climate

The Effect of Rumination on Intrusive Images and Mood: An Experimental Investigation Using the Trauma Film Paradigm

Ethical moments and institutional expertise in UK Government COVID-19 pandemic policy responses: where, when and how is ethical advice sought?

Emerging modes of digitalisation in the delivery of welfare‐to‐work: Implications for street‐level discretion