Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
Droughts are extreme events that have major impacts on communities, ecosystems and economies due to slow onset and complex processes. Land and ecosystem degradation increase the risks of loss and damage during droughts, whereas well-adapted practices and policies can enable society to (re)build resilience. This review highlights actions needed to connect and fill gaps in the present systems for ecological and hydrological monitoring, governance, and alignment of economic incentives at regional, national and local scales.
Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
Slow onset processes have been increasingly linked to human mobility in the global policy space. Yet, land and forest degradation and desertification (LFDD) as a driver of human displacement and its implications for long-term development policy have received less attention. This paper aims to fill this gap by investigating to what extent the topic has been integrated into the national climate and desertification policy frameworks of countries in Latin American and the Caribbean – a region threatened by significant LFDD.
Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
The Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage has identified increasing temperatures as a key slow onset event. However, it is the resulting increases in short-term heat events — heatwaves — that have so far been the primary focus of risk assessment and policy, while gradual and sustained increases in temperature have received less attention. This is a global issue but particularly important in tropical and subtropical regions already chronically exposed to extreme heat.
Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
Responding to climate change requires radical transformations in social, political, economic and social-ecological systems. Recent research has argued that individuals can drive transformations at scale through changes in beliefs and values that affect political activity. We draw from sociological and psychological perspectives on mental health outcomes among survivors of violence and abuse, taking a gendered approach, to show how potential for individual transformation is differentially constructed through personal life trajectories and intersectional social relations.
Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere in a Changing Climate suggests sea level rise may be best understood as a slow onset disaster for Pacific Island countries and, in particular, low lying atoll nations. Sea-level rise, coastal flooding and surge inundation is an increasingly pressing problem across the urban Pacific.
Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
The negative effects of slow onset events (SOEs) related to climate change are already affecting developing countries, with the resulting impacts likely to increase significantly. With an increasing urgency to act on SOEs, this paper systematically reviewed and synthesized literature on SOEs in Southeast Asia (SEA), which is a region of several highly climate vulnerable countries.
Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
This review article assesses evidences published in the past two years on the links among slow-onset events, food security and poverty as well as the strategies focused on reducing specific problems, those implemented in the countries of the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region. It is here, where slow-onset events related to Climate Change pose significant challenges intricately linked to poverty and food security; mainly as a result of a great economic and social dependence, strongly conditioned by environmental factors.
Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
The climate policy discourse on Loss and Damage has been considering options for averting, minimizing and addressing critical and increasingly systemic climate-related risks in vulnerable countries. Research has started to identify possible finance sources and mechanisms, but stopped short of positioning those options along a comprehensive risk management framework in line with the whole scope of Loss&Damage.
Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
A growing scientific evidence reaffirms that slow onset climate events such as desertification, sea level rise and loss of biodiversity will place an increasing number of people at risk of poverty and social marginalization. Establishing national social protection systems aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement could be a key policy approach to address increasing risks from long-term changes to the climate system.
Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 50, June 2021
Based on a systematic review of journal articles, books and book chapters, and policy papers, we evaluate possible sources of finance for addressing loss and damage from slow onset climate events in developing countries. We find that most publications explore insurance schemes which are not appropriate for most slow onset events. From this, we determine that only a few sources are sustainable. Levies and taxes are seen as relatively fair, predictable, adequate, transparent, and additional.
