This article provides the theoretical foundation for the concept of “Underwaterwriting,” which can be understood as various informational and institutional limitations related to environmental ...exposure and climate change impacts—specifically flooding and sea level rise inundation—shaping firm participation in mortgage markets. Underwaterwriting suggests that the unevenness of scientific knowledge and local soft information, as well as the institutional barriers for the utilization of that information, could result in determinations of risk that may not accurately reflect long-term asset performance or credit loss. These informational asymmetries may result in assignments of risk that reflect a degree of arbitrariness or inaccuracy that may operate to strand assets and shed or increase market share in ways that are inefficient and may otherwise lead to negative public externalities. Consistent with this theory, this article provides evidence that concentrated local lenders are transferring risk in high-risk coastal geographies in the Southeast Atlantic and Gulf Coasts (U.S.) through increased securitization of mortgages. These findings provide an impetus for supporting more robust analysis of climate-risk in light of forthcoming accounting rules that require an upfront accounting of forward-looking credit losses.
Spatiotemporal redistribution of incident rainfall in vegetated ecosystems results from the partitioning by plants into intercepted, stemflow, and throughfall fractions. However, variation in ...patterns and drivers of rainfall partitioning across global biomes remains poorly understood, which limited the ability of climate models to improve the predictions of biome hydrological cycle under global climate change scenario. Here, we synthesized and analyzed the partitioning of incident rainfall into interception, stemflow, and throughfall by trees and shrubs at the global scale using 2430 observations from 236 independent publications. We found that (1) globally, median levels of relative interception, stemflow, and throughfall accounted for 21.8%, 3.2%, and 73.0% of total incident rainfall, respectively; (2) rainfall partitioning varied among different biomes, due to variation in plant composition, canopy structure, and macroclimate; (3) relative stemflow tended to be driven by plant traits, such as crown height:width ratio, basal area, and height, while relative interception and throughfall tended to be driven by plant traits as well as meteorological variables. Our global assessment of patterns and drivers of rainfall partitioning underpins the role of meteorological factors and plant traits in biome‐specific ecohydrological cycles. We suggest to include these factors in climate models to improve the predictions of local hydrological cycles and associated biodiversity and function responses to changing climate conditions.
This study synthesized the partitioning of incident rainfall into interception, stemflow, and throughfall by trees and shrubs at the global scale using 2430 observations from 236 independent publications, which underpins the role of meteorological factors and plant traits in biome‐specific ecohydrological cycles.
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Processes aiming to achieve urban transformation that includes sustainability can result in green gentrification and thus promote exclusivist, private green spaces. At the same time, they compromise ...the ability of cities to promote more systemic sustainable development. Istanbul has long been a site of planned gentrification and displacement through urban renewal and regeneration projects, which have recently touted a sustainability angle. While sustainable urban renewal can have positive impacts on human health and well-being and is critical for addressing climate change and other environmental challenges, the benefits are rarely evenly distributed. Through an examination of sustainability-oriented urban renewal projects in Istanbul’s Gaziosmanpaşa district, this study shows that vulnerable residents have been displaced by the planned gentrification and that such consequences are likely to be amplified by visions of green sustainability. It also illustrates that plans to harness the city’s drive for economic growth and urban development risk making large parts of the “green” districts affordable only for relatively well-off citizens. Based on semi-structured interviews, non-participatory observation, and analysis of project and municipality-level documents, we find that even though seismic vulnerability and energy efficiency are cited as reasons for these transformations towards sustainability, policymakers are not paying sufficient attention to the political ecology of social exclusion and an increase in inequality that can result from sustainability-oriented urban renewal.
Many corporations are now in the business of bringing climate change ‘home’ in the everyday products that those, in much of the Minority world, can purchase and use, providing opportunities for ...consumers to literally and figuratively ‘buy in’ to climate mitigation. Yet, what are the implications of this form of highly commoditised, corporate-led, consumer-focused climate branding? In the spaces and practices of the everyday, how and in what ways are corporations framing and socialising responses to climate change and global environmental and social issues? This paper explores these 'questions through a multimodal discourse analysis of Unilever’s ‘Sustainable Living Plan’ (
2010
) and its ‘Project Sunlight’ campaign (2010–2016). Situating Unilever’s sustainability agenda as indicative of the contemporary climate politics of the corporate sector, that also represents a pivotal moment in the cultural politics of climate change, we critically interrogate Unilever’s mobilisation of the affective and emotional registers of everyday life and human relations in its model of sustainable living. Specifically, we focus on the ways that Unilever encourages acts of branded consumption as a form of—what we call here—climate care, by invoking normative discourses of gender and family through a form of biopolitics, and, at a larger scale, how the corporation is shaping how particular forms of climate capitalism are socialised, normalised and practiced. In doing so, we shift critical attention away from sustainable business analyses of Unilever onto the unexplored socio-cultural dimensions of Unilever’s sustainability model. We argue that Unilever’s socialisation of climate branding and care works to depoliticise climate change actions and actors through a biopolitics that creates a false veneer of democratisation in the form of consumer choice, thereby curtailing more progressive societal action on climate change.
"This book focuses on the gendered experiences of environmental change across different geographies and social contexts in South Asia and on diverse strategies of adapting to climate variability. The ...book analyzes how changes in rainfall patterns, floods, droughts, heatwaves and landslides affect those who are directly dependent on the agrarian economy. It examines the socio-economic pressures, including the increase in women’s work burdens both in production and reproduction on gender relations. It also examines coping mechanisms such as male migration and the formation of women’s collectives which create space for agency and change in rigid social relations. The volume looks at perspectives from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal to present the nuances of gender relations across borders along with similarities and differences across geographical,socio-cultural and policy contexts. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of sociology, development, gender, economics, environmental studies and South Asian studies. It will also be useful for policymakers, NGOs and think tanks working in the areas of gender, climate change and development."
Organisms provide some of the most sensitive indicators of climate change and evolutionary responses are becoming apparent in species with short generation times. Large datasets on genetic ...polymorphism that can provide an historical benchmark against which to test for recent evolutionary responses are very rare, but an exception is found in the brown-lipped banded snail (Cepaea nemoralis). This species is sensitive to its thermal environment and exhibits several polymorphisms of shell colour and banding pattern affecting shell albedo in the majority of populations within its native range in Europe. We tested for evolutionary changes in shell albedo that might have been driven by the warming of the climate in Europe over the last half century by compiling an historical dataset for 6,515 native populations of C. nemoralis and comparing this with new data on nearly 3,000 populations. The new data were sampled mainly in 2009 through the Evolution MegaLab, a citizen science project that engaged thousands of volunteers in 15 countries throughout Europe in the biggest such exercise ever undertaken. A known geographic cline in the frequency of the colour phenotype with the highest albedo (yellow) was shown to have persisted and a difference in colour frequency between woodland and more open habitats was confirmed, but there was no general increase in the frequency of yellow shells. This may have been because snails adapted to a warming climate through behavioural thermoregulation. By contrast, we detected an unexpected decrease in the frequency of Unbanded shells and an increase in the Mid-banded morph. Neither of these evolutionary changes appears to be a direct response to climate change, indicating that the influence of other selective agents, possibly related to changing predation pressure and habitat change with effects on micro-climate.
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Growing green Deichmann, Uwe; Zhang, Fan
2013., 2013, 04-15-2013, 2013-04-12, 2015-03-18
eBook, Book
Open access
In the first post-transition decade after the fall of communism, Europe and Central Asia (ECA) moved its economy from plan to market. In the second decade, the 2000s, it moved from social division to ...inclusion. The region has an opportunity to use the third decade, the 2010s, to move from brown to green growth making production and consumption more sustainable, increasing quality of life, and reducing impacts on the climate. Lowering climate change risks in ECA will involve many different actions that fall broadly into three areas: Some, like energy efficiency improvements, are often economically beneficial regardless of climate concerns. Others, like creating a good business environment for green enterprises, are investments that create new growth opportunities. Finally, actions like expanding wind and solar energy will have net costs for some time but are essential to tackling climate change. A simple framework helps guide climate action. The priorities are to use energy more efficiently, use cleaner energy, and manage natural resources better. Although price instruments like carbon or energy taxes tend to be most effective, climate action will also require regulations and investments such as fuel efficiency standards or research and development spending. Complementary growth, social, and environmental policies promote the broader benefits of climate action while limiting its costs. This report will show that climate action in ECA will benefit from rapid progress in three main areas: (a) large improvements in energy efficiency; (b) a shift to cleaner energy systems that will also improve local health and energy security; and (c) better management of green natural resources that will make the countries more economically productive while keeping more carbon out of the atmosphere.
Rapid emergence of most vector-borne diseases (VBDs) may be associated with range expansion of vector populations. Culex quinquefasciatus Say 1823 is a potential vector of West Nile virus, Saint ...Louis encephalitis virus, and lymphatic filariasis. We estimated the potential distribution of Cx. quinquefasciatus under both current and future climate conditions. The present potential distribution of Cx. quinquefasciatus showed high suitability across low-latitude parts of the world, reflecting the current distribution of the species. Suitable conditions were identified also in narrow zones of North Africa and Western Europe. Model transfers to future conditions showed a potential distribution similar to that under present-day conditions, although with higher suitability in southern Australia. Highest stability with changing climate was between 30°S and 30°N. The areas present high agreement among diverse climate models as regards distributional potential in the future, but differed in anticipating potential for distribution in North and Central Africa, southern Asia, central USA, and southeastern Europe. Highest disparity in model predictions across representative concentration pathways (RCPs) was in Saudi Arabia and Europe. The model predictions allow anticipation of changing distributional potential of the species in coming decades.
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