Socio-Ecological Panel

In the wake of the transition from fossil and nuclear energy systems to a renewable energy age, the question of how to politically implement effective instruments and policies is a challenge in many industrialized countries. Whereas the need for a more sustainable energy production in the context of environmental and climate change is strongly acknowledged, the support for effective policies among political actors and the public is much more limited. This observation has been extensively discussed in the literature referring to the so-called value-action gap (Bell, Gray, & Haggett, 2005; Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002), or to the concept of social acceptance, i.e., suggesting that preferences for renewable energy technologies do not necessarily imply support for specific policies and projects (Dermont, Ingold, Kammermann, & Stadelmann-Steffen, 2017; Wustenhagen, Wolsink, & Burer, 2007). This is the starting point of this paper aiming at a better understanding of the link between pro-environmental and climate change attitudes and according behavior. More precisely, this paper focuses on citizens’ support of renewable energy policies at the ballot box and departs from the assumption that citizens’ voting behavior on these policy proposals is the result of multidimensional decisions. In other words, a policy proposal consists of various elements some of which an individual may support while rejecting others. Voters weight these pros and cons against each other in order to come to a “no” or “yes” decision. In a recent contribution, we have shown that the costs related to renewable energy policies are the crucial hurdle to popular support. Moreover, given that many citizens do not believe in the efficacy of and need for (environmental) policy measures there is not clear “benefit” that could compensate for these costs in individual benefit-cost considerations (Stadelmann-Steffen & Dermont, 2018). In this paper, I go a step further and ask how individual environmental and climate change attitudes affect this multidimensional decision making on renewable energy policies. Following these considerations, I present results based on a large-scale representative survey from Switzerland. A forced-choice paired conjoint analysis (Hainmueller, Hopkins, & Yamamoto, 2014) allows to evaluate how specific aspects of policy proposals influence individual support or rejection of a whole proposal. Moreover, interactions between these policy characteristics and individual environmental and climate change attitudes are estimated to analyze what elements of these policies jeopardize the link between these attitudes and according political behavior. Although the proposed study focuses on Switzerland and cannot necessarily be generalized to other contexts, I argue that the expected results are relevant beyond the Swiss case. Policies to promote renewable energy production and to reduce energy consumption vary between nations and across sub-national jurisdictions, but they are often based on “universal” economic models (e.g., environmental steering taxes and their effect on energy consumption) and generally consist of rather complex bundles of policy measures. Hence, knowing more about how these aspects interact with individual attitudes and behavior provides important insights on the attitude-behavior link beyond the case of Switzerland.

Agriculture has been at the center of conflicts over world trade from the beginning in 1986 of the eighth, Uruguay Round, of multilateral trade negotiations. Yet it is only in the final phases of the Round that linkages from trade to the environment have come to the fore. In this paper, the specific linkages from trade to the environment in the agricultural sector are developed. The impacts of trade flows and policies on environmental quality in agriculture have features which make them unusually difficult to resolve. In many respects, the same domestic agricultural policies at the root of trade distortions also encourage environmental damages. Hence, reforming these domestic and trade policies would be a partial, though not a complete, step in the direction of greater environmental benefits. A complete set of policies will require targeted environmental interventions as well. Market failures in agricultural production and consumption have widespread effects on soil, water, human health, and natural ecosystems which are difficult to monitor and therefore to estimate. These market failures are generally reinforced by government policies which distort the prices of agricultural products and inputs (water, fertilizers, pesticides). These distortions occur in agriculture to a greater extent than in many sectors of both developed and developing countries. Trade flows and policies are a direct result of these domestic distortions. This case study will consider market failures with adverse environmental impacts in agriculture and their interaction with failures in agricultural trade policy in developed and developing countries. Section II develops a theoretical perspective on market and government failures in agriculture. In it, a simple model is discussed which emphasizes the distinction between the welfare effects of trade liberalization with and without appropriately targeted environmental policies. Section III provides some concrete examples of trade flows in agriculture and their environmental impacts in developed and developing countries, and analyzes the domestic policies at the root of distortions in agricultural trade. Section IV considers the likely impact of agricultural trade liberalization on market failures with adverse environmental effects, and the need to integrate environmental and trade policy reforms. Section V discusses the relationship between trade and environmental policy instruments in this context, and proposes some principles to guide trade and environmental policy in the agricultural sector. Section VI offers a summary and some proposed guidelines for the agricultural sector.

A Hybrid Modelling Framework for Ecosystem-Based Climate Change Adaptation Using System Dynamics and Bayesian Networks

Self-consumption with PV + Battery systems: A market diffusion model considering individual consumer behaviour and preferences

Assessing energy supply security: Outage costs in private households

An empirical survey on the obsolescence of appliances in German households

It is well known that the use of routine health check-ups is associated with socio-demographic and lifestyle factors. However, the link between psychological factors and the use of routine health check-ups has not been investigated intensively so far. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to determine the psychological factors associated with routine health check-ups. Cross-sectional data were obtained from a population-based study (German Aging Survey) of individuals ≥40 years of age and residing in private households in Germany in the year 2014 (n = 7708). Screening data and data on psychological factors were collected in self-administered questionnaires. Multiple logistic regressions were used to identify psychological correlates of screening behavior, adjusted for socio-demographic, lifestyle and health-related variables. Of the participants, 65.4% used routine health check-ups regularly. After adjusting for various potential confounders, multiple logistic regressions showed that the use of routine health check-ups was positively associated with life satisfaction, positive affect, optimism, self-efficacy, self-esteem and self-regulation, whereas the outcome measure was not significantly associated with loneliness, negative affect and perceived stress. Furthermore, the outcome measure was positively associated with age, being married and living together with a spouse or partner, body mass index, being a non-daily smoker, drinking alcohol less than once a day and exercising. However, it was not associated with gender, income, number of physical illnesses or region. The current study stresses the importance of the association between screening behavior and psychological factors. This may help to identify individuals at risk for underuse.

BackgroundAlthough multi-sector policy is a promising strategy to create environments that stimulate physical activity among children, little is known about the feasibility of such a multi-sector policy approach. The aims of this study were: to identify a set of tangible (multi-sector) policy measures at the local level that address environmental characteristics related to physical activity among children; and to assess the feasibility of these measures, as perceived by local policy makers.MethodsIn four Dutch municipalities, a Delphi study was conducted among local policy makers of different policy sectors (public health, sports, youth and education, spatial planning/public space, traffic and transportation, and safety). In the first Delphi round, respondents generated a list of possible policy measures addressing three environmental correlates of physical activity among children (social cohesion, accessibility of facilities, and traffic safety). In the second Delphi round, policy makers weighted different feasibility aspects (political feasibility, cultural/community acceptability, technical feasibility, cost feasibility, and legal feasibility) and assessed the feasibility of the policy measures derived from the first round. The third Delphi round was aimed at reaching consensus by feedback of group results. Finally, one overall feasibility score was calculated for each policy measure.ResultsCultural/community acceptability, political feasibility, and cost feasibility were considered most important feasibility aspects. The Delphi studies yielded 16 feasible policy measures aimed at physical and social environmental correlates of physical activity among children. Less drastic policy measures were considered more feasible, whereas environmental policy measures were considered less feasible.ConclusionsThis study showed that the Delphi technique can be a useful tool in reaching consensus about feasible multi-sector policy measures. The study yielded several feasible policy measures aimed at physical and social environmental correlates of physical activity among children and can assist local policy makers in designing multi-sector policies aimed at an activity-friendly environment for children.

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Policy actors often try to influence decisions and outputs by joining forces and coordinating their action. Understanding patterns of coordination is important for the field of environmental policy and governance, as environmental policies typically target a wide range of stakeholders from different sectors. The public policy literature has advanced and tested several hypotheses concerning the factors that promote or hinder collaboration at the national or subnational level. However, an important caveat of the literature is that only a handful of studies compare these factors across different institutional contexts. In this paper, we draw on the existing literature to formulate hypotheses concerning the role of beliefs, actor types, and resources in shaping collaboration patterns. We test these hypotheses using data on the climate change policy networks in four countries with very different institutional contexts: Finland, Switzerland, South Korea, and the US. The crucial institutional axes along which the cases differ from each other are (a) federal (Switzerland, US) vs. unitary (Finland, Korea), (b) corporatist (Finland, Switzerland) vs. pluralist (US, Korea), and (c) majoritarian (USA, South Korea) vs. consensual (Finland, Switzerland). Estimating Exponential Random Graph Models for each country, we find no systematic variation across the different polity contexts, which is good news for important public policy theories such as the Advocacy Coalition Framework, policy networks, ecological modernisation theory, or resource dependence theory. However, we do find significant variation between different national policy contexts. Firstly, actors collaborate with others sharing beliefs or the same type of actor in particular during conflictive phases in the policy process, but not when major decisions are already made. In particular, the Swiss case illustrates that when important directions of a policy process are already laid out, actors of different beliefs or actor types start to collaborate across conflict lines. In a similar vein, public authorities are also more important targets in phases were important decisions are still to be made. However, one finding that holds for all countries across all polity and policy contexts is that resourceful and influential actors are popular collaboration targets.

The reduction of GHG emissions is one of the priorities of the EU countries. The majority of studies show that financial support and environmental taxes are one of the most effective measures for the mitigation of the negative consequences of climate change. The EU countries employ different environmental support measures and environmental taxes to reduce GHG emissions. There is a shortage of new studies on these measures. The aim of the present study is to compare the effectiveness of the environmental support measures of the EU countries with the effectiveness of environmental taxes in relation to the reduction of GHG emissions. This study is characterized by the broad scope of its data analysis and its systematic approach to the EU’s environmental policy measures. An empirical study was performed for the EU countries with the aim of addressing this research problem and substantiating theoretical insights. A total of 27 EU member states from 2009 to 2018 were selected as research samples. The research is based on a cause-and-effect relationship, where the factors affecting environmental pollution (environmental taxes and subsidies) are the cause, and GHG emissions are the effect. Statistical research methods were used in the empirical study: descriptive statistics, the Shapiro–Wilk test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), simple regression and cluster analysis. The results show that the older member countries of the EU, which had directed the financial measures of environmental policy towards a reduction in energy consumption, managed to achieve a greater reduction in GHG emissions compared to the countries which had not applied those measures. The Central and Eastern European countries are characterized by lower environmental taxes and lower expenditure allocated to environmental protection. The countries with a higher GDP per capita have greater GHG emissions that the countries with lower GDP per capita. This is associated with greater consumption, waste, and energy consumption. The study conducted gives rise to a discussion regarding data sufficiency in the assessment and forecasting of GHG emissions and their environmental consequences.

Vegetative status of children as a territorial bio-indicator of ecological safety

Agriculture is one sector of the economy which is highly vulnerable to climate change because of the natural relationship between environment, particularly temperature and water availability, and agricultural productivity. Changing climate is increasingly affecting high-value perennial plantation crops such as tea, rubber, coconut, palm oil, and coffee which generate significant export revenues and provide a major source of employment for rural populations in developing countries. Many studies in the literature have focused on climate change impacts on major annual crops; however, to date, there have been very few assessments of the economic impacts of climate change on perennial plantation agriculture. This thesis therefore seeks to estimate the impacts of climate change on two important aspects of plantation agriculture - crop production and labour demand - for the case of the tea plantation sector in Sri Lanka, as an example of a high-value perennial plantation crop in a developing country. The thesis also aims to identify enablers and barriers of adaptation to climate change for this sector of Sri Lanka’s economy. The impacts of climate change on production in Sri Lanka’s tea plantations are studied at estate-level (the primary decision making production unit) across all of the country’s tea growing regions using monthly resolution primary data for the period 2000-2014. The study employs a novel two-stage panel data approach to analyse weather and climate change effects on tea production and then to estimate production impacts for the short-, medium- and long-term future under three different global emissions scenarios. These analyses indicate that a hotter and wetter climate will have a detrimental effect on production. In high, medium and low emissions futures, the predictions show a negative proportional impact on production from increased rainfall and increased average temperature. On average across the data sample, a 12% decline in annual tea production is predicted under a high emissions scenario by 2050. The impacts of climate change on labour demand in tea plantations in Sri Lanka are investigated by implementing a panel structural model of profit maximisation based on a normalised quadratic functional form. The analysis uses historical primary data on estate profits, input prices and output prices, together with monsoonal rainfall, temperature and wet days for years between 2002-2014 to quantify climate impacts on estates’ demand for labour. Anticipated changes in rainfall are predicted to reduce annual labour demand by 2.6% across the tea plantation sector. This could have considerable social and welfare implications, particularly for the Indian Tamil women who comprise the majority of the sector’s workforce. Plantation agriculture is likely to be highly vulnerable to climate change because of its reliance on rain-fed production, long economic life span and the inability to easily switch crops due to high upfront capital costs. These distinct differences between annual and perennial agriculture, and the important role which plantation cropping plays in developing world agriculture, suggest that it is important to identify factors which affect choice of climate adaptation options in perennial crop production. Comprehensive knowledge of available adaptation options is of utmost importance if Sri Lanka’s tea estate managers are to counteract production losses from climate change and maintain their competitiveness in the international market. This is also vital for efficient and effective channeling of society’s resources to address the consequences of climate change. Employing data derived from face-to-face interviews with 50 tea estate managers in Sri Lanka, this study examines factors affecting choice of preferred adaptation options, barriers to adaptation and associated policy implications for tea production in Sri Lanka, as an example of a perennial tree crop system in a developing country. Tea estate managers are already adapting to a changing climate; however, particular adaptation methods are only adopted in some situations and locations. Multinomial logit analysis of data from estate manager interviews indicates that availability of information on climate change, company size, tea growing elevation, and observed increases in temperature and rainfall are key factors influencing the choice of preferred adaptation option. Analysis also finds that barriers such as a lack capital, inadequate access to near-term and medium-term climate knowledge, and poor governmental and institutional support may prevent estate managers from experimenting with new adaptation options. Policies should, therefore, be aimed at promoting new adaptation options through information exchange between stakeholders and integrating climate change adaptation with Sri Lanka’s national sustainable developmental goals. The primary message of the adaptation analysis in this study is that governmental and institutional support and involvement are critical requirements for facilitating effective adaptation. Findings from the thesis will help inform decision makers of the likely impacts of climate change on plantation cropping systems, and provide insights into barriers to adaptation and potential policy responses to improve the effectiveness of adaptation.

The role of the chief scientist (CS), a key administrative position in various Israeli ministries, is to fund policy‐oriented research and support evidence‐based decision‐making. Has the CS's role promoted or constrained incorporation of scientific advice regarding climate change adaptation into governmental policy? Have administrative traditions affected the adaptation planning process in Israel? Analysis of documents and 26 in‐depth interviews with key stakeholders sheds light on the ongoing climate change adaptation policy formulation process. Our study reveals that the CS of the Ministry of Environmental Protection functions as a bridge at different interfaces and can be characterized as a boundary worker between institutions. The inherent independence of this position facilitates the CS's ability to initiate, foster, and prioritize complex issues such as adaptation. Our findings further suggest that the perception that Israel has already adapted, or will easily adapt, has negatively affected the adaptation process. 科学建议和行政传统：首席科学家在气候变化适应工作中的作用 首席科学家是以色列各部门的一个关键行政职务, 其具体作用是为政策性研究提供资金, 并支持循证决策。对于有关气候变化适应的科学建议, 首席科学家的作用是促进还是限制了其被纳入到政府政策中？行政传统是否影响了以色列的气候适应规划进程？通过文件分析及与关键利益相关者的26次深入访谈, 笔者揭示了正在进行的适应气候变化政策的制定过程。研究表明, 环保部门的首席科学家在不同的层面上起着桥梁作用, 在不同机构的分界线上工作以彼此连接。该职位的内在独立性能促进首席科学家在发起问题、培养和优先考虑包括适应气候等复杂问题的能力。研究进一步表明, 以色列已经适应了或即将轻易适应某些观点, 而这已经对气候适应过程产生了负面影响。 Asesoria cientifica y tradiciones administrativas: el papel que juegan los cientificos principales en la adaptacion al cambio climatico El papel que juegan los cientificos principales, un puesto administrativo clave en varios ministerios israelies, esta especificamente designado para el financiamiento de investigacion orientada hacia la politica y el apoyo a decisiones basadas en evidencia. ?El papel que juegan los cientificos principales ha promovido o limitado la incorporacion de asesoria cientifica en lo que concierne a la adaptacion al cambio climatico dentro de las politicas del gobierno? ?Las tradiciones administrativas han afectado el proceso de planeacion para la adaptacion en Israel? El analisis de los documentos en 26 entrevistas exhaustivas con partes afectadas clave ilustra el proceso de formulacion de las politicas de adaptacion al cambio climatico actual. Nuestro estudio revela que el Cientifico Principal del Ministerio de Proteccion Ambiental funciona como un puente para diferentes interfaces y puede ser caracterizado como un trabajador limitrofe entre las instituciones. La independencia inherente de esta posicion facilita la habilidad del cientifico principal para iniciar, fomentar y darle prioridad a complejos problemas como la adaptacion. Nuestros hallazgos sugieren que la percepcion de Israel ya se ha adaptado, o se adaptara facilmente, y ha afectado negativamente el proceso de adaptacion.

This chapter supports the argument that social science research should focus on adaptation to climate change as a social and political process, by analyzing the politics and interests of actors in climate change adaptation arenas and by acknowledging the active role of those people who are expected to adapt. Most conventional climate research depoliticizes vulnerability and adaptation by removing dominant global economic and policy conditions from the discussion. Social science disciplines, if given appropriate weight in multidisciplinary projects, contribute important analyses by relying on established concepts from political science, human geography, and social anthropology. This chapter explains relevant disciplinary concepts (climate change adaptation arena, governance, politics, perception, mental models, culture, weather discourses, risk, blame, traveling ideas) and relates them to each other to facilitate the use of a common terminology and conceptual framework for research in a developmental context.