Countries around the world are spending up to $500 billion per year on subsidising fossil fuel consumption. By some estimates, the G20 countries alone are spending around another $450 billion on subsidising fossil fuel production. In addition, the indirect social welfare costs of these subsidies have been shown to be substantial - for instance due to air pollution, road congestion, climate change, and economic inefficiency, to name a few. Considering these numbers, there is no doubt that fossil fuel subsidies cause severe economic distortions that compromise countries' prospects of achieving equitable and sustainable development. This book provides a guide to the complex challenge of designing, assessing, and implementing effective fossil fuel subsidy reforms. It shows that subsidy reform requires a careful balancing of complex economic and political trade-offs, as well as measures to mitigate adverse effects on vulnerable households and to assist firms with implementing efficiency enhancing measures. Going beyond the purely fiscal perspective, this book emphasises that smart subsidy reforms can contribute to all three dimensions of sustainable development - environment, society, and economy. Over the course of eight chapters, this book considers a wide range of agents and stakeholders, markets, and policy measures in order to distil the key principles of designing effective fossil fuel subsidy reforms. This book will be of great relevance to scholars and policy makers with an interest in energy economics and policy, climate change policy, and sustainable development more broadly.

As climate change has increasingly become the main focus of environmentalist activism since the late 1990s, the global economic drivers of CO2 emissions are now a major concern for radical greens. In turn, the emphasis on connected crises in both natural and social systems has attracted more activists to the Climate Justice movement and created a common cause between activists from the Global South and North. In the absence of a pervasive narrative of transnational or socialist economic planning to prevent catastrophic climate change, these activists have been eager to engage with advanced knowledge and ideas on political and economic structures that diminish risks and allow for new climate agency. This book breaks new ground by investigating what kind of economy the Climate Justice movement is calling for us to build and how the struggle for economic change has unfolded so far. Examining ecological debt, just transition, indigenous ecologies, social ecology, community economies and divestment among other topics, the authors provide a critical assessment and a common ground for future debate on economic innovation via social mobilization. Taking a transdisciplinary approach that synthesizes political economy, history, theory and ethnography, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate justice, environmental politics and policy, environmental economics and sustainable development.

This book addresses the issue of climate change risks and hazards holistically. Climate change adaptation aims at managing climate risks and hazards to an acceptable level, taking advantage of any positive opportunities that may arise. At the same time, developing suitable responses to hazards for communities and users of climate services is important in ensuring the success of adaptation measures. But despite this, knowledge about adaptation options, including possible actions that can be implemented to improve adaptation and reduce the impacts of climate change hazards, is still limited. Addressing this need, the book presents studies and research findings and offers a catalogue of potential adaptation options that can be explored. It also includes case studies providing illustrative and inspiring examples of how we can adapt to a changing climate.

Electricity and Energy Transition in Nigeria provides readers with a detailed account of the dynamics of energy infrastructure change in Nigeria's electricity sector. The book starts by introducing the basic theories underpinning the politics of energy infrastructure supply and goes on to explore the historical dimensions of the Nigerian energy transition by highlighting the influences and drivers of energy systems change. Edomah also examines the political dynamics at play, highlighting the political actors and institutions that shape energy supply, as well as the impact of consumer politics. The book concludes by considering how all these factors may influence the future of energy in Nigeria. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy transitions, energy technology and infrastructure, and African Studies more generally.

This ground-breaking book critically extends the psychological project, seeking to investigate the relations between human and more-than-human worlds against the backdrop of the Anthropocene by emphasising the significance of encounter, interaction and relationships. Interdisciplinary environmental theorist Matthew Adams draws inspiration from a wealth of ideas emerging in human-animal studies, anthrozoology, multi-species ethnography and posthumanism, offering a framing of collective anthropogenic ecological crises to provocatively argue that the Anthropocene is also an invitation - to become conscious of the ways in which human and nonhuman are inextricably connected. Through a series of strange encounters between human and nonhuman worlds, Adams argues for the importance of cultivating attentiveness to the specific and situated ways in which the fates of multiple species are bound together in the Anthropocene. Throughout the book this argument is put into practice, incorporating everything from Pavlov's dogs, broiler chickens, urban trees, grazing sheep and beached whales, to argue that the Anthropocene can be good to think with, conducive to a seeing ourselves and our place in the world with a renewed sense of connection, responsibility and love. Building on developments in feminist and social theory, anthropology, ecopsychology, environmental psychology, (post)humanities, psychoanalysis and phenomenology, this is fascinating reading for academics and students in the field of critical psychology, environmental psychology, and human-animal studies.

This book discusses urban microclimate and heat-related risks in urban areas, brought on by the combination of global climate change effects and local modification of climate determined by extensive urbanization such as the 'Urban heat island' phenomenon. This matter is relevant to almost all urbanized areas in the world, where the increase of urban population and air temperature is expected to endanger both the overall health of the population and the energy supply for the functioning of urban systems. The book details the inter-relationship between urban morphology, microclimate and building energy performance and presents a multidisciplinary approach that brings together Urban Climatology, Engineering and Architectural knowledge to support the development of reliable models and tools for research and practice. This book is a useful tool for architects and building energy modelers, urban planners and geographers who need a practical guide to realize basic urban microclimate simulation for use in both academic research and planning practice.

Due to the lack of success in climate change mitigation efforts, the importance of adaptation is becoming more and more apparent and is now one of the main imperatives of international research and action. However, research on adaptation is mostly not directly applicable to adaptation policy or practice, leaving a gap between scientific results and practical advice for decision makers and planners. This book seeks to address this problem and bridge the gap and should provide readers with practical and applicable information on climate change adaptation. Following an introduction, the book is organised into four main sections, each reflecting an essential component in the adaptation process. Climate change adaptation is an emerging subject area and has gained increased political and academic attention within the last decade. Whereas most books in the field focus on adaptation in developing countries, this volume provides an examination of predominantly European policy and offers inter-disciplinary insight into cutting edge knowledge and lessons learnt in a relatively new field of implementation.

Take a tour of wine and spirit production around the world and how climate change is affecting it at every stage - from cultivation to consumption. Climate change is altering the very nature of wine and spirit production around the world. From the unimaginably destructive fires that rip through California's wine country with terrifying frequency to the floods and hail storms that threaten grape and grain harvests from Bordeaux to Kentucky and beyond, no one involved in the world of beverage production is immune. Thankfully, it's not all doom and gloom: The rising temperatures brought on by climate change have allowed southern English wine producers to gain a foothold in the world of sparkling wine: Their best bubblies are finally gaining the kind of respect that producers have dreamed about for decades. CRUSHED takes readers on a tour of the world of wines and spirits, and tells the stories of the visionary growers and producers in eight key regions that are being affected by a climate whose shifts have been far more sudden and dramatic than they ever could have predicted. CRUSHED is written for everyone who enjoys a nice glass of wine or a great dram of whiskey, and who has ever wondered how it got from its literal roots to the glass they're holding in their hand. It's for anyone who is interested in the ways in which our dramatically shifting natural environment is affecting the beverages we've all taken for granted. Over the course of eight gripping chapters, each one focusing on a different part of the wine and spirits world, readers are taken into the lives of the people responsible for some of the most delicious drinks in the world in fascinating, revealing, and riveting ways. Plenty of books have been written about the effects of climate change on our food system, yet none has so vividly given readers the opportunity to understand how their beloved wines and spirits are being affected. Until now.

In December 2015, 196 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement, seen as a decisive landmark for global action to stop human- induced climate change. The Paris Agreement will replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2020, and it creates legally binding obligations on the parties, based on their own bottom-up voluntary commitments to implement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The codification of the climate change regime has advanced well, but the implementation of it remains uncertain. This book focuses on the implementation prospects of the Agreement, which is a challenge for all and will require a fully comprehensive burden- sharing framework. Parties need to meet their own NDCs, but also to finance and transfer technology to others who do not have enough. How equity- based and facilitative the process will be, is of crucial importance. The volume examines a broad range of issues including the lessons that can be learnt from the implementation of previous environmental legal regimes, climate policies at national and sub-national levels and whether the implementation mechanisms in the Paris Agreement are likely to be sufficient. Written by leading experts and practitioners, the book diagnoses the gaps and lays the ground for future exploration of implementation options. This collection will be of interest to policy-makers, academics, practitioners, students and researchers focusing on climate change governance.

"Fly and Be Damned" gets underneath the well-known facts about the unsustainable nature of the aviation industry and argues for fundamental change to our traveling habits. The first book to transcend the emotional debate between the entrenched positions of those who are either for, or against, flying, this groundbreaking work argues that aviation is stuck in a stalemate between misguided policy and a growing imperative to deal with its environmental impact and that there is now little possibility that the transition to sustainable flying can be a smooth evolution.

In Global Challenges for Leviathan, Furio Cerutti illumines for the reader the precarious situation in which the world currently exists. Far beyond international terrorism and the troubles with globalization in our age, there are two threats that really are global, as they can hurt everyone on earth and can be addressed only by the combined effort of all relevant human groups. Nuclear weapons may now play a lesser role than they did during the Cold War, but they will always endanger the survival of humankind, while global warming can bring disaster to future generations. Not only our obligations to current and future generations but also the very feeling that our life has little meaning if we or our posterity are confronted with man-made annihilation requires us to deal with these two global challenges. Neither the political realism that relies on deterrence and market fundamentalism nor the utopian salvation entrusted to world government provide an adequate response to global challenges. The question that confonts us is whether politics and democracy will be able to put these challenges on their agendas. Cerutti shows how political philosophy can highlight problems and prevent illusions, and how it can teach us to live in an uncertain world.

This edited collection brings together a selection of expert authors and draws on a wide range of case studies, geographies, and perspectives to explore the links between forced migration and energy access. This book addresses the paucity of academic study on how energy is delivered to the millions of people currently forcibly displaced. The contributions throughout assess the current energy governance regimes, models of delivery, and innovative solutions that are dictating how energy is - and can be - provided to those who have been forced to move away from their homes. By bringing together author-teams of practitioners, academics, businesses, and policy makers, this collection encourages interdisciplinary dialogue about the best way of approaching energy provision for the forcibly displaced. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy access and policy, environmental justice and equity, and migration and refugee studies.

This book discusses various transport sustainability issues from the perspective of developing countries, exploring key issues, problems and potential solutions for improving transport sustainability in China. It first reviews the current transport sustainability baselines in the three key dimensions of environmental, economic and social sustainability, via an international comparison encompassing both developed and developing countries in different world regions. Then, with a time frame up to 2030, the study groups 100 major Chinese cities according to their baseline conditions, projected population and economic growth, and common sustainability challenges in passenger transport. A systematic attempt is made to discuss the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of various emerging sustainable transport strategies, including the metro systems, bus rapid transit, light rail, bicycles (and e-bicycles), electric vehicles and walking. Based on the different city clusters identified, the study then explores the opportunities and constraints of introducing a range of emerging sustainable transport strategies through both statistical analysis and detailed fieldwork. Future directions and challenges are identified based on official documents, onsite observations and interviews with local people. The study concludes with thoughts on sustainable transport in smart cities, the importance of governance, local participation, internal and external city movements, and towards a holistic sustainable transport plan. Unsustainable Transport and Transition in China will be of great interest to scholars interested in carbon emissions, climate change, environmental policy, planning, road safety, sustainability, transportation and urban studies, and is relevant to China and other developing countries.

The greatest problems facing humanity today are climate change, poverty, and the increasing separation between the rich and poor. The aim of this book is to examine the social constructions that have led to these breakdowns, and provide potential solutions that are based on a fundamental change in the structure of society and the values on which a new and better social system can be built. Unless we as a society set a drastically different course soon, human life as we know it will suffer greatly, perhaps even cease altogether. Excess consumption is becoming anti-social as the effects of global warming and increasing poverty become apparent. What, then, will form the new social values on which society replaces the present emphasis on work and material consumption that now prevail? This book's answer to that question is accomplishment and aesthetic consumption. This proposed refocused existence will necessitate a new economic order that provides access to a livelihood beyond the market system. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, leisure studies, political science, and social work.

This book offers anthropological insights into disasters in Latin America. It fills a gap in the literature by bringing together national and regional perspectives in the study of disasters. The book essentially explores the emergence and development of anthropological studies of disasters. It adopts a methodological approach based on ethnography, participant observation, and field research to assess the social and historical constructions of disasters and how these are perceived by people of a certain region. This regional perspective helps assess long-term dynamics, regional capacities, and regional-global interactions on disaster sites. With chapters written by prominent Latin American anthropologists, this book also considers the role of the state and other nongovernmental organizations in managing disasters and the specific conditions of each country, relative to a greater or lesser incidence of disastrous events. Globalizing the existing literature on disasters with a focus on Latin America, this book offers multidisciplinary insights that will be of interest to academics and students of geography, anthropology, sociology, and political science.

The climate is changing as an unintended consequence of human industrialization and consumerism. Recently some scientists and engineers have suggested climate engineering-technological solutions that would intentionally change the climate to make it more hospitable. This approach focuses on large-scale technologies to alleviate the worst effects of anthropogenic climate change. This book considers the moral, philosophical, and religious questions raised by such proposals, bringing Christian theology and ethics into the conversation about climate engineering for the first time. The contributors have different views on whether climate engineering is morally acceptable and on what kinds of climate engineering are most promising and most dangerous, but all agree that religion has a vital role to play in the analysis and decisions called for on this vital issue. Calming the Storm presents diverse perspectives on some of the most vital questions raised by climate engineering: Who has the right to make decisions about such global technological efforts? What have we learned from the decisions that caused the climate to change that might shed light on efforts to reverse that change? What frameworks and metaphors are helpful in thinking about climate engineering, and which are counterproductive? What religious beliefs, practices, and rituals can help people to imagine and evaluate the prospect of engineering the climate?

This book examines the multiple strategies proposed by the international community for addressing global climate change (GCC) from both human and state-security perspectives. It examines what is needed from major states working within the UN framework to engage with the multiple dimensions of a strategy that addresses GCC and its impacts, where such engagement promotes both human and state security. Two broad frameworks for approaching these issues provide the basis of discussion for the individual chapters, which discuss the strategies being undertaken by major state powers (the US, the EU, China, India, Japan, and Russia). The first framework considers the multiple strategies, mitigation, adaptation, and capacity-building required of the international community to address the effects of GCC. The second framework considers the differentiation of GCC policies in terms of security and how the efficacy of these strategies could be impacted by whether priority is given to state security over human security concerns. This book will be of much interest to students of human security, climate change, foreign policy, and International Relations.

This book gives the first no-nonsense, hands-on account of the financing principles and perspectives for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), the new kid on the block in the battle against climate change. NAMAs are finding their own identity, and most importantly, finding a new financial basis without relying on a carbon market and carbon credit. While the NAMA model may be the right instrument at the right time, it is spawned from the climate change negotiation sphere that continues to suffer from its lack of interaction with the other spheres involved in its actual deployment. Despite 20 years of negotiations, a barrier remains between concept and action. The disconnect is first and foremost between the political sphere and the private-sector sphere, and is particularly rooted in the understanding or misunderstanding of finance. This book bridges the gap by addressing policymaking and private sector financing in one volume. It disarms myths, hides nothing behind political correctness and applies a good measure of common sense to advance guidance for the financing of actions that will allow developing countries, having become the prime source of greenhouse gas emissions, to contribute to the global battle against climate change."

Ambitious measures to reduce carbon emissions are all too rare in reality, impeded by economic and political concerns rather than technological advances. In this collection of essays, Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton show that the impact of inaction on climate change will be far worse than the cost of ambitious climate policies.

After setting out the basic principles which must shape contemporary climate economics, Ackerman and Stanton consider common flaws in climate change policy from mistaken assumptions that dismiss the welfare of future generations and anticipate little or no growth in low-income countries, to unrealistic projections of climate damages that dismiss catastrophic risks and offer their own insightful remedies. They question the usefulness of conventional integrated assessment models (IAMs) that model the long-term interaction between economic growth and climate change, and propose an alternative in their Climate and Regional Economics and Development (CRED) model.

In this incisive work, Stanton and Ackerman offer a timely and original contribution to the fields of climate economics and global equity."

This book covers the wider aspects of the microbiology of hot desert soil ecosystems, compiling disparate information from a range of relevant desert soil microbial fields. The reader learns about microbial ecology of the more dominant and possibly most important desert habitats, detailing the phylogenetic and functional diversity of these different habitats as well as their potential role in desert ecosystem ecology. Particular attention is also given to microbial stress adaptation in hot desert soils. Furthermore, it is the first volume in this particular field to cover modern metagenomics technologies that can be applied to studies of all aspects of desert microbial communities. Additionally, the book explores viruses and viral communities, which are among the least studied (and little understood) components of desert soil microbial communities. Particular attention is also given to the roles of desert microbial communities in biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. Through this book the reader discovers how desert microbiology has been at the forefront of Astrobiology and how it may be used conceptually in future terraforming strategies. Desert ecosystems are increasingly coming into focus given the impacts of climate change and desertification trends, making this volume particularly timely. Each of the chapters is authored by leading international researchers and is a must-read for microbial ecologists.

This book explores how the world community will respond to the unfolding humanitarian crisis caused by climate change. It recognises climate change as the greatest threat to human development in the 21st century, bringing with it: flooding, drought, extreme temperatures, health crises, threats to human security and severe harm to economic development. The Climate Change Crisis addresses climate change and its impact as a major threat for countries around the world. Through a collection of interviews with leading environmentalists and exploration into new innovations that can offer hope and protection for billions of people, this book presents an interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the paramount health and development challenges of climate change. This timely and informative book cuts across several disciplines, including human rights, public policy, international relations, national refugee policy, and migration studies.

This book examines the nature of the 'energy curriculum' in Arctic Higher Education and provides invaluable data and new models to assess levels of Sustainable Development Literacy. Drawing on course mapping conducted in Higher Education institutions across the Arctic, Arruda looks at the nature, structure, and design of the Arctic Higher Education curriculum in order to assess levels of Sustainable Development Literacy and considers the extent to which Arctic Higher Education courses align to UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Using data from four key case studies in Norway, Canada, and the US, and applying a framework drawn from different knowledge systems (Traditional Knowledge and Western educational system), she analyses the different educational approaches and pedagogies used and specifically considers how Higher Education in this region can contribute to the accomplishment of Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals. The book concludes by proposing new models to assess Higher Education adherence to ESD and outlines how a culturally inclusive curriculum can invite different groups of people to engage in a meaningful Sustainable Development debate, learning experience, and knowledge application. This innovative volume will be of great interest to multicultural students, scholars, and educators of Sustainable Development, climate change, energy, Arctic studies, and global Higher Education across the Arctic and non-Arctic nations.

This book explains the EU's climate policies in an accessible way, to demonstrate the step-by-step approach that has been used to develop these policies, and the ways in which they have been tested and further improved in the light of experience. The latest changes to the legislation are fully explained throughout. The chapters throughout this volume show that no single policy instrument can bring down greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge facing the EU, as for many countries that have made pledges under the Paris Agreement, is to put together a toolbox of policy instruments that is coherent, delivers emissions reductions, and is cost-effective. The book stands out by the fact it covers the EU's emissions trading system, the energy sector and other economic sectors, including their development in the context of international climate policy. This accessible book will be of great relevance to students, scholars and policy makers alike. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9789276082569, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The purpose of this textbook is to provide a well-rounded working knowledge of both climate change and environmental sustainability for a wide range of students. Students will learn core concepts and methods to analyze energy and environmental impacts; will understand what is changing the earth's climate, and what that means for life on earth now and in the future. They will also have a firm understanding of what energy is and how it can be used. This text intends to develop working knowledge of these topics, with both technical and social implications. Students will find in one volume the integration and careful treatment of climate, energy, and sustainability.