Tracking progress to reduce climate change risks through adaptation has become a topic of significant political interest and debate. Especially under the Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake and Global Goal on Adaptation, there are increasing calls for ways to assess progress on adaptation globally. The COP28 decision text includes calls for an iterative adaptation cycle assessment… Continue reading Evidence synthesis of data for tracking progress on adaptation globally

In a variety of domains, the United Nations (UN) asks countries and other actors to submit large volumes of documents. Natural Language Processing, especially topic modelling, can be used to gain insights into such datasets and their underlying politics. Here, we use topic models to analyse three different UN processes: the Global Stocktake under the… Continue reading Multilingual topic modelling international collaborations: lessons from United Nations initiatives on food, water and climate

This paper is the first to analyse the role of women authors in fostering justice-relevant topics in climate adaptation research. As representation, citation and payment patterns remain gender-biased across scientific disciplines, we explore the case of climate science, particularly adaptation, as its most human-oriented facet. In climate research and policy, there has been a recent… Continue reading Women are under-represented in adaptation policy research and are more likely to emphasise justice topics

Mitigating dangerous climate change will require a rapid decarbonisation of the world economy, with emissions brought to net zero levels within the next three decades. By now, 145 countries covering close to 90% of the global emissions have announced or are considering net zero targets by 2050 or 2070. However, policies and action put in… Continue reading A Systematic Review of the Literature on Determinants of Public Acceptance of Climate Policies

The elimination of fossil fuel subsidies presents a practical strategy for global south countries to bolster climate mitigation endeavours. In our research paper, we delve into the crucial role of public attitude toward the subsidy removal in Colombia. Since 2022, the Colombian government has gradually elevated gasoline prices to align with global market rates, aligning… Continue reading Breaching the social contract? Insights on the public acceptability of fossil fuel subsidy removal in Colombia

How do political parties discuss climate change and climate policies in their manifestos? To what extent does such discourse correlate with countries’ climate policy output? With more ambitious climate action required to achieve global climate mitigation goals, climate change has become increasingly salient in the political arena. However, the literature currently lacks a comprehensives analysis… Continue reading Unraveling the Link Between Political Discourse on Climate Change in EU Party Manifestos and Climate Policy Implementation

High environmental taxes face global opposition despite their broad recognition as essential for environmental protection. This study employs the random forest algorithm and the ISSP Environment surveys from 2020 (N=43,678) and 2010 (N=27,032) across 28 countries to identify factors associated with opposition to environmental tax increases. Simultaneously analyzing 41 individual-level factors and tax system characteristics,… Continue reading Leveraging Machine Learning to Understand Environmental Tax Opposition in Different Regions and Periods

While a political divide persists about the urgency to tackle climate change in the US, growing evidence suggests that individuals’ pro-environmental actions and support for green policies are much less politically divided. We investigate which type of information on climate change, and through which mechanism, can promote such actions and policy support. Using an online… Continue reading Environmental Actions and Support for Policy: Experimental Evidence from the US

In most of Europe, the decarbonisation of the building and transport sectors lags behind emission targets. Achieving full decarbonisation requires not only the diffusion of net-zero emission technologies but also the phase-out of technologies that emit greenhouse gases (GHG). However, implementing policy changes in these sectors can have an immediate and significant impact on people’s… Continue reading Public preferences for phasing-out fossil fuels in the German building and transport sectors

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and multiple influential trade groups such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have announced goals to make aviation net-zero by 2050. However, in most net-zero pathways aviation is still considered a hard-to-abate sector that is unlikely to contribute meaningfully to emissions reductions in this timeframe. Designing ambitious policies… Continue reading Maximizing the Contribution of Aviation to 2050 Net-Zero Emission Reduction Pathways through Evidence-Based Policy

Greenhouse gas emissions projections are important tools to evaluate progress in implementing the mitigation component of the Paris Agreement. They support understanding global emissions trajectories under current efforts and assessing progress towards countries' climate pledges. However, developing these projections is resource-intensive, which results in substantial information gaps for most countries. Lack of information regarding countries’… Continue reading Policy-based emissions projections to support the Paris Agreement

While much of the discussion focuses on international and national climate policy, achieving international climate goals will also require rigorous climate policy action at the subnational level. However, it is challenging to evaluate and formulate the level and type of subnational action required within this complex and interconnected multi-level context. Synthesising insights from projects in… Continue reading Towards Effective Subnational Climate Policy: A Systematic Five-Step Analytical Approach Based on Evidence from German States