Office for Environmental Programs - Theses
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ItemThe challenges of emissions trading in China( 2012)Under the 12`h Five-Year-Plan (FYP), China is moving forward to the implementation of pilot emissions trading scheme (ETS). This would be the first experiment of mandatory ETS in China and also an important sign on the evolution of the climate policy for China. Voluntary emissions trading practices based around Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Voluntary Emissions Reductions (VERs) have existed in China in recent years. By contrast, the upcoming pilot ETSs in China will be mandatory for covered sectors and installations. This research compares the EU ETS and the CCX with the China's proposed mandatory pilot ETSs and existing voluntary ETS respectively. Then, challenges that China's ETS may face can be suggested based on the key criteria come up from the EU ETS and the CCX. The challenges of China's ETS can be found in the respects of the establishment of regulatory contexts, cap setting-up and allowances allocation, designing and implementation of a compliance framework, and establishment and operation of diverse trading mechanisms. When comes to the co-operation and linkage among proposed Chinese pilot ETSs and a future national ETS in China, two most possible scenarios are discussed in the thesis. The first potential scenario is that the national ETS replaces pilot ETSs. The second potential scenario is that pilots are linked directly and then to expand as the national ETS. On the other hand, the potential linkage between China's ETS and the EU ETS can be expected, especially as the European Commission announced that the EU would assist China in establishing the national ETS according to an agreement signed by the EU and China in September 2012. However, there will be several issues existing in the establishment of a linkage. Whether those two ETSs are compatible and the allowances are recognised by each other are the key elements of the potential linkage building between the EU ETS and the future national ETS in China.
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ItemSustainable forest management in the southwest Yukon: feasibility analyses of alternative management scenarios( 2012)Forest ecosystems are natural assets that are managed for the plethora of benefits they provide. Their management involves the development of objectives and strategies that safeguard desirable values; however, this is often achieved by compromising the integrity of those values that are deemed less desirable at that point in time. Fortunately, the tedious albeit, feasible task of developing multiple value based management plans is now increasingly being acknowledged as a means of achieving sustainable forest management. The utility and feasibility of forest management plans that employ strategies to achieve multiple values vary substantially from one location to the other and thus, are best analysed on a case-by-case basis. This research focuses on the planning and development processes that were involved in developing strategies to complement the Sustainable Forest Management Plan and Integrated Landscape Plan of the Champagne and Aishihik Traditional Territory in the Yukon, Canada. The planning phase led to the development of five alternative forest management strategies, each with a different management focus, namely: management for timber/biomass extraction, fire risk reduction, wildlife conservation, carbon sequestration and multiple values. Each alternative management strategy and its corresponding objectives and management tactics are tested by simulation to ascertain their feasibility and sustainability under scenarios of climate change over the long-term. This study highlights the trade-offs made between different forest ecosystem values and assets when the Champagne and Aishihik forest region is managed under each of the alternative forest management strategies.
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ItemClimatic, demographic and social structural forces contributing to internal migration in Bangladesh( 2012)The key findings of this paper is that even though internal migration is increasingly becoming a common coping mechanism in Bangladesh, it is not solely as a result of climatic factors, as is expected, because of the widely known fact that Bangladesh would be the hardest hit due to climate change. The migration pattern is complex and needs clear understating and methodology to separate climatic and non climatic factors of migration. The migration pattern can significantly vary depending on whether the population is faced with an extreme or sudden onset event such as cyclone, flood etc. or slow onset event such as droughts. Depending on the type of event the migration can be short term or long term, or simply temporary displacement. However this will also depend on non-climatic factors such as government policy, community resilience etc. For example if a disaster struck community receives adequate government support either in terms of post disaster relief n terms of food, shelter or financial help they are less likely to move from their area to a uncertain place where they have to struggle to find a job, shelter etc. Also, if the government has strong policy to provide adequate employment, and other facilities enjoyed by people in a better off places people in vulnerable areas will be less likely to migrate. Also if government and NGOS work together to prepare communities prior to disaster with various alternate livelihood training, building infrastructures such as cyclone shelters this will make the community more resilient to cope with disasters. All these factors need to be understood clearly by involving the community itself, so that a clear picture can be drawn of the migration causes and patterns. This is essential if the country wants to establish a strategic approach to mainstream or at least address the increasing migration and related issues within the country.
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ItemThe role of Mexico in the global environmental agenda: a discussion of the leadership framework( 2012)This study discusses the idea of Mexico's participation in the global environmental agenda under the framework of leadership. Therefore in this paper a short historical review of the Country's incremental participation in multilateral Forums, as well as domestic institutional arrangements to align with the international agreement to mitigate and adapt to climate change is reviewed. The conceptual basis of leadership will help to analyse if the role that Mexico has been playing in the last two decades has positioned as a leader of 'other' emergent economies In 2010 the country hosted the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention in Climate Change. This paper discusses how the country displayed great diplomacy skills as it used unconventional methods to facilitate the negotiations in order to reach the Cancun Agreement. Also, at the domestic level Mexico has decided to implement 'stronger' polices to face climate change, while promoting international co-operation for developing countries in terms of mitigation and adaptation. Under this frame it seems like Mexico stopped being a laggard and is becoming a climate change leader. Is this true?
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ItemCrisis as opportunity: food crisis by oil scarcity, lessons from Cuba's Special Period( 2014)Globally, food insecurity is a key societal problem, with food security already weakening as a result of a "triple crisis", understood as the combined effects of three processes: climate change, the depletion of key resources for the food system (such as fertile soil, water or phosphorus), and peak oil (Lerch 2008; Quinn 2007; Piercy, Granger & Goodier 2010). A cut in global food production would be certainly a crisis situation for many countries, and sink into a major crisis to many more others (De Schutter 2009; HLPE 2012). However, history also shows that there are countries in which crises have served as an opportunity for change towards more sustainable lifestyles. They have managed to cope with the impacts of the crisis, adapt and still function, or in other words, be resilient (Walker & Salt 2006). The Victory Gardens of Europe and North America during World War I and II are a good example of strategies to cope with food crises via developing urban agriculture. Another similar good example is the case of Cuba (Wright 2009; Rosset et al. 2011). Consequently, this paper reviewed the case of Cuba during its Special Period in order to understand preparedness and responding to food crises driven by oil scarcity. Additionally, the research explored queries over Cuba as a valid case to study a food crisis caused by oil scarcity. In response to its main research question, this literature review highlights as key lessons that the process of change of a crisis into a more sustainable and organic food system was possible more by political, cultural and social factors rather than specific agricultural practices. Even when 'the agricultural practices and the scientific development was crucial, these could not have been implemented and conducted in a good way if it was not for the political will to make a profound changes, levels of education and the willingness of people to change their lifestyles and engage in agricultural activity. In relation with peak oil, was presented that its complexity goes beyond issues of access to oil. As the Cuban case presents, an oil crisis is highly complex because it compromises not only the different parts of the food system, but also compromises the economic growth and stability of any particular economy. Peak oil is more about an impediment to sustaining growth-based economies, and oil dependent large scale agricultural systems. Thus, the sooner the preparation and changing process starts, the lesser the impact of peak oil will be on our food systems and subsequently in the health and lives of most of the population. Doing so requires a multi-sectorial and interdisciplinary approach to the problem. It is not enough to implement an ecological agricultural system, change is also needed in other societal systems and a transformation of several structures that enables, guides and sustains the various processes of change a crisis into an opportunity.
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ItemThe US climate litigation assemblage: examining a provisional governance form( 2014)Climate litigation has emerged as a strategy to pressure federal agencies of the United States of America to act on climate change (Osofsky and Peel 2013). Indeed, an 'administrative' approach to reducing national carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions led by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act of 1963- a regulatory pathway revealed through the practice of litigation - is currently being pursued by President Barack Obama in lieu of federal climate legislation (MacNeil 2013). Adapting Tanya Murray Li's (2007) analytic of assemblage, this thesis examines the practice of litigation and the sequence of regulatory events it has incited, using the key Supreme Court cases of Massachusetts v. EPA [2007] and Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) v. EPA [2014] to bound discussion. It terms these practices and events the 'climate litigation assemblage', and investigates its emergence since 1999. It considers how CO2 has been legally 'framed and acted upon' (McGuirk 2011: 339), and the (selective) arrangement of actors, institutions, objects, laws, objectives and modes of authority that constitute a provisional governance form. Reading for the relational interaction of distributed and heterogeneous, human and non-human agencies reveals the internal contradictions and provisionality of governance-in-practice. This is not to suggest governance assemblages - through ongoing labour to maintain relationships - cannot endure to produce social and material effects. Realistically, the climate litigation assemblage has produced modest direct emission reductions; however its immaterial effects - which include exposing climate issues through highly publicised Supreme Court cases, mounting legal and social pressure on decision making institutions and the relationships forged between similarly minded and widely distributed actors - have made a significant imprint on the larger US climate governance space. In explicating the material and immaterial effects of the assemblage, a 'deliberately open', non-essentialist approach to the composition of governance forms is adopted; one that doesn't presuppose the 'durability, the types of relations and the human and non-human elements involved' (Anderson and McFarlane 2011: 124). Finally, future directions of the assemblage - including the potential productivity of disassembly - are considered. This consideration is focused by the prospect of the Environmental Protection Agency's pursuit of a national CO2 reductions program being eroded under 'the weight of its own contradictions' (Murray Li 2007: 287) by the case UARG v. EPA that is currently being heard by the Supreme Court.
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ItemThe stirring giant?: Local government and greenhouse mitigation in Victoria( 2014)Local government in Australia is acknowledged as having the potential to influence over fifty per cent of Australia's greenhouse emissions, through transport, infrastructure development, waste management, land use change and the community's energy use. However few studies have sought to examine the effectiveness of this sector's mitigation efforts and activities. This thesis examines the Victorian local government sector's shared and individual efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and considers the effectiveness of that sector's policies and activities. It uses survey and interview data, as well as an extensive literature review to explore the potential for mitigation measures by Local government in Victoria, and assess current practice against this potential. This thesis finds that the greatest potential capabilities for mitigation by Local government in Victoria exist in three domains for action - planning control, technological implementation, and behavioural education. Those potential mitigation capabilities have been realised in practice through acting on their own corporate emissions, implemented large-scale mitigation technologies in partnership, and responding to charges imposed upon them by State and Commonwealth government policies and regulations. In some cases advocacy has been necessary from the bottom up internally, in other sectors as with advocacy for the consideration of environmental sustainability at the planning stage rather than the building stage, it has culminated in a united effort across many councils to strategically influence the State government. Individual Victorian councils have benefited from the snowball effects of mitigation activity at this level of government, including emissions target setting, programs such as the bulk buy networks, streetlighting changeovers, environmentally sustainable design, energy foundations and recycling, and high participation in alliances and partnerships. Thus Victorian Local government mitigation action is far from "a stiff smile to be painted on the wreckage of grander visions..." (Victor, House & Joy 2005, p. 1820). However the research finds that this mitigation action is uneven across Victorian Local government. There are a few cases of reflexive innovation and action to implement mitigation policy to full capability, but in many areas councils display a general ambivalence toward action despite solutions and multiple benefits being within their reach. Mitigation efforts in the majority of Victorian councils remain focused inward - seeking organisational and economic benefits for councils themselves - rather than outwardly oriented to their communities. Victorian Local government is not resourcing innovative integrated approaches across the full range of its potential capabilities. Its mitigation endeavours are also poorly aligned with the deeper social dimensions of consumption, emissions and climate change, with weak enthusiasm for innovative long-term householder emissions mitigation projects leading to some 60% of councils relying entirely on their corporate web sites to communicate the value and means of greenhouse mitigation. Local government in Victoria is yet to fully engage with the digital environment and the use of contemporary, participatory tactics to reach local communities similar to those succeeding internationally. Given the capability of Victorian Local government to shape and implement greenhouse mitigation policy, there remain significant opportunities for this sector to enhance emissions mitigation by combining online digital assets and its authority and resources to assist local communities to access and build climate change mitigation knowledge and action.
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ItemResponse of stomatal sensitivity to an elevated carbon dioxide atmosphere( 2013)Earth is undergoing anthropogenic induced climate change yet it is unclear what the reaction of plants will be to an increase in carbon in the atmosphere, an element that is vital to their growth. As the interface between the atmosphere and plant stomata's long term acclimation to elevated carbon dioxide levels is important for predictions to changes in water, nutrient and carbon cycles of the future. While a reduction in stomata) conductance is well documented there is a lack of knowledge regarding the alteration in stomatal sensitivity to environmental conditions. The Ball et al (1987) model of stomata) sensitivity relates stomata) conductance (g5 ) to the photosynthetic assimilation rate (A), relative humidity (h) and [CO2] at the leaf's surface in a linear model, where m is the slope and go the baseline stomata) conductance (y-axis intercept) given as: g5=go+m (A.h/[CO2]). This model is often upscaled and used in modelling to relate transpiration rates, soilwater cycles and potential climate change scenarios. In a glasshouse experiment at the University of Melbourne Creswick campus Nipponbare rice, Eucalyptus tricarpa, Eucalyptus grandis, Acacia aneura and Acacia melanoxylon were subjected to ambient [CO2] (400 ?mol mol-1) and elevated [CO2] (700 ?mol mol-1) treatments. The plants stomata) sensitivity was measured using an Infra-Red Gas Analyser (LiCor6400) altering the chamber conditions of light, relative humidity and [CO2]. Linear regression was then conducted on the data to calculate Ball et al (1987) models. It was found that the two Acacia species reduced their sensitivity under elevated [CO2]; with m reducing by 97% for A. aneura and 91% for A. Melanoxylon, while E. tricarpa significantly increased its slope, by 315%. These species Ball et al (1987) models may have to be reparametised under elevated [CO2] conditions, particularly when predicting future water and carbon cycles. E. grandis and the Nipponbare rice did not significantly alter their stomatal sensitivity. Nipponbare rice was the only species to significantly alter its baseline stomatal conductance.
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ItemClimate change mitigation in Singapore: challenges and opportunities( 2013)As greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase world-wide, the possibility of the occurrence of catastrophic climatic changes increases, and the need for countries to implement mitigation measures becomes increasingly important. When it comes to implementing measures to tackle these rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions, each country is faced with their own set of challenges and constrains. As a densely populated city-state with a lack of natural resources, high economic activity and limited land area, Singapore is faced with a range of challenges with regards to climate change mitigation. Despite these limitations, there are also opportunities and capabilities that the country can tap on, such as the technological expertise and a skilled workforce, and these can potentially help Singapore to overcome the challenges. As the economy continues to expand and the population continues to grow, Singapore has to consider environmental policy options that will not just reduce the emission intensity but will also result in a progressive decrease in the annual carbon emissions. Therefore, this paper will propose possible environmental policy options that has the potential to reduce emissions and is suitable to be implemented in Singapore to help her achieve her national reduction targets. This research will take on a qualitative-based approach to assess five selected environmental policy options - Renewable Energy Target, Feed-in Tariffs, Carbon Tax, Electricity Vending System and Energy Labelling Schemes. It will firstly demonstrate how the liberalisation of the electricity market, despite being an economically-driven political decision, has indirectly led to positive environmental changes, such as the increased contribution of natural gas in the country's fuel mix, which has reduced the annual increase in domestic emissions. Most importantly, this restructuring has provided a platform, which is able to promote the interaction with environmental policies that may impact on electricity prices and potentially influence changes to bring about emission reduction in the country. As Australia has a similar wholesale market and since some of the policy options that will be studied, interacts with this functioning market, similar policies in Australia will be used as a guideline in the discussion of this paper. Each environmental policy option will be analysed and evaluated based on their potential effectiveness to encourage emission reduction in the country. It is observed that with advantages in being a financial and clean technology hub, as well as having a skilled workforce, the promotion of investments in renewable energy has the potential to bring about emission reduction in the country. Furthermore, developing feedback mechanisms have been discerned to be important factors that have the capabilities to influence environmentally-conscious behaviours and potentially contribute to the efforts to reduce emissions in Singapore. Therefore, these suggest that a combination of the Renewable Energy Target, Electricity Vending System and Energy Labelling schemes is most likely to potentially achieve large-scale emission reduction for Singapore.
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ItemThe Australian approach to climate finance( 2013)Developed countries have committed to providing US$100 billion in climate finance by 2020. Australia has already contributed a significant amount of climate finance through its aid budget, with one third of this going to neighbouring Small Island States, and largely with a focus on adaptation to climate change. This thesis has investigated the reasons for and implications of the approach Australia has taken to this financing of adaptation in the Pacific Islands. It is informed by a review of the relevant academic literature, analysis of government data and publications, and key informant interviews. It demonstrates that Australia's approach to climate finance is motivated by self-interest and geographical proximity more than the needs of vulnerable countries and people, and although there are signs of improvement there are still many concerns surrounding the Australian approach to climate finance. The concerns differ: Pacific Islanders working on implementing projects seek improvements in donor co-ordination and an increased focus on capacity building, whereas people whose focus is on the international politics of climate change are concerned about the extent to which Australia's climate finance meets key principles, such as those relating to scale, transparency and additionally. This showed that the issues that are important at the international level are different from those that are administering climate finance on the ground.