Climate Change

Climate Risk Management

BACKGROUND:

Worldwide efforts are underway to devise and apply strategies to manage these risks effectively. Key challenges in climate risk management include the integration of necessary scientific disciplines, articulating stakeholder values and objectives, and quantifying pivotal uncertainties and trade-offs, all of which are vital for crafting effective management strategies. The paper addresses the intensification of global climate risks driven by accelerating climate change. The authors review these challenges based on existing literature to identify potential avenues to overcome them. 

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Carbon sequestration in Africa: The land tenure problem

Background

Research on afforestation and reforestation projects highlights how tropical forests can store carbon on a large scale. Africa offers vast areas of suitable land for carbon sequestration through these initiatives. However, the author argues that land tenure issues in Africa create an obstacle to achieving this potential.

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The Biodiversity Credit Market needs rigorous baseline, monitoring, and validation practices

BACKGROUND:

The Biodiversity Credit Market (BCM) seeks to enhance funding for biodiversity conservation but faces challenges similar to those in the carbon credit market, such as inaccurate baselines and insufficient monitoring. To address these issues, the paper proposes three key strategies: establishing dynamic baselines with control sites, implementing comprehensive species monitoring, and enforcing a transparent, independent validation process for credit assignment. These measures are essential to ensure the BCM's credibility and effectiveness in contributing to global biodiversity conservation efforts.

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Quantifying Economic Damages from Climate Change

BACKGROUND:

Climate change is acknowledged as a global phenomenon, with local emissions causing damages across the globe and over extended periods. This makes the quantification of the "social cost of carbon" complex but crucial for effective policy-making. The study addresses the inconsistent focus on modeling the physical impacts of climate change relative to understanding its economic consequences.

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Field interventions for climate change mitigation behaviors: A second-order meta-analysis

BACKGROUND:

Climate change poses significant threats, including extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, and adverse impacts on human health. Behavioral change is recognized as a crucial strategy for mitigating these effects, yet a comprehensive synthesis of interventions promoting pro-environmental behaviors in real-world settings is lacking. The findings aim to identify the most impactful strategies, such as financial incentives and social norms, providing actionable insights for future research and practice in climate change mitigation.

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20th-Century hurricanes leave long-lasting legacies on tropical forest height and the abundance of a dominant wind-resistant palm

BACKGROUND:

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Understanding the importance of primary tropical forest protection as a mitigation strategy

Background:

Primary tropical forests play a key role in the urgent task of mitigating climate change. Nevertheless, despite the recognition of forest-based mitigation strategies, the role of primary forest protection has not been explicitly considered in international policy negotiations. The authors aim to address this deficit by estimating primary tropical forest ecosystem carbon stocks and flows.

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The carbon sink of secondary and degraded humid tropical forests

Background:

The Forest and Land use Declaration from the 26th Climate Change Conference of the Parties underscores the crucial role of tropical moist forests  as a nature-based solution to address climate and ecological emergencies. However, the Amazon, Borneo, and Central Africa forests experience ongoing forest cover losses due to various anthropogenic drivers. This has led to a mosaic of recovering forests at different stages post-disturbance, with limited understanding of their impact on forest carbon dynamics. 

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Large carbon sink potential of secondary forests in the Brazilian Amazon to mitigate climate change

Background:

With the Brazilian Amazon being a region of global significance for its carbon storage potential, there is a growing need to understand the dynamics of secondary forest regrowth and its implications for carbon sequestration. Previous studies have laid the groundwork for understanding the broad-scale patterns of secondary forest regrowth, but there is a need for a more detailed and spatially explicit analysis that considers both environmental and anthropogenic drivers of regrowth. The urgency to address this knowledge gap is further underscored by the commitment to national and international climate targets.

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Silvicultural opportunities for increasing carbon stock in restoration of Atlantic forests in Brazil

Background:

The Brazilian Atlantic Forest has suffered significant reduction due to deforestation for urbanization and agriculture expansion. To address this issue, restoration plantations with native tree species have been identified as a promising solution to rebuild the forest habitat and promote carbon sequestration. In particular, high input silviculture, which involves intensive fertilization and weed control similar to those applied in commercial production forest plantations, has been shown to increase productivity and accelerate the forest restoration process.

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