To deal with the adverse impacts of climate change, index-based or parametric insurance has been recognized as an adaptation technique to compensate farmers for economic losses from extreme weather events. The insurance can be either private or sovereign. African Risk Capacity Insurance (ARC Ltd) offers the latter to African countries against drought events through contingency planning, risk pooling and transfer facilities. While the ARC insurance initiative seems promising, the current approaches used to estimate risk and determine premiums do not consider the change in risk from anthropogenic climate change. As the frequency of extreme weather events changes, the price of insurance premiums is likely to rise. Representing a cutting-edge science from weather to impact attribution, this study links attribution modelling with parametric insurance modelling to quantify how the probability of drought events has changed due to human influence on the climate system and translates the impacts into actual costs. To quantify this change, global climate models consisting of both factual and counterfactual world (with and without human forcing of climate, respectively) experiments were post-processed and used as rainfall inputs into an insurance risk modelling software, Africa RiskView. Estimated response costs needed for drought assistance in a world with and without climate change were calculated in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Senegal and Mauritania for the last 30 years. The empirical cumulative distribution function plots show that the distributions of models that represent the counterfactual natural world estimate lesser drought-affected population and lower response costs for assistance than those of the factual world distributions. The results suggest that climate change is likely to increase the price of insurance premiums. Therefore, there is a need for blended financing models that integrate international climate funds generated on a responsibility-based approach to cater for the added cost brought in by climate change.

Equity is an essential issue for climate change mitigation, especially when considering the needs of a large global population in the developing world. The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR/RC) aims to ensure equitable sharing of the climate action burden for signatories given nations' differing historical and current circumstances, but equitable burden-sharing might also be achieved if implemented through policies at a national level. South Africa is highly unequal and effectively has two parallel economies, a developed one that primarily serves the wealthy, and a developing one in which the majority of the population lives (Mbeki, 2003). As such, it internally reflects the global tension between necessary climate action and essential developmental goals. This study evaluates fair intra-national household mitigation shares in South Africa considering the principle of CBDR/RC, and the policy implications of achieving equitable mitigation action. Emulating a study by Arndt et al (2013), an energy-integrated supply-use table (SUT) model is used to examine embodied emissions for aggregate products and industries in the South African economy for three time periods (2005, 2010 and 2015). Household emissions from direct and indirect fossil fuel consumption are assessed by integrating household consumption survey data through multiplier analysis. Household emissions reflect the same “two economies” disparity as income when measured by means of both Gini and Palma indices. A small decline in inequality is observed over the study period, but overall emissions and income inequality in 2015 remain high. Grouping households by mean per capita income and expenditure, household responsibility and capability are assessed as shares of total household emissions and income, respectively. Holz et al. (2017) propose a minimal developmental threshold of $7,500 PPP below which individuals should not bear any mitigation burden, and application of this threshold provides household threshold capability and a combined mitigation and responsibility household equity estimate. Simple equity measures indicate that the top household decile's fair share of all mitigation action is between 44% and 54%, whilst the share of the bottom four deciles is between 5% and 11%. When considering the development threshold, some three-quarters of households would have no burden at all. Finally, the combined equity estimate highlights that the top decile is overwhelmingly responsible for the burden of mitigation action, with the top 2% of households by income carrying 48.1% of the mitigation burden. An assessment of the correspondence between in South Africa's international and national policy concludes that intra-national mitigation equity is necessary to achieve developmental and mitigation goals. National mitigation implementation should therefore secure revenue for mitigation through progressive means. Direct revenue recycling may enhance the security net for low-income households and provide a safety net as the country experiences unavoidable employment shifts during the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Earth psychosomatically shrinks with each passing technological feat as persons and thoughts, continents apart, relay information with coherent conversation. Advances in satellite uplink speed, signal coverage, transportation methodologies, et cetera culminates a planet whose habitats, when distance is measured in time, no longer appear as weeks apart, but only a few hours worth of travel. Population continues to rise while Earth slowly wilts from the human_s stampeding footprint. In the context of humanity's relatively brief existence, number of trees is fewer nowadays than ever recorded. Atmospheric carbon parts per million is at an all-time high. Habitable land slowly dwindles along coasts as sea levels continue to rise. Evidence of climate change and studies on the depletion of the ozone layer forebode a grim future for surface dwelling. As humanity continues to expand, the given density of continents can only rise, resulting in hubris and apocalyptical outcomes lest stagnation occurs. While natural disasters and war may cull population rates and expansion, another solution exists within the duration before extrasolar expansion: subaqueous habitation. Oceans compromise over 71% of Earth_s surface, meaning expanding settlements into the deep blue more than triples habitable land. Natural disasters, such as tornadoes, meteorites, electrical storms, drought, heavy snowfall, wildfire, nuclear detonation, haboobs, and surface burning lessen in their hazardous effect with the absence of land. Other present disasters, including hurricanes, submerged volcanoes, torrential currents, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, death stranding, and pollution dictate the concepts building design must adhere in order to create habitable living. Furthermore, the effects which sensory deprivation (namely from the absence of light and wide-open spaces) have on inhabitants must be remedied through fabricated scenarios. These may include Virtual Reality, and artificial islands. In terms of expansion, design then must decide whether to unction as a grouping of pods, or a single society a la L_Unite d_habitation. Submersible vehicles may be used to travel from one structure to another, gather resources, and function similarly to vehicles on preset roads. This opens up the possibility of multiple underwater cities, and pathing networks spanning inbetween continents. In the far future, vehicles may be designed for traversing land and underwater terrain. In sum, the highly unexplored ocean provides alleviation to Earth_s near-distant carrying capacity until mankind undergoes planetary exodus. / 0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

Local governments are increasingly responding to climate change by developing formal institutions for adaptation. However, given the relative novelty of the adaptation planning field, there is insufficient practice-related research to inform these processes. The aim of this dissertation is therefore to assess the factors and actors that affect climate adaptation planning at the municipal level. Whilst numerous studies have identified the barriers to and opportunities for adaptation, less is known about what the underlying institutional, political and social conditions are that cause these factors to arise. This dissertation adopts a placebased perspective to comparatively analyse the adaptation planning processes that were undertaken in the Bergrivier, Drakenstein and Eden Municipalities between 2012 -2013, under sponsorship from the Western Cape Government's Climate Change Municipal Support Programme (CCMSP). The CCMSP upholds an ethos of participation and multistakeholder engagement, and the theoretical concepts of knowledge co-production and collaborative governance are therefore drawn on as a framing device to guide the analysis. The results highlight the various factors that can inhibit the success of collaborative adaptation planning in municipalities, as well as the multiple opportunities that exist to overcome or avoid these barriers. The barriers that emerged most strongly included: the prioritisation of local socio-economic development needs, restricted financial and human capacity resources, information and time constraints, an absence of mandatory legislation, a lack of political will to prioritise adaptation, limited cross-sectoral integration, poor representation and continuity at multi-stakeholder workshops, unclear employee roles within an organisation, strong power dynamics and misrepresented perceptions around compound environmental, climate change and development issues. The most prominent opportunities that were found for overcoming these barriers included: sound leadership from driven local champions, locating champions in departments other than, or in addition to, environmental departments, the presence of political will and support for the adaptation agenda, drawing on and/or building relationships and networks to co-explore and co-produce knowledge and policy, embracing experimentation and innovation, using informal communication channels, finding alternative devices through which to frame climate change and mainstreaming adaptation into overall municipal planning. Whilst some of the barriers and opportunities that were identified were common across the three case studies, others were specifically related to causes internal to the municipal environment and were thus highly context-specific. In light of these findings, the dissertation concludes that future municipal adaptation planning processes should focus on addressing the need for strong political will and effective local leadership, remain cognizant of the municipal context, call attention to the invisible factors that influence municipal climate governance, capitalize on opportunities for partnership-building, view adaptation as an iterative process rather than an end-point and embrace a flexible, 'learning by doing' approach.

Non-motorised transport (NMT) such as cycling and walking has multiple social, economic, environmental, climate and public health benefits and is integral to the agenda of sustainable development. There is considerable potential for more cycling mobility in South Africa, especially in low-income communities (LICs). Barriers to cycling mobility were investigated in Masiphumelele, a LIC in Cape Town, in order to inform recommendations for promoting cycling as a mode of transport in this community and beyond. A mixed methods design of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. A focus group discussion (FGD) with local bicycle shop customers informed the design of a cross-sectional cluster sampling questionnaire and a Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) stated choice survey of 100 household residents. The BWS survey used 10 choice sets of 4statements each to rank the relative importance to study participants of 20 potential barriers to cycling mobility on their average Best-Worse (B-W) scores.

In recent years, climate change has caused great changes in weather patterns such as extreme changes in rainfall leading to prolonged drought. Rapid urbanization has led to more than half of the world's population living in urban centres, and the growing urban population must share increasing scarcity of water, exacerbated by climate change. Thus, climate change and urbanization has contributed to the emergence of more water-stressed cities. This thesis is concerned with water conservation as a method of adaptation to an urban water crisis. It looks into the water crisis in the City of Cape Town that took place during 2015-2017. The severe water crisis has been attributed to prolonged drought, rapid population growth, reliance on six-rain-fed dams to provide 95% of the city's water supply, and excessively high water use by formal residential households. The City of Cape Town took various measures to manage both the demand and the supply of water in order to alleviate the stress caused by the water scarcity. From January 2016, a public education campaign was paired with progressively increased water restrictions. However, despite the growing water restrictions and the worsening of the water crisis, Capetonians did not reduce water consumption enough. Against this background, this thesis aims at gaining a nuanced understanding of the barriers and enablers to water conservation amongst residents in formal residential households in the City of Cape Town. The study focuses on formal residential households because the residents use 65% of the total municipal water supply. Data collection was carried out primarily in the Southern and Northern suburbs and consisted of in-depth interviews with 44 respondents using a semi-structured interview guide about daily water conservation as well as perceptions of the water crisis and of their role in mitigating the water crisis. The data analysis involved development of a coding system and identification of three categories of water savers amongst the highest, the lowest, and the median levels of water conversation within the data set, referred to as respective the ‘avid', the ‘low' and the ‘moderate' water savers. The key findings are that the main barrier of water conservation for the ‘low water savers' is lack of willingness to inconvenience one-self in relation to water conservation. Other important barriers to water conservation for the ‘low water savers' included lack of information regarding the on-going water crisis, perceptions of the water crisis as non-urgent, limited trust in water governance institutions, and interest in maximising own benefit from the common water resource. The dominant enabler amongst the ‘avid water savers' is the pro-environment identity they possess, combined with a high self-efficacy to make a difference to the water crisis through their actions. The study showed that this dominant enabling factor works as a catalyst to enhance other enabling factors, especially seeking information and engaging in conversations about water conservation within their social networks. Barriers such as the discomfort of taking short showers, standing inside a bucket during a shower and collecting greywater for re-use are seen as necessary actions that align with their identity and altruistic outlook towards the environment. Interestingly, ‘the moderate water savers' held similar proenvironment identity but were constrained, mostly by institutional barriers, to reduce their water use. Thus, the overall argument is that there is not one barrier or one enabler to water conservation. Rather, the main argument is that an overriding enabling factor for increased water conservation in daily life is a pro-environment identity combined with a high sense of self-efficacy. Finally, this study has shown that the factor of Personal Characteristics, serves as the main enabler and as the main barrier to water conservation because Personal Characteristics have a ripple effect on how factors such as Information, Social, Technical, Financial or Institutional factors affect a respondent's water conservation.

In the last decades, the impacts of climate change have affected people, societies, economic sectors and ecosystems in all the continents and oceans. Climate change will make povertyalleviation harder by slowing down economic growth, eroding food security, and increasing and creating poverty traps. The poor, that are highly dependent on wildlife and natural resources for their persistence, will be affected the most. However, it seems that environmental priorities are not considered in the developmental agendas. If biodiversity and climate change are not included in policy domains other than the environmental, many negative effects will not be adequately mitigated or minimised. Addressing these multidimensional problems requires policy coherence for improving the outcomes of social and environmental policies, and for using more efficiently the limited resources that developing countries have. The overall aim of this study is to determine if there is coherence between the objectives of the National Development Plan and the sectoral programs of Mexico, with a special focus on climate change adaptation and mitigation, povertyalleviation, and biodiversity conservation. Through a discourse network analysis, it was possible to determine the policy components within each program and to systematically identify the connections between them and investigate if there was policy coherence. Since the documents analysed belong to two different levels of the government, it was possible to analyse vertical and horizontal coherence. The analysis showed that there is vertical coherence between the NDP and the sectoral programs, low coherence between the sectoral programs, as well as low coherence between the four policy components of major interest. This analysis increases the very scarce literature on Mexico's policy coherence, providing empirical evidence that allows finding windows of opportunity for improving the coherence between sectoral programs in the future.

The 'Africa Rising' narrative, which has gained popularity since the late 2000s, refers to the considerable economic and social gains that have been made across the continent since the start of the new millennium. Heralded as more than just GDP growth and poverty reduction, supporters of the 'Africa Rising' narrative also make reference to structural change, macroeconomic improvements and a growing middle class among sub-Saharan African countries. However, there are many who dispute these claims, arguing instead that recent economic growth has not been inclusive and sustainable, and many challenges still exist. This dissertation takes the case study of Ghana as a lens through which to explore the arguments in more detail and determine whether robust, reliable evidence exists to support the claims that Ghana is 'rising', both economically and socially. Using the headings of poverty, economic growth, and employment and equality, socioeconomic data collected from Ghana from the year 2000 onwards was analysed to assess the evidence behind the claims and counter-claims made. Despite significant data limitations, the findings present a mixed picture of Ghana's recent economic growth and development, with substantial progress made in poverty reduction, economic growth and income per capita, but considerable challenges remaining in terms of the current macroeconomic crisis, high youth unemployment and rising income inequality. Ghana's current development pathway, based primarily on commodities and oil revenues, is likely to be unsustainable in the long-term, and the slow rate of structural change, especially in manufacturing, means that growth so far has not been sufficiently inclusive or equitable to benefit the majority of the population. Within the broader context of the 'Africa Rising' narrative, the study also brought to light two important considerations: firstly, that significant data limitations exist within national statistics, making it necessary for claims to be investigated thoroughly; and secondly, that it is important to examine the case of individual countries such as Ghana before painting a whole continent with the same brush.

Among the foremost challenges of the 21st century are sustainable development and climate change mitigation. In light of these challenges, this thesis seeks to analyse and compare the extent to which development and climate change mitigation are aligned on a policy level in three countries in the global south, namely South Africa, India and Mexico. These three middle-income countries are plagued by high levels of poverty and large inequality gaps, and address the challenge of reducing GHG emissions in this context. The objectives of this study are fourfold: (1) an analysis of each country’s climate change policies mainly its Nationally Determined Contributions and climate response strategies and assesses to which extent development is addressed; (2) analysis of each country’s national development plans and the extent to which climate change mitigation is addressed; (3) based on the initial analysis, assessing the overall extent to which the development and climate policies are aligned; and (4) a comparative analysis of how each country performed in this regard. The study found that South Africa, India and Mexico are in pursuit of lower carbon development in the years to come. Targets for reducing their emissions in light of climate change considerations have been set and sectoral approaches to low carbon development are illustrated to varying degrees. South Africa was found to have done relatively well in integrating development and poverty alleviation into its national climate policy. The detailed analysis presented in the thesis found this at national scale, while a focus on co-benefits was particularly well integrated in Mexico’s and India’s climate policy. Thus the thesis shows that each country could learn or adopt some approaches to alignment from the other – and that there are several benefits associated with aligning development and climate policies. More research would need to be conducted at a finer scale to identify the trade-offs of certain mitigation actions and this information should be used in future national and sectoral development.

This dissertation includes three distinct chapters looking at different challenges faced by developing countries. The first chapter examines the situation of farmers under climate change by mapping future climatic conditions onto the distribution of agricultural revenue in India. The second chapter uses the Mexican conditional cash transfer (CCT) program Progresa to investigate the relationship between income, education and fertility. Finally, the third chapter studies the extent to which preferential tariffs extended by OECD countries have helped least developing countries (LDC) diversify their exports. Given the issues explored by these essays, I contribute to several distinct strands of the economic literature, yet each paper is motivated by its policy relevance and is embedded in the issues faced by developing economies.