Crow, D.A. and O. Baysha, 2013. “Conservation” as a Catalyst for Conflict: Considering Stakeholder Understanding in Policy Making. Review of Policy Research, Volume 30, Number 3 (2013) 10.1111/ropr.12020. [pdf].
 Abstract: Stakeholder negotiation processes are increasingly used in environmental management, but are often difficult due to values differences among stakeholders. These values can be reflected in the language used by stakeholders, which may lead to conflict in negotiation processes. This study investigated whether there are widespread differences among Colorado water stakeholders in how they define the term “conservation,” a key value and policy term, and whether this leads to conflict in negotiations. Using multiple methods in a cross-sectional case study, use of the term and possible policy implications were analyzed. Stakeholder respondents in this study who had experienced difficulty in water negotiations also perceived a higher degree of miscommunication in their negotiations. The most important finding presented here suggests that clarity of language and transparent discussion of key value-representative terms may aid in stakeholder negotiations, and that minority stakeholders may be more aware of values and language differences than their majority counterparts. Read more ...
Dilling, L. and R. Hauser (2013), Governing geoengineering research: why, when and how?. Climatic Change , doi: 10.1007/s10584-013-0835-z, Published July 2013. [pdf].
 Abstract: Research on geoengineering – deliberate management of the Earth’s climate system – is being increasingly discussed within the science and policy communities. While justified as necessary in order to expand the range of options available to policy makers in the future, geoengineering research has already engendered public controversy. Proposed projects have been protested or cancelled, and calls for a governance framework abound. In this paper, we consider the reasons why geoengineering research might be subject to additional governance and suggest mechanisms that might be usefully applied in developing such a framework. We consider criteria for governance as raised by a review of the growing literature on geoengineering and other controversial scientific topics. We suggest three families of concern that any governance research framework must respond to: the direct physical risks of the research; the transparency and responsibility in decision making for the research; and the larger societal meanings of the research. We review what mechanisms might be available to respond to these three families of concern, and consider how these might apply to geoengineering research. Read more ...
Boykoff, M.T. and T. Yulsman, 2013. Political economy, media, and climate change: sinews of modern life. WIREs Clim Change 2013. doi: 10.1002/wcc.233. [pdf].
 Abstract: In this 21st century, examining how climate change is described and considered, largely through mass media, is as important as formal climate governance to the long-term success or failure of efforts to confront the challenge. Mass media stitch together formal science and policy with the public sphere. And many dynamic, contested factors contribute to how media outlets portray climate change. This paper addresses contemporary political economics—from greater workloads and reductions in specialist science journalism to digital innovations and new media organizational forms—as they relate to media coverage of climate change. By way of recent studies and indications of these dynamics, we appraise how power flows through culture, politics, and society, to construct coverage, public discourses, and knowledge on climate change. In so doing, we explore how media representations of climate change have changed over time, and particularly how the rise of digital media has reshaped climate coverage. Considerations of climate change, arguably the most heavily politicized scientific issue at the turn of the new millennium, seek to inform and anticipate corollary science issues, such as ongoing concerns for genetically modified organisms, nanotechnology risks, and increased threats to water quantity and quality. The focus on political economy—the ‘sinews’ of modern life—can also then help to inform perceptions and decision making in associated environmental challenges. Read more ...
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Bazilian, M. and R. Pielke, Jr. (2013), Making Energy Access Meaningful (full version with figures). Issues in Science and Technology Summer 74-79, Published July 2013. [pdf].
 Excerpt: “In a somewhat inconsequential meeting at the United Nations (UN) in 2009, Kandeh Yumkella, the then Director-General of the UN Industrial Development Organization, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s informally assigned “energy guy”, noted something obvious and profound, namely that, “the provision of one light to poor people does nothing more than shine a light on poverty”. Yet much of an emerging discussion on the critical importance of global energy access as a pathway out of poverty continues to focus on what are, in effect, “one light” solutions. In this essay, we seek to help clarify the challenge of energy access, expose assumptions that are informing policy design in the development and diplomatic communities, and offer a framework for future discussions rooted in the aspirations of people around the world to achieve energy access compatible with a decent standard of living.
Our distinctly uncomfortable starting place is that the poorest three-quarters of the global population still only use about ten percent of global energy – a clear indicator of deep and persistent global inequity. Because modern energy supply is foundational for economic development, the international development and diplomatic community has rightly placed the provision of modern energy services at the center of international attention focused on a combined agenda of poverty eradication and sustainable development. This priority has been expressed primarily in the launching of the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative (SE4All). Still, areas of tension and conflict within such an agenda demand further attention, particularly in relation to climate change, as we discuss later in this essay. Read more ...
McAneney, J, Crompton, R, McAneney, D, Musulin, R, Walker, G, Pielke, R 2013. Market-based mechanisms for climate change adaptation: Assessing the potential for and limits to insurance and market based mechanisms for encouraging climate change adaptation, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp. 100. [pdf].
 Abstract: The economic and insured costs of natural disasters due to extreme weather – tropical cyclones, floods, bushfires and storms – are rising in concert with growing concentrations of population and wealth in disaster-prone regions. A contribution to these rising costs has not yet been attributed to anthropogenic climate change, although such a contribution cannot be ruled out. This finding is in accord with the IPCC report (2012).
Extreme events are, by definition, rare, and so detecting a signal of climate change in volatile time series of economic losses faces a challenging signal-to-noise problem. This situation is unlikely to change any time soon and so, in the absence of scientific clarity, decision-making in relation to climate change adaptation to extreme weather events of the types considered here, will of necessity take place in an ‘environment’ of uncertainty and ignorance. This reality strengthens the case for expanding disaster risk reduction as part of any climate change adaptation policy.
Given the rising cost of natural disasters, we also reviewed the provision of insurance by the public sector in a number of countries and the role they might play in encouraging risk reduction and resilience building. Examples of these residual market mechanisms (RMM) were drawn mainly from the US, Spain, France and New Zealand. RMM structures vary between countries as does the hazard profile: government involvement in catastrophe insurance in the US, for example, has usually arisen in the face of perceived failures of the private insurance market, often following a significant natural disaster. In the wake of such events, RRM have assumed the legacy of inappropriate land use, unrealistic risk assessment and lack of consideration to mitigation. Read more ...
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