Impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita Le cause e le responsabilita dei cambiamenti climatici sono state trattate sul numero di ottobre della rivista Cda. Approfondiamo l’argomento presentando il documento: “Cambiamenti climatici 2007: impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita” votato ad aprile 2007 dal secondo gruppo di lavoro del Comitato Intergovernativo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Si tratta del secondo di tre documenti che compongono il quarto rapporto sui cambiamenti climatici.

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Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

The talk with present the key results of the IPCC Working Group III 5th assessment report. Concluding four years of intense scientific collaboration by hundreds of authors from around the world, the report responds to the request of the world's governments for a comprehensive, objective and policy neutral assessment of the current scientific knowledge on mitigating climate change. The report has been extensively reviewed by experts and governments to ensure quality and comprehensiveness.

Climate change 2014 - Mitigation of climate change

Sustainable Development Goals

「脆弱性(Vulnerability)」とは何か

Cet article analyse les relations conceptuelles (imprecises) de la vulnerabilite, de la resilience et de la capacite d’adaptation aux changements climatiques selon le systeme socio-ecologique (socio-ecologigal systems – SES) afin de comprendre et anticiper le comportement des composantes sociales et ecologiques du systeme. Une serie de questions est proposee par l’auteur sur la specification de ces termes afin de developper une structure conceptuelle qui inclut les dimensions naturelles et so...

Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity

Risk, vulnerability, robustness, and resilience are terms that are being used increasingly frequently in a large range of sciences. This paper shows how these terms can be consistently defined based on a decision-theoretic, verbal, and formal definition. Risk is conceived as an evaluation of an uncertain loss potential. The paper starts from a formal decision-theoretic definition of risk, which distinguishes between the risk situation (i.e. the risk analyst’s model of the situation in which someone perceives or assesses risk) and the risk function (i.e. the risk analyst’s model about how someone is perceiving and assessing risk). The approach allows scholars to link together different historical approaches to risk, such as the toxicological risk concept and the action-based approach to risk. The paper then elaborates how risk, vulnerability, and resilience are all linked to one another. In general, the vulnerability concept, such as the definition of vulnerability by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate...

Risk, vulnerability, robustness, and resilience from a decision-theoretic perspective

Anticipating transitions beyond the current mobility regimes: How acceptability matters

Scenarios are a key instrument to guide decision-making in the face of an uncertain future. In the field of energy, scenarios are often published to inform external stakeholders who are not part of the scenario development. This study explores how researchers, a key stakeholder group in shaping the energy future, use energy scenarios. It analyses the case of Switzerland, where several competing scenarios have been developed in reaction to the governmental decision to phase-out nuclear power. 16 structured in-depth interviews with researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds were conducted. While most interviewees use public energy scenarios, there are two contrasting user types. The first group, labelled divers, primarily uses scenarios as a data source, whereas the other group, the sailors, refers to them as plausible energy futures. We identified different interpretations of scenario content between sailors and divers, which result from the quantitative modelling on which contemporary energy scenarios are based. Due to a lack of guidance from modellers and missing qualitative information, energy scenarios are prone to misconceptions and distortions in their interpretation by external users.

Of sailors and divers: How researchers use energy scenarios

Incineration plays a significant role in modern municipal solid waste (MSW) management of European countries. There are 405 treatment facilities in the European Union (EU) and another 43 plants are planned to be built in the coming years. The number of municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) plants is not only increasing due to rising waste amounts but also as a consequence of EU waste-concerned directives issued over the last two decades. This study analyses the potential influence of diverse national implementations of EU waste policies on the future emission loads to air from MSWI in different European countries. This is exemplified by constructing waste policy implementation scenarios using an adapted formative scenario analysis approach, coupled with a probabilistic MSWI emission model employing microsimulation, which enables us to model changing incinerated waste amounts and waste compositions for each country over time. This allows us to describe possible future emission levels of MSWI in the year 2020 in 33 European countries, and in detail for Switzerland, Poland and the United Kingdom. Uncertain future emission levels are calculated and compared with the emission levels determined by the scenarios’ implications. We find that, depending on the scenario selected, in countries with currently small MSWI sectors like Poland median pollutant emission loads can change by a factor of between 1.4 and 336 for greenhouse gases (GHG) and 1.8 and 561 for ammonia (NH3) compared to the reference state. For countries like the United Kingdom, with a current 9.7% share of MSWI in their waste management, this factor would be in the range of 1.3 and 7.3 for GHG and 1.3 and 9.7 for NH3. Our results suggest that these variations are not primarily the results of the EU policy framework, but are mainly caused by the way these policies are implemented on the national level. However, comparing the emissions for Switzerland, a country with a high share of MSWI (50%), we do not find significant changes in the emission loads between the reference state and the future considering various scenarios and the uncertainty in the emission loads.

Scenarios for the implementation of EU waste legislation at national level and their consequences for emissions from municipal waste incineration

Modal shifts hold considerable potential to mitigate carbon emissions Electric bikes (e-bikes) represent a promising energy- and carbon-efficient alternative to cars However, as mobility behaviour is highly habitual, convincing people to switch from cars to e-bikes is challenging One strategy to accomplish this is the disruption of existing habits – a key idea behind an annual e-bike promotion programme in Switzerland, in which car owners can try out an e-bike for free over a 2-week period in exchange for their car keys By means of a longitudinal survey, we measured the long-term effects of this trial on mobility-related habitual associations After one year, participants' habitual association with car use had weakened significantly This finding was valid both for participants who bought an e-bike after the trial and those who did not Our findings contrast the results of other studies who find that the effect of interventions to induce modal shifts wears off over time We conclude that an e-bike trial has the potential to break mobility habits and motivate car owners to use more sustainable means of transport

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Yann Blumer

Papers

Risk, vulnerability, robustness, and resilience from a decision-theoretic perspective

Anticipating transitions beyond the current mobility regimes: How acceptability matters

Of sailors and divers: How researchers use energy scenarios

Scenarios for the implementation of EU waste legislation at national level and their consequences for emissions from municipal waste incineration

E-bike trials’ potential to promote sustained changes in car owners mobility habits