We Need To Talk About Climate: How Citizens’ Assemblies Can Help Us Solve The Climate Crisis

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Graham Smith: “Citizens’ assemblies bring the shared wisdom of ordinary people into political decision-making. How might they help us address the climate crisis? The transition to net zero and climate resilient societies requires deep social and economic transformations that will have significant effects on citizens’ lives. Such a transition needs to engage the public directly. Climate assemblies show us how this can be done.

This book explains the variety of climate assemblies that have taken place so far at local, national and international levels and explains why they have captured the imagination of government and activists alike. It examines the different contexts and designs of climate assemblies and assesses their impact. Drawing lessons from current practice, the book demonstrates how assemblies can take us beyond the shortcomings of electoral and partisan politics and how they can have a real and lasting impact on climate policy and politics…(More)”.

The need for climate data stewardship: 10 tensions and reflections regarding climate data governance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Stefaan Verhulst: “Datafication—the increase in data generation and advancements in data analysis—offers new possibilities for governing and tackling worldwide challenges such as climate change. However, employing data in policymaking carries various risks, such as exacerbating inequalities, introducing biases, and creating gaps in access. This paper articulates 10 core tensions related to climate data and its implications for climate data governance, ranging from the diversity of data sources and stakeholders to issues of quality, access, and the balancing act between local needs and global imperatives. Through examining these tensions, the article advocates for a paradigm shift towards multi-stakeholder governance, data stewardship, and equitable data practices to harness the potential of climate data for the public good. It underscores the critical role of data stewards in navigating these challenges, fostering a responsible data ecology, and ultimately contributing to a more sustainable and just approach to climate action and broader social issues…(More)”.

Unlocking Green Deal Data: Innovative Approaches for Data Governance and Sharing in Europe

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

JRC Report: “Drawing upon the ambitious policy and legal framework outlined in the Europe Strategy for Data (2020) and the establishment of common European data spaces, this Science for Policy report explores innovative approaches for unlocking relevant data to achieve the objectives of the European Green Deal.

The report focuses on the governance and sharing of Green Deal data, analysing a variety of topics related to the implementation of new regulatory instruments, namely the Data Governance Act and the Data Act, as well as the roles of various actors in the data ecosystem. It provides an overview of the current incentives and disincentives for data sharing and explores the existing landscape of Data Intermediaries and Data Altruism Organizations. Additionally, it offers insights from a private sector perspective and outlines key data governance and sharing practices concerning Citizen-Generated Data (CGD).

The main conclusions build upon the concept of “Systemic Data Justice,” which emphasizes equity, accountability, and fair representation to foster stronger connections between the supply and demand of data for a more effective and sustainable data economy. Five policy recommendations outline a set of main implications and actionable points for the revision of the INSPIRE Directive (2007) within the context of the common European Green Deal data space, and toward a more sustainable and fair data ecosystem. However, the relevance of these recommendations spills over Green Deal data only, as they outline key elements to ensure that any data ecosystem is both just and impact-oriented…(More)”.

Unlocking data for climate action requires trusted marketplaces

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Digital Impact Alliance: “In 2024, the northern hemisphere recorded the hottest summer overall, the hottest day, and the hottest ever month of August. That same month – August 2024 – this warming fueled droughts in Italy and intensified typhoons that devastated parts of the Philippines, Taiwan, and China. The following month, new research calculated that warming is costing the global economy billions of dollars: an increase in extreme heat and severe drought costs about 0.2% of a country’s GDP. 

These are only the latest stories and statistics that illustrate the growing costs of climate change – data points that have emerged in the short time since we published our second Spotlight on unlocking climate data with open transaction networks.

This third paper in the series continues the work of the Joint Learning Network on Unlocking Data for Climate Action (Climate Data JLN). This multi-disciplinary network identified multiple promising models to explore in the context of unlocking data for climate action. This Spotlight paper examines the third of these models: data spaces. Through examination of data spaces in action, the paper analyzes the key elements that render them more or less applicable to specific climate-related data sets. Data spaces are relatively new and mostly conceptual, with only a handful of implementations in process and concentrated in a few geographic areas. While this model requires extensive up-front work to agree upon governance and technical standards, the result is an approach that overcomes trust and financing issues by maintaining data sovereignty and creating a marketplace for data exchange…(More)”.

Nature-rich nations push for biodata payout

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Lee Harris: “Before the current generation of weight-loss drugs, there was hoodia, a cactus that grows in southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert, and which members of the region’s San tribe have long used to stave off hunger. UK-based Phytopharm licensed the active ingredient in the cactus in 1996, and made numerous attempts to commercialise weight-loss products derived from it.

The company won licensing deals with Pfizer and Unilever, but drew outrage from campaigners who argued that the country was ripping off indigenous groups that had made the discovery. Indignation grew after the chief executive said it could not compensate local tribes because “the people who discovered the plant have disappeared”. (They had not).

This is just one example of companies using biological resources discovered in other countries for financial gain. The UN has attempted to set fairer terms with treaties such as the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, which deals with the sharing of genetic resources. But this approach has been seen by many developing countries as unsatisfactory. And earlier tools governing trade in plants and microbes may become less useful as biological data is now frequently transmitted in the form of so-called digital sequence information — the genetic code derived from those physical resources.

Now, the UN is working on a fund to pay stewards of biodiversity — notably communities in lower-income countries — for discoveries made with genetic data from their ecosystems. The mechanism was established in 2022 as part of the Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, a sister process to the climate “COP” initiative. But the question of how it will be governed and funded will be on the table at the October COP16 summit in Cali, Colombia.

If such a fund comes to fruition — a big “if” — it could raise billions for biodiversity goals. The sectors that depend on this genetic data — notably, pharmaceuticals, biotech and agribusiness — generate revenues exceeding $1tn annually, and African countries plan to push for these sectors to contribute 1 per cent of all global retail sales to the fund, according to Bloomberg.

There’s reason to temper expectations, however. Such a fund would lack the power to compel national governments or industries to pay up. Instead, the strategy is focused around raising ambition — and public pressure — for key industries to make voluntary contributions…(More)”.

Discounting the Future: The Ascendency of a Political Technology

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Liliana Doganova: “Forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels beg a nagging question: have we lost our capacity to act on the future? Liliana Doganova’s book sheds new light on this anxious query. It argues that our relationship to the future has been trapped in the gears of a device called discounting. While its incidence remains little known, discounting has long been entrenched in market and policy practices, shaping the ways firms and governments look to the future and make decisions accordingly. Thus, a sociological account of discounting formulas has become urgent.

Discounting means valuing things through the flows of costs and benefits that they are likely to generate in the future, with these future flows being literally dis-counted as they are translated in the present. How have we come to think of the future, and of valuation, in such terms? Building on original empirical research in the historical sociology of discounting, Doganova takes us to some of the sites and moments in which discounting took shape and gained momentum: valuation of European forests in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; economic theories devised in the early 1900s; debates over business strategies in the postwar era; investor-state disputes over the nationalization of natural resources; and drug development in the biopharmaceutical industry today. Weaving these threads together, the book pleads for an understanding of discounting as a political technology, and of the future as a contested domain…(More)”

First-of-its-kind dataset connects greenhouse gases and air quality

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

NOAA Research: “The GReenhouse gas And Air Pollutants Emissions System (GRA²PES), from NOAA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), combines information on greenhouse gas and air quality pollutant sources into a single national database, offering innovative interactive map displays and new benefits for both climate and public health solutions.

A new U.S.-based system to combine air quality and greenhouse gas pollution sources into a single national research database is now available in the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center portal. This geospatial data allows leaders at city, state, and regional scales to more easily identify and take steps to address air quality issues while reducing climate-related hazards for populations.

The dataset is the GReenhouse gas And Air Pollutants Emissions System (GRA²PES). A research project developed by NOAA and NIST, GRA²PES captures monthly greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions activity for multiple economic sectors to improve measurement and modeling for both GHG and air pollutants across the contiguous U.S.

Having the GHG and air quality constituents in the same dataset will be exceedingly helpful, said Columbia University atmospheric scientist Roisin Commane, the lead on a New York City project to improve emissions estimates…(More)”.

Challenging the neutrality myth in climate science and activism

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Christel W. van Eck, Lydia Messling & Katharine Hayhoe: “The myth of a scientist as a purely rational thinker, a “brain in a jar” devoid of emotions and values, still exists in some scientific circles. However, philosophers of science have long shown that it is a fundamental misconception to believe that science can be entirely free of social, political, and ethical values, and function as a neutral entity. As Lynda Walsh explains compellingly in “Scientists as Prophets,” the question of how scientists ought to engage with society is a value judgement itself3. This is particularly true in complex crises like climate change where traditional democratic debate alone cannot ascertain the optimal course of action. Scientists often play a crucial role in such crises, not only through conducting rigorous research, but also through engaging in dialogue with society by framing their research in terms of societal values – which includes rejecting the notion of morally neutral engagement.

This school of thought was recently challenged in a comment in Nature Climate Action titled “The importance of distinguishing climate science from climate activism” In it, Ulf Büntgen, a Professor of Environmental Systems Analysis at Cambridge University, communicated his personal concerns about climate scientists engaging in activism. The comment sparked considerable debate on social media, particularly among climate scientists, many of whom reject the views presented by Büntgen.

We believe a response is necessary, as many of Büntgen’s assumptions are unnuanced or unjustified. It is difficult to provide a full critique when Büntgen has not clearly defined what he means by ‘climate activism’, ‘quasi-religious belief’, or ‘a priori interests’, nor explicit examples evidencing what sort of interaction he finds to be objectionable. However, whether scientists consider certain activities to be activism, and their opinions on colleagues who engage in such activities, along with the general public’s perception of these activities, has been the subject of multiple research studies. While the opinion of an individual scientist is interesting, we argue it is not representative of the broader community’s views nor does it reflect the efficacy of such actions. Furthermore, by making unilateral value-based judgements, we propose that Büntgen is engaging in precisely the activity he deprecates…(More)”

Citizen scientists will be needed to meet global water quality goals

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

University College London: “Sustainable development goals for water quality will not be met without the involvement of citizen scientists, argues an international team led by a UCL researcher, in a new policy brief.

The policy brief and attached technical brief are published by Earthwatch Europe on behalf of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)-coordinated World Water Quality Alliance that has supported citizen science projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Sierra Leone. The reports detail how policymakers can learn from examples where citizen scientists (non-professionals engaged in the scientific process, such as by collecting data) are already making valuable contributions.

The report authors focus on how to meet one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals around improving water quality, which the UN states is necessary for the health and prosperity of people and the planet…

“Locals who know the water and use the water are both a motivated and knowledgeable resource, so citizen science networks can enable them to provide large amounts of data and act as stewards of their local water bodies and sources. Citizen science has the potential to revolutionize the way we manage water resources to improve water quality.”…

The report authors argue that improving water quality data will require governments and organizations to work collaboratively with locals who collect their own data, particularly where government monitoring is scarce, but also where there is government support for citizen science schemes. Water quality improvement has a particularly high potential for citizen scientists to make an impact, as professionally collected data is often limited by a shortage of funding and infrastructure, while there are effective citizen science monitoring methods that can provide reliable data.

The authors write that the value of citizen science goes beyond the data collected, as there are other benefits pertaining to education of volunteers, increased community involvement, and greater potential for rapid response to water quality issues…(More)”.

Climate and health data website launched

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Susan Cosier: “A new website of data resources, tools, and training materials that can aid researchers in studying the consequences of climate change on the health of communities nationwide is now available. At the end of July, NIEHS launched the Climate and Health Outcomes Research Data Systems (CHORDS) website, which includes a catalog of environmental and health outcomes data from various government and nongovernmental agencies.

The website provides a few resources of interest, including a catalog of data resources to aid researchers in finding relevant data for their specific research projects; an online training toolkit that provides tutorials and walk-throughs of downloading, integrating, and visualizing health and environmental data; a listing of publications of note on wildfire and health research; and links to existing resources, such as the NIEHS climate change and health glossary and literature portal.

The catalog includes a listing of dozens of data resources provided by different federal and state environmental and health sources. Users can sort the listing based on environmental and health measures of interest — such as specific air pollutants or chemicals — from data providers including NASA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with many more to come…(More)”.