Uncertainty in establishing forest reference levels and predicting future forest-based carbon stocks for REDD+

Forest reference levels (FRLs) provide a benchmark for assessing reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), and they are central to demonstrate additionality of REDD+. Attaining realistic FRLs, however, is challenging, especially in complex mosaic landscapes. We established FRLs in northern Laos for different reference periods and tested them against actual carbon stock changes. Annual time series of Landsat satellite images were used to capture the subtle changes in carbon stocks in complex landscapes characterized by shifting cultivation. We found that FRLs differ considerably depending on the reference period chosen. Abrupt land-use changes occurred when hybrid maize replaced traditional shifting cultivation and forests, and this invalidated carbon stock trends that would have been predicted had the FRL been projected into the future. We conclude that demonstrating additionality of REDD+ in fast developing areas is difficult and that payment systems rewarding potential emission reductions against hypothetical extrapolation of FRLs are unlikely to be a cost-effective strategy.     

Incorporating governance influences into social-ecological system models: a case study involving biodiversity conservation

Addressing environmental problems requires sophisticated approaches to complexity and uncertainty. Conceptual models are increasingly used to improve understanding of complex system interactions. However, cursory treatment of governance limits their analytical potential. This study included governance considerations in a social-ecological system model of biodiversity conservation in the Tasmanian Midlands (Australia). Effectiveness of engagement processes and conservation programme longevity were identified as critical governance influences. The conceptual representation of this system enabled exploration of how governance influences interact with social drivers (e.g. landholder engagement in conservation practices) to modify the effect of biophysical drivers (e.g. land use) on biodiversity outcomes. Such a methodology provides essential information for identifying and guiding governance related points of intervention.     

The ‘climatism’ cartel: why climate change deniers oppose market-based mitigation policy

Mainstream policy responses seek to utilize market mechanisms in an effort to minimize costs for major emitters of greenhouse gases. Presumably, this should win over some climate change deniers who align themselves with think tanks promoting free markets and economic growth. Yet, climate change deniers and free-market activists are as staunchly opposed to market-based climate policy as they are to any other form of climate mitigation. In order to understand why climate change deniers reject market-based policy proposals, an archive of free-market environmental newsletters was analyzed for themes of economic opposition. This analysis revealed how climate change deniers rely upon the concept of a regulatory cartel to connect economic opposition to climate policy with attacks on scientific evidence. Because professional scientists do not operate under conventional private-market incentive structures, neoliberal climate change deniers frame scientific knowledge as an attack on economic freedom when utilized to guide policy governing environment–economy relationships.     

Climate Change and Agricultural Development: Adapting Polish Agriculture to Reduce Future Nutrient Loads in a Coastal Watershed

Currently, there is a major concern about the future of nutrient loads discharged into the Baltic Sea from Polish rivers because they are main contributors to its eutrophication. To date, no watershed-scale studies have properly addressed this issue. This paper fills this gap by using a scenario-modeling framework applied in the Reda watershed, a small (482 km²) agricultural coastal area in northern Poland. We used the SWAT model to quantify the effects of future climate, land cover, and management changes under multiple scenarios up to the 2050s. The combined effect of climate and land use change on N-NO₃ and P-PO₄ loads is an increase by 20–60 and 24–31 %, respectively, depending on the intensity of future agricultural usage. Using a scenario that assumes a major shift toward a more intensive agriculture following the Danish model would bring significantly higher crop yields but cause a great deterioration of water quality. Using vegetative cover in winter and spring (VC) would be a very efficient way to reduce future P-PO₄ loads so that they are lower than levels observed at present. However, even the best combination of measures (VC, buffer zones, reduced fertilization, and constructed wetlands) would not help to remediate heavily increased N-NO₃ loads due to climate change and agricultural intensification.     

Development of a Natural Practice to Adapt Conservation Goals to Global Change

Conservation goals at the start of the 21st century reflect a combination of contrasting ideas. Ideal nature is something that is historically intact but also futuristically flexible. Ideal nature is independent from humans, but also, because of the pervasiveness of human impacts, only able to reach expression through human management. These tensions emerge in current management rationales because scientists and managers are struggling to accommodate old and new scientific and cultural thinking, while also maintaining legal mandates from the past and commitments to preservation of individual species in particular places under the stresses of global change. Common management goals (such as integrity, wilderness, resilience), whether they are forward looking and focused on sustainability and change, or backward looking and focused on the persistence and restoration of historic states, tend to create essentialisms about how ecosystems should be. These essentialisms limit the options of managers to accommodate the dynamic, and often novel, response of ecosystems to global change. Essentialisms emerge because there is a tight conceptual coupling of place and historical species composition as an indicator of naturalness (e.g., normal, healthy, independent from humans). Given that change is increasingly the norm and ecosystems evolve in response, the focus on idealized ecosystem states is increasingly unwise and unattainable. To provide more open‐ended goals, we propose greater attention be paid to the characteristics of management intervention. We suggest that the way we interact with other species in management and the extent to which those interactions reflect the interactions among other biotic organisms, and also reflect our conservation virtues (e.g., humility, respect), influences our ability to cultivate naturalness on the landscape. We call this goal a natural practice (NP) and propose it as a framework for prioritizing and formulating how, when, and where to intervene in this period of rapid change. Desarrollo de una Práctica Natural para Adaptar Objetivos de Conservación al Cambio Global     

Climate change adaptation planning for Global South megacities: the case of Dhaka

Megacities in low- and middle-income countries face unique threats from climate change as vulnerable populations and infrastructure are concentrated in high-risk areas. This paper develops a theoretical framework to characterize adaptation readiness in Global South cities and applies the framework to Dhaka, Bangladesh, a city with acute exposure and projected impacts from flooding and extreme heat. To gather case evidence from Dhaka we draw upon interviews with national and municipal government officials and a review of planning documents and peer-reviewed literature. We find: (1) national-level plans propose a number of adaptation strategies, but urban concerns compete with priorities such as protection of coastal assets and agricultural production; (2) municipal plans focus on identifying vulnerability and impacts rather than adaptation strategies; (3) interviewees suggest that lack of coordination among local government (LG) organizations and lack of transparency act as barriers for municipal adaptation planning, with national plans driving policy where LGs have limited human and financial resources; and (4) we found limited evidence that national urban adaptation directives trickle down to municipal government. The framework developed offers a systematic and standardized means to assess and monitor the status of adaptation planning in Global South cities, and identify adaptation constraints and opportunities.     

Climate change and village adaptation impact on reliability of irrigation wells in China

This paper builds a water supply reliability econometric model to analyze climate changes and adaptation impact factors on water supply reliability of irrigation wells by using 100 villages’ three-year (2010–2012) field survey data of five middle and eastern provinces of China. The results show that long-run climate change factors, adaptation measures, village-level organizations of irrigation management, as well as extreme climate factors affect the water supply reliability of irrigation wells significantly. Meanwhile, there are significant differences impacting different crops and provinces. This paper suggests that agriculture meteorological disaster monitoring and warning systems should be strengthened by increasing irrigation facilities construction and maintenance, promoting reform of agricultural irrigation water management system, and developing various forms of peasant cooperation organization in order to improve agricultural production capacity to adapt to climate change.     

Bolder science needed now for protected areas

Recognizing that protected areas (PAs) are essential for effective biodiversity conservation action, the Convention on Biological Diversity established ambitious PA targets as part of the 2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity. Under the strategic goal to “improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity,” Target 11 aims to put 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine regions under PA status by 2020. Additionally and crucially, these areas are required to be of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative, and well‐connected and to include “other effective area‐based conservation measures” (OECMs). Whereas the area‐based targets are explicit and measurable, the lack of guidance for what constitutes important and representative; effective; and OECMs is affecting how nations are implementing the target. There is a real risk that Target 11 may be achieved in terms of area while failing the overall strategic goal for which it is established because the areas are poorly located, inadequately managed, or based on unjustifiable inclusion of OECMs. We argue that the conservation science community can help establish ecologically sensible PA targets to help prioritize important biodiversity areas and achieve ecological representation; identify clear, comparable performance metrics of ecological effectiveness so progress toward these targets can be assessed; and identify metrics and report on the contribution OECMs make toward the target. By providing ecologically sensible targets and new performance metrics for measuring the effectiveness of both PAs and OECMs, the science community can actively ensure that the achievement of the required area in Target 11 is not simply an end in itself but generates genuine benefits for biodiversity.     

Varieties of market-based policy: Instrument choice in climate policy

Since the 1970s, European and US regulators have used different varieties of market-based environmental policy, which are rooted in competing types of liberalism: price instruments and quantity instruments, respectively. In the case of climate change, however, the EU and the US have converged on hybrid policy mixes. This convergence in instrument choice is examined in two cases: the emergence of the EU Emission Trading Scheme, i.e. the import of quantity regulation to the EU; and the creation of California’s feed-in tariff, i.e. the import of price regulation to the US. Increasing convergence in instrument choice is the result of international diffusion through learning and shifting domestic coalitions. This demonstrates that the two varieties of market-based environmental policy increasingly blend, and how policy import is driven by domestic government–producer coalitions rather than by policy-maker ideas of ‘best practice.’     

Fire in the woods or fire in the boiler: Implementing rural district heating to reduce wildfire risks in the forest–urban interface

Many rural communities in British Columbia (western Canada) are at risk from wildfire. This risk will increase over time as a result of climate change because of higher average temperatures, longer growing seasons, and more intense droughts. On the other hand, these communities are also faced with rising fuel costs and a growing demand for heat as suburban population increases. The fact these communities are surrounded by forests presents an opportunity to combine community wildfire risk abatement with bioenergy development. Additional co-benefits include: (1) reduced community energy expenditures; (2) the creation of local jobs; (3) climate change mitigation; and (4) increased community energy security. Here, we present results from three pilot rural communities (Burns Lake, Invermere, and Sicamous, all of them in British Columbia) designed to evaluate the feasibility of wildfire risk abatement in conjunction with bioenergy production. Maps were created showing each community's forest–urban interface area with quantified estimates of its sustainable woody biomass resource potential under different management scenarios while monitoring ecosystem and soil health. The results and experience gained through this work has been synthesized in a calculator tool to help other communities make their own screening-level assessments. This calculator is a freely available on-line tool: FIRST Heat.