A major concern of the Brazilian coffee growers is closely related to the quantitative and qualitative impacts on the coffee sector as a result of possible climate changes, particularly regarding the production of Arabica coffee varieties, which have better beverage quality. This is because low...

I have been asked to write a paper over “my urban idol 2050” to be the foundation for a presentation at a session at the ERSA congress in Bratislava in August 2012. No special instructions were given, so I have chosen to write a kind of scenario for the possible future development in the...

Economic models of climate policy (or policies to combat other environmental problems) typically neglect psychological adaptation to changing life circumstances. People may adapt or become more sensitive, to different degrees, to a deteriorated environment. The present paper addresses these...

Climate change is one of the grand challenges of this century, but so is the eradication of hunger which is still present for roughly one billion people mainly in tropical countries. Both climate change and climate mitigation have an impact on the availability of food, especially in those...

The frequency of intense floods and storms is increasing globally, particularly in Asia-Pacific, amid the specter of climate change. Associated with these natural disasters are more variable and extreme rainfall and temperatures as recorded in publicly available databases for the world,...

Climate policy requires that much of the world’s reserves of fossil fuels remain unburned. This paper makes the case for implementing this directly through policy to close the global coal industry. Coal is singled out because of its high emissions intensity, low rents per unit value, local...

Many economic sectors, like housing or transportation, are exposed to climate and likely to suffer efficiency losses when climate changes. The global economy is far from dematerialized yet, these sectors represent a significant fraction of the existing capital stock. Using an optimal growth...

This paper uses the EMF27 scenarios to explore the role of renewable energy (RE) in climate change mitigation. Currently RE supplies almost 20 % of global electricity demand. Almost all EMF27 mitigation scenarios show a strong increase in renewable power production, with a substantial ramp-up of...

In this paper we address the issue of the indeterminacy of climate change negotiations and examine the role played by the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) in this indeterminacy. Mobilising the analytical tools of international political economy (IPE), we show that changes...

Forests can play a large role in climate change through the sequestration or emission of carbon, an important greenhouse gas; through biological growth, which can increase forest stocks; or through deforestation, which can increase carbon emissions. Carbon is captured not only in tree biomass...