Download or read book Climate Action Planning written by Michael R. Boswell and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change continues to impact our health and safety, the economy, and natural systems. With climate-related protections and programs under attack at the federal level, it is critical for cities to address climate impacts locally. Every day there are new examples of cities approaching the challenge of climate change in creative and innovative ways—from rethinking transportation, to greening city buildings, to protecting against sea-level rise. Climate Action Planning is designed to help planners, municipal staff and officials, citizens and others working at local levels to develop and implement plans to mitigate a community's greenhouse gas emissions and increase the resilience of communities against climate change impacts. This fully revised and expanded edition goes well beyond climate action plans to examine the mix of policy and planning instruments available to every community. Boswell, Greve, and Seale also look at process and communication: How does a community bring diverse voices to the table? What do recent examples and research tell us about successful communication strategies? Climate Action Planning brings in new examples of implemented projects to highlight what has worked and the challenges that remain. A completely new chapter on vulnerability assessment will help each community to identify their greatest risks and opportunities. Sections on land use and transportation have been expanded to reflect their growing contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The guidance in the book is put in context of international, national, and state mandates and goals. Climate Action Planning is the most comprehensive book on the state of the art, science, and practice of local climate action planning. It should be a first stop for any local government interested in addressing climate change.

Download or read book Local Climate Action Planning written by Michael R. Boswell and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-07-16 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is a global problem, but the problem begins locally. Cities consume 75% of the world's energy and emit 80% of the world's greenhouse gases. Changing the way we build and operate our cities can have major effects on greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, communities across the U.S. are responding to the climate change problem by making plans that assess their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and specify actions they will take to reduce these emissions. This is the first book designed to help planners, municipal staff and officials, citizens and others working at local levels to develop Climate Action Plans. CAPs are strategic plans that establish policies and programs for mitigating a community's greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. They typically focus on transportation, energy use, and solid waste, and often differentiate between community-wide actions and municipal agency actions. CAPs are usually based on GHG emissions inventories, which indentify the sources of emissions from the community and quantify the amounts. Additionally, many CAPs include a section addressing adaptation-how the community will respond to the impacts of climate change on the community, such as increased flooding, extended drought, or sea level rise. With examples drawn from actual plans, Local Climate Action Planning guides preparers of CAPs through the entire plan development process, identifying the key considerations and choices that must be made in order to assure that a plan is both workable and effective.

Download or read book The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet written by William S. Becker and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2008-11-11 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the 44th President of the United States is elected, he will face urgent crises on three major fronts: the American economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the growing threat to the world environment caused by climate change. This short, powerful book shows the way forward: a clear action plan for the new President's first 100 days, that if implemented will set America on course for dynamic job creation and economic growth, reduce our conflicted dependence on foreign oil, and produce energy that is green, affordable, and renewable. Backed by sound science and based on the best ideas of America's experts, The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet outlines practical steps that include: *Launch a "clean energy surge" and create a powerful new workforce of green manufacturing, supply, technology, management, and support jobs. *End carbon subsidies that make fossil fuels much cheaper than their actual cost. *Create a market by requiring all federal buildings, facilities, and transportation to be fueled by renewable green energy. *Reward innovation and early adoption of renewable energy in the private sector. * Work constructively with other nations for global solutions to the climate crisis. It's not too late; climate change can be dramatically reversed. Green energy is the key to America's economic strength and independence—but the nation needs the president to act boldly and decisively, just as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in his first 100 days in office, during a time of similar urgency.

Download or read book Speed Scale written by John Doerr and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If you care about climate change, John Doerr’s new book, Speed & Scale, offers concrete steps that we can all take to make a difference.” - Barack Obama With clear-eyed realism and an engineer’s precision, Doerr lays out the practical actions, global ambitions, and economic investments we need to avert climate catastrophe. Guided by real-world solutions, Speed & Scale features unprecedented, firsthand accounts from climate leaders such as Laurene Powell Jobs, Christiana Figueres, Al Gore, Mary Barra, John Kerry, and dozens of other intrepid policymakers, innovators, and scientists. In Speed & Scale, Doerr presents a compelling 10-step plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050–the global goal we need to reach to ensure a livable Earth for generations to come. From electrifying our energy grid to fixing our global food supply chain to capturing carbon from the air, Speed & Scale contains practical solutions for policymakers and entrepreneurs alike. As the world confronts an urgent climate crisis, Doerr reminds us that it is also the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetimes. Whether you’re a climate scientist or someone striving to make a difference in your local community, this book will help you to activate the sustainable solutions the world urgently needs. Praise for Speed & Scale: “Everybody should get Speed & Scale by John Doerr.” - Meryl Streep “A practical guide for participation in decarbonizing the global economy, a task as challenging as it is urgent.” - Christiana Figueres

Download or read book Developing Local Climate Change Plans written by David Dodman and published by United Nations Human Settlements Programme. This book was released on 2012 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Getting climate ready written by Gibb, Natalie and published by UNESCO Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Drawdown written by Paul Hawken and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • New York Times bestseller • The 100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming, based on meticulous research by leading scientists and policymakers around the world “At this point in time, the Drawdown book is exactly what is needed; a credible, conservative solution-by-solution narrative that we can do it. Reading it is an effective inoculation against the widespread perception of doom that humanity cannot and will not solve the climate crisis. Reported by-effects include increased determination and a sense of grounded hope.” —Per Espen Stoknes, Author, What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming “There’s been no real way for ordinary people to get an understanding of what they can do and what impact it can have. There remains no single, comprehensive, reliable compendium of carbon-reduction solutions across sectors. At least until now. . . . The public is hungry for this kind of practical wisdom.” —David Roberts, Vox “This is the ideal environmental sciences textbook—only it is too interesting and inspiring to be called a textbook.” —Peter Kareiva, Director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here—some are well known; some you may have never heard of. They range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air. The solutions exist, are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are currently enacting them with skill and determination. If deployed collectively on a global scale over the next thirty years, they represent a credible path forward, not just to slow the earth’s warming but to reach drawdown, that point in time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline. These measures promise cascading benefits to human health, security, prosperity, and well-being—giving us every reason to see this planetary crisis as an opportunity to create a just and livable world.

Download or read book Justice in Climate Action Planning written by Brian Petersen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-12-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume examines how climate action plans engage justice at the scale of the city. Recent events in the United States make the context particularly ripe for a discussion of justice in urban climate politics. On the one hand, the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, George Floyd’s death, and the prominence of racial discrimination in the public realm have mainstreamed the notion of justice. On the other hand, the dire consequences of increased frequency and severity of climate events on vulnerable segments of urban populations are undeniable. While some cities have been proactive about integrating justice in their climate action planning, in most places an explicit and systematic link between both spheres has been lacking. This book explores this interface as it seeks to understand how cities can respond to climate change in a just way and for just outcomes. While resilience strategies based on “development” may engage historic inequities, they may at the same time result in marginalizing certain populations through various processes, from mismatched solutions to outright exclusion and climate gentrification. By identifying how certain populations are included in or excluded from climate action planning practices, the chapters in this volume draw on case studies to outline the differential outcomes of climate action in American cities, also proposing a template for comparative work beyond the US. The authors tackle the debate about how justice is or is not integrated in climate action plans and assess practical implications, while also making theoretical and methodological contributions. As it fills a gap in the literature at the intersection of justice and climate action, the book produces new insights for a wide-ranging audience: students, practitioners, policy-makers, planners, the non-profit sector, and scholars in geography, urban planning, urban studies, environmental studies, ecology, political science, or anthropology. Along five axes of investigation―theory, resilience, equity, community, and comparison as method―the contributors offer various pathways into the intersection between urban climate action and different understandings of justice. Collectively, they invite a reflection that can lead to practical initiatives in climate mitigation, while also advancing the theorization of social justice to account for the urban as a node where (in)justice plays out and can be addressed with significant results.

Download or read book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster written by Bill Gates and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical—and accessible—plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions—suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

Download or read book Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.

Download or read book Climate Change Adaptation written by Lisa Dale and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change policy has typically emphasized mitigation, calling for reducing emissions and shifting away from fossil fuels. Yet while these efforts have floundered, floods, wildfires, droughts, and other disasters are becoming more frequent and potent. As the risks escalate, we must ask how to adapt to a changing climate. How might farmers modify their practices to maximize food security? Can coastal cities protect their infrastructure from rising seas? Are there strategic ways for developing countries to combine climate resilience with economic growth and poverty reduction? For people and societies around the world, these questions are not theoretical: adaptation is already underway. This book offers a concise overview of climate adaptation governance. In clear, accessible language, Lisa Dale describes key strategies that governments, communities, and the private sector are now deploying. She presents the theory and practice that underlie climate adaptation efforts at local and global scales, providing illuminating case studies that foreground the problems facing developing countries. Dale analyzes the effectiveness of a range of policy interventions, drawing out principles of good governance and discussing how practitioners can navigate complex tradeoffs. She emphasizes equity and inclusion, considering how climate adaptation policy can account for the needs of historically disadvantaged groups. Written for a wide audience, this book is an invaluable introduction for all readers interested in how societies can meet the challenges of an altered climate.

Download or read book Pavement Roadway and Bridge Life Cycle Assessment 2020 written by John Harvey and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2020-07-02 with total page 557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An increasing number of agencies, academic institutes, and governmental and industrial bodies are embracing the principles of sustainability in managing their activities. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an approach developed to provide decision support regarding the environmental impact of industrial processes and products. LCA is a field with ongoing research, development and improvement and is being implemented world-wide, particularly in the areas of pavement, roadways and bridges. Pavement, Roadway, and Bridge Life Cycle Assessment 2020 contains the contributions to the International Symposium on Pavement, Roadway, and Bridge Life Cycle Assessment 2020 (Davis, CA, USA, June 3-6, 2020) covering research and practical issues related to pavement, roadway and bridge LCA, including data and tools, asset management, environmental product declarations, procurement, planning, vehicle interaction, and impact of materials, structure, and construction. Pavement, Roadway, and Bridge Life Cycle Assessment 2020 will be of interest to researchers, professionals, and policymakers in academia, industry, and government who are interested in the sustainability of pavements, roadways and bridges.

Download or read book Designing Climate Solutions written by Hal Harvey and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the effects of climate change already upon us, the need to cut global greenhouse gas emissions is nothing less than urgent. It’s a daunting challenge, but the technologies and strategies to meet it exist today. A small set of energy policies, designed and implemented well, can put us on the path to a low carbon future. Energy systems are large and complex, so energy policy must be focused and cost-effective. One-size-fits-all approaches simply won’t get the job done. Policymakers need a clear, comprehensive resource that outlines the energy policies that will have the biggest impact on our climate future, and describes how to design these policies well. Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy is the first such guide, bringing together the latest research and analysis around low carbon energy solutions. Written by Hal Harvey, CEO of the policy firm Energy Innovation, with Robbie Orvis and Jeffrey Rissman of Energy Innovation, Designing Climate Solutions is an accessible resource on lowering carbon emissions for policymakers, activists, philanthropists, and others in the climate and energy community. In Part I, the authors deliver a roadmap for understanding which countries, sectors, and sources produce the greatest amount of greenhouse gas emissions, and give readers the tools to select and design efficient policies for each of these sectors. In Part II, they break down each type of policy, from renewable portfolio standards to carbon pricing, offering key design principles and case studies where each policy has been implemented successfully. We don’t need to wait for new technologies or strategies to create a low carbon future—and we can’t afford to. Designing Climate Solutions gives professionals the tools they need to select, design, and implement the policies that can put us on the path to a livable climate future.

Download or read book The Implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change written by Vesselin Popovski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 2015, 196 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement, seen as a decisive landmark for global action to stop human- induced climate change. The Paris Agreement will replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2020, and it creates legally binding obligations on the parties, based on their own bottom-up voluntary commitments to implement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The codification of the climate change regime has advanced well, but the implementation of it remains uncertain. This book focuses on the implementation prospects of the Agreement, which is a challenge for all and will require a fully comprehensive burden- sharing framework. Parties need to meet their own NDCs, but also to finance and transfer technology to others who do not have enough. How equity- based and facilitative the process will be, is of crucial importance. The volume examines a broad range of issues including the lessons that can be learnt from the implementation of previous environmental legal regimes, climate policies at national and sub-national levels and whether the implementation mechanisms in the Paris Agreement are likely to be sufficient. Written by leading experts and practitioners, the book diagnoses the gaps and lays the ground for future exploration of implementation options. This collection will be of interest to policy-makers, academics, practitioners, students and researchers focusing on climate change governance.

Download or read book Planning for Climate Change written by Elisabeth M. Hamin Infield and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of the large and interdisciplinary literature on the substance and process of urban climate change planning and design, using the most important articles from the last 15 years to engage readers in understanding problems and finding solutions to this increasingly critical issue. The Reader’s particular focus is how the impacts of climate change can be addressed in urban and suburban environments—what actions can be taken, as well as the need for and the process of climate planning. Both reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as adapting to future climate are explored. Many of the emerging best practices in this field involve improving the green infrastructure of the city and region—providing better on-site stormwater management, more urban greening to address excess heat, zoning for regional patterns of open space and public transportation corridors, and similar actions. These actions may also improve current public health and livability in cities, bringing benefits now and into the future. This Reader is innovative in bringing climate adaptation and green infrastructure together, encouraging a more hopeful perspective on the great challenge of climate change by exploring both the problems of climate change and local solutions.

Download or read book Confronting the Climate Challenge written by Lawrence Goulder and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-26 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will cause substantial damage to the environment and the economy. The scope of the threat demands a close look at the policies capable of reducing the harm. Confronting the Climate Challenge presents a unique framework for evaluating the impacts of a range of U.S. climate-policy options, both for the economy overall and for particular household groups, industries, and regions. Lawrence Goulder and Marc Hafstead focus on four alternative approaches for reducing carbon dioxide emissions: a revenue-neutral carbon tax, a cap-and-trade program, a clean energy standard, and an increase in the federal gasoline tax. They demonstrate that these policies—if designed correctly—not only can achieve emissions reductions at low cost but also can avoid placing undesirable burdens on low-income household groups or especially vulnerable industries. Goulder and Hafstead apply a multiperiod, economy-wide general equilibrium model that is distinct in its attention to investment dynamics and to interactions between climate policy and the tax system. Exploiting the unique features of the model, they contrast the shorter- and longer-term policy impacts and focus on alternative ways of feeding back—or “recycling”—policy-generated revenues to the private sector. Their work shows how careful policy design, including the judicious use of policy-generated revenues, can achieve desired reductions in carbon dioxide emissions at low cost, avoid uneven impacts across household income groups, and prevent losses of profit in the most vulnerable U.S. industries. The urgency of the climate problem demands comprehensive action, and Confronting the Climate Challenge offers important insights that can help elevate policy discussions and spur needed efforts on the climate front.

Download or read book Cities and Climate Change written by Harriet Bulkeley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is one of the most significant global challenges facing the world today. It is also a critical issue for the world’s cities. Now home to over half the world’s population, urban areas are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions and are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Responding to climate change is a profound challenge. A variety of actors are involved in urban climate governance, with municipal governments, international organisations, and funding bodies pointing to cities as key arenas for response. This book provides the first critical introduction to these challenges, giving an overview of the science and policy of climate change at the global level and the emergence of climate change as an urban policy issue. It considers the challenges of governing climate change in the city in the context of the changing nature of urban politics, economics, society and infrastructures. It looks at how responses for mitigation and adaptation have emerged within the city, and the implications of climate change for social and environmental justice. Drawing on examples from cities in the north and south, and richly illustrated with detailed case-studies, this book will enable students to understand the potential and limits of addressing climate change at the urban level and to explore the consequences for our future cities. It will be essential reading for undergraduate students across the disciplines of geography, politics, sociology, urban studies, planning and science and technology studies.