Collaborative Governance of Climate Change Adaptation Across Spatial and Institutional Scales

We examine two related questions that are key for understanding collaborative outcomes in complex governance systems. The first is the extent to which collaboration among policy actors depends upon their joint participation in policy forums. The second is how the scales at which these forums operate conditionally affect the likelihood of collaboration. We address these questions using data from a recent survey on actors’ collaborative interactions as well as their participation in climate change adaptation policy forums in the Lake Victoria region in East Africa. Exponential random graph models show that actors are more likely to collaborate if they jointly participate in policy forums. However, this effect weakens at progressively higher spatial levels at which forums operate. Similarly, collaboration is less likely among actors jointly participating in forums that sponsor decision making at the higher collective choice level rather than lower operational choice level. While policy forums may catalyze collaboration, our findings suggest that their capacity to do so may be subject to scale‐dependent transaction costs of political contracting.     

The Respectable Politics of Climate Change: The Epistemic Communities and NGOs

Climate change is unusual compared with most environmental issues in the extent to which it has become accepted among orthodox policy institutions and public-and private-sector organizations. The authors explore the conditions that have led to the establishment of an epistemic community that brings together a broad array of actors, including the various NGOs, and the operational dimensions that define the participation of NGOs within the community. An epistemic community does not imply conformity of opinion or approach but allows for differentiation in terms of how its members construct the problem, and their objectives, core beliefs and favoured responses to climate change. Three broad styles of engagement through which NGOs contribute to this debate are identified: developing creative policy solutions, knowledge construction, and lobbying or campaigning. It should be noted that the authors refer primarily to development or environmental NGOs (ENGOs), though they do discuss business NGOs at a few points.     

关中平原气候变化对低温天气的影响

本文利用陕西省关中平原地区自西向东的宝鸡、泾阳、西安、潼关 4个观测站的逐日气温资料和逐日降水资料 ,分析了关中平原 195 7年到 1972年 16年间本区春季气温、降水与春季低温天气的关系。揭示出关中平原地区春季低温天气发生次数与春季气温存在负相关性 ,与春季降水存在正相关性 ;在所研究的时间段内 ,关中平原地区气候变化趋于冷干 ,春季气候变化趋于冷湿 ,该区春季低温天气的天数趋于增多 ;低温天气的出现与温度的变幅有一定关系。     

Tuvalu and Climate Change: Constructions of Environmental Displacement in The Sydney Morning Herald

Tuvalu, a place whose image in the ‘West’ is as a small island state, insignificant and remote on the world stage, is becoming remarkably prominent in connection with the contemporary issue of climate change‐related sea‐level rise. My aim in this paper is to advance understanding of the linkages between climate change and island places, by exploring the discursive negotiation of the identity of geographically distant islands and island peoples in the Australian news media. Specifically, I use discourse analytic methods to critically explore how, and to what effects, various representations of the Tuvaluan islands and people in an Australian broadsheet, the Sydney Morning Herald, emphasize difference between Australia and Tuvalu. My hypothesis is that implicating climate change in the identity of people and place can constitute Tuvaluans as .tragic victims. of environmental displacement, marginalizing discourses of adaptation for Tuvaluans and other inhabitants of low‐lying islands, and silencing alternative constructions of Tuvaluan identity that could emphasize resilience and resourcefulness. By drawing attention to the problematic ways that island identities are constituted in climate change discourse in the news media, I advocate a more critical approach to the production and consumption of representations of climate change.     

Businesses, Green Groups and The Media: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Climate Change Debate

The lion's share of media and governmental commentary on the recent Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP-6) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has focused on rifts between the EU and the 'Umbrella Group' of countries, including the United States, Canada and Japan, and has led many observers to speculate that intergovernmental negotiations on climate change may have irretrievably broken down. Limiting the focus solely to political difficulties with specific issues, however, emphasizes only part of the story and takes no account of the complex context in which the international negotiations are embedded. This approach does not give sufficient credit to the growing momentum gathering outside the negotiating halls. This article examines recent and rapid changes in attitude and awareness among non-governmental groups-including business and industry, environmental groups and the media-on the issue of global climate change, and the impact these changes have had on the negotiating process and the overall climate change debate. Together these groups provide encouraging signs of a shift in public opinion and ample proof that the failure of the talks in The Hague does not signal the end of the road.     

全球变化下陕甘宁老区气候变化时空特征分析

据陕甘宁老区 195 1～ 2 0 0 0年气温、降水记录 ,得出结论 ,整个陕甘宁老区都是增温区 ,全区增温线性倾向值为 0 .0 194℃ /a,高于全球近百年的趋势 (0 .0 0 5℃ /a) ,低于全国其他地区 ,区内差异显著。降水线性倾向值分布自西向东增大 ,全区平均值为 - 1.0 75 9mm/a。     

The Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Policy Process Analysis: The Case of Smoking Control in Japan

This study examined the process of smoking control policymaking in Japan, employing the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and the Policy Process Analysis (PPA). In the view of the ACF, changes in policies and policymaking are explained as resulting from the emergence of, and the competition among, two advocacy coalitions, either protobacco or antitobacco. On the other hand, the PPA conceives of the process of policy change as a set of processes and gives a closer look into the important aspects of policymaking that the ACF does not well examine.     

Migration and Cultural Change: The Northern Iroquoian Case in South-Central Ontario

This paper explores processes of cultural change by contrasting migration scenarios with in situ cultural development. I argue that a detailed, fine-grained analysis of patterning within the archaeological record provides the means with which to distinguish between these scenarios. The archaeology of the Rice Lake–Trent River region in south-central Ontario provides a case study for the investigation of these processes of cultural change across the Middle to Late Woodland transition and in relation to the origins of Northern Iroquoians. Expectations for ceramic patterning are derived from each cultural change scenario and then evaluated against the regional database. This assessment is facilitated through the use of two statistical techniques: frequency distributions and correspondence analysis. The results clearly demonstrate both continuity and patterned change within the region, thus supporting the in situ hypothesis. I place these findings in a broader context through comparisons with contemporary developments in southern Ontario, southwestern Quebec and northern New York State.     

The Role of Pilot Projects in Urban Climate Change Policy Innovation

Cities are taking a leadership role in addressing global climate change and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but policy innovations are needed to help cities move from goals to outcomes. Pilot projects are one means by which cities are experimenting with new ways of governing and financing climate change mitigation. In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding the role of pilot projects in urban policy innovation: their emergence and rationale, and the means by which they ultimately scale up and out to reduce GHG emissions. We use this framework to evaluate a pilot project for retrofitting social housing buildings in Toronto. We find the initial pilot project helped address the challenges of pursuing deep retrofits of social housing. Scaling these lessons up to the city level required overcoming challenges to financing and coordinating a larger project; scaling out to the provincial level revealed institutional and political obstacles to pursuing the co-benefits of deep building retrofits in social housing. Bridging agents play an important role in both scaling processes. The analysis reveals the additive nature of urban policy innovation and the dynamic interplay of change agents and institutional and political context in innovation processes.     

商末黄河中游气候环境的变化与社会变迁

新石器时代到商代黄河流域的气候属于温暖湿润期;商代后期气候出现厂干旱化,导致了古公亶父迁岐,文王迁程迁丰,帝乙帝辛时不断向南方发展;而商末的旱灾和饥荒是周武王克商的直接导火索,导致商周之际的改朝换代。商末气候环境的变迁对其时社会政治的影响极大。