Responsible for one in eight tonnes of national CO₂ emissions, the passenger car sector is pivotal to delivering on UK climate change commitments to avoiding warming of more than 2°C. This thesis provides a clear and quantitative framing of emissions reduction at the sectoral level, by disaggregating global cumulative emissions budgets and pathways associated with a range of probabilities of exceeding 2°C. The relatively low level of abatement currently planned for the UK car sector, it is argued, needs to be significantly increased for the following reasons: (i) a scientific basis in cumulative emissions for sectoral mitigation makes carbon budgets, rather than end point targets (e.g. 2050), of the first importance; (ii) the currently high probability (63%) of exceeding 2°C underpinning the current UK carbon budgets is inconsistent with the UK government’s commitment to avoiding ‘dangerous climate change’; (iii) short-term emissions growth in industrialising countries considerably reduces remaining emissions space for industrialised countries; (iv) very limited scope exists for any large sector to cut emissions by less than the national mean rate of decarbonisation at higher rates of mitigation (around 10% p.a. by the 2020s). The consequences for emissions space in other sectors if international aviation and shipping mitigate less than the mean are quantified. For UK car sector emissions to remain consistent with a low probability of exceeding 2°C while observing these limitations, this analysis finds that planned sectoral mitigation over the coming decade needs to be increased fourfold. Means to address this expected abatement shortfall using readily available technology are investigated using a fleet emissions model to compare the effect on cumulative emissions of changes in a range of fleet parameters (including mean new car bulk emissions factors, vehicle age-proportionate annual distance travelled, and rates of fleet growth and turnover). Pushing existing car technology to the limit of expected short term efficiency gains is found to be insufficient to deliver a pathway with better than 56% probability of exceeding 2°C. Without reduction in aggregate demand for vehicle kilometres in the short term, lower probabilities of 2°C are placed beyond reach. The possibility of rapid step changes in levels of per capita car use is explored in qualitative interviews using narrative storyline scenarios. A range of coercive and voluntary interventions is considered in relation to their potential to overcome the structural and behavioural constraints to rapid transformation of personal travel.

Nitrogen (N)-fixing trees can both mitigate climate change, by relieving N limitation of plant growth which promotes carbon dioxide (CO²) sequestration in plant biomass, and exacerbate climate change, by stimulating nitrification and denitrification which promotes nitrous oxide (N²O) emissions from soils. The balance between the negative radiative forcing (CO² sequestration in plant biomass) and positive radiative forcing (N²O emissions from soils) of N-fixing trees is unresolved. In this thesis I use a sequence of theoretical and empirical approaches to investigate the influence of N-fixing trees on CO² sequestration by forests and N²O emissions from forest soils, i.e., the net CO²-N²O effect of forests. The first chapter establishes a basis for the N²O effect of N-fixing trees with a meta-analysis, to accompany existing meta-analyses of the CO² effect of N-fixing trees. Chapter one demonstrates that N- fixing trees significantly increase N²O emissions from forest soils relative to non-fixing trees. The second chapter explores the controls and potential global importance of the net CO²-N²O effect of N-fixing trees using a theoretical ecosystem model. The third chapter explores the net CO²-N²O effect of N-fixing trees under manipulations of these controls with a field experiment paired with a modified version of the theoretical ecosystem model from the second chapter. Together, chapters two and three suggest that the net CO²-N²O effect of N-fixing trees is controlled by N limitation of plant growth and the extent to which N-fixing trees can regulate N fixation: N-fixing trees mitigate climate change relative to non-fixing trees under N limitation of plant growth, but N-fixing trees that cannot regulate N fixation exacerbate climate change relative to non-fixing trees under non-N limitation of plant growth. The fourth chapter represents the ecological mechanisms studied in chapters one, two and three in a land model: LM4.1-BNF is a novel representation of biological N fixation (BNF) and an updated representation of N cycling in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Land Model 4.1 (LM4.1). LM4.1-BNF includes a mechanistic representation of asymbiotic BNF by soil microbes, the competitive dynamics between N-fixing and non-fixing plants, N limitation of plant growth, and N2O emissions from soils. Together these chapters elucidate the influence of N-fixing trees on the capacity of forests to mitigate and exacerbate climate change and establish a framework to analyse and project the trajectory of the net CO²-N²O effect of forests under global change.

This report reviews the current state of long-term climate action planning in 17 cities which have publicly communicated carbon reducttargets in line with the IPCC recommended 80% reduction by 2050 (80x50) for stabilizing the impacts of climate change at 2°C.  The aim of this report is to provide a foundation of support for cities in achieving their deep carbon reduction goals through a comprehensive understanding of leading climate action plans and the context under which they were created, including current city emissions and demographic data, climate plan reduction strategies and targets, and feedback on plan creation and needs from city planning staff.  By achieving this aim, cities are in a better position to understand where their plans fit in the global context and connect with other cities around common issues, research institutions have a new benchmark analysis of leading action plans to build further research upon, and city-level climate action organizations have a clearer idea of how to focus efforts in helping cities achieve carbon reduction goals.  This aim is achieved through the application of a framework for comparing city plans and targets, an analysis of current city emissions and demographic data, and synthesis of key findings from city planning staff discussions.   Key findings show no clear demographic and environmental biases exist within these 17 cities, indicating long-term climate action planning can be undertaken by cities across the full spectrum of size, climate, and current per capita emissions output, though regional geographic and development bias exists.  Plans for carbon reduction are highly concentrated among a small number of actions, indicating the movement has coalesced around a standard set of strategies for achieving deep carbon reductions.  Finally, the relative newness of plans, with the majority less than 5 years old, and the lack of commonality among cities in emissions methodology and communication of reduction strategies, shifts a short-term focus towards standardization methodologies which enable deeper comparison between cities and plans.

This thesis is based on the premise that reproductive rights and environmental sustainability have synergistic interests: human population growth increases environmental impact and access to family planning triggers reduced fertility levels. Despite increasing scientific evidence indicating that the size of the global population matters for environmental sustainability, and by extension, that fulfilling reproductive rights may be beneficial for the latter, the linkages between reproductive rights and environmental sustainability have been largely understudied, ignored, and left out of environmental policy and reproductive rights agendas. Because of the complexity of this interdisciplinary field and its associated ethical questions, many researchers and policy makers have chosen to avoid this sensitive and polarizing issue altogether. However, capitalizing on these linkages could represent significant opportunity to advance the reproductive rights and environmental movements, and increase the prominence, legitimacy, and funding of global family planning services, in particular. This thesis uses an action research approach to explore the current framing of the reproductive rights and environmental sustainability linkage, study the perceptions of stakeholders of both the reproductive health and rights and environmental sustainability movements on this issue, and elaborate a strategic communication roadmap to promote its operationalisation.

Climate change is one of the most challenging crises in sustainable development agenda. Tackling the problem requires the global transition towards renewable and sustainable energies. The uptake of these new technologies is often supported by policies and technological know-how that is developed by early adopters, and later spread and transferred to other places. Although renewable technology transfer and diffusion have long been studied, the question of how supporting policies flow from one country to another, and how they are adapted to the local contexts are merely investigated. This paper sheds some light on the process, mechanisms, and dynamics of policy transfer, and investigate the influences of national contextual characters on the adoption of policy from other countries, using Thailand's feed-in tariff policy as an example. The study applies an adapted version of ‘Dolowitz and Marsh model (1996, 2000, 2012)’ as the guiding policy transfer framework to analyse the information gathered through literature study and fieldwork, and to present the results and findings. The study discovers that policy transfer is not a straightforward process with a clear transfer timeline and boundary, but rather a dynamic and complex process that involves interactions with many factors, internal and external, and are continuously shaping the process and outcomes of the transfer. Moreover, the case study proves that Dolowitz and Marsh model is a useful and effective framework to understand and depict the process. However, if to treat policy transfer as an independent variable affecting the process outcomes, it would need to combine other frameworks, for instance, Marsh and McConnell Model (2010), to give an in-depth and comprehensive analysis to measure the success of policy transfer and policymaking. / Förnybar energi är en av de viktigaste lösningarna för att ta itu med klimatförändringarna. Utnyttjandet av denna nya teknik stöds alltid av politik, som vanligtvis utvecklas av ett land och överförs till andra länder. Denna avhandling använder ramen för policyöverföring för att analysera hur feed-in tariffpolitik från Europa spred sig och överförs till Thailand. Fallet belyser processen, mekanismerna och dynamiken för att illustrera hur politik som utvecklats av ett land inspirerade andra länder med deras beslutsfattande.

This research examines variation in average household energy consumption for space heating in municipalities in Massachusetts in order to explore the magnitude of variation among communities and potential causes. A dataset that aggregates natural gas consumption at the municipal level is used for a sample of municipalities in Massachusetts. Based upon this data, a regression model is developed to determine building and household occupancy characteristics that influence household energy consumption. The findings suggest dwelling size, tenure, and age are related to average household energy consumption. Based upon these findings, recommendations are developed for the restructuring of federal and state level energy efficiency programs.

No description available.

In the first essay of this dissertation, I argue that much of the observed variation in national climate change mitigation levels can be explained by a combination of national interests and the strategic constraints of the collective action problem. Specifically, the interactions between state costs and benefits and state size, a proxy for invulnerability to free-riding, strongly predict observed variation in national yearly emissions. I derive this hypothesis and connect it to extant literature with a theoretical framework that interrelates state climate change mitigation interests, preferences, behaviors, and outcomes. I test the hypothesis by predicting the difference between real emissions changes and a novel estimate for counterfactual emissions changes. The theoretical framework and the counterfactual estimation methodology developed in this paper will facilitate future work on climate mitigation politics, from both international and domestic politics approaches. In the second essay, I analyze the design of major climate change mitigation treaties, and outline how reliance on collective reciprocity undermines their ability to enforce participation and compliance. Collective reciprocity is limited in its ability to induce high cost actions among large numbers of states. I demonstrate this challenge with an empirical approach that first estimates treaty participation and then estimates compliance by comparing signatory emissions to a synthetic control that weights for both treatment propensity and pre-treatment trends. I find no evidence of success in climate treaties thus far, underlining the tensions in collective reciprocity designs and indicating the need for an alternative approach. In the third essay, I develop a novel institutional theory of long-term environmental good provision, particularly forest conservation. Long-term goods, or those for which payoffs are delayed or spread over time, are more likely to be provided by states with long-term institutions, or those with low discount rates and inter-temporal commitment mechanisms. Leveraging recent institutional theories, I argue that party institutionalization lengthens institutional time horizons while constraints on the executive allows inter-temporal commitment. Both features therefore predict long-term environmental good provision. Environmental goods are frequently long term because feedback from ecological systems creates tipping points or vicious cycles, meaning that current actions may be costless today but contribute to significant damage in future periods. Understanding the implications of the inter-temporal nature of many environmental goods is especially important because a large share of environmental goods, such as forest conservation, are not explained by traditional approaches which focus on public goods models for symmetric and non-excludable goods. I test my theory with cross-national time-series data on forest coverage, demonstrating that forest protection is not predicted by public goods theory but is well predicted by long-term institutions.

This study analyses the possibility of introducing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as an alternative domestic energy source to charcoal in Zambia to mitigate climate change. The study, conducted in Lusaka, used questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews and literature study to collect data. The study revealed that the introduction of LPG is possible. However, some challenges need to be addressed in order to actualise the change. Lack of knowledge about LPG; non-availability of LPG in most parts of the country; perceived danger of LPG; high prices of LPG and accessories; changing people‟s mind-sets about charcoal; social inequity and lack of government initiative, were the main challenges identified. Social-Ecology and sustainable livelihoods were used as theoretical frameworks to ground the study and analyse the results. The study recommends that government takes the lead to make the change possible and that further research be done on sustainable livelihoods for charcoal producers and traders. / Development Studies / M. A. (Development Studies)

Can rural renewable energy projects simultaneously meet the multiple goals of sustainable development, climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation? If so, under what conditions? Rural communities throughout Latin America have increasingly suffered the impacts of climate change and few policies exist to help them adapt to these impacts. The basic infrastructure and services that they frequently lack can be provided by low carbon technologies, potentially funded by international carbon finance flows that could enable the Millennium Development Goals of economic growth and poverty alleviation to be met while minimizing carbon emissions. This research will focus on this interrelationship among development, climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation policies and practices using political ecology to analyse community renewable energy projects in rural Central America. I assess fifteen community-owned renewable energy projects in Guatemala and Nicaragua to analyse whether current renewable energy projects are achieving these goals in an integrated way. The projects were established primarily as development, emissions reductions, climate change adaptation and disaster relief. The projects are evaluated on economic, development and climate change indicators that include sustainable development, poverty alleviation, emissions reductions, and climate vulnerability. I examine how the type of common property governance, local historical and environmental background and project implementation process influence the project success in meeting multiple objectives of climate adaptation, mitigation and development. Research methods include participatory poverty assessment techniques, semi-structured interviews, stakeholder analysis, and a combination of rapid and participatory methods. The analysis of sustainable development and vulnerability used the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach methodologies and emissions reductions were calculated using standard carbon reduction methodologies. The results show that, under certain conditions, renewable energy projects can simultaneously meet these three objectives, and thus that responses to climate change can be integrated with poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Small scale hydroelectric and solar systems can reduce emissions, enable adaptation and help local livelihoods although there are numerous problems that limit the success of projects including poor design, inequitable distribution of benefits, and poorly designed governance and maintenance structures.