In 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine had a profound effect on EU energy and climate policies. The EU redesigned its approach to the geopolitics of energy security as it sought alternatives to Russian supplies with accelerated urgency.
Policymakers and governments increasingly frame climate protection in terms of green growth, arguing that continued economic growth and climate protection are complementary and mutually beneficial.
Durch deutsch-französischen Dialog die sozial-ökologische Transformation auf kommunaler Ebene voranzubringen, das ist das Anliegen des Deutsch-Französischen Zukunftswerks.
There has been a recent proliferation of research and practice on the interior dimensions of sustainability, such as values, beliefs, worldviews and inner capacities.
The model pathways of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) for the timely achievement of global climate targets, especially the target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels, suggest the need for saf
Voluntary contributions to public goods are vulnerable to free riding. A potential solution is the implementation of a costly institutional arrangement that deters free riding behavior.
The transition toward renewables is central to climate action. The paper empirically tests whether renewables also enhance international peace, a hypothesis discussed in the International Political Economy (IPE) of renewables literature.
The energy transition creates economic opportunities along renewable energy technology value chains. The benefits in terms of local value-added increase from resource extraction to manufacturing and are highest for R&D.
This article proposes to explore the interaction between populism and environmentalism in the discourse of populist radical left parties, through a case study of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s parties, Parti de gauche (2008–2016) and La France insoumise (fr
According to the literature on Environmental Policy Integration (EPI), decisionmaking in complex domains of environmental policy—of which climate change is a prime example—tend to fragment and silo into individual dimensions of a problem.
Purpose – This paper provides a systematization of the existing body of literature on both employee
participation goals and the intervention formats in the context of organizational change.
Cities in the global south face dire climate impacts. It is in socioeconomically marginalized urban communities of the global south that the effects of climate change are felt most deeply.
The European Green Deal (EGD) represents the most ambitious environmental policy framework in European history, aimed at improving the health and well-being of citizens and future generations through climate action and becoming the first climate-n
Digitalization of industrial production, also known as Industry 4.0, may have profound environmental impacts, raising both hopes and fears with regards to the environmental friendliness of manufacturing.
Political conflicts about energy and climate change policies often have local implications, yet little is known about local public opinion towards these policies.
At the root of much of the deforestation, land rights violations, human rights abuses and ultimately the continuation of unequal, neocolonial North-South relations are the two-fold phenomena of global market pressures for extractivism and mass pro
The pathways toward net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 should be designed based on solid scientific evidence. Ex ante system analysis tools, such as techno-economic assessments (TEAs), are key instruments to guide decision-makers.
Despite improvements in air quality over the last several decades, air pollution will continue to be a leading cause of harmful health effects in European cities as urban populations continue to grow.
Considering growing participatory turns in regulatory scientific risk analysis, this paper compares how social scientists use participatory and analytical methods to understand risk perceptions and meet competing demands for representativeness and
Political decision-makers, who face challenges for society such as the development of an effective climate policy, are more dependent than ever on the participation of stakeholders and citizens due to the complexity and scope of the matter.
The impacts of deep seabed mining on people have not been sufficiently researched or addressed. Using a legitimacy framework, we discuss the social-equity dimensions of this emerging industry in the ocean commons.
This editorial to the special issue: Transregional Configurations of Just Energy Transitions explores how discourses on justice are interrelated and influence transformation paths at different levels of society.
This wholly new edition of the Handbook provides an authoritative examination of international law relating to the protection of the marine environment.
Emission inventories are a critical basis for air quality and climate modeling, as well as policy decisions. Non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) are key precursor compounds in ozone and secondary organic aerosol formation.
Thaw slumps can lead to considerable carbon loss in permafrost regions, while the loss of components from two major origins, i.e., microbial and plant-derived carbon, during this process remains poorly understood.
Inspired by a paper by Teseletso and Adachi (Miner Econ 8(10):21, 2021), the hypothesis regarding the declining grade of mined copper ore and its possible use as a guide to the future of ultimate recoverable resources (URRs) is tested.
Die Stadt der kurzen Wege wird als Lösung vieler Probleme gefordert, nicht nur in Deutschland. Der autoorientierten Stadtplanung, die Planer seit fast einem Jahrhundert praktizieren, wird zunehmend kritisch begegnet.
Indicator frameworks for urban water sustainability are very diverse, with tools designed for different practical use cases and employing different assessment approaches.
The assessment of persistence (P), bioaccumulation (B), and toxicity (T) of a chemical is a crucial first step at ensuring chemical safety and is a cornerstone of the European Union’s chemicals regulation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authoriza
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems carry risks and opportunities for environmental sustainability. The use of AI systems, for instance, can result in both software-related (direct) as well as application-context-related (indirect) resource use.
Renewable energy changes the geopolitics of energy: whereas access to fossil fuel resources were key in the past, control over technology and industry will be key in the future.
The goal of the Sea2Cloud project is to study the interplay between surface ocean biogeochemical and physical properties, fluxes to the atmosphere and ultimately their impact on cloud formation under minimal direct anthropogenic influence.
There are various approaches to facilitation in deliberative mini-publics, yet the scholarly literature remains relatively underdeveloped in identifying which approaches to facilitation are useful in achieving certain deliberative goals.
A detailed and extensive empirical study of dynamic selection (DS) and random under-sampling (RUS) for the class imbalance problem is conducted in this paper. Total 20 state of the art DS methods are compared on 54 datasets.
The international UN Climate Change conferences known as “Conferences of the Parties (COPs)” have an enormous convening power and are attended annually by tens of thousands of actors working on climate change topics from a wide range of perspectiv
Multi-technology auctions are a popular instrument to support renewable electricity in the European Union. While they increase competition, some technologies could dominate, which might be an issue for some countries’ power system reliability.
As the climate targets tighten and countries are impacted by several crises, understanding how and under which conditions carbon dioxide emissions peak and start declining is gaining importance.
After decades of ineffective state-led global climate governance that has been dominated by mostly short-term Northern political and corporate interests, we are now witnessing an increased recognition of the planetary scale of the climate crisis a
Ocean ecosystems are at the forefront of the climate and biodiversity crises, yet we lack a unified approach to assess their state and inform sustainable policies.
Experimentalism’s newfound prominence in relation to climate-change action invites questions—integral to this special issue—about whether it is capable of meeting the transformational challenges that societies face.
30 Jahre GAIA – ein guter Zeitpunkt, um innezuhalten, zurückzublicken und einen Ausblick in die Zukunft zu wagen. Wir haben zwei Personen eingeladen, die wir zu ihren Eindrücken zur aktuellen Lage der Nachhaltigkeit und zu GAIA befragt haben.
There is a growing number of national, subnational and even company targets for net-zero emissions of CO2 in support of the Paris Climate Agreement goals of limiting the global average temperature increase within 1.5 °C by 2100.
Nepal has substantial potential to generate electricity through hydropower projects. Most of the hydropower projects in Nepal are Run-off-River (ROR) types.
This study, performed under the umbrella of the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (TF-HTAP), responds to the need of the global and regional atmospheric modelling community of having a mosaic emission inventory of air pollutants
The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) is a coordinating framework, started in 2010, that includes a series of standardized climate model experiments aimed at understanding the physical processes and projected impacts of solar g
Nexus governance recognises that sustainability concerns such as water, energy, and food security are interlinked and provides an alternative to fragmented governance.
The global influence of the European Union (EU) has been debated in overlapping strands of literature as ‘normative’, ‘regulatory’ and ‘market power’. They identify the diffusion of its rules and standards as a vehicle of European power.
With the European Green Deal (EGD), the European Commission presented an ambitious roadmap for accelerated “ecological modernisation” in December 2019.
Tropospheric ozone is a secondary air pollutant that is harmful to living beings and crops. Predicting ozone concentrations at specific locations is thus important to initiate protection measures, i.e.
Salient, long-term solutions to address global environmental change hinge on management strategies that are inclusive of local voices and that recognize the array of values held by surrounding communities.
Climate change is strongly impacting Arctic marine ecosystems, and the Arctic coastal communities whose identities, traditions and livelihoods are closely interconnected with the marine environment.
Probabilistic seismic hazard estimates are a key ingredient of earthquake risk mitigation strategies and are often communicated through seismic hazard maps.
This article discusses a dilemma of welfare states in the ecological transition. While the principle of “sustainability” is increasingly accepted, there are very different concrete declinations of it.
Tropospheric ozone (O3) concentrations depend on a combination of hemispheric, regional, and local-scale processes. Estimates of how much O3 is produced locally vs.
Vast black carbon (BC) emissions from sub-Saharan Africa are perceived to warm the regional climate, impact rainfall patterns, and impair human respiratory health.
Public acceptance is central to the success of a transition agenda but with the increasing uptake of renewable energy technology, achieving and sustaining the public legitimacy for accelerating the energy transition is at risk.
While digitalisation is reconfiguring global value chains (GVCs), the implications for sustainable development, especially in emerging economies, have not yet been thoroughly explored.
The global transition to a low-carbon economy will significantly impact existing energy value chains and transform the production to consumption lifecycle, dramatically altering interactions among stakeholders.
The focus of the paper is to use a single weibo from a user to predict whether the user account is verified, referred to as verified account prediction, on Sina Weibo.
There are considerable differences in the pace and underlying motivations of the energy transition in the different geographical contexts across Europe.
Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies aim to use carbon dioxide (CO2), either captured from industrial point sources or from the atmosphere, instead of fossil carbon in the production of a variety of valuable goods.
Economic disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine provide insights into how climate change may threaten global supply chains in a not-so-distant future.
In the course of the COVID-19 crisis, there were a number of behavioral adaptations to the extraordinary conditions that temporarily reduced individual carbon footprints.
Transformationsprozesse zu erforschen, zu verstehen und zu fördern – dieses Ziel hat sich das Institut für transformative Nachhaltigkeitsforschung (IASS) in Potsdam gesetzt.
This article examines the role of “oil money” in promoting the energy transition, tracing activities across the oil industry and countries heavily dependent on oil revenues to bolster their green credentials.
Connectivity is essential to consider in area-based marine conservation measures because it greatly impacts vital ecological processes (e.g., recycling nutrients, regulating temperature, sequestering carbon, and supporting the life cycle of specie
This article introduces ‘future memory work’ as a conceptual framework and speculative practice to unsettle the temporal hierarchies that are intrinsically tied to the anthropological project and that lead to Othering through time.
Sustainability projects are being promoted around the world with a large dose of spectacle, including those in the Arabian Peninsula where governments have invested heavily in large greening projects and events.
Physical tipping points have gained a lot of attention in global and climate change research to understand the conditions for system transitions when it comes to the atmosphere and the biosphere.
Evaluating the embodied environmental impact of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology has been an important topic in addressing the sustainable development of renewable energy.
Many developing countries have made their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) conditional on receiving climate finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building support.
The circular bioeconomy is a highly scrutinized concept in Finland and internationally, with a high degree of polarization regarding forest utilization rates and distrust between certain actors.
Generating environmental baseline knowledge is a prerequisite for evaluating and predicting the effects of future deep seabed mining on the seafloor and in the water column.
Mineral economics is a genuine multidisciplinary field dealing with economic and policy matters related to the production, distribution, and consumption of mineral commodities.
Making the profound societal transitions and transformations called for in the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 (UN, 2019) and beyond is a critical and urgent challenge for humanity.
Sustainable agrifood systems are critical to averting climate-driven social and ecological disasters, overcoming the growth paradigm and redefining the interactions of humanity and nature in the twenty-first century.
Accelerating the construction of ecological civilization in the industrial field and guiding the transformation of industry toward a green direction have become a national development strategy.
Companies across the globe have intensified the digital interconnectedness of their manufacturing processes. Much attention was devoted to how industrial employment will be affected in this new production paradigm.
To meet the Paris Agreement targets, carbon emissions from the energy system must be eliminated by mid-century, implying vast investment and systemic change challenges ahead.
The Kathmandu Valley in Nepal suffers from unhealthy air quality, with mean pre-monsoon submicron particulate matter concentration (PM1) of 40 μg m−3 and daily peaks over 75 μg m−3.
A positive perception of aquaculture products is essential to boost production by using more sustainable and eco-friendly solutions. However, consumer perception and resulting purchasing decisions remain poorly understood.
Achieving transparency of the social and environmental impacts of industrial production poses significant obstacles for companies operating in complex global supply chains.
Die Beteiligungsrechte von Kindern und Jugendlichen wurden in den letzten Jahren ausgeweitet, sowohl bezogen auf ihr unmittelbares Lebensumfeld (Wolff 2021) als auch im politischen Raum. Zugleich gibt es ein Umsetzungsdefizit, das u.a.
Ein erheblicher Teil der globalen Treibhausgasemissionen wird durch die Industrie verursacht. Ihre Digitalisierung wird oft als Weg zu mehr Nachhaltigkeit gesehen.
To tackle the plastic problem, the worldwide campaign ‘Plastic Free July’ aims at encouraging people to reduce single-use plastics during the month of July.
This paper outlines the development and operation of Yeti, a bottom-up traffic emission inventory framework written in the Python 3 scripting language.
The growth of the solar thermal market, both worldwide and in Argentina, has generated an increase in imports and local production of various solar thermal collectors with highly heterogeneous characteristics.
To realize their full sustainability potential, carbon dioxide utilization technologies (carbon capture and utilization/CCU) presently require policy support.
Science diplomacy has been instrumental in facilitating cooperation in the Arctic region, yet through the projection of vast hydrocarbon potential in the region, it has also served to undermine the major transformation necessary in Arctic decision
Ex-situ mineral carbonation, a CCU process, is one possible approach for the decarbonisation of emission-intensive industry with hard-to-abate process emissions like the cement industry.
For a long time, Germany was regarded as a pioneer in climate policy. Recently, conflicts have intensified over the phase-out of coal from the energy sector.
As advances in scientific, technological, economic and policy dimensions of sustainability challenges fail to produce widespread transformative change, an awareness of their ultimate insufficiency grows.
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face enormous sustainability challenges such as heavy reliance on imports to meet basic needs, tenuous resource availability, coastal squeeze, and reduced waste absorption capacity.
Translating the agricultural eco(logical)-intensification model to European aquaculture hosts the potential for sustainably providing local food for local communities.
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) offers flexible and decarbonized power generation and is one of the few dispatchable renewable technologies able to generate renewable electricity on demand.
The discovery of atmospheric micro(nano)plastic transport and ocean–atmosphere exchange points to a highly complex marine plastic cycle, with negative implications for human and ecosystem health. Yet, observations are currently limited.
Kohlenstoffdioxid ist maßgebliche Ursache für den Klimawandel. Doch in CO2 steckt Kohlenstoff, den wir im Alltag dringend brauchen: für Kunststoff, Shampoo, Treibstoff... Was, wenn wir CO2 als alternative Kohlenstoffquelle nutzen könnten?
The Eurodelta-Trends (EDT) multi-model experiment, aimed at assessing the efficiency of emission mitigation measures in improving air quality in Europe during 1990–2010, was designed to answer a series of questions regarding European pollution tre
Comparisons of emerging carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies with equivalent incumbent technologies are necessary to support technology developers and to help policy-makers design appropriate long-term incentives to mitigate climate c
Drastic measures are required to meet the standards of the Paris Agreement and limit the increase of global average temperatures well below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels.
The digitalization of agricultural production and the use of digital data are fundamentally transforming processes, products, and services of the agro-food systems.
In this article we review the physical and chemical properties of methane (CH4) relevant to impacts on climate, ecosystems, and air pollution, and examine the extent to which this is reflected in climate and air pollution governance.
Die Vilmer Thesen 2017 beschäftigen sich zum einen mit historischen Bezügen von Musik zur deutschen Naturschutzbewegung sowie der Auseinandersetzung von Musikerinnen und Musikern mit Naturzerstörung.
Forests play a critical role in combating climate change. It takes China from timber production to ecosystem rehabilitation and then to the future of carbon neutrality.
The Pan-Third Pole (PTP) owns complex geography and demographic features where aerosol roles and their impact cannot be neglected as it jeopardizes both the environment and human health.
The success of institutional crisis and risk communication is based on an open and dialogue-oriented communication policy as well as on a congruence between the expectations of all parties involved and their fulfillment.
Für eine evidenzbasierte und handlungsorientierte Erforschung der Nachhaltigkeit ist eine Integration von analytischem, zielorientiertem und katalytischem Wissen eine wesentliche Voraussetzung.
Weltweit wächst der Eintrag von Kunststoffen in die Umwelt. Da die bestehenden Regulierungen zur Eindämmung des Problems nicht ausreichen, muss die ständig steigende Kunststoffproduktion und -nutzung insgesamt reduziert werden.
Upon entering office in 2021, Joe Biden declared climate policy to be the focal topic of his presidency. The U.S. subsequently set new ambitious impulses for climate protection and made a spirited return to international climate engagement.
The Paris Agreement expresses far-reaching commitments to combat climate change, but its translation into national contexts faces severe confrontation by populist movements and individuals worldwide.
Why do exercises in collaborative governance often witness more impasse than advantage? This paper suggests putting power at center stage and focusing the analysis on the micro level.
Climatology and trends in different types of aerosols with focus on absorbing aerosols over Kanpur located in Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) in South Asia and Beijing in North China Plain (NCP) in East Asia are investigated.
With the proclaimed advent of Industry 4.0 in supply chains, digitalisation is expected to restructure the ways in which buying firms and suppliers in supply chains collaborate, including on sustainability issues.
The concept of sustainable lifestyles is said to have reached the limits of its usefulness. As commonly understood, it impedes an effective response to our increasingly complex world, and the associated societal challenges.
Tropospheric ozone (O3) concentrations depend on a combination of hemispheric, regional, and local-scale processes. Estimates of how much O3 is produced locally vs.
Background:
Ambient air pollution poses a major risk for the development and aggravation of respiratory diseases. Evidence suggests that even in low-level air pollution environments there is a risk for an increase in adverse respiratory symptoms.
New particle formation (NPF) induces a sharp increase in ultrafine particle number concentrations and potentially acts as an important source of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN).
The digitalisation of industrial production and the actual positive and negative consequences for sustainable development are not yet sufficiently understood.
The grid power supply in many developing countries is insufficient and irregular resulting in many commercial users relying on inefficient and air pollution intensive off-grid captive diesel generators (DGs) as a backup power supply.
The cement industry, an industry characterised by low margins, is responsible for approximately 7% of anthropogenic CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions and holds the highest carbon intensity of any industry per unit of revenue.
A comprehensive understanding of the deep-sea environment and mining’s likely impacts is necessary to assess whether and under what conditions deep-seabed mining operations comply with the International Seabed Authority’s obligations to prevent ‘s
This paper analyzes the uses of digital satellite data on deforestation in the Amazon region, drawing on poststructuralist studies of scientific knowledge practices and Science and Technology Studies (STS).
The Joint Task Force, Science Monitoring And Reliable Telecommunications (JTF SMART) Subsea Cables, is working to integrate environmental sensors for ocean bottom temperature, pressure, and seismic acceleration into submarine telecommunications ca
Scientific advice is increasingly used to inform policy. Often, experts are asked to give advice when stakes are high, time pressure is severe and uncertainty looms.
Who is allowed to speak for whom beyond the state, and which identities are offered and created by this act of speaking? The theoretical and practical relevance of these questions is clear, but the questions imply a number of challenges.
This article enriches the existing literature on the importance and role of the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in renewable energy sources research by providing a novel approach to instigating the future research agenda in this field.
Community-based energy systems are gaining traction among policymakers and practitioners as promising models for implementing a low-carbon energy transition.
This perspective presents a statement of the 10th International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences Indigenous Knowledge and knowledge co-production panel and discussion group, 20 July 2021.
As a major contributor to climate change, the cement sector urgently needs to develop and implement greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation technologies to drastically lower its emissions to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
Particulate matter (PM) pollution is a major challenge in India. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India has launched the National Clean Air Programme for monitoring, assessment and control of air pollution.
We analyze long-term aerosol and precipitable water vapour (PWV) properties at two high-altitude sites (Nainital and Hanle) over the central Himalayan and western Trans-Himalayan region from 2008 to 2018.
This study reports for the first time a comprehensive analysis of nitrogenous and carbonaceous aerosols in simultaneously collected PM2.5 and TSP during pre-monsoon (March–May 2018) from a highly polluted urban Kathmandu Valley (KV) of the Himalay
Resolving the grand challenges and wicked problems of the Anthropocene will require skillfully combining a broad range of knowledge and understandings—both scientific and non-scientific—of Earth systems and human societies.
This paper reflects on how, and under what conditions, dialogue can contribute to local transformative change towards climate neutrality, based on the case of the German city of Marburg, which has engaged in a collaborative governance process to s
Given the urgent need for multilateral action for planetary health, the scope of planetary health research must be broadened. Key challenges are currently addressed through disconnected approaches and fragmented policy making.
We investigated the role of the passive volcanic plume of Mount Etna (Italy) in the formation of new particles in the size range of 2.5–10 nm through the gas-to-particle nucleation of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) precursors, formed from the oxidation of
With national governments almost universally pledging to achieve net zero emissions, a key uncertainty is how net zero policies will affect global equity.
The dataset presented in this article contains information about marine Area-Based Management Tools (ABMTs) used to assess their contribution to the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Solar technology diffuses across the globe as countries transition from fossil to renewable energy. Little solar-specific experience and capacity in newly adopting countries can result in technical failures and lower solar plant performance.
Despite geopolitics play a pivotal role in the energy sector, geopolitical aspects are often not considered in the quantitative assessment models aimed at supporting the energy investment decision-making process.
Auf Fachkongressen, wie der Velocity-Konferenz, und in den sozialen Medien wird immer wieder auf den Sprachgebrauch „pro Auto“ hingewiesen, der uns seit Jahrzehnten prägt. Unser Gastautor Dr.
This study analyzes the wind speed characteristics, compares the six different methods (graphical, method of moment, wind energy pattern factor, empirical method of Justus and Lysen, and maximum likelihood method) of estimating Weibull parameters
In recent times, a significant number of studies on the composition and sources of fine particulate matters and volatile organic compounds have been carried out over Delhi, either initiated by or in association with the researchers from the Indian
Assessing global progress on human adaptation to climate change is an urgent priority. Although the literature on adaptation to climate change is rapidly expanding, little is known about the actual extent of implementation.
Aviation and shipping currently contribute approximately 8% of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions, with growth in tourism and global trade projected to increase this contribution further1–3.
Transitions towards low-carbon societies trigger renegotiations of justice concerns in regions that have to abandon unsustainable, fossil-based production patterns.
The rapid uptake of renewable energy technologies in recent decades has increased the demand of energy researchers, policymakers and energy planners for reliable data on the spatial distribution of their costs and potentials.
Of all the interconnected threats facing the planet, the top two are the climate and the biodiversity crises. Neither problem will be solved if we ignore the ocean.
Recently, there has been an intense debate around the concept of mobility justice, which has been developed from approaches in political theory in articulation with social struggles.
This book translates the latest theoretical perspectives on the emerging field of Planetary Health Studies into the practical reality of global political decision makers.
Recent satellite observations of atmospheric aerosol loading over Asia indicate a dipole pattern in the aerosol optical depth (AOD) with a substantial decrease in AOD over East Asia and persistent increase in AOD over South Asia, the two global ho
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” This quote by Albert Einstein highlights our need for new formats of communication to address the knowledge-action gap regarding climate chan
In den vergangenen sechs Jahrzehnten sind Natur, Umwelt und wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse über den Zusammenhang von Umweltschäden und Klimaveränderungen auf ein wachsendes Interesse der Öffentlichkeit gestoßen.
Support schemes have been central to the expansion of renewable electricity globally and in the European Union. As technologies mature, individual member states may decide to phase out these policies.
The Anthropocene thesis makes it necessary for the social sciences to engage with temporality in novel ways. The Anthropocene highlights interconnections between ‘natural’ and ‘social’ non-linear temporal processes.
Climate change and air pollution can interact to amplify risks to human health and crop production. This has significant implications for our ability to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (e.g.
Constraints and limits to adaptation are critical to understanding the extent to which human and natural systems can successfully adapt to climate change.
Since the EU Commission announced the introduction of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) within the European Green Deal, debates intensified on its effectiveness for climate action, adhering to WTO regulations, and potential trade wars wi
There is increasing demand for science to contribute to solving societal problems (solutionism). Thereby, scientists may become normative activists for solving certain problems (advocacy).
Energy system models are advancing rapidly. However, it is not clear whether models are becoming better, in the sense that they address the questions that decision-makers need answered to make well-informed decisions.
The 17 sustainable development goals and their 169 targets comprise a comprehensive list of prerequisites for human and planetary well-being, but they also implicitly invoke many of the very trade-offs, synergies, and parallelisms that drive globa
Das Berliner Mobilitätsgesetz (MobG BE) hat große Erwartungen für einen schnellen Umbau der Hauptstadt zu einem menschen- und umweltfreundlichen Mobilitätsraum geweckt.
The German Energiewende (Energy Transition) poses major challenges to all parties involved. Public participation can contribute to the understanding of these challenges and their positive resolution.
A survey of members of a scientific society focused on risk analysis suggests substantial support for seeing their scientific society pursue the communication goal of “trying to ensure that policymakers consider scientific evidence.” Support for p
This global study, which has been coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization Global Atmospheric Watch (WMO/GAW) programme, aims to understand the behaviour of key air pollutant species during the COVID-19 pandemic period of exceptionally
The adverse effects of unsustainable behaviors on human society are leading to an increasingly urgent and critical need to change policies and practices worldwide.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted social, economic, and environmental systems worldwide, slowing down and reversing the progress made in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The critical challenge facing humanity is the increasingly urgent need to find and implement pathways that lead humankind into a new stage of dynamic equilibrium that promotes the co-evolution of natural and cultural systems.
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is often characterized as separate from climate change mitigation. Discussion of CDR governance – despite enjoying growing interest – tends to overlook how key provisions on mitigation apply.
Climate change adaptation responses are being developed and delivered in many parts of the world in the absence of detailed knowledge of their effects on public health.
Cities in the 21st century are dynamically changing in response to environmental and societal pressures, not least among which are climate change and air pollution.
Despite intensive research activity within the area of climate change, substantial knowledge gaps still remain regarding the potential future impacts of climate change on human health.
While the framing approach in the field of social movements has relied on analysing texts to the neglect of images, recent attention to visual framing in the field of media and communication studies largely overlooks the visual communication of so
This paper describes a large-eddy simulation based chemical transport model, developed under the OpenFOAM framework, implemented to simulate dispersion and chemical transformation of nitrogen oxides from traffic sources in an idealized street cany
The deployment of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is an exciting goal for many cities, as evidenced by the number of AV technologies that are currently on trial around the world, such as in The Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden,
Background: Our objective was to examine the temporal relationship between COVID-19 infections among prison staff, incarcerated individuals, and the general population in the county where the prison is located among federal prisons in the United S
In the presence of a global pandemic (COVID-19), the relentless pressure on global decision-makers is to ensure a balancing of health (reduce mortality impacts), economic goals (income for livelihood sustenance), and environmental sustainability (
Operational forecasting systems based on chemical transport models (CTMs) nowadays generally produce concentration maps with a resolution in the order of 2–5 km, very rarely exceeding the sub-kilometre scale.
Solar radiation modification, particularly stratospheric aerosol injection, holds the potential to reduce the impacts of climate change on sustainable development, yet could itself generate negative impacts and is subject to intense scholarly deba
Plastic pollution has become a major global risk. The European Union (EU) obligates all member states to implement measures according to the waste management hierarchy, with the highest priority given to waste prevention and reuse.
Digital technologies have a crucial role in facilitating transitions toward a sustainable future. Yet there remain challenges to overcome and pitfalls to avoid.
Air pollution is a grand challenge of our time due to its multitude of adverse impacts on environment and society, with the scale of impacts more severe in developing countries, including China.
Plastic waste is perceived as one of the major environmental problems of our times. Nevertheless, rates of consumption of plastic packaging are constantly increasing.
Im Planungsprozess von Wasserkraftprojekten finden partizipative Prozesse häufig
Anwendung, um Konflikte zwischen verschiedenen Interessengruppen zu verhindern
oder zu reduzieren, gemeinsame Lösungen zu finden und langwierige Gerichtsprozesse zu v
As the technical and political challenges of land-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR)
approaches become more apparent, the oceans may be the new “blue” frontier for
carbon drawdown strategies in climate governance.
Scientific collaboration has been a critical aspect of the development of all fields of science, particularly clinical medicine. It is well understood that myriads of benefits can be yielded by interdisciplinary and international collaboration.
This article draws lessons from experiences of developing the photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind power sectors in China for the development of Chinese Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) into an internationally competitive industry.
Background: Since the novel coronavirus SARS-COV-2 was first identified to be circulating in the US on January 20, 2020, some of the worst outbreaks have occurred within state and federal prisons.
This study aims to classify a set of circular supply chain collaboration attributes and propose a cause-and-effect framework in the Vietnamese healthcare industry.
The need to cope with future challenges posed by major transformations such as digitalization and sustainable development has led to several approaches to establish new concepts and methods of science and research.
To combat global warming, industry needs to find ways to reduce its carbon footprint. One way this can be done is by re-use of industrial flue gasses to produce value-added chemicals.
Within socio-economic transformation processes, the task of education is often reduced to short-term economic factors, that is, a suitable qualification profile of the local population.
The original Maastricht regime designed the Eurozone’s fiscal segment in a way that sought to keep member states’ treasury budgets balanced by disciplining them through market forces, reducing the overall volume of public indebtedness, prohibiting
The legitimacy of expert commissions in democracies is always disputed, given that negotiation processes are shifted that should actually take place in democratically legitimized bodies.
The poor state of the ocean and the transboundary nature of the marine environment requires bold action by coastal states coordinated across sectors and territorial boundaries in order to deal with the manifold challenges the ocean is facing – and
The transformation of industrial production is one of the big challenges on the pathway to sustainable development. Therefore, expectations regarding the contribution of Industry 4.0 are high.
Black carbon (BC) aerosol impacts the air quality, public health, agricultural productivity, weather, monsoon, cryosphere, and climate system from the local to the global scale.
Due to the strong temperature dependence of surface ozone concentrations (O3), future warmer conditions may worsen ozone pollution levels despite continued efforts on emission controls of ozone precursors.
Die UN-Klimarahmenkonvention (UNFCCC) bildet seit Jahrzehnten das zentrale multilaterale Steuerungsinstrument internationaler Klimaschutzbemühungen. Doch sie erzielt nicht genügend Fortschritte.
2011 trat der Nawis-Verbund mit dem Vorhaben an, transdisziplinäre Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaft institutionell zu etablieren und einen Wandel im Wissenschaftssystem anzu stoßen.
Gegen das Projekt eines (Europäischen) Green Deal beschwört die populistische Rechte die Dystopie einer drohenden Öko-Diktatur. Welche Rolle spielt diese dystopische Denkfigur im politischen Diskurs? Für wen ist dieses Zukunftsbild glaubwürdig?
The water footprint has developed into a widely-used concept to examine water use and resulting local impacts caused during agricultural and industrial production.
Fisheries management has to deal with uncertainty about the genetic composition and the location of fish stocks. If institutions are inert, i.e. unable to adapt to new insights, management may not be effective.
We analyse the potential for industry entry and catching up by latecomer countries or firms in formative sectors, by deriving a framework that builds on the concept of windows of opportunity for catching up.
Taking the early tissue culture experiments of Alexis Carrel in the 1910s–1930s as its example, the article explores the relationship between advances in biotechnological control over living matter and a holistic ontology of life, which stresses t
In this article, we review the main impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global energy sector and evaluate the implications of related policy responses on prospects for a transition to a climate-friendly energy system.
Research software has become a central asset in academic research. It optimizes existing and enables new research methods, implements and embeds research knowledge, and constitutes an essential research product in itself.
Since 2015 there has been a surge of international agendas to address a range of global challenges: climate change (Paris Agreement), sustainable development (Agenda 2030), disaster risk reduction (Sendai Framework) and sustainable urban transform
The Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges are two seamount chains of volcanic origin, which include over 110 seamounts that collectively stretch across over 2,900 km in the southeastern Pacific.
Als „demokratischer Widerstand" und als „Querdenker" verstehen sich Initiativen, die in der Corona-Krise neu entstanden sind, um einer weitreichenden Kritik an den Regierungsmaßnahmen in der Pandemie einen Raum zu geben.
Climate change mitigation is about more than just CO2. Mitigating a suite of additional pollutants is important for limiting climate change: in particular, taking action on what are known as "short-lived climate-forcing pollutants" (SLCPs).
Societal issues involving policies and publics are generally understudied in research on ocean-based Negative Emission Technologies (NETs), yet will be crucial if novel techniques are ever to function at scale.
Seit Herbst 2018 formiert sich mit Fridays for Future eine Jugendbewegung für Klimagerechtigkeit, die nicht nur medial höchste Beachtung findet, sondern auch politischen Einfluss ausübt.
To understand the characteristics of particulate matter (PM) and other air pollutants in Xinjiang, a region with one of the largest sand-shifting deserts in the world and significant natural dust emissions, the concentrations of six air pollutants
This study argues from a sociology of knowledge perspective which considers implicit knowledge as the basis for orientation towards a certain topic. Reconstructing this type of knowledge can help to better understand the learner’s perspective.
Sustainable electricity systems need renewable and dispatchable energy sources. Solar energy is an abundant source of renewable energy globally which is, though, by nature only available during the day, and especially in clear weather conditions.
In the face of multiple crises of ecology, economy, and social equity, the question of how to democratically transform toward a more sustainable society is high on the political agenda as well as pertinent to academic research.
Changing mobility patterns combined with changes in the climate present challenges and opportunities for global health, requiring effective, relevant, and humane policy responses.
Superconducting links are an innovative solution for bulk power transmission, distinguished by their compact dimensions, high efficiency and small environmental footprint.
Human health and wellbeing and the health of the biosphere are inextricably linked. The state of Earth’s life-support systems, including freshwater, oceans, land, biodiversity, atmosphere, and climate, affect human health.
Systemic risks are characterized by high complexity, multiple uncertainties, major ambiguities, and transgressive effects on other systems outside of the system of origin.
As the international community rallies around Net-Zero emissions targets, there is increasing interest in the development of governance for Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs), a range of proposed approaches which involve removing greenhouse ga
Calls for more bicycle use have been heard from across the political spectrum in Germany for years. Nonetheless, policies that lead to a transition away from car use and toward the bicycle in urban mobility remain absent.
Boosted by impressive technological innovation and cost reductions, renewable energy in a growing number of countries is now primarily considered for its social and economic benefits.
As the international community’s best expression of a collective vision of a desirable future, the 2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) present a framework against which to assess the broader impact of emerging technologies.
There is a dire need for deeper science‐policy engagement to face recent developments such as entering into the Anthropocene and our dependence as a species on technological and scientific advancements.
Energy efficiency measures and the deployment of renewable energy are commonly presented as two sides of the same coin—as necessary and synergistic measures to decarbonize energy systems and reach the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.
The European Commission’s strategic long-term vision for 2050, “A Clean Planet for All”, identifies the bioeconomy and the circular economy as key strategic areas for achieving a climate-neutral economy.
In the wake of digitalization it is increasingly debated whether developing countries can achieve economic prosperity through industrialization in the same manner as developed countries did.
How do emerging powers gain inclusion into club institutions, i.e. institutions with selective memberships that deliberately seek to avoid universality?
While the concept of ‘just transitions’ has become more and more prominent in academic and popular discussions of sustainability transition, these conceptions are often framed in purely economic terms, and focus on the economic impact on communiti
In this article we describe the implementation of an online-coupled gas-phase chemistry model in the turbulence-resolving PALM model system 6.0 (formerly an abbreviation for Parallelized Large-eddy Simulation Model and now an independent name).
An era (2005–2015) centered around the Copenhagen Accord saw the rise of several immature sociotechnical strategies currently at play: carbon capture and storage, REDD+, next-generation biofuels, shale gas, short-lived climate pollutants, carbon d
Modell Deutschland has proven to be extremely stable in the past. Nevertheless, the central sector of the German model of capitalism is currently facing profound transformations, the precise contours of which can only be guessed at.
Future air quality will be driven by changes in air pollutant emissions, but also changes in climate. Here, we review the recent literature on future air quality scenarios and projected changes in effects on human health, crops and ecosystems.
Urgent and ambitious climate action is required to avoid catastrophic climate change and consequent health impacts. Political will is a critical component of the ambitious climate action equation.
We investigate whether political ideology has an observable effect on decarbonization ambition, renewable power aims, and preferences for power system balancing technologies in four European countries.
In order to achieve the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement, the world must reach net‐zero carbon emissions around mid‐century, which calls for an entirely new energy system.
In recent years, the role of the state in sustainability transitions has received increasing attention. Germany is often perceived as a forerunner in climate and environmental politics.
The environmental crisis due to air pollution, high CO2 emissions, noise from traffic and soil ceiling requires profound changes to the car-dependent transport system.
Over the past half century, it has become commonplace for environmental managers and policy makers to engage the public in decision making, a set of diverse activities known collectively as public participation.
This study reports comprehensive analysis of seasonal and inter-annual variations of aerosol optical and physical properties over the Pokhara Valley in the foothills of central Himalayas in Nepal utilizing the high-quality multi-year columnar aero
Purpose: This paper aims to increase related knowledge across personal, social and ecological dimensions of sustainability and how it can be applied to support transformative learning.
Germany represents a new and unconventional actor in the field of energy foreign policy. Based on its reputation as an energy transition frontrunner, it is pursuing a soft power strategy aimed at promoting its Energiewende policy approach abroad.
We perform a source attribution for tropospheric and ground-level ozone using a novel technique that accounts separately for the contributions of the two chemically distinct emitted precursors (reactive carbon and oxides of nitrogen) to the chemic
The European potential for renewable electricity is sufficient to enable fully renewable supply on different scales, from self-sufficient, subnational regions to an interconnected continent.
Integrating more sustainability into business processes is becoming increasingly important for companies. At the same time, they aim to collect and analyze large amounts of data (big data) to improve these processes.
Die Folgen der Pandemie haben schnelles Handeln gefordert und gleichzeitig auch Transformationen in kürzester Zeit ermöglicht. Insbesondere die Digitalisierung ist in einer nicht für möglich gehaltenen Geschwindigkeit vorangeschritten.
“Access and allocation” is one of the five analytical problems identified as key for analysing earth system governance in the first Earth System Governance Science and Implementation Plan officially published in 2009.
The implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is indispensable for building a sustainable and just future for all humans and our planet. The SDGs are global goals.
Aerosol radiative properties using recently available high-quality columnar aerosol data collected at several AERONET sites in South Asia, with a focus on pollution outflow from continental South Asia observed over Hanimaadhoo in Maldives, a small
The rapidly evolving ocean economy, driven by human needs for food, energy, transportation and recreation, has led to unprecedented pressures on the ocean that are further amplified by climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution.
Systemic risks, as opposed to conventional risks, bear the danger of destroying entire systems. Their understanding and governance remain a serious challenge.
We estimated the individual contributions of black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC) to the aerosol absorption coefficient (σap) and absorption aerosol optical depth (AAOD) in the highly polluted Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, by applying the absorptio
The urgent and critical challenges of transforming patterns of behavior from current unsustainable ones are encapsulated in the 2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) inversions for estimating natural carbon fluxes typically do not allow for adjustment of fossil fuel CO2 emissions, despite significant uncertainties in emission inventories and inadequacies in the specification of
This paper argues that political representation in transnational civil society networks needs to be investigated as practice with regard to its flexibility, relationality and dialogical agency.
This paper is an ethnographic essay based on the work experience of one of the authors (da Costa) inside the environmental department of an electric energy producer corporation, between 2010 and 2013, period during which he was part of the technic
A recent article in this journal claimed to assess the socio-technical potential for onshore wind energy in Europe. We find the article to be severely flawed and raise concerns in five general areas.
While calls for cross-sectoral collaboration have become a recurrent motif in sustainability-oriented policymaking and research, the practical realization of such processes presents significant challenges.
In order to advance ongoing efforts in the (still emerging) field of marine restoration, different forms of knowledge must be combined: not only the biological and technical aspects, but also the social and cultural dimensions of marine restoratio
Climate change has become a major political concern for many people. There has been a lot of talk and no lack of calls for action. But to what extent does the world, and particularly Europe, also do the walking?
Decarbonising heating supply is an important part of the global energy transition, and a vital step towards mitigating climate change. We analyse the transformative potential of German and UK heating sector decarbonisation policies.
There is a need to conduct more diverse cross‐case analyses in the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) literature which originated in the United States, to show how key concepts, such as a windows‐of‐opportunity and the role of policy entrepreneurs, m
Climate change is a paradigmatic example of systemic risk. Recently, proposals for large‐scale interventions—carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM)—have started to redefine climate governance strategies.
With the increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in industrial production, the risks and opportunities of these technologies for environmental sustainability as well as political awareness about these risks and opportun
The commission of experts set up by the German government in June 2018 to deal with the coal phase-out and the associated structural change attracted enormous public interest.
Der vorliegende Text verortet Nachhaltigkeit und Klimaschutz knapp in ihrem historischen Kontext und macht ihre aufeinander bezogene Entwicklung deutlich.
In demokratischen Gesellschaften sind weitreichende Politikmaßnahmen wie zur Energiewende oder zum Klimaschutz auf eine breite Legitimation im politischen Raum angewiesen.
Understanding the physical and biogeochemical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere is a vital component of environmental and Earth system research.
Würde Zukunft öfter im Plural gedacht, müsste er für
die Städte stehen. Denn dort war Zukunft schon
immer divers, wurde zwischen Politik und Bürgerschaft
ausgehandelt.
This article explores the role of energy in regionalization processes, assessing the case of natural gas finds in the Eastern Mediterranean (East Med). It makes three observations.
In this perspectives piece, an interdisciplinary team of social science researchers considers the implications of Covid-19 for the politics of sustainable energy transitions.
Technological and policy solutions for transitioning to a fossil-free society exist, many countries could afford the transition, and rational arguments for rapid climate action abound. Yet effective action is still lacking.
Research software has become a central asset in academic research. It optimizes existing and enables new research methods, implements and embeds research knowledge, and constitutes an essential research product in itself.
Es sind die Beziehungen zu uns selbst, Anderen und unserem Kontext, die bestimmen, ob sich das Gesamtsystem in einen gesunden oder ungesunden Zustand entwickelt.
International political economy (IPE) has explained financial globalization as the result of states deciding to open up and liberalize domestic financial systems.
While the idea of extracting deep-seabed resources dates back to as early as the 1960s, it remained pure fiction for decades due to limited technical possibilities and prohibitive costs.
This study, based on new and high quality in situ observations, quantifies for the first time, the individual contributions of light-absorbing aerosols (black carbon (BC), brown carbon (BrC) and dust) to aerosol absorption over the Indo-Gangetic P
Eco-efficiency enhancement is an inherent requirement of green development and an important indicator of high-quality development in general. It aims to achieve the coordinated development of nature, the economy, and society.
Learning rates are a central concept in energy system models and integrated assessment models, as they allow researchers to project the future costs of new technologies and to optimize energy system costs.
In the moment of preparation of this paper, the world is still globally in grip of the Corona (COVID-19) crisis, and the need to understand the broader overall framework of the crisis increases.
This forum contribution explains how analyzing the creation, distribution, and destruction of contemporary credit money is placed centre stage in the emerging field of critical macro-finance.
The seasonal aerosol radiative forcing efficiency (ARFE) in the atmosphere was found high (>100 Wm-2) and consistent throughout the year over Dusanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan in central Asia.
This study reports comprehensive analysis of seasonal and inter-annual variations of aerosol properties (optical, physical and chemical) and radiative effects over Pokhara Valley in the foothills of central Himalayas in Nepal utilizing the high-qu
The COVID-19 outbreak was neither unpredictable nor unforeseen, yet it blind-sided policymakers when it emerged, leading to unprecedented global restrictions on human activity and almost certainly triggering the first global economic contraction s
Although radiation protection is challenged by many uncertainties, there is no systematic study investigating the definitions and types of these uncertainties.
Until very recently, governments of many countries, as well as their supporting organizations, have primarily addressed the biological, technical and economic aspects of aquaculture.
Not only is the climate changing, but so is global climate governance. Climate policy initiatives have proliferated within and beyond the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regime in a polycentric pattern.
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an important process for evaluating the effects of development, and to assist decisions to effectively manage potential deep-sea mining (DSM).
Environmental concerns were raised from the very onset of discussions concerning the extraction of metalliferous ores from the deep sea, but most studies have targeted the expected impacts on the benthic communities only.
The idea that universities should become entrepreneurial, commercialized, private commodities or should serve politicians and governmental agencies has been promoted by the university–industry–government relationship-based Triple Helix approach an
With the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) failing to provide adequate support to climate victims, vulnerable countries, nongovernmental organizations and affected communities are increasingly ex
Based on an extensive synthesis of semi-structured interviews, media content analysis, and reviews, this article conducts a qualitative meta-analysis of more than 560 sources of evidence to identify 38 visions associated with seven different low-c
Industry 4.0 has had a strong influence on the debate on the digitalization of industrial processes, despite being criticized for lacking a proper definition.
Strew pellet production not only contribute to regional sustainable development and localized energy transition, but also help to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions.
This article argues that the process of developing the regulations of commercial deep seabed mining operations presents a window of opportunity to actively and systematically address existing uncertainties regarding the environmental effects of se
International authorities are increasingly recognizing that utilizing the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from various industries can assist strategies for mitigating climate change.
The Kathmandu Valley in Nepal is a bowl-shaped urban basin that experiences severe air pollution that poses health risks to its 3.5 million inhabitants.
In der Klimadebatte kommen integrative Konzepte der Nachhaltigkeitsforschung kaum zum Zuge. Dies zeigt der Lausitzer Kohleausstieg beispielhaft: Soziales und Umwelt werden gegeneinander ausgespielt.
As the forerunner and policy test field of the sustainable development, the sustainable development pilot zones are an important strategy for China to explore the mechanism and model of the coordinated development of human and land in different re
This study presents a comprehensive analysis of organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), and particularly the light absorption characteristics of EC and water-soluble brown carbon (WS–BrC) in total suspended particles in the Kathmandu Valley fr
Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) is an emerging technology field that can replace fossil carbon value chains, and that has a significant potential to achieve emissions mitigation or even “negative emissions”—however in many cases with challeng
Relational thinking has recently gained increasing prominence across academic disciplines in an attempt to understand complex phenomena in terms of constitutive processes and relations.
Die Lausitz steht vor einer doppelten Herausforderung in den nächsten Jahrzehnten. Mit dem Kohleausstieg wird eine zentrale Industrie wegbrechen und bereits heute erfährt die sich zunehmend radikalisierende AfD in der Region große Zustimmung.
The notion of systemic risks denominates the danger of destruction of a whole system by the mechanisms of nonlinear interactions between its agents in combination with circular causality between the system´s elementary dynamic processes and the ma
There has been much talk of a lack of utopias in recent years.
Without possible alternatives, however, the future appears closed.
The article provides an overview of the utopia debates of the 2010s.
How is transformation to be thought when history is neither a continuous progress nor is it feasible at any time? In political theory the term kairós, the favorable time, is used for this.
Our contribution starts off by describing the current situation in Lusatia regarding the coal phase-out. This includes the current plans for organizing a just transition for workers and for funding the economic transition away from coal.
Der Einfluss der Digitalisierung auf Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft ist omnipräsent und kann nicht losgelöst von der Debatte zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung betrachtet werden.
A multi-scale modelling system was developed to provide hourly NOx concentration fields at a building-resolving scale in the urban area of Modena, a city in the middle of the Po Valley (Italy), one of the most polluted areas in Europe.
The tropical tropopause layer (TTL) is the transition region between the well-mixed convective troposphere and the radiatively controlled stratosphere with air masses showing chemical and dynamical properties of both regions.
Energy poverty has become one of the major challenges faced by the world's energy system. However, there is no consensus on the measure of energy poverty.
Expertise in research integration and implementation is an essential but often overlooked component of tackling complex societal and environmental problems.
This paper investigates contestation of authority in EU energy policy, with a focus on natural gas. It argues that the main challenge centers on the EU’s goals and means of energy security policy, not the location and scope of authority.
The very beginning of collaborative research endeavors often lies in politically difficult and practically challenging entanglements. The purpose of this paper is to empirically capture and theoretically conceptualize these entanglements.
Total suspended particles (TSP) were collected in Lumbini from April 2013 to March 2016 to better understand the characteristics of carbonaceous aerosol (CA) concentrations, compositions and sources and their light absorption properties in rural r
Five U.S. B-52 Bombers were conducting a training mission on March 28 high over the Norwegian Sea in the Arctic Ocean. F-16 fighter jets from Norway were also aloft, part of joint NATO exercises involving 10,000 troops in northern Sweden.
A convening of leading international sustainability experts met for the first time in Potsdam, Germany, in March 2019 to re-think sustainability primarily as a societal challenge.
In dem Landstrich südlich von Berlin entlang der polnischen Grenze und bis nach Zittau und Bautzen stellen sich Herausforderungen, für die in Deutschland und darüber hinaus nach Lösungen gesucht wird.
Best Paths, the largest research project in the field of energy financed under the European Union's 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration, explored new avenues for delivering reliable power in Europe thr
This opinion article offers insights into the geopolitics of the ongoing global energy transition. In doing so, it draws heavily on a workshop in Berlin in late 2018, and a subsequent paper in the journal Nature. Four scenarios are presented.
In this Open Access book, Sander van der Leeuw examines how the modern world has been caught in a socioeconomic dynamic that has generated the conundrum of sustainability.
Sufficiency is one important strategy for sustainable development. At an individual level, we need a better understanding of the relationship between sufficiency attitude and CO2 footprint.
Digitalisierung und Globalisierung sind eng mit den Bemühungen um nachhaltige Entwicklung verknüpft, aber sie werden diese nur fördern, wenn sie bewusst nach Prinzipien der Nachhaltigkeit gestaltet werden.
Die Digitalisierung wird zunehmend nicht mehr nur als Chance, sondern auch als Risiko für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung und die Überwindung globaler Ungleichheiten wahrgenommen.
The involvement of early career researchers (ECRs) has been limited during the past Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment cycles. We conducted a global survey among ECRs and interviewed key experts of the IPCC process.
The article interprets the German “Energiewende” as a contested process. The complex articulation of economic developments, civil society disputes and state policies are analyzed from a political-economy perspective.
International cooperation in support of a global energy transition is on the rise, and official development assistance (ODA) in the energy sector is increasingly being directed to renewable energy sources.
The use of carbon dioxide as a feedstock for a broad range of products can help mitigate the effects of climate change through long‐term removal of carbon or as part of a circular carbon economy.
Grand societal challenges call for a sustainability transition away from a fossil-based society toward a bioeconomy, in which energy and manufacturing production processes are based on sustainable biological resources.
Risk communication efforts to mitigate the second cause of lung cancer worldwide (after tobacco smoking) – the radioactive gas radon in buildings – are often ineffective.
We propose creating and maintaining records of engagement and decision-making (RoED) to help us and our communities better understand ourselves, our goals, our decisions, and the dynamic systems in which we all live.
In the framework of the EURODELTA-Trends (EDT) modeling experiment, several chemical transport models (CTMs) were applied for the 1990–2010 period to investigate air quality changes in Europe as well as the capability of the models to reproduce ob
Ohne das Meer gäbe es kein Leben auf unserem Planeten. Es regelt weitgehend das Klima, gibt uns Nahrung und liefert Energie. Darüber hinaus ist es ein wichtiger Verkehrsweg, ein Erholungsraum und ein Quell ästhetischen Vergnügens.
Without the ocean and its resources, the wealth and wellbeing enjoyed by some of the world’s population would not exist. But the future of this unique ecosystem faces a grave threat today.
To understand what digital democracy is, this article suggests looking at the individual level of democratic subjectivity. Who is the democratic subject and how is it constituted in digital democracy?
EU regulations explicitly preclude recirculation aquaculture systems (RAS) for aquaculture grow-out from organic certification because they are not close enough to nature (Regulation (EEC) No. 710/2009).
The challenge facing humanity is to live sustainably within both the ecological and physical limits of our planet and the societal boundaries needed for social cohesion and well-being.
This article analyses the narratives of impact-driven transition research in the field of sustainability studies. It reconstructs patterns of narrations at a discourse level.
The lack of a comprehensive, up-to-date emission inventory for the Himalayan region is a major challenge in understanding the extensive regional air pollution, including its causes, impacts and mitigation pathways.
Modern societies are confronted with ‘systemic risks’ which challenge conventional risk analysis and management. The phrase ‘systemic risks’ denotes risk phenomena which are exceedingly complex and interdependent.
Cross-city convergence in green space coverage could contribute to our understanding of the law of motion of distribution dynamics of environmental sustainability across cities and provide crucial information for designing policies regarding compl
Gene editing tools are ‘revolutionizing’ microbiological research. Much of the public debate focuses on the possibility of human germ line applications.
We present a Strengths, Vulnerability, and Intervention Assessment related to Digital Threats (SVIDT) method, which provides a problem structuring and decision support for organizational vulnerability and resilience management with respect to chan
Systemic risks originate in tightly coupled systems. They are characterised by complexity, transboundary cascading effects, non-linear stochastic developments, tipping points, and lag in perception and regulation.
The Southern Ocean and coastal Antarctica provide a variety of ecosystem services with benefits for humankind that are of regional and global importance.
Profound societal transformations are needed to move society from unsustainability to greater sustainability under continually changing social and environmental conditions.
Negotiations for a new international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) have com
Energy Transition towards a low-carbon emission energy system has been a long-term strategy for Germany and China. Both countries are expected to take the lead on the global effort to achieve clean energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
In search for sustainability of the oceans, the concept of resilience arises as a necessary perspective from which to analyse what course of action to take.
Carbonaceous aerosols (CAs) scatter and absorb incident solar radiation in the atmosphere, thereby influencing the regional climate and hydrological cycle, particularly in the Third Pole (TP).
Climate has for a long time been a taken-for-granted background against which social, political and economic interactions have taken place. But this taken-for-granted background is cleaving.
Democracy is in crisis. As neo-Nazis, right-wing populists, and authoritarians, old and new, stake their claims around the world, democracy faces its greatest challenge yet. The only way to save it is to change it.
Proposed as an advanced conceptualization of how to handle risk, risk governance begins with the critique and expansion of the traditional idea and standard practices of risk analysis.
Germans are generally very conservative when it comes to investing and this in turn leads to low returns in times of low interest rates. Asset accumulation, among other things, motivates various sovereign wealth fund models.
Because solar and wind resources are available throughout Europe, a transition to an electricity system based on renewables could simultaneously be a transition to an autarkic one.
The ocean crisis is urgent and central to human wellbeing and life on Earth; past and current activities are damaging the planet's main life support system for future generations.
The global energy transition is characterised by a myriad of technology options, organisational forms and infrastructural scales across levels of operation. Energy transitions are generally considered to foster sustainable development.
Air pollution remains a problem in German cities. In particular, the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) annual limit-value set by the European Union of 40 µg/m3 was not met at ~40% of roadside monitoring stations across German cities in 2018.
Das aktuelle Nachhaltigkeitsdilemma wurde in den vergangenen 500 Jahren von den westlichen (entwickelten) Gesellschaften geschaffen, indem sie das Verhältnis zwischen Gesellschaft und Umwelt veränderten.
Measurement of reactive air pollutants and greenhouse gases underpin a huge variety of applications that span from academic research through to regulatory functions and services for individuals, governments, and businesses.
Die globalen Krisen spitzen sich zu. Doch wo sind Antworten und Lösungen? Das I.L.A. Kollektiv hat sich auf die Suche nach neuen Lebensstilen und Wirtschaftsformen begeben, die nicht auf Kosten anderer und der Natur gehen.
Climate change has been labelled the human rights challenge of the twenty-first century. Loss and damage resulting from climate change, in particular, poses a severe threat to the human rights of affected communities.
In der Rubrik BildungsPraxis hat Susanne Offen, Mitglied der Journal-Redaktion, ein Interview mit David Löw Beer vom Institut für transformative Nachhaltigkeitsforschung geführt, in dem insbesondere auf demokratische Prozesse, gesellschaftliche Ma
The world going low carbon is believed to put an end to petrostates, and to force incumbent oil producers to diversify their economies away from fossil fuels. This article challenges this assumption.
Risk governance has in recent years become a commonly used concept in relation to the understanding, assessment, management and communication of risk or risk problems, including so-called systemic risks.
Research and policy processes in many fields, such as sustainability and health, are increasingly relying on transdisciplinary cooperation among a multitude of governmental, nongovernmental, and private actors from local to global levels.
Populistische Strömungen gewinnen weltweit an Resonanz, gleichzeitig beobachten wir ein tiefes Misstrauen in die Problemlösungsfähigkeit der Politik, in die Fairness der Wirtschaft und die Unabhängigkeit der Wissenschaft.
The call for a kind of education which can contribute to a sustainable future has resulted in the “education for sustainable development” (ESD) campaign.
ie schwarzblaue Bundesregierung will Österreich mit dem Klimaschutz-Plan „Mission 2030“ auf den richtigen Weg bringen. Der wird dafür nicht ausreichen.
Die Lebensweise breiter Bevölkerungsschichten im Globalen Norden ist ursächlich verantwortlich für gravierende globale Probleme, wie die Zerstörung unserer Lebensgrundlagen, Krieg, Gewalt und Vertreibung.
This article examines the post-truth debate and questions the argument that post-modernism and social constructivism is responsible for post-truth and alternative facts, including in climate denial.
Climate change is impacting marine ecosystems and their goods and services in diverse ways, which can directly hinder our ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set out under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.<
The Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings are known as the Third Pole (TP). This region is noted for its high rates of glacier melt and the associated hydrological shifts that affect water supplies in Asia.
The shale gas debate has taken center stage over the past decade in many European countries due to its purported climate advantages over coal and the implications for domestic energy security.
This paper proposes “making refuge” as a conceptual placeholder and an analytical rubric, a guiding ethos and praxis, for the engaged Buddhist aspiration of responding to the social, political, economic, and planetary crises facing the world.
Climate models aiming to explore how global warming can be limited to the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius usually invoke sweeping technical and societal transformations, including the extensive use of carbon dioxide removal tec
Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) as a solar radiation management (SRM) technology may provide a cost-effective means of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change, being perhaps orders of magnitude less expensive than greenhouse gas
Die notwendige breite und schnelle Diffusion technologischer Innovationen zur Förderung von Energiewende und Klimaschutz kann nur gelingen, wenn die Bevölkerung diese durch ihre Investitionen und veränderte Kauf- und Nutzungsgewohnheiten im Alltag
Economists not only failed to anticipate the financial crisis; they may have contributed to it — with risk and derivatives models that, through spurious precision and untested theoretical assumptions, encouraged policy makers and market participan
A central challenge in research on education for sustainable consumption (ESC) is to develop new approaches to engage adolescents with sustainable consumption (SC) in a way that addresses not only the cognitive but also the socio-emotional and beh
Der NaWis-Verbund will Impulse für eine transdisziplinäre und transformative Wissenschaft geben. Dafür wollen die Partnerinstitutionen Forschungsmethoden entwickeln und diese in gesellschaftlich relevanten Problemfeldern anwenden.
Humans have a long history of mobility on a spectrum from voluntary migration to forced displacement in response to social, political and environmental change.
Long-term (2004–2015) satellite data over three adjacent yet contrasting regions: Indo-Gangetic Plain, Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau (TP) were used to study the spatiotemporal distribution of total ozone column (TOC) and its precursor gases (such
In light of the three major global transformations of globalization, digitalization and sustainabilization scientific research faces new challenges and targets.
Making sense of the implications of climate engineering approaches (solar radiation management, SRM; and carbon dioxide removal, CDR) at planetary scales occurs via a host of methods that calculate, project, and imagine the future in distinct ways
Today, representative politics are often perceived as being primarily concerned with short-term goals. Moreover, the future appears to be pre-determined by economic or technological necessities.
Identification of atmospheric aerosol types and characterization of absorbing aerosols, based on AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) data collected during 2013-2014 over two sites in Nepal: Lumbini in the northernmost part of central Indo-Gangetic P
Farmers and their energy saving behaviors make significant sense for long-run sustainability and enacting effective energy policies, particularly in the fragile eco-environment and non-developed rural area.
There is wide agreement that a nexus or integrated approach to managing and governing natural resources such as land, water, and energy can improve environmental, climate, human, and political security.
Household energy consumption has been a major contributor to the increase in global energy demand and carbon emission, and the household sector has also become one of the most crucial factors shaping the management of developments towards sustaina
From February 6 to 8, 2019, Leuphana University of Lüneburg hosted the first ever Leverage Points conference on sustainability research and transformation.
Deutschland will seine Treibhausgasemissionen bis 2050 um 80 bis 95 Prozent vermindern. Die bereits vorgesehenen und umgesetzten Maßnahmen sind jedoch trotz der bisherigen Erfolge nicht ausreichend, um dieses ambitionierte Ziel zu erreichen.
Germany wishes to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 per cent by 2050. However, despite the success to date, the measures which have already been planned and implemented are not
sufficient for achieving this ambitious goal.
The Anthropocene concept allows human history to be imagined within the temporal framework of planetary processes. Accordingly, some environmentalists increasingly favour massively lengthening the temporal horizons of moral concern.
This paper explores potential contributions of narrative ethics to the re-theorization of the political in water governance, particularly seeking to rectify concerns regarding when water is excluded from cultural contexts and issues of power and d
The paper provides an overview of an airborne measurement campaign with a microlight aircraft over the Pokhara Valley region, Nepal, a metropolitan region in the central Himalayan foothills.
Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement stand as milestone diplomatic achievements. However, immense discrepancies between political commitments and governmental action remain.
Air pollution is understudied in sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in a gap in the scientific understanding of emissions, atmospheric processes, and impacts of air pollutants in this region.
Cyclic volatile methyl siloxanes (cVMS) are high-production chemicals present in many personal care products. They are volatile, hydrophobic, and relatively long-lived due to slow oxidation kinetics.
Despite the expectation of potentially vast petroleum resources in the offshore Arctic over the last decade, actual exploration and production rates are rather low.
Die industrielle Produktion durchläuft aktuell einen erheblichen Transformationsprozess, ermöglicht durch die rasante Entwicklung der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien. Welche Rolle spielt die Industrie 4.0.
Ecosystem-based management (EBM) necessarily requires a degree of coordination across countries that share ocean ecosystems, and among national agencies and departments that have responsibilities relating to ocean health and marine resource utiliz
Motivated by the question of how the arts can contribute to communication on sustainable development, this study makes a sociological-anthropological analysis of the reception of an international contemporary art exhibition on sustainability in Va
In four short meditations, approaches to time and the future are explored through both a time and futures lens. A compressed poetic form of expression is used to distil the essence of the processes involved.
Through this book, readers will gain a comprehensive overview of transdisciplinary knowledge co-production in local contexts as an issue-driven and solution-oriented process, and will come to understand its relationship to societal transformation
The important role that climate leaders and leadership play at different levels of the European Union (EU) multilevel governance system is exemplified.
Urban areas face multiple risks: they range from natural hazard-induced disasters, fires, and building code violations to social risks such as vandalism, crime, and social disorientation, among others.
This paper describes, documents, and validates the TM5-FAst Scenario Screening Tool (TM5-FASST), a global reduced-form air quality source–receptor model that has been designed to compute ambient pollutant concentrations as well as a broad range of
The energy consumption and carbon emission of Chinese households is growing rapidly and will continue to do so for the near future. Currently, Chinese energy policies mainly focus on the industrial sector instead of the residential sector.
In Nepal, majority of households still burn solid fuels in inefficient cook stoves inside poorly ventilated kitchens, which results in very high levels of indoor pollutants, including black carbon (BC).
The paper aims to explore the gaps and overlaps between statements of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) working at the intersection of climate change, sustainable energy, and industrial development regarding the role of Industry 4.0 for clima
Germany’s ambition to promote sustainable energy globally, on the basis of its own “Energiewende,” has led to the development of a multi-faceted international energy transition policy with various activities and an agenda to promote renewables and
Rural and peri-urban communities in Japan, as well as in many other regions of the world, face risks of discrete event natural phenomena, including earthquakes, floods, and landslides.
This paper investigates the interplay between the German incentive regulation and renewable capacity integration. A comprehensive review of the current incentive regulation scheme and its 2016 amendment is first presented.
Das Gruppendelphi-Verfahren ermöglicht einen wissensbasierten und konstruktiven Diskurs mit einer interdisziplinären Gruppe an Experten, die unterschiedliche Sichtweisen und Urteile präsentieren.
With our attitudes and behavior, which aim at promoting sustainable behavior, we face a temporal dilemma – a temporal conflict between short-term and long-term interests.
Der renommierte Risikoforscher und Technik- und Umweltsoziologe Ortwin Renn über die Macht der Angst – und was sie mit unserer Gesellschaft macht.
Populistische Strömungen gewinnen weltweit an Resonanz.
In order to fulfill multiple sustainable development targets, most prominently human development, poverty eradication and climate change mitigation, African countries need infrastructure that cover basic needs while at the same time promote indust
A comprehensive overview is provided evaluating direct real-world CO2 emissions of both diesel and petrol cars newly registered in Europe between 1995 and 2015.
Although the notion of systemic risk gained prominence with respect to financial systems, it is a generic term that refers to risks of increasing importance in many domains—risks that cannot be tackled by conventional techniques of risk management
Decades of gross domestic product-focused economic development has not only made China the world’s second largest economy, but has also led to massive environmental problems, including air pollution, which has been shown to lead to multiple advers
Ein transformativer Staatsfonds investiert gezielt in Unternehmen, die zur Erreichung der Pariser Klimaziele beitragen. Er erzeugt einen ökologischen, ökonomischen und sozialen Mehrwert.
Economic growth as a policy objective remains consensual, but not unchallenged. The enquiry committee set up during the German Bundestag’s 17th electoral period has reproduced some of the arguments against said objective.
The growing number of development stakeholders and initiatives in developing countries has added complexity to international development cooperation (IDC).
This article depicts a dialectic relationship between the creative conduct of public administrators on the one hand, and the institutional complexity of their political surrounding, on the other.
The implementation of European emission abatement strategies has led to a significant reduction in the emissions of ozone precursors during the last decade.
Technical innovations of the digitalization lead to significant changes in society. From the point of view of computer science the main focus is at the technical side of innovations or at the clear economical aspects for the clients.
In a globally connected world, new opportunities are associated with new types of risks. These new types of risks do not respect national boundaries nor are they restricted to particular locations or systems.
Ausgelöst durch einen sich rapide vollziehenden Kilimawandel im Hohen Norden ist der Konflikt um die Arktis seit einigen Jahren ein Thema öffentlicher Debatten.
An evaluation of the meteorology simulated using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model for the region of south Asia and Nepal with a focus on the Kathmandu Valley is presented.
With Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, the conservation and sustainable use of the ocean and its resources was put on a central place in the global sustainability agenda.
The growing critical reception of mainstream mindfulness interventions often concerns itself with the social and ethical dimensions of mindfulness practices and their current inability to effectively address social and ecological problems.
At the heart of many mindfulness critiques is essentially a critique of how mindfulness has been rebranded to promote neoliberal governmentality and produce neoliberal subjects.
A main concern surrounding (shale) gas production and exploitation is the leakage of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. High leakage rates have been observed outside of Europe but the representativeness of these observations for Europe is unknown.
Sophia Becker untersucht in ihrer empirischen Studie, ob technische Effizienzverbesserungen des Autos dazu führen, dass Konsumenten sich ein größeres Auto anschaffen, längere Strecken zurücklegen oder schneller fahren.
Tenders are a fast spreading instrument to attract and procure new generation capacity from renewable energy sources. However, there is a need for current analysis of experiences as in many countries tenders were introduced only few years ago.
A multivariate linear regression model was proposed to achieve short period prediction of PM2.5 (fine particles with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 μm or less).
Renewable energy auctions are gaining popularity worldwide. However, practical experiences remain ambiguous. This holds especially true for on-time implementation rates.
Pursuing integrated research and decision-making to advance action on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) fundamentally depends on understanding interactions between the SDGs, both negative ones (“trade-offs”) and positive ones (“co-benefits”
How can cities solve the pressing environmental problems caused by the excessive use of private cars? By creating Free Cargo-Bikesharing systems, citizens are taking forward the transition to sustainable transportation systems.
A system for source attribution of tropospheric ozone produced from both NOx and volatile organic compound (VOC) precursors is described, along with its implementation in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) version 1.2.2 using CAM4.
The special issue Scaling up bioenergy? identifies major policy expectations attached to biofuels production worldwide, and it provides systematic reviews of actual biofuel performance and governance in these areas.
Mit Beteiligungskultur verbinden sich Forderungen nach mehr Mitsprache der Öffentlichkeit an politischer Entscheidungsfindung, einer stärkeren Institutionalisierung ergänzender Verfahren, aber auch nach bestimmten Haltungen und Deutungen.
This review article makes six observations about the current body of research on the societal impacts of a changing Arctic. First, climate change and globalisation are the dominant drivers of societal impacts in the Arctic.
We present the main messages of a European Expert Round Table (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of the digital transition. Seventeen experts provided 42 propositions from ten different perspectives as input for the ERT.
Shipping emissions are likely to increase significantly in the coming decades, alongside increasing emphasis on the sustainability and environmental impacts of the maritime transport sector.
As an essential factor for sustainable development, energy plays a very important role in sustaining a modern lifestyle, particularly in poor rural areas.
Tropospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) over India was simulated by Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS)‐Chem, a global 3‐D chemical‐transport model, using SMOG (Speciated Multi‐pOllutant Generator from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay) and
If solar geoengineering were to be deployed so as to mask a high level of global warming, and then stopped suddenly, there would be a rapid and damaging rise in temperatures.
In economics as well as environmental policy, Economic policy instruments for the environment (EPI) are typical and widely used measures to address ecological problems. However, very little is known about teaching and learning EPIs.
Puzzled by how geographical changes in the Arctic might cause changes in state behavior the authors of this article have been inspired to return to the roots of geopolitical reasoning.
Negative emissions technologies (NETs), especially bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and direct air capture and storage, have been invoked as necessary to achieve the aspirational 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement.
For the first time, aerosol optical properties are measured over Lumbini, Nepal, with CIMEL sunphotometer of the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) program.
E-governance (e-gov) might provide the missing tools in order to move closer to the good governance ideal, often depicted as a key element for a sustainable future. But how is sustainability considered in the scientific debate around e-gov?
Das Kopernikus-Projekt Energiewende-Navigationssystem (ENavi) will robustes Wissen für die Entscheidungsfindung im Rahmen der Energie wende bereitstellen.
Focusing on critical aspects of infrastructure, such as energy, this paper argues that African countries, and African cities in particular, need infrastructure that advances both basic needs and industrialization, and avoids a lock-in of unsustain
PAH concentrations were measured in total suspended particle (TSP) samples collected from six sites along two south-north transects across the central Himalayas from April 2013 to March 2014.
Several studies have reported the transport of short-lived climate forcers/pollutants (SLCF/P) from the highly polluted areas in southern Asia (e.g., the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayan foothills) to the Himalayas, with significant implicati
Residents of the Kathmandu Valley experience severe particulate and gaseous air pollution throughout most of the year, even during much of the rainy season.
Air pollution is still largely unstudied in sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in a gap in scientific understanding of emissions, atmospheric processes, and impacts of air pollutants in this region.
The "Berlin Air quality and Ecosystem Research: Local and long-range Impact of anthropogenic and Natural hydrocarbons" (BAERLIN2014) campaign was conducted during the 3 summer months (June–August) of 2014.
This study quantifies the present-day global and regional distributions (2010–2014) and trends (2000–2014) for five ozone metrics relevant for short-term and long-term human exposure.
Exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is associated with negative human health effects, both for short-term peak concentrations and from long-term exposure to a wider range of NO2 concentrations.
While most OECD countries have been rather successful in reducing risks to human lives, health, and the quality of the environment, the record for new global risks such as climate change, pandemics, financial breakdowns, and social inequality is m
Here, expert authors delineate approaches that can support both decision makers as well as their concerned populations in overcoming unwarranted fears and in elaborating policies based on scientific evidence.
This article uses the concept of “Industrial Revolution” to underline the extraordinary speed and the global scale of ecological modernization (EM). The focus is on clean energy technologies, the core of this dynamic change.
Considering the significance and importance of urban sustainability in China and China’s history of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, this paper aims to incorporate the investigation of climate change and air pollution in urban sustainabil
High-voltage direct-current superconducting cables are an attractive option for the high-capacity links of the future. Key elements of a 3-GW-class superconducting cable have been validated within the Best Paths European project.
The integration of rooftop photovoltaic systems in the low-voltage distribution grids has become a major international trend, helped by the sinking prices for photovoltaics.
Das Kopernikus-Projekt Energiewende-Navigationssystem (ENavi), gefördert vom Bundesministerium für Bildung undForschung, bindet gesellschaftliche Interessen bei der Energiewendeforschung ein.
The role of the regional level in addressing and strengthening the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) should not be undermined.
Tropospheric ozone and particulate matter affect human health and cause vegetation stress, dysfunction and damages. In this study we investigate the effect of increasing urban vegetation i.e.
Das neue Forschungsprogramm des Potsdamer Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies widmet sich der Integration von Transformationsforschung und transformativer Forschung.
With NO2 limit values being frequently exceeded in European cities, complying with the European air quality regulations still poses a problem for many cities. Traffic is typically a major source of NOx emissions in urban areas.
In support of the first Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report (TOAR) a relational database of global surface ozone observations has been developed and populated with hourly measurement data and enhanced metadata.
Grand societal challenges call for a transition from a society based on finite fossil resources towards a bio-based economy, based on renewable resources.
The ongoing transformations in the Arctic are deeply intertwined with regional and global processes, both in the sense of the Arctic affecting and being affected by these processes that reach beyond the Arctic’s southern borders.
The SusKat-ABC (Sustainable Atmosphere for the Kathmandu Valley–Atmospheric Brown Clouds) international air pollution measurement campaign was carried out from December 2012 to June 2013 in the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding regions in Nepal.
Particulate air pollution in the Kathmandu Valley has reached severe levels that are mainly due to uncontrolled emissions and the location of the urban area in a bowl-shaped basin with associated local wind circulations.
We report on the molecular structures of the two most abundant conformers of n-octanal observed by molecular beam Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy.
This article maintains that the failure of critique on – and alternatives to – economic growth to translate from academic and societal into day-to-day political discourse is only to be explained by looking closer at institutions and their discursi
Anne-Katrin Holfelder geht der Frage nach, welche impliziten Wissensbestände bei Jugendlichen in Diskussionen nachhaltigkeitsrelevanter Themen urteils- und handlungsleitend sind.
We evaluate numerical simulations of surface ozone mixing ratios over the south Asian region during the pre-monsoon season, employing three different emission inventories in the Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) with
The EURODELTA-Trends multi-model chemistry-transport experiment has been designed to facilitate a better understanding of the evolution of air pollution and its drivers for the period 1990–2010 in Europe.
Robust environmental management of deep-sea mining projects must be integrated into the planning and execution of mining operations, and developed concurrently.
In this article, we show that the repayment of bank credits having financed investments canrepresent an outflow outside the economic circuit in the Keynesian multiplier theory, just likesavings.
The growing demand for energy, natural resources and urban expansion during the last two centuries increased human interference with the geosphere far beyond geothermal usage.
The mixing layer height (MLH) is a measure for the vertical turbulent exchange within the boundary layer, which is one of the controlling factors for the dilution of pollutants emitted near the ground.
This article explores the effects of the political reactions to the 2007–2009 financial crisis on the monetary system. It chimes in with the view that shadow banks create ‘shadow money’, i.e. private substitutes for bank deposits.
Possible feedback effects between aeolian dust, climate and ice sheets are studied for the first time with an Earth system model of intermediate complexity over the late Pleistocene period.
Temporal and spatial patterns in eastern North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures (SST) were reconstructed for marine isotope stage (MIS) 11c using a submeridional transect of five sediment cores.
This paper presents an analytical estimate of various self-field losses in the superconducting MgB2 cables recently proposed for long-distance (3000 km) dc power transmission.
New multiproxy marine data of the Eemian interglacial (MIS5e) from the Norwegian Sea manifest a cold event with near-glacial surface ocean summer temperatures (3-4 °C).
Variations in the poleward-directed Atlantic heat transfer was investigated over the past 135ka with special emphasis on the last and present interglacial climate development (Eemian and Holocene).
Die Studie „Bildung und Sicherheit“ wurde zur Vorbereitung auf den XIV. Workshop desForschungforum Öffentliche Sicherheit bei Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Ortwin Renn und Dr.
This study was commissioned by the German Federal ministry for Economic Cooperation and development in order to help identify whether there are differences and potential issues in the VGGt that are currently omitted or only partially covered by t
Air pollution resulting from rapid urbanization and associated human activities in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal has been leading to serious public health concerns over the past 2 decades.
Forschung für eine nachhaltige Bodenpolitik hat sich in den letzten Jahren zu einem zentralen Arbeitsbereich am Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) entwickelt.
Das Kopernikus-Projekt ENavi will der Komplexität des Energiesystems begegnen, indem es unterschiedliche disziplinäre und soziale Wissensbestände aus allen ENavi-Forschungsarbeiten zusammenführt.
CO2 utilisation technologies—also called carbon dioxide utilisation (CDU) and carbon capture and utilisation (CCU)—convert CO2 via physical, chemical, or biological processes into carbon-based products.
Zentrale Bestandteile des Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetzes (EEG) sind der gesicherte Zugang zu Vergütungszahlungen sowie die administrative Bestimmung der Vergütungssätze und ihrer Abnahmeraten.
Semicontinuous PM2. 5 and black carbon (BC) concentrations, and 24 h integrated PM2. 5 filter samples were collected near roadways in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.
The potential of emissions from urban vegetation combined with anthropogenic emissions to produce ozone and particulate matter has long been recognized.
Farmers must consider real-world problems and variability to maximize yields and minimize environmental impacts when using cover crops in corn (Zea mays L.)-based cropping systems.
Increasing interest in climate engineering in recent years has led to calls by the international research community for international research collaboration as well as global public engagement.
As part of an outreach initiative by the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria, an interdisciplinary educational module was developed to teach students about sustainability through the lens of mineral resources used to produce mobile phones.
Multi-level global governance was introduced at the United Nations summit in Rio in 1992 as a new model to achieve a broad global mobilization of different actors in sustainable development. This model has been extended to climate governance.
Not in my backyard versus Mitsprache für alle. Nur mit der Weisheit der Vielen können die drängenden Fragen der Zukunft gelöst werden. Die vierte Gewalt, die Konsultative, ist ihr Sprachrohr.
This article explains the relatively successful performance of the European Union (EU) in climate and energy governance by two factors: (1) multi-level reinforcement and (2) the mobilization of economic interests at different levels of governance
While excitement around biofuels initially focused on finding a clean and secure alternative to fossil fuels, many other expectations have subsequently been attached to the “biofuel boom.” Biofuels are not only expected to mitigate climate change
This paper investigates how risks are anticipated in national bioenergy policies and in which way related expectations that harms can be prevented or mitigated have actually been met.
This editorial is the introduction to a Special Issue of Scaling Up Biofuels? A Critical Look at Expectations, Performance and Governance which assesses biofuels contribution to sustainability governance and upscaling.
A gridded, geographically extended weather type classification has been developed based on the Jenkinson–Collison (JC) classification system and used to evaluate the representation of weather types over Europe in a suite of climate model simulatio
Transnational civil society networks have become increasingly important democratizing actors in global politics. Still, the exploration of democracy in such networks remains conceptually and methodologically challenging.
Unsere zentrale Energieversorgungist nicht das Ergebnis technischer Notwendigkeiten, sondern politischer Entscheidungen. Heute machen erneuerbare Energien ihr Geschäftsmodell hinfallig- auch im Süden.
Industrial production is currently undergoing a fundamental transformation, leading towards a digitalized and interconnected industrial production, which is subsumed under the term Industrial Internet (of Things) or Industrie 4.0.
This paper discusses proposals for tabular standards in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, we focus on Keynes’ proposal for an international tabular standard (ITS) as the gold standard unravelled in the 1930s.
To better understand the characteristics of biomass burning in the northern Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), total suspended particles were collected in a rural site, Lumbini, Nepal, during April 2013 to March 2014 and analyzed for the biomass burning t
A positive matrix factorization model (US EPA PMF version 5.0) was applied for the source apportionment of the dataset of 37 non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) measured from 19 December 2012 to 30 January 2013 during the SusKat-ABC in
In 2004, the UN General Assembly resolved to establish a working group to consider issues pertaining to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ).
This guide on Governing Tenure Rights to Commons aims to support states, communitybasedorganizations, civil society organizations, the private sector and other relevantactors, to take proactive measures to implement the standards and recommendatio
Air quality and climate change are inexorably linked from their emission sources to their impacts on climate, human health, and ecosystems, including agriculture.
Ten years ago, Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen called for research into the possibility of reflecting sunlight away from Earth by injecting sulfur particles into the stratosphere.
Nach der Reaktorkatastrophe in Fukushima 2011 wurde die Helmholtz-Allianz ENERGY-TRANS gegründet, um die technisch ausgerichtete Energieforschung um eine sozialwissenschaftlich geprägte interdisziplinäre Perspektive zu ergänzen.
Sustainability can be understood as a specific kind of problem framing that emphasizes the interconnectedness of different problems and scales and calls for new forms of problem handling that are much more process-oriented, reflexive and iterative
Since solar radiation management (SRM) technologies do not yet exist and capacities to model their impacts are limited, proposals for its governance are implicitly designed not around realities, but possibilities – baskets of risk and benefit that
This piece examines the need to interrogate the role of the conceptions of the future, as embedded in academic papers, policy documents, climate models, and other artifacts that serve as currencies of the science-society interface, in shaping scie
Air pollution is the number one environmental cause of premature deaths in Europe. Despite extensive regulations, air pollution remains a challenge, especially in urban areas.
he process-based biogeochemical model Biome-BGC was enhanced to improve its ability to simulate carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles of various terrestrial ecosystems under contrasting management activities.
Particulate matter (PM) deposited on Platanus acerifolia tree leaves has been sampled in the urban areas of 28 European cities, over 20 countries, with the aim of testing leaf deposited particles as indicator of atmospheric PM concentration and co
Der Umbau der deutschen Stromversorgung weg von Atom und Kohle hin zu Erneuerbaren und Energieeffizienz wird in weiten Teilen der Welt mit großem Interesse verfolgt.
In this study one year of ceilometer measurements taken in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, in the framework of the SusKat project (A Sustainable Atmosphere for the Kathmandu Valley) were analyzed to investigate the diurnal variation of the mixing lay
The environmental burden of multi-Si PV modules in China has been discussed in existing studies, however, their data are mostly from local enterprises, and none of their environmental assessment involves the decommissioning and recycling process.
In the last decade, solar geoengineering (solar radiation management, or SRM) has received increasing consideration as a potential means to reduce risks of anthropogenic climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is preparing a report on keeping global warming below 1.5 °C. How the panel chooses to deal with the option of solar geoengineering will test the integrity of scientific climate policy advice.
This paper analyses the transmission efficiency characteristics for two long-distance superconducting transmission designs developed at the IASS and at EPRI as a function of the load factor for capacities up to 10 GW, and in comparison with establ
