The emerging narrative of the Anthropocene has created a new space for changes in global environm... more The emerging narrative of the Anthropocene has created a new space for changes in global environmental change (GEC) science. On the one hand, there is a mounting call for changing scientific practices towards a solution-oriented transdisciplinary mode that can help achieve global sustainability. On the other hand, the scientists’ desire to avoid exceeding planetary boundaries has broken a taboo on researching solar geoengineering, a dangerous idea of deliberately cooling the Earth’s climate. Whilst to date the two features have been discussed separately, there is a possible confluence in the future. This paper explores this close yet precarious relationship between transdisciplinary GEC science and solar geoengineering in the context of Future Earth, a new international platform of Earth system science. Our aim is to understand how a transdisciplinary mode of science can navigate the contention over solar geoengineering and its course of research without breeding polarization. By se...
This paper is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing development of the conceptual groundwork of... more This paper is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing development of the conceptual groundwork of regime interplay studies by enlarging the scope to incorporate domestic politics into the groundwork. I first selectively go through the existing literature to derive implications for domestic-international interaction in the context of regime interplay, namely the 'two-level game' model, internationalization of domestic policies as bottom-up interaction, and the five behavioral pathways of regimes developed by Oran Young and Marc Levy as top-down interaction. The last one is certainly not proposed for domestic-international interaction but it provides a useful framework for thought experiment. Then I develop a preliminary conceptual model of domestic-international interaction in the context of regime interplay. A brief case study follows to demonstrate the usefulness of the conceptual model, to substantiate some of the implications derived from the existing literature, and to s...
Asia-Pacific lacks an environmental leader. Japan, a forerunner of environmental regulation in th... more Asia-Pacific lacks an environmental leader. Japan, a forerunner of environmental regulation in the 1970s, started to engage in active environmental diplomacy in the post-Cold War era by hosting conferences of parties to multilateral environmental agreements such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as well as providing a massive amount of environmental aid. Then, in the 2000s, Japan’s initiatives became substantially weakened and have gained a negative international reputation as the country took a considerably passive position to the Paris Agreement, filed many reservations to the CITES listing decisions, and withdrew from the International Whaling Commission. This article explores, through six brief case studies, the factors and structures that systemically impede Japan’s environmental leadership and norm internalization. It highlights the constraining f...
This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climat... more This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science. Please check back later for the full article.Climate engineering, a set of techniques proposed to directly intervene in the climate system to reduce risks from climate change, presents many novel governance challenges. Solar radiation management (SRM), particularly stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), is one of the most discussed proposals. It has been gaining interest, and its pertinence as a potential option for responding to the threats from climate change may be set to increase because of the long-term temperature goal (well below 2 ˚C or 1.5 ˚C) inscribed in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Initial research has demonstrated that SAI would cool the climate system and reduce climate risks in many aspects, though it is mired in unknown environmental risks and various sociopolitical ramifications. The proposed techniques are in the initial stage of research and development, provid...
This study explores sense-making about climate engineering among lay focus group participants in ... more This study explores sense-making about climate engineering among lay focus group participants in Japan, New Zealand, the USA and Sweden. In total, 23 qualitative focus group interviews of 136 participants were conducted. The analyses considered sense-making strategies and heuristics among the focus group participants and identified commonalities and variations in the data, exploring participants' initial and spontaneous reactions to climate engineering and to several recurrent arguments that feature in scientific and public debate (e.g. climate emergency). We found that, despite this study's wide geographical scope, heterogeneous focus group compositions, and the use of different moderators, common themes emerged. Participants made sense of climate engineering in similar ways, for example, through context-dependent analogies and metaphorical Climatic Change descriptions. With few exceptions, participants largely expressed negative views of large-scale deliberate intervention...
The emerging narrative of the Anthropocene has created a new space for changes in global environm... more The emerging narrative of the Anthropocene has created a new space for changes in global environmental change (GEC) science. On the one hand, there is a mounting call for changing scientific practices towards a solution-oriented transdisciplinary mode that can help achieve global sustainability. On the other hand, the scientists’ desire to avoid exceeding planetary boundaries has broken a taboo on researching solar geoengineering, a dangerous idea of deliberately cooling the Earth’s climate. Whilst to date the two features have been discussed separately, there is a possible confluence in the future. This paper explores this close yet precarious relationship between transdisciplinary GEC science and solar geoengineering in the context of Future Earth, a new international platform of Earth system science. Our aim is to understand how a transdisciplinary mode of science can navigate the contention over solar geoengineering and its course of research without breeding polarization. By se...
This paper is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing development of the conceptual groundwork of... more This paper is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing development of the conceptual groundwork of regime interplay studies by enlarging the scope to incorporate domestic politics into the groundwork. I first selectively go through the existing literature to derive implications for domestic-international interaction in the context of regime interplay, namely the 'two-level game' model, internationalization of domestic policies as bottom-up interaction, and the five behavioral pathways of regimes developed by Oran Young and Marc Levy as top-down interaction. The last one is certainly not proposed for domestic-international interaction but it provides a useful framework for thought experiment. Then I develop a preliminary conceptual model of domestic-international interaction in the context of regime interplay. A brief case study follows to demonstrate the usefulness of the conceptual model, to substantiate some of the implications derived from the existing literature, and to s...
Asia-Pacific lacks an environmental leader. Japan, a forerunner of environmental regulation in th... more Asia-Pacific lacks an environmental leader. Japan, a forerunner of environmental regulation in the 1970s, started to engage in active environmental diplomacy in the post-Cold War era by hosting conferences of parties to multilateral environmental agreements such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as well as providing a massive amount of environmental aid. Then, in the 2000s, Japan’s initiatives became substantially weakened and have gained a negative international reputation as the country took a considerably passive position to the Paris Agreement, filed many reservations to the CITES listing decisions, and withdrew from the International Whaling Commission. This article explores, through six brief case studies, the factors and structures that systemically impede Japan’s environmental leadership and norm internalization. It highlights the constraining f...
This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climat... more This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science. Please check back later for the full article.Climate engineering, a set of techniques proposed to directly intervene in the climate system to reduce risks from climate change, presents many novel governance challenges. Solar radiation management (SRM), particularly stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), is one of the most discussed proposals. It has been gaining interest, and its pertinence as a potential option for responding to the threats from climate change may be set to increase because of the long-term temperature goal (well below 2 ˚C or 1.5 ˚C) inscribed in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Initial research has demonstrated that SAI would cool the climate system and reduce climate risks in many aspects, though it is mired in unknown environmental risks and various sociopolitical ramifications. The proposed techniques are in the initial stage of research and development, provid...
This study explores sense-making about climate engineering among lay focus group participants in ... more This study explores sense-making about climate engineering among lay focus group participants in Japan, New Zealand, the USA and Sweden. In total, 23 qualitative focus group interviews of 136 participants were conducted. The analyses considered sense-making strategies and heuristics among the focus group participants and identified commonalities and variations in the data, exploring participants' initial and spontaneous reactions to climate engineering and to several recurrent arguments that feature in scientific and public debate (e.g. climate emergency). We found that, despite this study's wide geographical scope, heterogeneous focus group compositions, and the use of different moderators, common themes emerged. Participants made sense of climate engineering in similar ways, for example, through context-dependent analogies and metaphorical Climatic Change descriptions. With few exceptions, participants largely expressed negative views of large-scale deliberate intervention...
ABSTRACT The future role of carbon sinks with reference to the Kyoto Protocol depends significant... more ABSTRACT The future role of carbon sinks with reference to the Kyoto Protocol depends significantly on developing an international consensus on carbon-sink assessment and carbon accounting. A clear and practical approach is needed that allows both the scientific community and policy-makers to construct a viable operational framework. This article proposes that a new strategy be developed for carbon-sink assessment based on full carbon accounting (FCA) alongside a separate political tool for carbon accounting. This approach is derived from the experience of the European critical loads (CL) concept, which seeks to quantify levels of pollutants (such as sulfur) that can be absorbed by the environment without causing ecological harm. Crucial to the implementation of such a strategy are robust institutional settings, such as an internationally coordinated monitoring system, open and fair access to the assessment processes, and international research cooperation programs for addressing associated problems of carbon-sink activities.
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