Browsing by Subject "Climate change"

Climate change and its unparalleled and irreversible effects to natural and human systems initiate a need to take immediate action to develop effective measures for climate change adaptation. Both climate change impacts and responses to climate change are found to further aggravate the division between winners and losers that is already present in the pre-existing patterns of development. This is while previous research has found explicit concern for justice to be limited at the urban level. This study seeks to examine urban climate change adaptation strategies critically from the perspective of climate justice to contribute to the understanding of how justice can be identified and advocated for in practice. Justice is conceptualised with four justice dimensions encompassing recognitional, distributive, procedural, and restorative justice dimensions. An Adaptation Justice Index is applied to policy documents to perform a qualitative content analysis. In addition, a literature review is utilised to explore the representations of justice present in the adaptation strategies of eight leading city-level climate change adaptors. Results from the analysis show that on average, procedural justice dimension is the most highlighted among the four dimensions, while restorative justice is the least emphasised. The cities performed the best in allocating responsibilities related to adaptation and in enabling participation in the implementation phase. Strategies frequently emphasise vulnerable people and acknowledge the aim to advance equity and just outcomes with adaptation initiatives. The initiatives described in the strategies, however, seem generally to be insufficient to realise these outcomes. Measures to include the perspectives of vulnerable individuals and communities are found to require improvement to promote empowerment of disadvantaged people for climate justice. The impacts of adaptation measures ought to be scrutinised in more detail to recognise the losses borne by the most disadvantaged in society and to make amends for injustices taking place in the context of climate change and adaptation practice. In conclusion, more research is in order to shed further light to the extent climate justice is accounted for in adaptation practice, especially in the context of the Global South.

For a better understanding of global climate change we need evidence allowing us to track changes in the environment. Pollen is geologically stable, making it a key option as a potential proxy for tracing historic environmental changes. To quantify past environmental changes, it is necessary to test proxies under today’s climate. The amount of UV-B radiation reaching the surface of the Earth has varied throughout the Earth’s history. These variations are ecologically important because changes in UV-B radiation impact plant regulation, growth, defense, and decomposition. The availability of fossil pollen and spores has resulted in significant interest in the potential of using the relationship between UV-B radiation and the accumulation of phenolic sunscreens as a proxy to trace past changes in UV-B radiation. Fossil pollen from Pinus sylvestris is readily available and proven techniques exist to quantify levels of UV-B absorbing compounds from both fossil and extant pollen. We investigated how levels of UV-B-absorbing compounds in Pinus sylvestris pollen change after strobili developed under UV attenuating filters. Fifteen Pinus sylvestris trees were selected from a seed orchard of trees in Nurmijärvi, Finland. The treatments used were Rosco 226 film – filtering solar UV-A and UV-B light, polyester film – filtering solar UV-B, polyethylene film – acting as a transparent control, and an open control condition with no filter. The filters were installed in April 2022 and 2023 and remained in place each year beyond dehiscence towards the end of May. The pollen was analysed using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. Principal component analyses and linear regression models were used to simplify the multivariate data and then describe the levels of UV-B absorbing compounds in the different treatment groups. A sample of needles from underneath the filters was used to verify the effectiveness of UV treatments across the experimental design by analysing their epidermal flavonol content. Our results found no clear link between UV-B exposure and accumulation of UV-B absorbing compounds in Pinus sylvestris pollen. However, we did find statistically significant differences in concentrations of UV-B absorbing compounds in pollen between the different trees. The needle analyses verified that the experimental design had the potential to affect the biochemistry of these branches by revealing significant differences in relative absorbance by epidermal flavonols due to UV treatment type. Multifactorial drivers affect the concentrations of UV-B-absorbing compounds in plants, and viewing the response of these compounds to a single driver may be an oversimplification complicating their use as a proxy. We argue that methodologies used in previous research have inconsistencies which fail to account for environmental factors that either covary with UV radiation or diverge from it. This may explain why our results go against the trend. Finally, we examine our own research experimental design and suggest improvements and avenues by which this research can move forward.