Policy impact pathways of climate-related urban health vulnerability - A retrospective analysis.

Climate change-related health risks are likely to become more prevalent in cities. Cities are also key actors in adaptation to these risks. Adaptation can take place through intentional measures to reduce vulnerability or exposure and unintentionally through other urban policy processes and outcomes. However, complex and dynamic relations between urban policy impacts and vulnerability development are an understudied phenomena. This limits the understanding of how urban climate-related health risks emerge and evolve. We examine urban policy pathways that influence vulnerability to climate-related health impacts with a most similar - most different case study. With a qualitative retrospective analysis of four urban areas in Finland we unveil the mechanism of how urban policy affects urban environment over time and how these impacts and changes shape vulnerability. Contrasting the most different cases, we show that urban policy impacts set differing preconditions to adaptation between local districts. We conclude by suggesting that to adapt to future challenges in cities with respect to social and ecological justice, it is necessary to mainstream adaptation into urban policies with continuous cross-sector and multi-level dialogue about the development of vulnerability.

Factors influencing vulnerability to climate change-related health impacts in cities - A conceptual framework.

Climate change will have adverse impacts on human health, which are amplified in cities. For these impacts, there are direct, indirect, and deferred pathways. The first category is well-studied, while indirect and deferred impacts are not well-understood. Moreover, the factors moderating the impacts have received little attention, although understanding these factors is critical for adaptation. We developed a conceptual framework that shows the pathways of climate impacts on human health, focusing specifically on the factors of urban environment moderating the emergence and severity of these health impacts. Based on the framework and literature review, we illustrate the mechanisms of direct, indirect, and deferred health impact occurrence and the factors that exacerbate or alleviate the severity of these impacts, thus presenting valuable insights for anticipatory adaptation. We conclude that an integrated systemic approach to preventing health risks from climate change can provide co-benefits for adaptation and address multiple health risks. Such an approach should be mainstreamed horizontally to all sectors of urban planning and should account for the spatiotemporal aspects of policy and planning decisions and city complexity.

The existential risk space of climate change.

Climate change is widely recognized as a major risk to societies and natural ecosystems but the high end of the risk, i.e., where risks become existential, is poorly framed, defined, and analyzed in the scientific literature. This gap is at odds with the fundamental relevance of existential risks for humanity, and it also limits the ability of scientific communities to engage with emerging debates and narratives about the existential dimension of climate change that have recently gained considerable traction. This paper intends to address this gap by scoping and defining existential risks related to climate change. We first review the context of existential risks and climate change, drawing on research in fields on global catastrophic risks, and on key risks and the so-called Reasons for Concern in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We also consider how existential risks are framed in the civil society climate movement as well as what can be learned in this respect from the COVID-19 crisis. To better frame existential risks in the context of climate change, we propose to define them as those risks that threaten the existence of a subject, where this subject can be an individual person, a community, or nation state or humanity. The threat to their existence is defined by two levels of severity: conditions that threaten (1) survival and (2) basic human needs. A third level, well-being, is commonly not part of the space of existential risks. Our definition covers a range of different scales, which leads us into further defining six analytical dimensions: physical and social processes involved, systems affected, magnitude, spatial scale, timing, and probability of occurrence. In conclusion, we suggest that a clearer and more precise definition and framing of existential risks of climate change such as we offer here facilitates scientific analysis as well societal and political discourse and action.

Using systems thinking and causal loop diagrams to identify cascading climate change impacts on bioenergy supply systems.

Increased use of bioenergy, driven by ambitious climate and energy policies, has led to an upsurge in international bioenergy trade. Simultaneously, it is evident that every node of the bioenergy supply chain, from cultivation of energy crops to production of electricity and heat, is vulnerable to climate change impacts. However, climate change assessments of bioenergy supply chains neither account for the global nature of the bioenergy market, nor the complexity and dynamic interconnectivity between and within different sub-systems in which the bioenergy supply chain is embedded, thereby neglecting potential compounding and cascading impacts of climate change. In this paper, systems thinking is utilised to develop an analytical framework to address this gap, and aided by causal loop diagrams, cascading impacts of climate change are identified for a case study concerning imports of wood pellets from the United States to the European Union. The findings illustrate how the complexity and interconnectivity of the wood pellet supply system predispose the supply chain to various cascading climate change impacts stemming from environmental, social, political and economic domains, and highlight the value of using system-based analysis tools for studying such complex and dynamic systems.

International approaches to protecting and retaining trees on private urban land.

Most studies of urban forest management look at vegetation on public land. Yet, to meet ambitious urban forest targets, cities must attempt to maintain or increase trees and canopy cover on private urban land too. In this study, we review and evaluate international approaches to protecting and retaining trees on private urban land. Our study combines a systematic academic literature review, two empirical social science studies on the views of urban forest professionals, and a global case study review of innovative regulations and incentives aimed at protecting and retaining trees on private urban land. Case studies were evaluated for the extent they exceeded minimum standards or went beyond 'business-as-usual'. We found that the most innovative mechanisms combine many regulations, instead of relying on a single regulation, and use financial incentives to retain or plant trees in newly developed or re-developed sites, as well as private residences. We did not find any cases where appropriate monitoring was in place to determine the efficacy and efficiency of these mechanisms. We also found no single simple solution that could effectively and efficiently protect and retain trees on private land. Only by combining policies, planning schemes, local laws, and financial incentives with community engagement and stewardship will cities protect and retain trees on private land. Useful and innovative ways to protecting and retaining trees on private land involves providing solutions at multiple governments levels, embedding trees in existing strategic policy and management solutions, incentivising positive behavior, creating regulations that require payment up front, and engaging the broader community in private tree stewardship.