The notion of climate tipping points (CTP:s) has gained traction in academia. Unravelling the intricate weave of views in the discourses surrounding CTP:s can be helpful to structure the views in the discursive fabric of climate tipping points and in turn get a better understanding of the views surrounding the phenomenon. This study aims to clarify the different views on climate tipping points by creating a set of distinct ideal types based on the scientific literature surrounding CTP:s. Furthermore, we analyse these views and reflect on their relationship and functions through textual analysis. The analysis yielded four reoccurring, interconnected themes: Knowledge, View on (Ir)reversibility, Risk and Action. Using these themes, we created four ideal types to help intellectually structure the weave of differing views. Furthermore, we found that the relationship between the views on these themes and the acceptance of climate tipping points often is convertibly indicative. The analysis of the literature also revealed that CTP:s have much in common with climate change in large and reifies the urgency, risk implications, uncertainties, and suggested actions expressed in broader climate change literature. A key insight is that accepting CTP:s is not pivotal for voicing strong concerns about climate change but rather they may serve as a metaphoric tool for scientists in communicating climate change issues. / Begreppet climate tipping points (CTP:s) har fått ökande utrymme inom akademin. Att nysta upp den invecklade väven av synsätt inom diskurserna kring CTP:s kan vara till hjälp för att strukturera synsätten på fenomenet och i sin tur få en bättre förståelse för dem. Denna studie syftar till att göra detta genom att skapa en uppsättning distinkta idealtyper baserade på karaktärsdrag från ett urval av den vetenskapliga litteraturen kring CTP:s. Dessutom analyserar vi dessa åsikter och reflekterar över deras relation och funktioner genom att tillämpa en tematisk textanalys. Analysen resulterade i fyra återkommande och sammankopplade teman: Kunskap, Synen på (ir)reversibilitet, Risk och Åtgärder. Med hjälp av dessa teman skapade vi fyra idealtyper ämnade att bidra till att intellektuellt strukturera väven av olika synsätt. Vi fann även att förhållandet mellan synen på dessa teman och accepterandet av CTP:s ofta är indikativt omvändbart. Analysen av litteraturen visade också att CTP:s har mycket gemensamt med klimatförändringar i stort och understryker dess brådskande karaktär, risker, osäkerheter och föreslagna åtgärder som uttrycks i litteraturen rörande klimatförändringar. En nyckelinsikt är att acceptansen för CTP:s inte är avgörande för att uttrycka stark angelägenhet för klimatfrågor, utan snarare att de kan fungera som ett metaforiskt verktyg för forskare att kommunicera klimatfrågor med.

Climate change has created potential major threats to global biodiversity. The multiple components of climate change are projected to affect all pillars of biodiversity, from genes over species to biome level. Of particular concerns are "tipping points" where the exceedance of ecosystem thresholds will possibly lead to irreversible shifts of ecosystems and their functioning. As biodiversity underlies all goods and services provided by ecosystems that are crucial for human survival and wellbeing, this paper presents potential effects of climate change on biodiversity, its plausible impacts on human society as well as the setting in addressing a global crisis. Species affected by climate change may respond in three ways: change, move or die. Local species extinctions or a rapidly affected ecosystem as a whole respectively might move toward its particular "tipping point", thereby probably depriving its services to human society and ending up in a global crisis. Urgent and appropriate actions within various scenarios of climate change impacts on biodiversity, especially in tropical regions, are needed to be considered. Foremost a multisectoral approach on biodiversity issues with broader policies, stringent strategies and programs at international, national and local levels is essential to meet the challenges of climate change impacts on biodiversity.

This thesis consists of four empirical essays on the topics of ethnic segregation, gender economics, and self-employment.    Essay I investigates how the residential mobility of Sweden's native population contributes to ethnic segregation, by applying regression discontinuity methods. The results show that the growth in the native population in a neighbourhood discontinuously drops as the share of non-European immigrants exceeds the tipping point. Tipping is driven by the departure of natives and their avoidance of tipped neighbourhoods. Tipping behaviour is selective in the sense that highly educated and high earning natives are more likely to leave neighbourhoods that have tipped.    Essay II studies the relationship between the childhood neighbourhood's ethnic composition and economic outcomes in adulthood for second-generation immigrant sand natives. The results reveal that a high concentration of immigrants in aneighbourhood is associated with a lower probability of second-generation immigrants continuing to higher education. Natives' earnings and educational attainment are negatively correlated with, and the probability of social assistance and unemployment are positively associated with a high immigrant concentration. Among non-Nordic second-generation immigrants, reliance on social assistance and unemployment are negatively correlated with the share of co-ethnics and positively associated with the proportion of other ethnic groups.    Essay III explores the role of social norms and attitudes about gender for labour market outcomes of immigrant men and women in Sweden. The results show that immigrants originating from countries with large gender disparities in labour force participation also have large gender gaps in labour force participation within their immigrant group on the Swedish labour market. In contrast, source country gender differences in earnings are not correlated with gender gaps in earnings within immigrant groups in Sweden. In addition, gender gaps in labour force participation among immigrants assimilate towards the corresponding gap among natives as time inSweden increases.    Essay IV empirically tests the Jack-of-all-trades theory, which states that individuals who are more balanced in their abilities are more suitable for self-employment. Using Swedish Military Enlistment data, a measure of balance in endowed abilities is constructed and this balance measure is, in relation to previous research, less likely tobe endogenous. The results support the Jack-of-all-trades theory, in the sense that propensity for being or becoming self-employed is greater for individuals with abalanced set of abilities. In addition, earnings from self-employment tend to be higher among individuals with a balanced set of skills.

With the nature of exploring and less awareness of danger, furniture at home has been causing various kinds of child injury all over the world. Furniture tipping over is one emerging cause among children under 6 years old. Despite of the importance of child safety, it lacks evidence about people’s perceptions of child safety towards residential furniture. Hence, this thesis used the theory of consumer behaviour to identify factors that can potentially effect perceptions and applied quantitative and qualitative methods to find out perceived importance of child safety when people buy furniture and how people perceive child safety in a given case. It has been found that people perceive child safety much less important when buying furniture not specifically for children. Some factors, such as age, income have influence on it. In the given case of chest of drawers, when perceived to be more likely to tip over, people are more willing to anchor a chest of drawers. It has also found that a three-row and shallow type has mixed perceptions. When the weight of a chest is perceived to be more important, people agree more on the statement that a heavier chest of drawers is less likely to tip over. Although anchoring is considered to be an efficient way of preventing tipping over, results showed that it is not a preferred way for most people. Further study is needed to find out other ways. Information of child safety is welcomed by most of the people. More research can be done to find out effective ways of displaying child safety information.

The European Union have since the signing of the Rome treaty in 1957, come to be a new superpower in the world, spreading the word of soft power through the economic and democratic cooperation in the pan-European continent. The theory of soft and hard power and the theory of diffusion of innovations illuminate how the European Union has been able to increase their influence and gain power in the world, as it has become the largest economy in the world. Through this soft power focus, the European Union has been able to grow and to act as a model for success as it attracts other parts of the world by the positive messages of cooperation and economic integration. This should be seen in a time when the US has increasingly acted unilateral in their foreign policy and experienced increasing legitimacy problems on the global scale. The understanding of the development of the European Union to its contemporary magnitude through the theory of soft and hard power and the diffusion of innovations, what I call cooptive enlargement, brings new light of how to understand its development and influence in the world. This theory could further be used to analyze and understand why and how other parts of the world create trade areas and Unions in their quest for future peace, democracy and economic development. The European Union has through this cooptive enlargement come to lay the foundation to a new world order, enabling all parts of the world to collide into a prosperous future of cooperation.

This diploma thesis deals with the design of the frame of a trailer with a tipping body. Its main contents are stability inspection of a carrying frame, further then designing suitable construction adjustments including their check calculations of case of stress. The stability inspection of the frame is carried out by means of the finite element method. A draft of the drawing documentation of the frame is as well included in this thesis. This diploma thesis was created in collaboration with the SVAN Chrudim company, Ltd.

Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die systematische Untersuchung der Auswirkungen von Änderungen in der Niederschlagshäufigkeit und -menge im Amazonas sowie eine Prognose der zukünftigen Entwicklung des Regenwaldes unter den sich ändernden Bedingungen im Rahmen des Klimawandels. Die in dieser Arbeit durchgeführten Untersuchungen der Niederschlagskorrelationsmuster des südamerikanischen Monsuns basieren auf der Theorie komplexer Netzwerke und offenbaren beispielsweise den Übergang von einem geordneten zu einem ungeordneten System zu Beginn des Monsuns. Die Erweiterung der verwendeten Methoden hin zu mehrschichtigen Netzwerken wird anschließend zur Untersuchung der Ursache von Dürren im zentralen Amazonasgebiet verwendet. Ein bivariates Netzwerk aus Niederschlagsdaten und atlantischen Meeresoberflächentemperaturen zeigt, dass bestimmte Meeresregionen im tropischen Atlantik den Niederschlag im zentralen Amazonas stark beeinflussen. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit zeigen, dass einer Dürre in der Regel die Entstehung eines klimatischen Dipols der Meeresoberflächentemperaturen zwischen den identifizierten Ozeanregionen vorausgeht. Aufbauend auf diesen Ergebnissen wird in dieser Arbeit erstmalig ein Frühwarnsystem für Dürren im Amazonas vorgestellt. Der Untersuchung des Einflusses von Niederschlagsvariabilität auf die Vegetation wird eine Potentiallandschaft aus Niederschlags- und Baumbedeckungsdaten im Amazonas zugrunde gelegt. Die vorliegende Studie zeigt, dass eine direkte Abhängigkeit zwischen der lokalen, langfristigen Niederschlagsvariabilität und der Resilienz des Waldes besteht. Dies bedeutet, dass stärkere jährliche Niederschlagsvariabilität zu einem Trainingseffekt der tropischen Vegetation führen kann. Bedenkt man außerdem, dass es in Zukunft im zentralen Amazonas mehr Dürren geben soll, kann es entscheidend sein, ob die Vegetation einer Region zuvor Erfahrung mit starker Niederschlagsvariabilität gemacht hat und dementsprechend angepasst ist. Um nicht nur lokale, sondern auch globale Einflüsse zu berücksichtigen, wird zum einen der Effekt einer sich verlangsamenden thermohalinen Zirkulation durch Klimaerwärmung und zum anderen der direkte Einfluss der Klimaerwärmung auf denn zentralen Amazonas Regenwald untersucht. Die Studie zeigt, dass beide Ereignisse gegensätzliche und somit sich ausgleichende Einflüsse auf die Vegetation im Amazonasgebiet haben können. Der Regenwald könnte somit stabil in Bezug auf den Klimawandel sein. Die vorliegende Dissertation Arbeit leistet auf der Basis von neu entwickelten Methoden einen wesentlichen Beitrag, um die Kenntnisse der betrachteten klimatischen und ökologischen Systeme zu vertiefen. / This thesis investigates the impact of changes in frequency and amount of precipitation in the Amazon rainforest and analyzes its development under the changing conditions due to global warming. In this context, complex network theory is utilized to investigate the South American monsoon system. The precipitation correlation structure reveals hidden features of the system, such as the transition from a disordered to an ordered monsoon system. Further developing existing network methods towards multilayer network tools allows for the investigation of the root causes for droughts in the central Amazon basin. By using a bivariate network between monthly precipitation in the central Amazon and Atlantic sea surface temperatures, distinct oceanic regions are identified to have a strong influence on central Amazonian precipitation. The formation of a climatological dipole between the northern and southern tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures is found to precede droughts. As a result, this study is the first to give an early warning for droughts in the Amazon. To investigate the influence of rainfall variability on vegetation, a potential landscape is constructed from precipitation and Amazonian tree cover data. The resilience of the forest is found to directly depend on the local rainfall variability in the long-term past, thereby reflecting a vegetational training effect under specific environmental conditions. Considering climate change projections, this effect could be decisive for the future survival of the present rainforest vegetation state. In order to cover long-term influences of global warming, this thesis additionally investigates the effects of a slowing down of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the direct influence of global warming on the southern Amazon rainforest.. It is revealed that these effects, although caused by global warming, have competitive impacts on precipitation in the Amazon basin, with a stabilizing effect of an Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown on the Amazon rainforest. This dissertation provides newly developed, as well as adjusted methods to enhance our understanding of the considered climatological and vegetational systems. Together, they provide the basic tools for a further investigation of these complex systems.

Climate change has created potential major threats to global biodiversity. The multiple components of climate change are projected to affect all pillars of biodiversity, from genes over species to biome level. Of particular concerns are "tipping points" where the exceedance of ecosystem thresholds will possibly lead to irreversible shifts of ecosystems and their functioning. As biodiversity underlies all goods and services provided by ecosystems that are crucial for human survival and wellbeing, this paper presents potential effects of climate change on biodiversity, its plausible impacts on human society as well as the setting in addressing a global crisis. Species affected by climate change may respond in three ways: change, move or die. Local species extinctions or a rapidly affected ecosystem as a whole respectively might move toward its particular "tipping point", thereby probably depriving its services to human society and ending up in a global crisis. Urgent and appropriate actions within various scenarios of climate change impacts on biodiversity, especially in tropical regions, are needed to be considered. Foremost a multisectoral approach on biodiversity issues with broader policies, stringent strategies and programs at international, national and local levels is essential to meet the challenges of climate change impacts on biodiversity.

Social tipping in Swedish Parliamentary Debate on Climate Change can access transformative policy pathways to realise safe and just futures for all. In this thesis, social tipping processes is applied as a theory of social change to understand, identify, and navigate such instances of abrupt self-reinforcing change. The aim is to describe topics of the Swedish Parliamentary Debate on Climate Change 2010-2021, understand how political salience affects the structure of debate, and identify barriers and enablers for social tipping in parliamentary debate. In this pursuit, a mixed-methods approach based on computational content analysis is applied to study patterns emerging from two natural language processing models, a deep learning classifier and a Structural Topic Model. The results indicate that the last decade was decisive to diversifying the parliamentary debate on climate change beyond energy politics, as contemporary debate has a broader focus on the green transition of industry and transportation. Since early 2018, the intensity of debate has doubled from 2.5% to 5% of parliamentary debate, plausibly due to increased issue contention between governing parties and coalitions. Two case studies of politically salient topics, climate targets (16) and energy politics (22), indicate that social tipping in parliamentary debate is a complex and context dependent social process. The political consensus on Sweden’s long-term goals carries transformative potential, however, as climate issues are increasingly contested there is an increased risk of policy lock-ins. To facilitate social tipping, parliamentarians should transcend imaginary lock-ins to the status quo by promoting global diffusion of stringent net-zero targets and inclusive and fair policies for the green transition. / What makes effective climate policy politically feasible? Formas-ID 2020-00175

Regression discontinuity designs are increasingly popular quasi-experimental research designs among applied econometricians desiring to make causal inferences on the local effect of a treatment, intervention, or policy. They are also widely used in social, behavioral, and natural sciences. Much of the existing literature relies on the assumption that the discontinuity point or cutoff is known a-priori, which may not always hold. This thesis seeks to extend the applicability of regression discontinuity designs by proposing a new approach towards detection of an unknown discontinuity point using structural-break detection and machine learning methods. The approach is evaluated on both simulated and real data. Estimation and inference based on estimating the cutoff following this approach are compared to the counterfactual scenario where the cutoff is known. Monte Carlo simulations show that the empirical false-detection and true-detection probabilities of the proposed procedure are generally satisfactory. Finally, the approach is further illustrated with an empirical application. / Graduate