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Die flächenmäßige Entwicklung von Bärlauch-Beständen eines Schonwaldes im Vorland der Schwäbischen Alb wird über einen Zeitraum von drei Jahrzehnten verglichen. Im Zeitraum von Ende der 1970er Jahre bis 2007 haben sie sich um mehr als das 2,5-fache ihrer Wuchsfläche ausgedehnt (264 %). Verschiedene Ursachen für die Expansion werden diskutiert. In einer Änderung der Art der Waldnutzung und einer Ozeanisierung des Klimas mit der Folge milderer Winter werden die Hauptgründe gesehen.
This paper uses a novel account of non-ideal political action that can justify radical responses to severe climate injustice, including and especially deliberate attempts to engineer the climate system in order reflect sunlight into space and cooling the planet. In particular, it discusses the question of what those suffering from climate injustice may do in order to secure their fundamental rights and interests in the face of severe climate change impacts. Using the example of risky geoengineering strategies such as sulfate aerosol injections, I argue that peoples that are innocently subject to severely negative climate change impacts may have a special permission to engage in large-scale yet risky climate interventions to prevent them. Furthermore, this can be true even if those interventions wrongly harm innocent people.
In Borstgrasrasen (Nardetalia) des Werra-Meißner-Gebietes (Nordhessen, Südniedersachsen) wurden 2012 nach 25 Jahren auf möglichst gleichen Untersuchungsflächen (quasi-Dauerflächen) Wiederholungsaufnahmen angefertigt, um den gegenwärtigen Zustand bzw. Veränderungen in diesem prioritären FFH-Lebensraumtyp zu erfassen. Es wurden insgesamt 61 Flächen untersucht. Neben der Artenzusammensetzung wurden auch Bodenparameter (pH, C/N-Verhältnis, Mächtigkeit der organischen Auflage) und die Nutzung erfasst.
Bei der Wiederholungsaufnahme 2012 waren, abgesehen von einer Aufforstungsfläche, noch auf allen Flächen Arten der Borstgrasrasen vorhanden. Die Flächen wurden 2012 überwiegend genutzt oder gepflegt, während 1986/87 Brachflächen noch bei weitem dominierten. Eine Düngung der Flächen erfolgte nicht. Trotz dieser generell günstigen Nutzungssituation lässt sich ein genereller Trend zur Eutrophierung feststellen, der sich hinsichtlich Artenzahl und Deckung in einer Zunahme von Arten des Wirtschaftsgrünlandes (Molinio-Arrhenatheretea) bei gleichzeitiger Abnahme der Borstgrasrasen-Kennarten äußert. Auch die Artenzahlen der übrigen Magerkeitszeiger nahmen im Mittel ab, während Verbrachungszeiger im Allgemeinen zunahmen. Eine Veränderung der Gesamtartenzahl war nicht festzustellen. Die mittleren Zeigerwerte spiegeln die Verschiebungen im Arteninventar durch erhöhte mittlere Reaktions- und Stickstoffzahlen wider. Strukturell hat in den vergangenen 25 Jahren vor allem eine generelle Zunahme der Moosschichtdeckung und eine Ausbreitung der Sträucher auf Brachflächen stattgefunden. Bei den Bodenparametern waren 2012 eine signifikante Erhöhung der pH-Werte, eine Einengung der C/N-Verhältnisse und eine Abnahme der Mächtigkeit der organischen Auflage (Of) feststellbar. Regressionsmodelle zeigen, dass dabei die Zunahme von Arten des Wirtschaftsgrünlandes direkt mit den ansteigenden pH-Werten zusammen hing, während die Veränderungen bei den Kennarten eher vom Ausgangs-C/N-Verhältnis, teilweise auch von der Entwicklung der organischen Auflage und der Nutzung abhängig waren. Die vorgefundenen Veränderungen werden vor dem Hintergrund möglicher Gefährdungsszenarien (Brache, Eutrophierung, Bodenversauerung, Klimawandel) diskutiert. Angesichts des unerwarteten Befundes einer Eutrophierung bei gleichzeitig nachlassender Bodenversauerung, wird die Hypothese aufgestellt, dass der seit den 1990er-Jahren erfolgte Rückgang der Schwefeldepositionen mit nachfolgender Erholung der Boden-pH-Werte und nachlassender Stressbelastung, z. B. durch Ammonium-Toxizität, die Veränderungen ausgelöst haben könnte. Außerdem deuten die Ergebnisse auf eine zumindest teilweise zu geringe Nutzungs- bzw. Pflegeintensität bzw. zu späte Nutzungstermine. Möglicherweise führt der erhöhte Eutrophierungsdruck hier auch zu verstärkten Anforderungen an das Management der Flächen. Eindeutige Indizien für klimabedingte Veränderungen im Arteninventar ließen sich nicht finden. Indirekte Effekte über eine erwärmungsbedingte Förderung der Mineralisationsraten oder ein ursächlicher Zusammenhang zwischen höheren Wintertemperaturen und der Zunahme der Moosdeckung lassen sich jedoch nicht ausschließen.
Many consumers care about climate change and other externalities associated with their purchases. We analyze the behavior and market effects of such “socially responsible consumers” in three parts. First, we develop a flexible theoretical framework to study competitive equilibria with rational consequentialist consumers. In violation of price taking, equilibrium feedback non-trivially dampens a consumer’s mitigation efforts, undermining responsible behavior. This leads to a new type of market failure, where even consumers who fully “internalize the externality” overconsume externality-generating goods. At the same time, socially responsible consumers change the relative effectiveness of taxes, caps, and other policies in lowering the externality. Second, since consumer beliefs about and preferences over dampening play a crucial role in our framework, we investigate them empirically via a tailored survey. Consistent with our model, consumers are predominantly consequentialist, and on average believe in dampening. Inconsistent with our model, however, many consumers fail to anticipate dampening. Third, therefore, we analyze how such “naive” consumers modify our theoretical conclusions. Naive consumers behave more responsibly than rational consumers in a single-good economy, but may behave less responsibly in a multi-good economy with cross-market spillovers. A mix of naive and rational consumers may yield the worst outcomes.
Climate change causes increased tree mortality leading to canopy loss and thus sun-exposed forest floors. Sun exposure creates extreme temperatures and radiation, with potentially more drastic effects on forest organisms than the current increase in mean temperature. Such conditions might potentially negatively affect the maturation of mushrooms of forest fungi. A failure of reaching maturation would mean no sexual spore release and, thus, entail a loss of genetic diversity. However, we currently have a limited understanding of the quality and quantity of mushroom-specific molecular responses caused by sun exposure. Thus, to understand the short-term responses toward enhanced sun exposure, we exposed mushrooms of the wood-inhabiting forest species Lentinula edodes, while still attached to their mycelium and substrate, to artificial solar light (ca. 30°C and 100,000 lux) for 5, 30, and 60 min. We found significant differentially expressed genes at 30 and 60 min. Eukaryotic Orthologous Groups (KOG) class enrichment pointed to defense mechanisms. The 20 most significant differentially expressed genes showed the expression of heat-shock proteins, an important family of proteins under heat stress. Although preliminary, our results suggest mushroom-specific molecular responses to tolerate enhanced sun exposure as expected under climate change. Whether mushroom-specific molecular responses are able to maintain fungal fitness under opening forest canopies remains to be tested.
Extreme convective precipitation events are among the most severe hazards in central Europe and are expected to intensify under global warming. However, the degree of intensification and the underlying processes are still uncertain. In this thesis, recent advances in continuous, radar-based precipitation monitoring and convection-permitting climate modeling are used to investigate Lagrangian properties of convective rain cells such as precipitation intensity, cell area, and precipitation sum and their relationship to large-scale, environmental conditions.
Firstly, convective precipitation objects are tracked in a gauge-adjusted radar-data set and the properties of these cells are related to large-scale environmental variables to investigate the observed super-Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) scaling of convective extreme precipitation. The Lagrangian precipitation sum of convective cells increases with dew point temperature at rates well above the CC-rate with increasing rates for higher dew point temperatures. These varying, high rates are caused by a covarying increase of CAPE with dew point temperature as well as the effect of high vertical wind shear causing an increase in cell area and thus precipitation sum. At the same time, cells move faster at high vertical wind shear so that Eulerian scaling rates are lower than Lagrangian but still above the CC-rate. The results show that wind shear and static instability need to be taken into account when transferring precipitation scaling under current climate conditions to future conditions. Secondly, the representation of convective cell properties in the convection-permitting climate model COSMO-CLM is evaluated. The model can simulate the observed frequency distributions of cell properties such as lifetime, area, mean and maximum intensity, and precipitation sum. The increase of area and intensity with lifetime is also well captured despite an underestimation of the intensity of the most severe cells. Furthermore, the model can represent the temperature scaling of intensity, area, and precipitation sum but fails to simulate the observed increase of lifetime. Thus, the model is suitable to study climatologies of convective storms in Germany. Thirdly, two COSMO-CLM projections at the end of the century under emission scenario RCP8.5 were investigated. While the number of convective cells and their lifetime remain approximately constant compared to present conditions, intensity and area increase strongly. The relative increase of intensity and area is largest for the highest percentiles meaning that extreme events intensify the most. The characteristic afternoon maximum of convective precipitation is damped, and shifted to later times of day which leads to an increase of nighttime precipitation in the future. Scaling rates of cell properties with dew point temperature are nearly identical in present and future in the simulation driven by the EC-Earth model which means that the upper limit of cell properties like intensity, area, and precipitation sum could be predicted from near-surface dew point temperature. However, this result could not be reproduced by the simulation driven by MIROC5 and needs further investigation.
Increases in water demand often result in unsustainable water use, leaving insufficient amounts of water for the environment. Therefore, water-saving strategies have been introduced to the environmental policy agenda in many (semi)-arid regions. As many such interventions failed to reach their objectives, a comprehensive tool is needed to assess them. We introduced a constructive framework to assess the proposed strategies by estimating five key components of the water balance in an area: (1) Demand; (2) Availability; (3) Withdrawal; (4) Depletion and (5) Outflow. The framework was applied to assess the Urmia Lake Restoration Program (ULRP) which aimed to increase the basin outflow to the lake to reach 3.1 × 109 m3 yr−1. Results suggested that ULRP could help to increase the Outflow by up to 57%. However, successful implementation of the ULRP was foreseen to be impeded because of three main reasons: (i) decreasing return flows; (ii) increased Depletion; (iii) the impact of climate change. Decreasing return flows and increasing Depletion were expected due to the introduction of technologies that increase irrigation efficiency, while climate change could decrease future water availability by an estimated 3–15%. We suggest that to reach the intervention target, strategies need to focus on reducing water depletion rather than water withdrawals. The framework can be used to comprehensively assess water-saving strategies, particularly in water-stressed basins.
We study the design features of disclosure regulations that seek to trigger the green transition of the global economy and ask whether such regulatory interventions are likely to bring about sufficient market discipline to achieve socially optimal climate targets.
We categorize the transparency obligations stipulated in green finance regulation as either compelling the standardized disclosure of raw data, or providing quality labels that signal desirable green characteristics of investment products based on a uniform methodology. Both categories of transparency requirements can be imposed at activity, issuer, and portfolio level.
Finance theory and empirical evidence suggest that investors may prefer “green” over “dirty” assets for both financial and non-financial reasons and may thus demand higher returns from environmentally-harmful investment opportunities. However, the market discipline that this negative cost of capital effect exerts on “dirty” issuers is potentially attenuated by countervailing investor interests and does not automatically lead to socially optimal outcomes.
Mandatory disclosure obligations and their (public) enforcement can play an important role in green finance strategies. They prevent an underproduction of the standardized high-quality information that investors need in order to allocate capital according to their preferences. However, the rationale behind regulatory intervention is not equally strong for all categories and all levels of “green” disclosure obligations. Corporate governance problems and other agency conflicts in intermediated investment chains do not represent a categorical impediment for green finance strategies.
However, the many forces that may prevent markets from achieving socially optimal equilibria render disclosure-centered green finance legislation a second best to more direct forms of regulatory intervention like global carbon taxation and emissions trading schemes. Inherently transnational market-based green finance concepts can play a supporting role in sustainable transition, which is particularly important as long as first-best solutions remain politically unavailable.
This paper analyses, if the Intertemporal Guarantee of Freedom, that was developed by the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC), can be used to expand the protection of human rights against the harms of climate change. The case of the Swiss Senior Women shows that there are jurisdictions, where the Intertemporal Guarantee of Freedom could be applied to improve standing and the control standard of states’ climate change action. Within international law bodies with jurisdiction over human rights treaties there are distinctive standards of protection against the harms of climate change. A major deficit within the international human rights protection against climate change lies within the focus on the positive obligations and the corresponding wide margin of appreciation granted to the states. The Intertemporal Guarantee of Freedom could provide a protection expansion in this regard, especially in the case of the European Court of Human Rights. It could also enable and legitimise present human rights concerns focused on the future actions of states following their past inaction. One considerable hurdle that is not addressed by it are procedural hurdles like the Plaumann formula applied by the European Court of Justice. The Intertemporal Guarantee of Freedom cannot solve major problems for climate change litigation like procedural hurdles. Yet, it can provide a new approach for complaints to address unambitious mitigation legislation which will lead to future human rights infringements.
Lissomus quisqueya new species and L. woodruffi new species are described. Both species are reported from the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola. These are the first species of Lissomus Dalman reported from the Greater Antilles. Lissomus quisqueya is recorded from montane mesic forests in the Cordillera Central from Dajadon and La Vega provinces. Lissomus woodruffi is recorded from Barahona, Independencia and Pedernales provinces from montane mesic forest in the Sierra de Bahoruco. Morphologically, these species are most similar to members of the L. discedens Bonvouloir species group from Mesoamerica and South America. Known sites of occurrence of L. quisqueya and L. woodruffi are remnants of formerly more extensive mesic forests. Some of the specimens were found in secondary forests and ecotonal areas at sites near to primary forest or remnants, and all these forests are threatened by anthropogenic activities and stochastic climate changes.