TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hickmann, Thomas
A1  - Widerberg, Oscar
A1  - Lederer, Markus
A1  - Pattberg, Philipp H.
T1  - The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat as an orchestrator in global climate policymaking
JF  - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration
N2  - Scholars have recently devoted increasing attention to the role and function of international bureaucracies in global policymaking. Some of them contend that international public officials have gained significant political influence in various policy fields. Compared to other international bureaucracies, the political leeway of the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has been considered rather limited. Due to the specific problem structure of the policy domain of climate change, national governments endowed this intergovernmental treaty secretariat with a relatively narrow mandate. However, this article argues that in the past few years, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat has gradually loosened its straitjacket and expanded its original spectrum of activity by engaging different sub-national and non-state actors into a policy dialogue using facilitative orchestration as a mode of governance. The present article explores the recent evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat and investigates the way in which it initiates, guides, broadens and strengthens sub-national and non-state climate actions to achieve progress in the international climate negotiations. <br /> Points for practitioners <br /> The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has lately adopted new roles and functions in global climate policymaking. While previously seen as a rather technocratic body that, first and foremost, serves national governments, the Climate Secretariat increasingly interacts with sub-national governments, civil society organizations and private companies to push the global response to climate change forward. We contend that the Climate Secretariat can contribute to global climate policymaking by coordinating and steering the initiatives of non-nation-state actors towards coherence and good practice.
KW  - climate change
KW  - environmental policymaking
KW  - intergovernmental relations
KW  - international bureaucracies
KW  - sub-national and non-state actors
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852319840425
SN  - 0020-8523
SN  - 1461-7226
VL  - 87
IS  - 1
SP  - 21
EP  - 38
PB  - Sage
CY  - Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.]
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - De Frenne, Pieter
A1  - Graae, Bente J.
A1  - Brunet, Jörg
A1  - Shevtsova, Anna
A1  - De Schrijver, An
A1  - Chabrerie, Olivier
A1  - Cousins, Sara A. O.
A1  - Decocq, Guillaume
A1  - Diekmann, Martin
A1  - Hermy, Martin
A1  - Heinken, Thilo
A1  - Kolb, Annette
A1  - Nilsson, Christer
A1  - Stanton, Sharon
A1  - Verheyen, Kris
T1  - The response of forest plant regeneration to temperature variation along a latitudinal gradient
JF  - Annals of botany
N2  - The response of forest herb regeneration from seed to temperature variations across latitudes was experimentally assessed in order to forecast the likely response of understorey community dynamics to climate warming.
 Seeds of two characteristic forest plants (Anemone nemorosa and Milium effusum) were collected in natural populations along a latitudinal gradient from northern France to northern Sweden and exposed to three temperature regimes in growth chambers (first experiment). To test the importance of local adaptation, reciprocal transplants were also made of adult individuals that originated from the same populations in three common gardens located in southern, central and northern sites along the same gradient, and the resulting seeds were germinated (second experiment). Seedling establishment was quantified by measuring the timing and percentage of seedling emergence, and seedling biomass in both experiments.
 Spring warming increased emergence rates and seedling growth in the early-flowering forb A. nemorosa. Seedlings of the summer-flowering grass M. effusum originating from northern populations responded more strongly in terms of biomass growth to temperature than southern populations. The above-ground biomass of the seedlings of both species decreased with increasing latitude of origin, irrespective of whether seeds were collected from natural populations or from the common gardens. The emergence percentage decreased with increasing home-away distance in seeds from the transplant experiment, suggesting that the maternal plants were locally adapted.
 Decreasing seedling emergence and growth were found from the centre to the northern edge of the distribution range for both species. Stronger responses to temperature variation in seedling growth of the grass M. effusum in the north may offer a way to cope with environmental change. The results further suggest that climate warming might differentially affect seedling establishment of understorey plants across their distribution range and thus alter future understorey plant dynamics.
KW  - Anemone nemorosa
KW  - climate change
KW  - common garden
KW  - growth chambers
KW  - latitudinal gradient
KW  - local adaptation
KW  - Milium effusum
KW  - plant regeneration
KW  - range edges
KW  - recruitment
KW  - seedling establishment
KW  - temperature
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcs015
SN  - 0305-7364
VL  - 109
IS  - 5
SP  - 1037
EP  - 1046
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schneider, Birgit
A1  - Walsh, Lynda
T1  - The politics of zoom
BT  - Problems with downscaling climate visualizations
JF  - Geo: Geography and Environment
N2  - Following the mandate in the Paris Agreement for signatories to provide “climate services” to their constituents, “downscaled” climate visualizations are proliferating. But the process of downscaling climate visualizations does not neutralize the political problems with their synoptic global sources—namely, their failure to empower communities to take action and their replication of neoliberal paradigms of globalization. In this study we examine these problems as they apply to interactive climate‐visualization platforms, which allow their users to localize global climate information to support local political action. By scrutinizing the political implications of the “zoom” tool from the perspective of media studies and rhetoric, we add to perspectives of cultural cartography on the issue of scaling from our fields. Namely, we break down the cinematic trope of “zooming” to reveal how it imports the political problems of synopticism to the level of individual communities. As a potential antidote to the politics of zoom, we recommend a downscaling strategy of connectivity, which associates rather than reduces situated views of climate to global ones.
KW  - climate change
KW  - climate services
KW  - climate visualization
KW  - connectivity
KW  - downscaling
KW  - spherical
KW  - synopticism
KW  - zoom
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/geo2.70
SN  - 2054-4049
VL  - 6
IS  - 1
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Levermann, Anders
A1  - Clark, Peter U.
A1  - Marzeion, Ben
A1  - Milne, Glenn A.
A1  - Pollard, David
A1  - Radic, Valentina
A1  - Robinson, Alexander
T1  - The multimillennial sea-level commitment of global warming
JF  - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
N2  - Global mean sea level has been steadily rising over the last century, is projected to increase by the end of this century, and will continue to rise beyond the year 2100 unless the current global mean temperature trend is reversed. Inertia in the climate and global carbon system, however, causes the global mean temperature to decline slowly even after greenhouse gas emissions have ceased, raising the question of how much sea-level commitment is expected for different levels of global mean temperature increase above preindustrial levels. Although sea-level rise over the last century has been dominated by ocean warming and loss of glaciers, the sensitivity suggested from records of past sea levels indicates important contributions should also be expected from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets. Uncertainties in the paleo-reconstructions, however, necessitate additional strategies to better constrain the sea-level commitment. Here we combine paleo-evidence with simulations from physical models to estimate the future sea-level commitment on a multimillennial time scale and compute associated regional sea-level patterns. Oceanic thermal expansion and the Antarctic Ice Sheet contribute quasi-linearly, with 0.4 m degrees C-1 and 1.2 m degrees C-1 of warming, respectively. The saturation of the contribution from glaciers is overcompensated by the nonlinear response of the Greenland Ice Sheet. As a consequence we are committed to a sea-level rise of approximately 2.3 m degrees C-1 within the next 2,000 y. Considering the lifetime of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, this imposes the need for fundamental adaptation strategies on multicentennial time scales.
KW  - climate change
KW  - climate impacts
KW  - sea-level change
Y1  - 2013
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1219414110
SN  - 0027-8424
VL  - 110
IS  - 34
SP  - 13745
EP  - 13750
PB  - National Acad. of Sciences
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kalkuhl, Matthias
A1  - Wenz, Leonie
T1  - The impact of climate conditions on economic production
BT  - evidence from a global panel of regions
JF  - Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
N2  - We present a novel data set of subnational economic output, Gross Regional Product (GRP), for more than 1500 regions in 77 countries that allows us to empirically estimate historic climate impacts at different time scales. Employing annual panel models, long-difference regressions and cross-sectional regressions, we identify effects on productivity levels and productivity growth. We do not find evidence for permanent growth rate impacts but we find robust evidence that temperature affects productivity levels considerably. An increase in global mean surface temperature by about 3.5°C until the end of the century would reduce global output by 7–14% in 2100, with even higher damages in tropical and poor regions. Updating the DICE damage function with our estimates suggests that the social cost of carbon from temperature-induced productivity losses is on the order of 73–142$/tCO2 in 2020, rising to 92–181$/tCO2 in 2030. These numbers exclude non-market damages and damages from extreme weather events or sea-level rise.
KW  - climate change
KW  - climate damages
KW  - climate impacts
KW  - growth regression
KW  - global warming
KW  - panel regression
KW  - cross-sectional regression
KW  - damage
KW  - function
KW  - social costs of carbon
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2020.102360
SN  - 0095-0696
SN  - 1096-0449
VL  - 103
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Stiegler, Jonas
A1  - Pahl, Janice
A1  - Guillen, Rafael Arce
A1  - Ullmann, Wiebke
A1  - Blaum, Niels
T1  - The heat is on
BT  - impacts of rising temperature on the activity of a common European mammal
JF  - Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
N2  - Climate conditions severely impact the activity and, consequently, the fitness of wildlife species across the globe. Wildlife can respond to new climatic conditions, but the pace of human-induced change limits opportunities for adaptation or migration. Thus, how these changes affect behavior, movement patterns, and activity levels remains unclear. In this study, we investigate how extreme weather conditions affect the activity of European hares (Lepus europaeus) during their peak reproduction period. When hares must additionally invest energy in mating, prevailing against competitors, or lactating, we investigated their sensitivities to rising temperatures, wind speed, and humidity. To quantify their activity, we used the overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA) calculated from tri-axial acceleration measurements of 33 GPS-collared hares. Our analysis revealed that temperature, humidity, and wind speed are important in explaining changes in activity, with a strong response for high temperatures above 25 & DEG;C and the highest change in activity during temperature extremes of over 35 & DEG;C during their inactive period. Further, we found a non-linear relationship between temperature and activity and an interaction of activity changes between day and night. Activity increased at higher temperatures during the inactive period (day) and decreased during the active period (night). This decrease was strongest during hot tropical nights. At a stage of life when mammals such as hares must substantially invest in reproduction, the sensitivity of females to extreme temperatures was particularly pronounced. Similarly, both sexes increased their activity at high humidity levels during the day and low wind speeds, irrespective of the time of day, while the effect of humidity was stronger for males. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the complex relationships between extreme weather conditions and mammal behavior, critical for conservation and management. With ongoing climate change, extreme weather events such as heat waves and heavy rainfall are predicted to occur more often and last longer. These events will directly impact the fitness of hares and other wildlife species and hence the population dynamics of already declining populations across Europe.
KW  - activity
KW  - ODBA
KW  - animal tracking
KW  - European hare
KW  - extreme weather events
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1193861
SN  - 2296-701X
VL  - 11
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hickmann, Thomas
A1  - Stehle, Fee
T1  - The Embeddedness of Urban Climate Politics in Multilevel Governance
BT  - a Case Study of South Africa’s Major Cities
JF  - The journal of environment & development : a review of international policy
N2  - Numerous scholars have lately highlighted the importance of cities in the global response to climate change. However, we still have little systematic knowledge on the evolution of urban climate politics in the Global South. In particular, we lack empirical studies that examine how local climate actions arise in political-administrative systems of developing and emerging economies. Therefore, this article adopts a multilevel governance perspective to explore the climate mitigation responses of three major cities in South Africa by looking at their vertical and horizontal integration in the wider governance framework. In the absence of a coherent national climate policy, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban have developed distinct climate actions within their jurisdictions. In their effort to address climate change, transnational city networks have provided considerable technical support to these cities. Yet, substantial domestic political-economic obstacles hinder the three cities to develop a more ambitious stance on climate change.
KW  - climate change
KW  - developing and emerging economies
KW  - local climate policy making
KW  - multilevel governance
KW  - South Africa
KW  - transnational city networks
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/1070496518819121
SN  - 1070-4965
SN  - 1552-5465
VL  - 28
IS  - 1
SP  - 54
EP  - 77
PB  - Sage Publ.
CY  - Thousand Oaks
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - van Kleunen, Mark
A1  - Essl, Franz
A1  - Pergl, Jan
A1  - Brundu, Giuseppe
A1  - Carboni, Marta
A1  - Dullinger, Stefan
A1  - Early, Regan
A1  - Gonzalez-Moreno, Pablo
A1  - Groom, Quentin J. M.
A1  - Hulme, Philip E.
A1  - Kueffer, Christoph
A1  - Kühn, Ingolf
A1  - Maguas, Cristina
A1  - Maurel, Noelie
A1  - Novoa, Ana
A1  - Parepa, Madalin
A1  - Pysek, Petr
A1  - Seebens, Hanno
A1  - Tanner, Rob
A1  - Touza, Julia
A1  - Verbrugge, Laura
A1  - Weber, Ewald
A1  - Dawson, Wayne
A1  - Kreft, Holger
A1  - Weigelt, Patrick
A1  - Winter, Marten
A1  - Klonner, Guenther
A1  - Talluto, Matthew V.
A1  - Dehnen-Schmutz, Katharina
T1  - The changing role of ornamental horticulture in alien plant invasions
JF  - Biological reviews
N2  - The number of alien plants escaping from cultivation into native ecosystems is increasing steadily. We provide an overview of the historical, contemporary and potential future roles of ornamental horticulture in plant invasions. We show that currently at least 75% and 93% of the global naturalised alien flora is grown in domestic and botanical gardens, respectively. Species grown in gardens also have a larger naturalised range than those that are not. After the Middle Ages, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, a global trade network in plants emerged. Since then, cultivated alien species also started to appear in the wild more frequently than non-cultivated aliens globally, particularly during the 19th century. Horticulture still plays a prominent role in current plant introduction, and the monetary value of live-plant imports in different parts of the world is steadily increasing. Historically, botanical gardens - an important component of horticulture - played a major role in displaying, cultivating and distributing new plant discoveries. While the role of botanical gardens in the horticultural supply chain has declined, they are still a significant link, with one-third of institutions involved in retail-plant sales and horticultural research. However, botanical gardens have also become more dependent on commercial nurseries as plant sources, particularly in North America. Plants selected for ornamental purposes are not a random selection of the global flora, and some of the plant characteristics promoted through horticulture, such as fast growth, also promote invasion. Efforts to breed non-invasive plant cultivars are still rare. Socio-economical, technological, and environmental changes will lead to novel patterns of plant introductions and invasion opportunities for the species that are already cultivated. We describe the role that horticulture could play in mediating these changes. We identify current research challenges, and call for more research efforts on the past and current role of horticulture in plant invasions. This is required to develop science-based regulatory frameworks to prevent further plant invasions.
KW  - botanical gardens
KW  - climate change
KW  - horticulture
KW  - naturalised plants
KW  - ornamental plants
KW  - pathways
KW  - plant invasions
KW  - plant nurseries
KW  - trade
KW  - weeds
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12402
SN  - 1464-7931
SN  - 1469-185X
VL  - 93
IS  - 3
SP  - 1421
EP  - 1437
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wischnewski, Juliane
A1  - Kramer, Annette
A1  - Kong, Zhaochen
A1  - Mackay, Anson W.
A1  - Simpson, Gavin L.
A1  - Mischke, Steffen
A1  - Herzschuh, Ulrike
T1  - Terrestrial and aquatic responses to climate change and human impact on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau during the past two centuries
JF  - Global change biology
N2  - Rapid population growth and economic development have led to increased anthropogenic pressures on the Tibetan Plateau, causing significant land cover changes with potentially severe ecological consequences. To assess whether or not these pressures are also affecting the remote montane-boreal lakes on the SE Tibetan Plateau, fossil pollen and diatom data from two lakes were synthesized. The interplay of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem response was explored in respect to climate variability and human activity over the past 200 years. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling and Procrustes rotation analysis were undertaken to determine whether pollen and diatom responses in each lake were similar and synchronous. Detrended canonical correspondence analysis was used to develop quantitative estimates of compositional species turnover. Despite instrumental evidence of significant climatic warming on the southeastern Plateau, the pollen and diatom records indicate very stable species composition throughout their profiles and show only very subtle responses to environmental changes over the past 200 years. The compositional species turnover (0.36-0.94 SD) is relatively low in comparison to the species reorganizations known from the periods during the mid-and early-Holocene (0.64-1.61 SD) on the SE Plateau, and also in comparison to turnover rates of sediment records from climate-sensitive regions in the circum arctic. Our results indicate that climatically induced ecological thresholds are not yet crossed, but that human activity has an increasing influence, particularly on the terrestrial ecosystem in our study area. Synergistic processes of post-Little Ice Age warming, 20th century climate warming and extensive reforestations since the 19th century have initiated a change from natural oak-pine forests to seminatural, likely less resilient pine-oak forests. Further warming and anthropogenic disturbances would possibly exceed the ecological threshold of these ecosystems and lead to severe ecological consequences.
KW  - climate change
KW  - compositional species turnover
KW  - diatoms
KW  - human impact
KW  - pollen
KW  - Procrustes rotation
KW  - Tibetan Plateau
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02474.x
SN  - 1354-1013
VL  - 17
IS  - 11
SP  - 3376
EP  - 3391
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Malden
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mtilatila, Lucy Mphatso Ng'ombe
A1  - Bronstert, Axel
A1  - Vormoor, Klaus Josef
T1  - Temporal evaluation and projections of meteorological droughts in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin, Southeast Africa
JF  - Frontiers in water
N2  - The study examined the potential future changes of drought characteristics in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin in Southeast Africa. This region strongly depends on water resources to generate electricity and food. Future projections (considering both moderate and high emission scenarios) of temperature and precipitation from an ensemble of 16 bias-corrected climate model combinations were blended with a scenario-neutral response surface approach to analyses changes in: (i) the meteorological conditions, (ii) the meteorological water balance, and (iii) selected drought characteristics such as drought intensity, drought months, and drought events, which were derived from the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index. Changes were analyzed for a near-term (2021-2050) and far-term period (2071-2100) with reference to 1976-2005. The effect of bias-correction (i.e., empirical quantile mapping) on the ability of the climate model ensemble to reproduce observed drought characteristics as compared to raw climate projections was also investigated. Results suggest that the bias-correction improves the climate models in terms of reproducing temperature and precipitation statistics but not drought characteristics. Still, despite the differences in the internal structures and uncertainties that exist among the climate models, they all agree on an increase of meteorological droughts in the future in terms of higher drought intensity and longer events. Drought intensity is projected to increase between +25 and +50% during 2021-2050 and between +131 and +388% during 2071-2100. This translates into +3 to +5, and +7 to +8 more drought months per year during both periods, respectively. With longer lasting drought events, the number of drought events decreases. Projected droughts based on the high emission scenario are 1.7 times more severe than droughts based on the moderate scenario. That means that droughts in this region will likely become more severe in the coming decades. Despite the inherent high uncertainties of climate projections, the results provide a basis in planning and (water-)managing activities for climate change adaptation measures in Malawi. This is of particular relevance for water management issues referring hydro power generation and food production, both for rain-fed and irrigated agriculture.
KW  - meteorological drought
KW  - drought intensity
KW  - climate change
KW  - drought
KW  - events
KW  - Lake Malawi
KW  - Shire River
KW  - drought projections
KW  - South-Eastern
KW  - Africa
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.1041452
SN  - 2624-9375
VL  - 4
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mtilatila, Lucy Mphatso Ng'ombe
A1  - Bronstert, Axel
A1  - Vormoor, Klaus Josef
T1  - Temporal evaluation and projections of meteorological droughts in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin, Southeast Africa
JF  - Frontiers in Water
N2  - The study examined the potential future changes of drought characteristics in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin in Southeast Africa. This region strongly depends on water resources to generate electricity and food. Future projections (considering both moderate and high emission scenarios) of temperature and precipitation from an ensemble of 16 bias-corrected climate model combinations were blended with a scenario-neutral response surface approach to analyses changes in: (i) the meteorological conditions, (ii) the meteorological water balance, and (iii) selected drought characteristics such as drought intensity, drought months, and drought events, which were derived from the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index. Changes were analyzed for a near-term (2021–2050) and far-term period (2071–2100) with reference to 1976–2005. The effect of bias-correction (i.e., empirical quantile mapping) on the ability of the climate model ensemble to reproduce observed drought characteristics as compared to raw climate projections was also investigated. Results suggest that the bias-correction improves the climate models in terms of reproducing temperature and precipitation statistics but not drought characteristics. Still, despite the differences in the internal structures and uncertainties that exist among the climate models, they all agree on an increase of meteorological droughts in the future in terms of higher drought intensity and longer events. Drought intensity is projected to increase between +25 and +50% during 2021–2050 and between +131 and +388% during 2071–2100. This translates into +3 to +5, and +7 to +8 more drought months per year during both periods, respectively. With longer lasting drought events, the number of drought events decreases. Projected droughts based on the high emission scenario are 1.7 times more severe than droughts based on the moderate scenario. That means that droughts in this region will likely become more severe in the coming decades. Despite the inherent high uncertainties of climate projections, the results provide a basis in planning and (water-)managing activities for climate change adaptation measures in Malawi. This is of particular relevance for water management issues referring hydro power generation and food production, both for rain-fed and irrigated agriculture.
KW  - meteorological drought
KW  - drought intensity
KW  - climate change
KW  - drought events
KW  - Lake Malawi
KW  - Shire River
KW  - drought projections
KW  - South-Eastern Africa
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.1041452
SN  - 2624-9375
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
PB  - Frontiers Media S.A.
CY  - Lausanne, Schweiz
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Huber, Veronika
A1  - Krummenauer, Linda
A1  - Peña-Ortiz, Cristina
A1  - Lange, Stefan
A1  - Gasparrini, Antonio
A1  - Vicedo-Cabrera, Ana Maria
A1  - Garcia-Herrera, Ricardo
A1  - Frieler, Katja
T1  - Temperature-related excess mortality in German cities at 2 °C and higher degrees of global warming
JF  - Environmental Research
N2  - Background: Investigating future changes in temperature-related mortality as a function of global mean temperature (GMT) rise allows for the evaluation of policy-relevant climate change targets. So far, only few studies have taken this approach, and, in particular, no such assessments exist for Germany, the most populated country of Europe.

Methods: We assess temperature-related mortality in 12 major German cities based on daily time-series of all-cause mortality and daily mean temperatures in the period 1993-2015, using distributed-lag non-linear models in a two-stage design. Resulting risk functions are applied to estimate excess mortality in terms of GMT rise relative to pre-industrial levels, assuming no change in demographics or population vulnerability.

Results: In the observational period, cold contributes stronger to temperature-related mortality than heat, with overall attributable fractions of 5.49% (95%CI: 3.82-7.19) and 0.81% (95%CI: 0.72-0.89), respectively. Future projections indicate that this pattern could be reversed under progressing global warming, with heat-related mortality starting to exceed cold-related mortality at 3 degrees C or higher GMT rise. Across cities, projected net increases in total temperature-related mortality were 0.45% (95%CI: -0.02-1.06) at 3 degrees C, 1.53% (95%CI: 0.96-2.06) at 4 degrees C, and 2.88% (95%CI: 1.60-4.10) at 5 degrees C, compared to today's warming level of 1 degrees C. By contrast, no significant difference was found between projected total temperature-related mortality at 2 degrees C versus 1 degrees C of GMT rise.

Conclusions: Our results can inform current adaptation policies aimed at buffering the health risks from increased heat exposure under climate change. They also allow for the evaluation of global mitigation efforts in terms of local health benefits in some of Germany's most populated cities.
KW  - temperature-related mortality
KW  - climate change
KW  - Future projections
KW  - Germany
KW  - global mean temperature
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.109447
SN  - 0013-9351
SN  - 1096-0953
VL  - 186
SP  - 1
EP  - 10
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego, California
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - De Frenne, Pieter
A1  - Brunet, Jorg
A1  - Shevtsova, Anna
A1  - Kolb, Annette
A1  - Graae, Bente J.
A1  - Chabrerie, Olivier
A1  - Cousins, Sara Ao
A1  - Decocq, Guillaume
A1  - De Schrijver, An
A1  - Diekmann, Martin
A1  - Gruwez, Robert
A1  - Heinken, Thilo
A1  - Hermy, Martin
A1  - Nilsson, Christer
A1  - Stanton, Sharon
A1  - Tack, Wesley
A1  - Willaert, Justin
A1  - Verheyen, Kris
T1  - Temperature effects on forest herbs assessed by warming and transplant experiments along a latitudinal gradient
JF  - Global change biology
N2  - Slow-colonizing forest understorey plants are probably not able to rapidly adjust their distribution range following large-scale climate change. Therefore, the acclimation potential to climate change within their actual occupied habitats will likely be key for their short-and long-term persistence. We combined transplant experiments along a latitudinal gradient with open-top chambers to assess the effects of temperature on phenology, growth and reproductive performance of multiple populations of slow-colonizing understorey plants, using the spring flowering geophytic forb Anemone nemorosa and the early summer flowering grass Milium effusum as study species. In both species, emergence time and start of flowering clearly advanced with increasing temperatures. Vegetative growth (plant height, aboveground biomass) and reproductive success (seed mass, seed germination and germinable seed output) of A. nemorosa benefited from higher temperatures. Climate warming may thus increase future competitive ability and colonization rates of this species. Apart from the effects on phenology, growth and reproductive performance of M. effusum generally decreased when transplanted southwards (e. g., plant size and number of individuals decreased towards the south) and was probably more limited by light availability in the south. Specific leaf area of both species increased when transplanted southwards, but decreased with open-top chamber installation in A. nemorosa. In general, individuals of both species transplanted at the home site performed best, suggesting local adaptation. We conclude that contrasting understorey plants may display divergent plasticity in response to changing temperatures which may alter future understorey community dynamics.
KW  - climate change
KW  - common garden experiment
KW  - forest understorey
KW  - latitude
KW  - local adaptation
KW  - open-top chambers
KW  - phenotypic plasticity
KW  - pot experiment
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02449.x
SN  - 1354-1013
VL  - 17
IS  - 10
SP  - 3240
EP  - 3253
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wenz, Leonie
A1  - Kalkuhl, Matthias
A1  - Steckel, Jan Christoph
A1  - Creutzig, Felix
T1  - Teleconnected food supply shocks
JF  - Environmental research letters
N2  - The 2008-2010 food crisis might have been a harbinger of fundamental climate-induced food crises with geopolitical implications. Heat-wave-induced yield losses in Russia and resulting export restrictions led to increases in market prices for wheat across the Middle East, likely contributing to the Arab Spring. With ongoing climate change, temperatures and temperature variability will rise, leading to higher uncertainty in yields for major nutritional crops. Here we investigate which countries are most vulnerable to teleconnected supply-shocks, i.e. where diets strongly rely on the import of wheat, maize, or rice, and where a large share of the population is living in poverty. We find that the Middle East is most sensitive to teleconnected supply shocks in wheat, Central America to supply shocks in maize, and Western Africa to supply shocks in rice. Weighing with poverty levels, Sub-Saharan Africa is most affected. Altogether, a simultaneous 10% reduction in exports of wheat, rice, and maize would reduce caloric intake of 55 million people living in poverty by about 5%. Export bans in major producing regions would put up to 200 million people below the poverty line at risk, 90% of which live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our results suggest that a region-specific combination of national increases in agricultural productivity and diversification of trade partners and diets can effectively decrease future food security risks.
KW  - food security
KW  - trade shocks
KW  - vulnerability
KW  - climate change
KW  - teleconnections
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/035007
SN  - 1748-9326
VL  - 11
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Huber, Robert
A1  - Rigling, Andreas
A1  - Bebi, Peter
A1  - Brand, Fridolin Simon
A1  - Briner, Simon
A1  - Buttler, Alexandre
A1  - Elkin, Che
A1  - Gillet, Francois
A1  - Gret-Regamey, Adrienne
A1  - Hirschi, Christian
A1  - Lischke, Heike
A1  - Scholz, Roland Werner
A1  - Seidl, Roman
A1  - Spiegelberger, Thomas
A1  - Walz, Ariane
A1  - Zimmermann, Willi
A1  - Bugmann, Harald
T1  - Sustainable land use in Mountain Regions under global change synthesis across scales and disciplines
JF  - Ecology and society : a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability
N2  - Mountain regions provide essential ecosystem goods and services (EGS) for both mountain dwellers and people living outside these areas. Global change endangers the capacity of mountain ecosystems to provide key services. The Mountland project focused on three case study regions in the Swiss Alps and aimed to propose land-use practices and alternative policy solutions to ensure the provision of key EGS under climate and land-use changes. We summarized and synthesized the results of the project and provide insights into the ecological, socioeconomic, and political processes relevant for analyzing global change impacts on a European mountain region. In Mountland, an integrative approach was applied, combining methods from economics and the political and natural sciences to analyze ecosystem functioning from a holistic human-environment system perspective. In general, surveys, experiments, and model results revealed that climate and socioeconomic changes are likely to increase the vulnerability of the EGS analyzed. We regard the following key characteristics of coupled human-environment systems as central to our case study areas in mountain regions: thresholds, heterogeneity, trade-offs, and feedback. Our results suggest that the institutional framework should be strengthened in a way that better addresses these characteristics, allowing for (1) more integrative approaches, (2) a more network-oriented management and steering of political processes that integrate local stakeholders, and (3) enhanced capacity building to decrease the identified vulnerability as central elements in the policy process. Further, to maintain and support the future provision of EGS in mountain regions, policy making should also focus on project-oriented, cross-sectoral policies and spatial planning as a coordination instrument for land use in general.
KW  - adaptive management
KW  - climate change
KW  - ecosystem services
KW  - experiments
KW  - interdisciplinary research
KW  - land-use change
KW  - modeling
KW  - transdisciplinary research
Y1  - 2013
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05499-180336
SN  - 1708-3087
VL  - 18
IS  - 3
PB  - Resilience Alliance
CY  - Wolfville
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Coch, Caroline
A1  - Lamoureux, Scott F.
A1  - Knoblauch, Christian
A1  - Eischeid, Isabell
A1  - Fritz, Michael
A1  - Obu, Jaroslav
A1  - Lantuit, Hugues
T1  - Summer rainfall dissolved organic carbon, solute, and sediment fluxes in a small Arctic coastal catchment on Herschel Island (Yukon Territory, Canada)
JF  - Artic science
N2  - Coastal ecosystems in the Arctic are affected by climate change. As summer rainfall frequency and intensity are projected to increase in the future, more organic matter, nutrients and sediment could bemobilized and transported into the coastal nearshore zones. However, knowledge of current processes and future changes is limited. We investigated streamflow dynamics and the impacts of summer rainfall on lateral fluxes in a small coastal catchment on Herschel Island in the western Canadian Arctic. For the summer monitoring periods of 2014-2016, mean dissolved organic matter flux over 17 days amounted to 82.7 +/- 30.7 kg km(-2) and mean total dissolved solids flux to 5252 +/- 1224 kg km(-2). Flux of suspended sediment was 7245 kg km(-2) in 2015, and 369 kg km(-2) in 2016. We found that 2.0% of suspended sediment was composed of particulate organic carbon. Data and hysteresis analysis suggest a limited supply of sediments; their interannual variability is most likely caused by short-lived localized disturbances. In contrast, our results imply that dissolved organic carbon is widely available throughout the catchment and exhibits positive linear relationship with runoff. We hypothesize that increased projected rainfall in the future will result in a similar increase of dissolved organic carbon fluxes.
KW  - permafrost
KW  - hydrology
KW  - lateral fluxes
KW  - hysteresis
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1139/as-2018-0010
SN  - 2368-7460
VL  - 4
IS  - 4
SP  - 750
EP  - 780
PB  - Canadian science publishing
CY  - Ottawa
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Grimm-Seyfarth, Annegret
A1  - Mihoub, Jean-Baptiste
A1  - Gruber, Bernd
A1  - Henle, Klaus
T1  - Some like it hot
BT  - from individual to population responses of an arboreal arid-zone gecko to local and distant climate
JF  - Ecological monographs
N2  - Accumulating evidence has demonstrated considerable impact of climate change on biodiversity, with terrestrial ectotherms being particularly vulnerable. While climate-induced range shifts are often addressed in the literature, little is known about the underlying ecological responses at individual and population levels. Using a 30-yr monitoring study of the long-living nocturnal gecko Gehyra variegata in arid Australia, we determined the relative contribution of climatic factors acting locally (temperature, rainfall) or distantly (La Nina induced flooding) on ecological processes ranging from traits at the individual level (body condition, body growth) to the demography at population level (survival, sexual maturity, population sizes). We also investigated whether thermoregulatory activity during both active (night) and resting (daytime) periods of the day can explain these responses. Gehyra variegata responded to local and distant climatic effects. Both high temperatures and high water availability enhanced individual and demographic parameters. Moreover, the impact of water availability was scale independent as local rainfall and La Nina induced flooding compensated each other. When water availability was low, however, extremely high temperatures delayed body growth and sexual maturity while survival of individuals and population sizes remained stable. This suggests a trade-off with traits at the individual level that may potentially buffer the consequences of adverse climatic conditions at the population level. Moreover, hot temperatures did not impact nocturnal nor diurnal behavior. Instead, only cool temperatures induced diurnal thermoregulatory behavior with individuals moving to exposed hollow branches and even outside tree hollows for sun-basking during the day. Since diurnal behavioral thermoregulation likely induced costs on fitness, this could decrease performance at both individual and population level under cool temperatures. Our findings show that water availability rather than high temperature is the limiting factor in our focal population of G.variegata. In contrast to previous studies, we stress that drier rather than warmer conditions are expected to be detrimental for nocturnal desert reptiles. Identifying the actual limiting climatic factors at different scales and their functional interactions at different ecological levels is critical to be able to predict reliably future population dynamics and support conservation planning in arid ecosystems.
KW  - behavioral adaptation
KW  - body condition
KW  - body growth rate
KW  - climate change
KW  - El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
KW  - Gehyra variegata
KW  - population dynamics
KW  - population size
KW  - survival
KW  - thermoregulation
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1301
SN  - 0012-9615
SN  - 1557-7015
VL  - 88
IS  - 3
SP  - 336
EP  - 352
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mielke, Jahel
T1  - Signals for 2 degrees C
BT  - the influence of policies, market factors and civil society actions on investment decisions for green infrastructure
JF  - Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment
N2  - The targets of the Paris Agreement make it necessary to redirect finance flows towards sustainable, low-carbon infrastructures and technologies. Currently, the potential of institutional investors to help finance this transition is widely discussed. Thus, this paper takes a closer look at influence factors for green investment decisions of large European insurance companies. With a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, the importance of policy, market and civil society signals is evaluated. In summary, respondents favor measures that promote green investment, such as feed-in tariffs or adjustments of capital charges for green assets, over ones that make carbon-intensive investments less attractive, such as the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies or a carbon price. While investors currently see a low impact of the carbon price, they rank a substantial reform as an important signal for the future. Respondents also emphasize that policy signals have to be coherent and credible to coordinate expectations.
KW  - Green infrastructure investment
KW  - policy signals
KW  - green finance
KW  - climate change
KW  - institutional investors
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/20430795.2018.1528809
SN  - 2043-0795
SN  - 2043-0809
VL  - 9
IS  - 2
SP  - 87
EP  - 115
PB  - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Abingdon
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Reibold, Kerstin
T1  - Settler Colonialism, Decolonization, and Climate Change
JF  - Journal of applied philosophy
N2  - The article proposes that climate change makes enduring colonial injustices and structures visible. It focuses on the imposition and dominance of colonial concepts of land and self-determination on Indigenous peoples in settler states. It argues that if the dominance of these colonial frameworks remains unaddressed, the progressing climate change will worsen other colonial injustices, too. Specifically, Indigenous self-determination capabilities will be increasingly undermined, and Indigenous peoples will experience the loss of what they understand as relevant land from within their own ontologies of land. The article holds that even if settler states strive to repair colonial injustices, these efforts will be unsuccessful if climate change occurs and decolonization is pursued within the framework of a settler colonial ontology of land. Therefore, the article suggests, decolonization of the ontologies of land and concepts of self-determination is a precondition for a just response to climate change.
KW  - territorial rights
KW  - indigenous rights
KW  - climate change
KW  - colonialism
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12573
SN  - 0264-3758
SN  - 1468-5930
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kuhla, Kilian
A1  - Willner, Sven N.
A1  - Otto, Christian
A1  - Geiger, Tobias
A1  - Levermann, Anders
T1  - Ripple resonance amplifies economic welfare loss from weather extremes
JF  - Environmental research letters : ERL / Institute of Physics
N2  - The most complex but potentially most severe impacts of climate change are caused by extreme weather events. In a globally connected economy, damages can cause remote perturbations and cascading consequences-a ripple effect along supply chains. Here we show an economic ripple resonance that amplifies losses when consecutive or overlapping weather extremes and their repercussions interact. This amounts to an average amplification of 21% for climate-induced heat stress, river floods, and tropical cyclones. Modeling the temporal evolution of 1.8 million trade relations between >7000 regional economic sectors, we find that the regional responses to future extremes are strongly heterogeneous also in their resonance behavior. The induced effect on welfare varies between gains due to increased demand in some regions and losses due to demand or supply shortages in others. Within the current global supply network, the ripple resonance effect of extreme weather is strongest in high-income economies-an important effect to consider when evaluating past and future economic climate impacts.
KW  - consecutive disasters
KW  - economic ripple resonance
KW  - repercussion resonance
KW  - weather extremes
KW  - supply network
KW  - climate impacts
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2932
SN  - 1748-9326
VL  - 16
IS  - 11
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  -