<p> This dissertation takes on the debate of whether environmental economic regulations hamper or incentivize firm performance, aside from their objectives of pollutant reductions. Research has shown mixed results regarding this matter. This dissertation proposes that the reason for these mixed results is the omission of the capacity of individual firms to assimilate and respond to these regulations, regarded here as signals from the economic and institutional environment. These signals from the environment come in the form of technological change as environmental economic regulations impose limits to the products, processes or services, which are pollutant intensive, or provide pollutant reduction technologies. Therefore the capacity that firms must possess in order to respond to these signals from the environment must be technology related. It is proposed here that the innovative capability can allow for firms to respond, in a performance increasing way, to these signals from the environment, as it entails the capacity of developing or adopting new technologies. </p><p> The theoretical approach that this dissertation follows is to frame the economic environmental regulations under a classical regulatory framework, with the diverse mechanisms such as taxes, caps-and-quotas, and subsidies which are regarded as economic environmental regulations, and as signals external to the firm, which act upon it. The innovative capability will be addressed under the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities approach, as this research is under a strategic management perspective. Here the innovative capability is regarded as part of a firm's dynamic capabilities, and it is the means through which firms can assimilate and respond to changes in the environment. Performance relates to the outcomes of the interaction between environmental economic regulations and the innovative capability, and it is expected that the previously mentioned interaction has an effect over the firm, whether it can be beneficial or not, regarding market access or expansion, or earnings/revenues. In the present research project performance is taken as the efficiency rate, and the earnings/revenues of a project of the Clean Development Mechanism or CDM under the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC 2013). The institutional environment will be addressed from North's (1990) new institutional economics perspective of institutional theory, which highlights the capability for firms being moderated or mediated by the external environment and vice versa.</p><p> To operationalize environmental economic regulations this dissertation will reach out to the aforementioned Kyoto protocol, an international agreement for emissions reduction. These emissions reductions are achieved through various mechanisms that allow for different entities to reduce their said emissions, separated by what the Protocol has called commitment countries of the Annex I; and non-Annex I countries with no quantitative commitments. The clean development mechanism (CDM) is one of these mechanisms and it is targeted at firms located in countries of the Kyoto protocol that have no reduction commitments, all of which are emerging economies. The CDM provides firms with pollutant reduction technologies that allow them to transform their pollutants into less harmful emissions, while yielding carbon credits with which they can further trade. These technologies differ in their degree of innovativeness, and each project chooses which technology it will be implementing. The innovative capability dimension will be operationalized as the capacity of firms to select and implement projects with high innovativeness levels. Performance will be operationalized as the particular efficiency rate of each CDM project included in the sample. This is a ratio between the expected and the real number of carbon credits yielded by each CDM project. It also might be reflected in economic variables such as the revenues generated by the project which is the difference between the investment of the project and the revenues obtained from the sale of the carbon credits. The CDM allows for analyzing a single environmental economic regulation across different countries, regarded here as different institutional environments. The effect of these different institutional environments on CDM projects will be assessed by analyzing the effect of their different characteristics, such as country's abatement potential, institutional capacity, investment climate, and geographical or regional characteristics. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)</p>

Climate change is a type of prisoner’s dilemma. Reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are a public good and are costly to provide. Consequently, nation-states generally have done little to curb their emissions. Countries could be encouraged to reduce their emissions if the international community of states were to sanction, or the world were to shame, states that did not act. However, financial and technological aid is more likely to induce states to impose tougher restrictions on GHG emissions. In order for Copenhagen to precipitate major action on climate change the treaty must either compel countries to fulfill their obligations or assist states in transitioning their economies away from fossil fuels toward alternative energy sources. If the treaty fails to do both of these things then we can only hope that the largest producers of greenhouse gases either take steps to reduce their emissions voluntarily or are forced to take action in response to domestic pressure from their citizens and/or sub-national governments. Otherwise, we will have no choice but to adapt to an increasingly warmer planet and the consequences thereof.

The interplay between convective processes and the stabilizing effects of largescale systems remains debated, especially for warmer climates. We study sets of simulations of past and present climates in which carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations vary over a wide range: from pre-industrial era levels of 280 ppm to an exceedingly high value of 8960 ppm. This allows us to assess the importance of convective processes relative to middle latitude thermal stratification and changes to the general circulation in progressively warmer climate states. As a tool to assess the stability of the atmosphere, we calculate a thermodynamic variable called saturation potential vorticity (P*), which has the property of being identically zero wherever lapse rates are neutral with respect to moist convection, and large where lapse rates are stable. Using P* allows us to examine convective motions arising from both gravitational accelerations as well as symmetric instabilities. We assess the ability of current models (of varying spectral resolutions) in resolving conditions unstable to slantwise convection. We show that the coarse resolution reanalysis data captures instances of observed slantwise convection. Our results show examples of vertically stable lapse rates, while being conditionally unstable along slanted angular momentum surfaces. This suggests the need for model parameterizations of convection to include instabilities arising from symmetric displacements. Tropical regions are neutral with respect to moist convection while higher latitudes most often have stable lapse rates, especially during the winter months. In the warmer climate simulations, the frequency of convectively neutral air masses increases in both middle latitude and polar regions, especially during the summer months. These simulations also show expansion of the Hadley cell and shifting of middle latitude storm tracks. Using Maximum Potential Intensity (MPI) as a tool to assess the upper bound of hurricane strength, we show sustainment of intense tropical cyclones in regions they cannot in our present climate.

The response of vegetation to climate change and permafrost disturbance was studied at the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory (CBAWO) on Melville Island, Nunavut. Climate change is expected to alter the terrestrial ecosystem of this area and cause non-linear responses. This study focussed on two predicted outcomes of climate change in the western Canadian High Arctic: the occurrence of a permafrost disturbance termed active layer detachments (ALDs), and increased air temperature and precipitation. To study the effects of ALD formation twenty 1 m2 plots were established within two ALDs. One ALD (ALD05) was formed in July 2007 and represented the initial impact of slope failure caused by an exceptionally warm year. The other (ALD04) was formed at least sixty years ago and represented the long-term impact of slope failure. Physical soil measurements and vegetation surveys were completed in both disturbances. ALD formation creates depressions on the landscape that increase snow accumulation. Snow accumulation was greater in the more recent ALD than in the older one and this resulted in greater changes to the physical environment. Vegetation was not significantly impacted by disturbance, although phenology was delayed due to snowcover retention. To study the effects of increased air temperature and precipitation an International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) site was established at CBAWO in July 2008. Snow fences and open-top chambers (OTC) were erected to increase snow accumulation and air temperature. Physical soil measurements and vegetation surveys were completed through the summer of 2009. Soil temperature and active layer depth were affected by snow and phenology was delayed in plots with snow enhancement. Experimental warming also had some effects on the parameters measured but only in conjunction with snow enhancement. This study found that in the first year of experimentation snow enhancement has a greater effect than increased air temperature. These studies represent the beginning of two long-term projects at CBAWO and the results from this study represent baseline data for future research. Continued monitoring will show the evolution of vegetation in the ALDs and the potential long-term effects of temperature and snow manipulation. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2011-01-04 20:53:31.689

<p>The overall aim of this project was to establish whether there is a long-term decline of rainfall collected in rainfall gauges within the Jonkershoek Valley that have the longest and best quality records.</p>

The release of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels for energy is thought to be one of the main contributors to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. This increase is reported to be causing irreversible changes to the earth’s climate, giving rise to temperature increases and other consequent alterations in weather patterns. Amid growing concern about climate change and its impact on the world, targets have been set through agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol and via European Union and government legislation to force countries to work towards decreasing their greenhouse gas emissions. Increasing the contribution that renewable sources make to energy production is a major part of most countries’ strategies to meet these targets. The UK has arguably the greatest potential for wind power generation in Europe and the government is seeking to build upon this strength by exploiting the resource further. The liberalised electricity market infers a requirement for private investment in order to develop the wind portfolio and this in turn requires financial and economic feasibility. Given the changes in weather patterns that are projected to occur over the course of the coming century, the possibility that this could change the UK’s wind resource, and hence the financial viability of wind power developments, must be addressed. Other aspects of how changes in the wind resource could impact on the operation of the fragmented electricity system ought also to be considered in this context. This thesis attempts to understand how the current generation of climate models project surface wind climate to change, and seeks to make the model information relevant at a site level by using statistical and physical modelling techniques. The projected changes indicated by the models are small, and it has been assessed that potential impacts on the electricity system, from project feasibility to the potential for inclusion of wind in the generation mix, will be limited.

This thesis examines the relationship between young children's emerging political attitudes towards climate change and the possible effect that the political project of neoliberalism could have on these attitudes. The research asks, in what ways and to what extent do neoliberal attitudes and beliefs influence young New Zealand children's views on climate change mitigation? Drawing from five focus group interviews with Christchurch children aged between 9 and 11, I compare and contrast the results in order to gauge their opinions, thoughts and beliefs about climate change. In doing this I ask how neoliberalism formed in New Zealand and if the neoliberal project has become so dominant in the macro and micro level policy contexts as to influence the attitudes of our youngest citizens. What the thesis argues is that neoliberal discourse appears to have influenced how the participants view climate change, most specifically in their willingness to select individualized mitigation techniques to respond to climate change as opposed to collective actions. These findings are tentative, they require a robust larger sample, beyond the scope of a masters, and may be influenced by other factors such as the developmental stage of the children, however, the emphasis all children placed on voluntary action by individuals was striking. My findings also suggest that those who selected these individual mitigation techniques were more likely to have higher efficacy than those who were critical of such practices. The thesis argues that individualized techniques to combat climate change are by themselves not effective to bring about significant change in order to alleviate further damage being caused to the climate system. In order to reach Helen Clark's goal of being "the world's first truly sustainable nation," collective, as well as individual mitigation must occur.

<p> This dissertation describes the design, implementation and evaluation of a gender-inclusive information system linking rural women in Agni Hiya, Morocco and water project managers from the Association Dar Si-Hmad. This research was motivated by an interest in exploring the linkages between information and communication technologies (ICT), climate change, natural resource management and women's participation in community development in the drought-ridden A&iuml;t Baamrane region of southwest Morocco. The research investigates the potential for mobile phones to help address communication constraints that rural Berber women face, including culture, religion, and lack of digital literacy. These issues are relevant to the study and design of a gender-inclusive information system (the "Fog Phone") intended to help manage a fogwater distribution system that will deliver water from the Anti-Atlas Mountains to Berber villages. </p><p> The research investigates two similar groups of low-literate, marginalized rural Berber women from the same geographic community who have mobile phones. Technology-focused ethnographic research methods were used to first investigate the social, cultural and technical factors involved in mobile phone use by women employed in an Argan oil Cooperative. Findings from the Argan oil Cooperative study were then applied and expanded in a study of Berber women involved in the operation of the fogwater system. By virtue of their responsibilities as principal water gatherers and water users in the community, Berber women are key stakeholders in the fogwater system. Their continued involvement in water management was extended to the participatory design and development of the prototype Fog Phone. </p><p> Cultural conditions restricting communication between unrelated men and women led to an information system design that supported cultural, social, economic and technical constraints. The Fog Phone enabled women to report on the water system using a series of symbols that communicate water system status without violating cultural norms. In addition to an exploration of the relationship between gender and technology, this research explores related themes of climate change and environmental vulnerability as they pertain to women's lives and livelihoods, as well as the ability of rural Berber women to manage the environmental assets on which their livelihoods depend. </p><p> The contributions of this research include a prototype information system for the fogwater project; a better understanding of the mobile phone utility gap and its impact on the use of ICT by marginalized women in polyglot and oral-language dependent communities; and advances in the emerging practice of ICTs, Climate Change and Development (ICCD) by providing a case study of the linkages between mobile phones, water resources that are affected by climate change and women in rural communities involved in an environmentally sustainable development project in the Middle East and North Africa&mdash;a region that is largely missing from ICCD and overall ICT for Development research. </p>

Ecotourism is a development strategy for many local communities in and around protected areas. Its ability to improve tourism opportunities, conservation and livelihoods is supported by many ecotourism studies. Such communities often employ diverse livelihood strategies to reduce risk and survive. As such, ecotourism becomes an integral part of a portfolio of livelihoods and assist with livelihood diversification. However, in some locales climate change is making livelihoods, including ecotourism vulnerable, due to its impacts on protected areas and their associated biodiversity. Climate change creates vulnerability as well as opportunities for adaptation. Climate change adaptation has become important in ensuring tourism sustainability, as it is critical in reducing the vulnerability of tourism. However, the literature supplies only limited knowledge on such adaptation at the local level. This may undermine ecotourism???s prospects in improving local livelihoods and conservation. There is a need to understand the lived and embodied everyday experiences of local communities who are experiencing tourism within the context of climate change. In particular, this research needs to capture local knowledge and understanding of climate change, and local efforts at adaptation. In understanding adaptation at the local level, it is important to understand how households construct their livelihoods, including the role of ecotourism. This study examined local perceptions and lived experience in sustainable ecotourism development as a livelihood adaptation to climate change in a case study site in Ghana. This examination and subsequent understanding provided a process for integrating local knowledge into livelihood adaptation as communities become more vulnerable to future climate change that will adversely affect traditional patterns of livelihoods. The study used the vulnerability-based approach which assessed vulnerability of households??? livelihoods to climate change and adaptations. Mognori Eco-Village in Ghana was used a case because of its geographic location in the savannah and experience of climate change as well as households` involvement in ecotourism activities. In focusing on lived experience, the study was guided by the philosophical ideas of Gadamer, as it lends itself particularly well for exploring the complexities and understanding of households??? lived experience with climate change. It also informed the recruitment of 22 households, use of conversation interviews and a focus group as well as data interpretation. The study found four main underlying essences that explain households??? lived experience with climate change: 1) adopting different livelihood strategies; 2) experiencing the impacts of ecotourism on assets and activities; 3) experiencing current vulnerability conditions and developing adaptation strategies; and, 4) sustaining ecotourism by building future adaptation strategies. The first essence suggests strategies such as intensification/extensification, livelihood diversification and migration as broad adaptations for survival. The second essence supports the use of ecotourism as a form of livelihood diversification that complements other non-ecotourism activities. The third essence describes the vulnerability to climate change the local adaptations use to reduce vulnerability. The last essence suggests local agency in overcoming adaptation constraints to improve adaptive capacity to sustain ecotourism as an adaptation strategy to climate change. The study found that local adaptive capacity exists to support ecotourism. However, the capability of the local community is limited and recommendations are made for government and other stakeholders to further support the local adaptation that is underway.

No description available.