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Youth carry the burden of a climate crisis not of their making, yet their accumulative lifestyle decisions will help determine the severity of future climate impacts. We surveyed 17–18 year old’s (N = 487) to establish their action stages for nine behaviours that vary in efficacy of greenhouse gas emission (GGE) reduction and the explanatory role of climate change (CC) knowledge, sociodemographic and belief factors. Acceptance of CC and its anthropogenic origins was high. However, the behaviours with the greatest potential for GGE savings (have no children/one less child, no car or first/next car will be electric, eat less meat) have the lowest uptake. Descriptive normative beliefs predicted intent to adopt all high-impact actions, while environmental locus of control, CC scepticism, knowledge of the relative efficacy of actions, religiosity and age were predictive of action stage for several mitigation behaviours (multinomial logistic regression). These findings inform policy and communication interventions that seek to mobilise youth in the global climate crisis response.

The development of an international climate policy builds on national policy perspectives. These depend on the perceived risks of climate change, socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of the nations and regions involved, and the technical feasibility of policy measures. Scientific and technological research supports the policy making process about these issues. The perspectives of the scientific community and the policy makers differ and as a consequence communication is often troublesome. The construction and utilization of knowledge under such circumstances can only be effective if all parties involved engage in a continuous dialogue about causes, effects, impacts and responses. This paper describes a project carried out in the Netherlands. It has as its major objective the articulation of a variety of perceptions and positions related to climate change. As a result of the project, policy actors produced five policy options and formulated research questions. The policy options are linked in the framework of a policy life cycle. Research questions focus on the risks of climate change and on feasible social, economic, cultural and technological responses to it. As to the policy options, striving for common means appears to be more promising than pursuing shared goals and philosophies.

Sea levels have been rising at an increasing rate in the past decades, due to the increased ocean temperatures and glacier melt caused by global warming. The continued increase in sea levels will result in large-scale impacts in coastal areas as they are submerged by the sea. Locations not able to bear the costs of implementing protection and adaptation measures will have to be abandoned, resulting in social, economic, and environmental losses. The most important mitigation goal for sea level rise is to reduce or possibly revert carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, given the magnitude and long time lag between emissions and impacts, new adaptation measures to reduce sea level rise should be proposed, developed and if possible, implemented. This paper suggests that submerged barriers or dams built in front of ice sheets and glaciers would contribute to reducing the ice melt in Greenland. The ten proposed barriers or dams in this paper could prevent the contribution to sea level rise by up to 5.3 m at a cost of US$ 0.275 billion a year. This is much lower when compared to adaptation measures to sea level rise around the world estimated to be US$ 1.4 trillion a year by 2100.

The effectiveness and integrity of forest-based emissions reduction schemes such as Clean Development Mechanism Afforestation Reforestation (CDM A R) project and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), along with conservation and enhancement of carbon (C) stocks implementation and assessment in developing countries are required not only, the appropriate monitoring and evaluation, rather the precise values of constants being used to estimate the C stocks or C credit in place of default or guess value. Estimates are reported of the C content of wood of four forest species (Shorea robusta, Pinus roxburghii, Tectona grandis and Cinnamomum camphora) and two important farm species (Populus deltoides and Eucalyptus treticornis) in the temperate region of Indian Himalayas, derived using the ash content method. These species were considered keeping in view of their potentiality for the C sequestration and storage projects across the developing countries specifically the South East Asian Countries. The specific gravity, ash content and C proportion is estimated for these six species by selecting random woods pieces. These estimates are designed to improve the calculations of biomass C for use in estimation of C credits in the developing region under CDM A R projects and REDD+ program supported by developed country. Regression analysis of C prediction models revealed that, for all six species, C content may be estimated through specific gravity of the wood by a linear equation without intercept. Indirectly, this results also implies that among the two farm trees, eucalyptus has high potentiality for C capturing and among four forest trees, Shorea robusta has high potentiality, therefore these two should have preference for plantation/regeneration as well as for conservation.

Technically, forestry projects have thepotential to contribute significantly tothe mitigation of global warming, but manysuch projects may not be economicallyattractive at current estimates of carbon(C) prices. Forest C is, in a sense, a newcommodity that must be measured toacceptable standards for the commodity toexist. This will require that credible Cmeasuring and monitoring procedures be inplace. The amount of sequestered C that canbe claimed by a project is normallyestimated based on sampling a number ofsmall plots, and the precision of thisestimate depends on the number of plotssampled and on the spatial variability ofthe site. Measuring C can be expensive andhence it is important to select anefficient C-monitoring strategy to makeprojects competitive in the C market. Thispaper presents a method to determinewhether a forestry project will benefitfrom C trading, and to find the optimalmanagement strategy in terms of forestcycle length and C-monitoring strategyA model of an Acacia mangiumplantation in southern Sumatra, Indonesiais used to show that forestry projects canbe economically attractive under a range ofconditions, provided that the project islarge enough to absorb fixed costs.Modeling results indicate that between 15and 38 Mg of Certified Emission Reductions(CERs) per hectare can be captured by thesimulated plantation under optimalmanagement, with optimality defined asmaximizing the present value of profitsobtained from timber and C. The optimalcycle length ranged from 12 to 16 years andthe optimal number of sample plots rangedfrom 0 to 30. Costs of C monitoring (inpresent-value terms) were estimated to bebetween 0.45 (Mg C)-1 to 2.11 (MgC)-1 depending on the spatialvariability of biomass, the variable costsof C monitoring and the discount rate.