Climate Change and Mitigation Strategies Quiz

Introduction to Climate Change and Mitigation Strategies

• Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns caused by natural or human activities.
• Two types of climate change are natural, such as plate tectonics, the sun, Earth's orbit, and unforced variability, and human-induced, such as greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
• The movement of continents from plate tectonics affects the formation of ice sheets and ocean circulation, which can significantly affect the global climate.
• The sun's energy balance is changing, and the rate of fusion is increasing due to the production of more hydrogen and helium, which increases the density of the sun's core.
• Earth's orbit is shaped as an ellipse with varying eccentricity over time, which caused a deep freeze known as Snowball Earth 715 million years ago.
• Greenhouse gases trap the sun's heat, and an excessive amount can harm the planet's cooling mechanism, resulting in a warmer Earth.
• Climate change can negatively affect health, food production, housing, and work, and the most vulnerable people live in small island nations, developing countries, or are poor.
• Factors that control emissions are technology, population, and affluence, which determine the total amount of GDP consumed by a society.
• Responses to climate change include adaptation, mitigation, and geoengineering strategies.
• Mitigation policies encourage the transition from fossil fuels to energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gases, such as solar, wind, hydroelectricity, biomass, and nuclear energy.
• Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and carbon dioxide removal are other mitigation strategies that involve capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions or removing them from the atmosphere.
• Solar radiation management is a risky geoengineering strategy that involves increasing the Earth's albedo by injecting sulphate aerosols into the atmosphere or increasing cloud-condensation-nuclei in the clouds.

Climate Change Adaptation: History, Challenges, and Strategies

• The UNFCCC was created in 1992 and called for measures to address climate change impacts.
• Research on adaptation was driven by vulnerability and impacts, and then shifted to focus on ways vulnerable populations could adapt to future changes.
• Adaptation was rarely recognized by the UNFCCC as they assumed that a reduction in GHG emissions would be enough to control problems.
• In 2007, the adaptation fund was launched by the UNFCCC, and in 2015, a global goal for adaptation was established at the Paris agreement.
• The number of chapters on adaptation in IPCC reports gradually increased since 2001, and sustainability is now being incorporated.
• Mitigation is not enough because climate change is already occurring, and the removal of all human-induced CO2 emissions will take hundreds of thousands of years.
• Adaptation must be addressed with the same priority as mitigation.
• The definition of adaptation is the adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.
• There are three types of adaptation: incremental, transitional, and transformational, each with different characteristics.
• Ideal characteristics of adaptation include being complementary to mitigation, decreasing vulnerability, avoiding maladaptation, promoting innovation, being interdisciplinary, taking climate change into account, and being proactive.
• Calculating the cost of climate change adaptation is challenging, and finance is restricting adaptation.
• The objective of vulnerability and adaptation assessments is to produce relevant information to diminish uncertainty, increase awareness, and monitor adaptation strategies.

Climate Change Adaptation: History, Challenges, and Strategies

• The UNFCCC was created in 1992 and called for measures to address climate change impacts.
• Research on adaptation was driven by vulnerability and impacts, and then shifted to focus on ways vulnerable populations could adapt to future changes.
• Adaptation was rarely recognized by the UNFCCC as they assumed that a reduction in GHG emissions would be enough to control problems.
• In 2007, the adaptation fund was launched by the UNFCCC, and in 2015, a global goal for adaptation was established at the Paris agreement.
• The number of chapters on adaptation in IPCC reports gradually increased since 2001, and sustainability is now being incorporated.
• Mitigation is not enough because climate change is already occurring, and the removal of all human-induced CO2 emissions will take hundreds of thousands of years.
• Adaptation must be addressed with the same priority as mitigation.
• The definition of adaptation is the adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.
• There are three types of adaptation: incremental, transitional, and transformational, each with different characteristics.
• Ideal characteristics of adaptation include being complementary to mitigation, decreasing vulnerability, avoiding maladaptation, promoting innovation, being interdisciplinary, taking climate change into account, and being proactive.
• Calculating the cost of climate change adaptation is challenging, and finance is restricting adaptation.
• The objective of vulnerability and adaptation assessments is to produce relevant information to diminish uncertainty, increase awareness, and monitor adaptation strategies.

Understanding Climate Change and Energy Sources

• Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns caused by natural and human activities.
• Natural factors that contribute to climate change include plate tectonics, the sun, the Earth's orbit, and greenhouse gases.
• Human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, also contribute to climate change.
• Climate change can affect health, food production, housing, and work, with vulnerable populations being the most impacted.
• Emissions are determined by technology, population, and affluence, with global temperature increasing with carbon dioxide emissions.
• Responses to climate change include adaptation, mitigation, and geoengineering.
• Solar energy can be generated through photovoltaic and solar thermal energy, with pros including renewable energy and low maintenance costs but cons including intermittency and high initial costs.
• Wind energy can be generated through wind turbines, with pros including clean and renewable energy but cons including intermittency and environmental impact.
• Biomass energy involves growing crops and burning them for energy, with pros including reliability and waste reduction but cons including greenhouse gas emissions and high costs.
• Hydroelectricity is generated through water running through a dam, with pros including minimal pollution and reliability but cons including high investment costs and environmental impact.
• Nuclear energy generates electricity through the energy in the nucleus of an atom, with cons including reactor safety and nuclear waste.
• Carbon capture and sequestration and carbon dioxide removal are methods to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, while solar radiation management involves increasing the Earth's albedo but has potential risks and political problems.

The Impact of Air Quality on Climate Change and Vice Versa: Mitigation Measures and Trade-offs

• Air pollution refers to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that have a detrimental effect on humans and other living organisms.
• Greenhouse gases (GHG) are gases that have the ability to absorb and trap heat.
• Air quality can be precursors to pollutants with negative or positive radiative forcing, such as NOx, SO2, NH3, VOC.
• Reductions in precursors of secondary aerosol are likely to lead to an increase in temperature.
• Black Carbon (BC) is a product of incomplete combustion and can be a substantial part of PM2.5, absorbing solar radiation and having a positive (warming) radiative forcing.
• Tropospheric O3 is a secondary pollutant and one of the largest single components of the current radiative forcing of climate.
• Increasing temperatures will lead to changes in chemistry associated with ozone formation and potentially increase the flux of O3 from the stratosphere to the troposphere.
• Mitigation measures for air pollution and climate change can be categorized into conservation, efficiency, abatement, fuel switching, demand management, and behavioral change.
• Reductions in emissions of NOx, SO2, VOC, PM10, NH3, and CO2 have been observed in the UK from 2002 to 2020 due to mitigation measures.
• Mitigation measures that could reduce emissions of AQ and climate-active pollutants include fuel switching, combined heat and power, and efficiency improvements.
• Mitigation measures that could increase emissions of AQ pollutants include increased use of diesel in place of petrol and incineration instead of landfill.
• Mitigation measures that could increase emissions of climate-active pollutants include increased demand for products/services, increased use of coal for electricity generation, and the use of biofuels under certain circumstances.

The Impact of Air Quality on Climate Change and Vice Versa: Mitigation Measures and Trade-offs

• Air pollution refers to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that have a detrimental effect on humans and other living organisms.
• Greenhouse gases (GHG) are gases that have the ability to absorb and trap heat.
• Air quality can be precursors to pollutants with negative or positive radiative forcing, such as NOx, SO2, NH3, VOC.
• Reductions in precursors of secondary aerosol are likely to lead to an increase in temperature.
• Black Carbon (BC) is a product of incomplete combustion and can be a substantial part of PM2.5, absorbing solar radiation and having a positive (warming) radiative forcing.
• Tropospheric O3 is a secondary pollutant and one of the largest single components of the current radiative forcing of climate.
• Increasing temperatures will lead to changes in chemistry associated with ozone formation and potentially increase the flux of O3 from the stratosphere to the troposphere.
• Mitigation measures for air pollution and climate change can be categorized into conservation, efficiency, abatement, fuel switching, demand management, and behavioral change.
• Reductions in emissions of NOx, SO2, VOC, PM10, NH3, and CO2 have been observed in the UK from 2002 to 2020 due to mitigation measures.
• Mitigation measures that could reduce emissions of AQ and climate-active pollutants include fuel switching, combined heat and power, and efficiency improvements.
• Mitigation measures that could increase emissions of AQ pollutants include increased use of diesel in place of petrol and incineration instead of landfill.
• Mitigation measures that could increase emissions of climate-active pollutants include increased demand for products/services, increased use of coal for electricity generation, and the use of biofuels under certain circumstances.

Adaptation to Climate Change: Concepts, Challenges, and Strategies

• The UNFCCC was created in 1992 to call on nations to enact measures to address climate change and research on adaptation was driven by vulnerability and impacts.
• Adaptation was rarely recognized by the UNFCCC as they assumed that a reduction in GHG’s would be enough to control problems until the adaption fund was launched in 2007.
• In 2015, a global goal for adaptation was established at the Paris agreement, and the number of chapters on adaptation in IPCC reports gradually increased since 2001.
• Adaption must be addressed with the same priority as mitigation because climate change is already occurring, and even if all greenhouse gas emissions are ceased, excess CO2 in the atmosphere will still cause consequences.
• The definition of adaptation is the adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.
• There are three types of adaptation: incremental, transitional, and transformational. The ideal characteristics of adaptation include being complementary to mitigation, decreasing vulnerability, avoiding maladaptation, promoting innovation, being interdisciplinary, and more.
• Finance is restricting adaptation, and the cost of climate change adaptation is estimated to be 5-20% of GDP per year indefinitely.
• Vulnerability is the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes.
• Resilience and stability are important factors in adaptation, and adaptive capacity depends on the economic, social, and human resources of the entity.
• An adaptation assessment is created by calculating the risk, danger, exposure, adaptation, responses, and options.
• Strategies for climate change adaptation include reducing vehicle emissions, maintaining proper ventilation, and engaging in new activities to take advantage of changing climatic conditions.
• Common adaptation priorities include agriculture under pressure, protecting freshwater supplies, climate impacts on health, risks posed to the energy sector, and fisheries and local livelihoods. Developing countries lack the capacity and financing required to implement their adaptation plans.

Assessing the Value of Ecosystem Services for Human Well-Being

• The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) found that humans have rapidly and extensively changed ecosystems in the past 50 years to meet growing demands for food, water, timber, fiber, and fuel.
• These changes have led to net gains in human well-being and economic development, but at the cost of degraded ecosystem services, increased risks, and poverty for some groups.
• The MA was the largest assessment of the health of Earth's ecosystems and involved 1360 experts from 95 countries, with review comments from 850 experts and governments.
• The MA provided authoritative information, clarified broad consensus within the scientific community, and identified response options and priorities.
• The MA's findings can be used for decision-making, management, assessment, capacity building, and research.
• Ecosystem services, the benefits people obtain from ecosystems, include provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services.
• The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity (TEEB) was founded on the MA concept of ecosystem services and aimed to fill the gap in economic evidence provided by the MA.
• TEEB focused on the underlying economic drivers of ecosystem decline and mainstreaming into economic decisions, inspired by the Stern Review's economic arguments for action on climate change.
• Valuing ecosystem services can generate better information, identify true costs, improve decision-making, provide a basis for policy formation, and set incentives and regulations.
• The value of ecosystem services is often taken for granted, but their importance and costs can be demonstrated, recognized, and captured through a three-tiered approach of ecosystem valuation.
• TEEB's approach involves clearly identifying the problem and stakeholders, ecosystem services, methodology and indicators, conducting a valuation assessment, analyzing the distribution of costs and benefits, communicating the results, and selecting and implementing economic and policy instruments.
• TEEB is important because the economic invisibility of nature is a problem, addressing losses requires interdisciplinary knowledge, different decision-making groups need different types of information and guidance, and successes need to be understood, broadcast, replicated, and scaled.

Valuing Ecosystem Services: Approaches and Challenges

• The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) changed the term "Nature's Benefits to People" to "Nature's Contributions to People" to include negative contributions from nature.

• The Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) recognizes provisioning, regulating, and cultural services but does not cover supporting services.

• The concept of ecosystem services (ES) has an anthropocentric focus and may promote an exploitative human-nature relationship.

• ES can be used to reconnect society and nature and challenge exploitative practices.

• The valuation of ES can lead to more informed decisions and raise awareness of their importance compared to man-made services.

• The TEV framework captures all benefits that humans obtain from nature and even the value of nature in its own right.

• TEV categories of value include direct use, indirect use, option use, and non-use values.

• The TEV approach was used to assess the annual contribution of reef-and mangrove-associated tourism to the national economy of Belize.

• Revealed preference (RP) methods are based on observations of individual choices related to an ecosystem service and are appropriate for direct and indirect use goods.

• Direct market valuation approaches include market price-based, cost-based, and production function approaches.

• Contingent valuation methods (CVM) use a hypothetical market to elicit willingness to pay (WTP) or accept (WTA) values for changes in ecosystem service provision.

• The CVM approach requires a credible scenario, allocation of property rights, and a payment vehicle, and may use face-to-face, mail, telephone, internet, or group interviews.Valuation Techniques for Environmental Goods

• There are various stated preference techniques for valuing environmental goods, such as open-ended, payment cards/ladders, bidding games, and dichotomous choice.

• Technical validation involves estimating a bid function and testing the validity and reliability of the estimates produced.

• Aggregation and discounting are necessary to calculate total WTP from mean/median WTP over the relevant population and to discount calculated values as appropriate.

• The payment ladder and dichotomous choice elicitation methods are commonly used in valuation studies.

• Choice modeling (CM) is a type of conjoint analysis that involves survey respondents making choices across environmental goods with varying bundles of attributes.

• CM can combine qualitative and quantitative attributes, but it requires specialist statistical design and software, and sampling resources.

• Group valuation is a combination of stated preference techniques with deliberative techniques, which offer a deeper exploration of environmental information, values, and preference formation.

• The limitations of valuation techniques include the hypothetical nature of the markets, divergence between WTP and WTA estimates, insensitivity to scope and scale, and the complexity of goods.

• To capture non-use values, sometimes the only way is to use valuation techniques.

• Respondents may not reflect real-life behavior, and pre-valuation workshops may be necessary to better understand their preferences.

• A survey of 300 households' WTP for mangrove protection in Benut, Malaysia, found that 56% of respondents stated a positive WTP, and the payment ladder and dichotomous choice elicitation methods were used.

• A study on valuing quality changes in Caribbean coastal waters for heterogeneous beach visitors found that most locals do not snorkel or dive and that two groups were identified: snorkelers and non-snorkelers.

Comparison of Different Approaches to Ecosystem Valuation

• Market-based valuation methods use market prices to reflect private willingness to pay (WTP), but can be distorted by market imperfections and policy failures, seasonal variations, and currency variations.
• Shadow prices reflect the true economic value or opportunity cost to society, but require substantial data and are considered “artificial”.
• Production function links ecosystem functions to market values but is complex for multi-use systems and may result in double counting.
• Mitigation/restoration costs are useful when valuing particular ecosystem functions, but may have diminishing returns and difficulty in restoring functions.
• Replacement costs estimate indirect benefits when ecological data is not available for estimating damage functions, but may overstate WTP.
• Avoided damage cost applies the precautionary principle, but data or resource limitations may rule out first-best valuation methods.
• Hedonic pricing reflects private WTP based on observed behavior, but is data-intensive and requires defined surrogate markets.
• Travel cost estimates WTP for recreational sites based on observed behavior, but is data-intensive and has restrictive assumptions about behavior.
• Contingent valuation can measure non-use value and give an estimate of total economic value (TEV), but is sensitive to biases in survey design and implementation.
• Choice modeling simultaneously elicits values for a range of goods and services, but has complex statistical design and analysis and can be burdensome for respondents.
• Ecological valuation assesses an ecosystem's functional integrity, health, or resilience to sustain life, but requires measuring biophysical indicators such as diversity or carbon stock.
• Sociocultural valuation considers the non-monetary value of ecosystem services and is based on the cultural contexts of a time and place. It can inform decision-makers and the public about varying perceptions of ecosystem services, inform priority setting for future management, and give an indication of the feasibility of new management regimes.

Priority Risk Areas:

• The accompanying Government Report of the CCRA2 names six priority risk areas: flooding and coastal change; health and wellbeing from high temperatures; water shortages; risks to natural capital; food production and trade; pests, diseases, and invasive non-native species.

Sustainable Living and Climate Change in the National Forest

• The national forest in the Midlands was formerly coal mines and has been transformed into a sustainable living and working model.
• The National Forest has planted 9 million trees in 30 years, increasing tree cover from 6% in 1991 to 22% in 2021.
• Mechanisms of tree planting include working with local authorities, land acquisition, and grant aid to landowners.
• The National Forest has seen percentage increases in all small mammals, bats, birds, and butterflies, in comparison to national trends.
• Restoring Resilient Ecosystems aims to unpick and examine the essential elements required for ecosystem restoration, focusing on UK woodlands and grasslands.
• Biochar is a carbon-rich charcoal spread on land that could provide a huge opportunity for carbon capture.
• Sustainable low-carbon tourism, forest accommodation, and sustainable design principles have increased visitor numbers, spending, and tourism jobs in the National Forest.
• Funding for infrastructure development, Forest School training, and the outdoor learning network has been provided to use the forest for learning.
• The Green Social Prescribing practice supports people to engage in nature-based activities to improve their mental health and wellbeing.
• National Forest projects involve over 60 community groups and organisations managing woodlands and community greenspaces.
• The project is funded by DEFRA, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Nature for Climate Fund, corporate sponsorship, individual donors, and private investors.
• Ecological and socio-cultural valuation methods inform decision-making, raise awareness, and inform priority setting for the future management of the forest.

Sustainable Living and Climate Change in the National Forest

• The national forest in the Midlands was formerly coal mines and has been transformed into a sustainable living and working model.
• The National Forest has planted 9 million trees in 30 years, increasing tree cover from 6% in 1991 to 22% in 2021.
• Mechanisms of tree planting include working with local authorities, land acquisition, and grant aid to landowners.
• The National Forest has seen percentage increases in all small mammals, bats, birds, and butterflies, in comparison to national trends.
• Restoring Resilient Ecosystems aims to unpick and examine the essential elements required for ecosystem restoration, focusing on UK woodlands and grasslands.
• Biochar is a carbon-rich charcoal spread on land that could provide a huge opportunity for carbon capture.
• Sustainable low-carbon tourism, forest accommodation, and sustainable design principles have increased visitor numbers, spending, and tourism jobs in the National Forest.
• Funding for infrastructure development, Forest School training, and the outdoor learning network has been provided to use the forest for learning.
• The Green Social Prescribing practice supports people to engage in nature-based activities to improve their mental health and wellbeing.
• National Forest projects involve over 60 community groups and organisations managing woodlands and community greenspaces.
• The project is funded by DEFRA, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Nature for Climate Fund, corporate sponsorship, individual donors, and private investors.
• Ecological and socio-cultural valuation methods inform decision-making, raise awareness, and inform priority setting for the future management of the forest.

Water in Climate Change and Mitigation

• The water budget is a hydrological tool that quantifies the flow of water in and out of a system.
• Resilient water supplies ensure both quantity and quality support all aspects of socio-economic sectors.
• Ground geology and porosity are the main drivers for the storage of water in a catchment.
• Water vapour is a greenhouse gas that accounts for about 60% of the Earth's greenhouse warming effect.
• Changes in precipitation and temperature directly impact the water budget, leading to increased precipitation in N latitudes and increased aridity in semi-arid areas.
• Wetlands act as natural carbon sinks, absorbing and storing carbon dioxide.
• Within the next 30 years, demand for water from agriculture and urban uses is expected to increase significantly.
• Methods of mitigation include water conservation, enhancing water storage and management, improving water quality, promoting sustainable land use practices, and promoting forest conservation and restoration.
• Building more dams and reservoirs may provide short-term solutions to water shortages but may also have negative impacts on ecosystems and water quality.
• Nature-based solutions (NBS) are designed to target climate change and can address biodiversity conservation, disaster risk reduction, green economy promotion, and further economic growth.
• Algae can remove as much carbon as all the trees, plants, and land combined.
• Shade balls, black plastic balls that cover the surface of reservoirs, can prevent evaporation during times of drought.