Ryan Nunn, Jimmy O’Donnell, Jay Shambaugh, Lawrence H. Goulder, Charles D. Kolstad, and Xianling Long. "Ten Facts about the Economics of Climate Change and Climate Policy". Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/...
The world’s climate has already changed measurably in response to accumulating greenhouse gas (GHG). Considerable uncertainties surround both the extent of future climate change and the biophysical impacts of such change. Despite the uncertainties, climate scientists strongly agree that in the absence of measures to significantly reduce GHG emissions, the changes in climate will be substantial – with long-lasting effects on many of Earth’s physical and biological systems. There are significant risks associated with low probability but potentially catastrophic outcomes. Although a focus on median outcomes alone warrants efforts to reduce emissions of GHGs, economists argue that the uncertainties and associated risks justify more aggressive policy action than otherwise would be warranted.
Posted on 14/05/24
Recent Abstracts
Sustainable Fitch: Climate Scenario Limitations Are Surfacing as Usage Rises
Climate scenario analysis is a key tool for evaluating complex physical and transition risks of companies and communities. This raises questions about the credibility of transition plans and long-term risk management processes that do not apply the scenarios. Limited standardization and transparency make it difficult ...
Posted on 02/07/23
ESG to SDG: Do Sustainable Investing Ratings Align with the Sustainability Preferences of Investors, Regulators, and Scientists?
While ESG and SDG are complementary, they cannot be used interchangeably to identify the sustainability of companies and their contribution to social development and the planet. Where sustainable investors aim to invest in companies that contribute to sustainable development, there is disagreement on how best to measu ...
Posted on 27/06/23
Sustainability, Resilience, Regeneration – What’s the Difference?
Sustainability postpones social, environmental and economic disasters in attempt to meet present economic growth while minimizing the impacts of current socioeconomic development for future generations. Although sustainability is widely considered a positive concept, it has numerous weaknesses that make it unsustainab ...
Posted on 13/06/23
SDGs vs ESGs: What Is the Better Measure of Sustainability?
SDGs are the most commonly used framework for the sustainability reporting of the top patent holders. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a globally agreed and accepted framework of practices with clearly defined indicators and goal-oriented recommendations that enable criteria-unbiased sustainability asse ...
Posted on 05/06/23
Translating Citizen-Generated Air Quality Data into Evidence for Shaping Policy
The practice of participatory sensing for environment monitoring has rapidly evolved over the years. There has been a steady growth of citizen-based environmental monitoring projects that aim to build partnerships, knowledge-sharing platforms, awareness, and ultimately environmental resilience. Citizen science has resh ...
Posted on 04/06/23
Assessing ‘Good Governance’ and Corruption in New Zealand: ‘Scientific’ Measurement, Political Discourse, and Historical Narrative
New Zealand is ranked highly on the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), which assess performance on six dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. Moreover, New Zealand has long ...
Posted on 02/04/23
The Application of Life Cycle Assessment in Buildings: Challenges, and Directions for Future Research
New generation life cycle assessment (LCA) methods and tools can positively influence the environmental impact of the built environment and help mitigate the effects of climate change. They continuously learn from real-time data while allowing for effective operation and management strategies of buildings and district ...
Posted on 28/10/22
Towards Sustainable Development through the Circular Economy—A Review and Critical Assessment on Current Circularity Metrics
The circular economy (CE) is an optimal pathway to sustainable development and companies, governments and academics have formulated various proposals to measure circularity. Ideally, circularity metrics indicate how well circularity is applied to the whole life cycle of products and services in terms of society, the e ...
Posted on 24/10/22
What are the challenges in assessing circular economy for the built environment? A literature review on integrating LCA, LCC and S-LCA in life cycle sustainability assessment, LCSA
For circular economy (CE) to succeed, focus must be given to the service life phase and the reuse/recycle phase of building projects. This involves more stakeholders both in the early decision-making phases of projects as well as in the design phase and impacts the project value chain. Life cycle sustainability asses ...
Posted on 19/10/22
Delivering the Circular Economy: A Toolkit for Policymakers
The circular economy offers business leaders and government a clear opportunity for long-term growth that is less dependent on cheap materials and energy and can restore and regenerate natural capital. This report provides an actionable toolkit for policymakers for embarking on a circular economy transformation that d ...
Posted on 14/10/22
Circular Business Models for the Built Environment
Circular business models (CBMs) create additional value by taking a systemic view across the whole life cycle of assets, using new technologies, and applying advanced design approaches. This added value demonstrates the feasibility of the business case for adopting CBMs, the social, economic and environmental benefits ...
Posted on 12/10/22
Categorisation System for the Circular Economy
The lack of a commonly accepted and sufficiently inclusive definition and circularity measurement methodology hampers the transition to a more circular economy in numerous ways. To counter this, this circular economy categorization system was proposed comprising 14 circular categories organized in four high-level grou ...
Posted on 10/10/22
Stakeholder Collaboration in Sustainable Neighborhood Projects—A Review and Research Agenda
Stakeholder collaboration in neighborhood projects facilitates networking and knowledge transfer. Construction companies participate in the task definition, research institutions contribute to feasibility testing, civil society organizations (CSOs) reinforce environmental approaches, and international partners increas ...
Posted on 05/10/22
OECD Toolkit for a Territorial Approach to the SDGs
This action checklist helps government policymakers in uptaking, implementing, and localizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as a tool for better policies and living quality. It covers (1) policies and strategies, (2) multi-level governance, (3) financing and budgeting, (4) data and information, and (5) sta ...
Posted on 03/10/22
The Great Carbon Capture Scam
The oil industry invented “net zero” as the perfect alternative to slowing oil production to halt global heating. The netting deducts some carbon from total CO₂ emissions to create “net zero emissions”. The oil industry thereby claims to capture and store CO₂, while using this “captured carbon” for enhanced oil recov ...
Posted on 30/09/22