The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee put out a call for evidence on public understanding of climate change and what implications this understanding has for policy.
The evidence covers three main issues:
- The current state of public understanding of what is meant by climate change and changes in climate awareness.
- Public trust in the various voices in the discourse on climate science and policy
- How could public understanding of what is meant by climate change can be improved, including identifying the main barriers to this and how the media can play a positive role.
Read the evidence on the House of Commons website
The Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) provides funding for community groups that are tackling climate change through local community-led projects. Among other activities, CCF funding is available to projects that encourage people to cycle instead of driving cars.
We know that increasing the number of trips taken by bicycle can deliver numerous social, health and environmental benefits. However, in order to improve local cycling projects, it is important to quantify their full potential and to identify strategies for achieving it.
By reviewing CCF funded projects and wider literature, this report identifies the emissions reductions and long-term behaviour change that best-practice cycling projects can deliver.
Based on this review the report also recommends carbon best practice guidelines for community cycling projects including:
• Strategies for achieving permanent modal shift;
• Carbon accounting methods; and
• methods for maximising ‘spill-over’ behaviour change effects.
The guidance provided in this report will be used by the Scottish Government, Keep Scotland Beautiful, community groups and the Climate Challenge Fund Grants Panel.
Local food growing projects have the potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by reducing food transport distances, waste, packaging and meat consumption. They also have the potential to trigger associated behaviour change such as household composting and to deliver social, financial and health benefits.
The Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) provides funding for community groups that are tackling climate change through community-led local food growing projects. This study is intended to inform the evaluation and selection of such projects by the Scottish Government in the future.
To inform the evaluation of local food growing projects, it is essential to understand their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This report quantifies the optimum greenhouse gas savings that may be achieved through good practice by analysing CCF funded projects and wider literature.
Based on this review, the report also provides best practice guidance for achieving optimum greenhouse gas abatement and improving the wider impacts of projects within the community.
This guidance will be used by the Scottish Government, Keep Scotland Beautiful, community groups, and the Climate Challenge Fund Grants Panel to improve the outcomes of CCF funded local food growing projects.
This presentation was given to a workshop organised by the International Institute for Environment and Development. It covers the purpose of the indicators and their relationship with policy development.
The workshop discussed a new framework for tracking the social impacts of efforts to adapt to climate change in Africa and South Asia.
Useful links
The Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) provides funding for community groups that are tackling climate change through local community-led projects. Among other activities, CCF funding is available for energy efficiency refurbishments of community owned buildings. The aim is to reduce energy use and encourage behaviour change within the community.
It is important to understand the full potential of community-led energy efficiency refurbishment so that future CCF funded projects may acheive optimum outcomes.
This report reviews previous CCF funded projects as well as wider academic literature to identify good practice in community buildings energy efficiency projects.
Based on this review, the report provides best practice guidelines for achieving carbon emissions reductions and energy consumption behaviour change.
The guidance will be used by the Scottish Government, Keep Scotland Beautiful, community groups and the Climate Challenge Fund Grants Panel to achieve more effective applications of Climate Challenge Funding.
What needs to be in place for Scotland to create a climate-resilient built environment? Is knowledge and know-how enough or are there other critical factors to consider?
In February 2013 ClimateXChange invited a group of practitioners and academics in the built environment sector to explore what is needed in Scotland to ensure that we adapt our built environment to become more climate resilient. The workshop participants drew up a list of key recommendations, which are summarised in this short report.
Most economists regard a carbon tax as the most efficient way to reduce carbon emissions. In this perspective it is interesting to consider the effect of a Scottish-specific carbon tax. It is particularly relevant given the demanding environmental targets set by the Scottish Government and the present discussions around increased fiscal autonomy.
This brief uses an energy – economy – environment model of Scotland to simulate the impact of the Scottish Government imposing such a tax on carbon emissions and the level of aggregate, and sectoral, economic activity.
No-regret actions are cost-effective now and under a range of future climate scenarios and do no involve hard trade-offs with other policy objectives. Low-regret actions are relatively low cost and provide relatively large benefits under predicted future climates. Win-win actions contribute to adaptation whilst also having other social, economic and environmental policy benefits, including in relation to mitigation.
These types of actions can be identified across a range of sectors. For example, reducing leakage from water utility infrastructure can both improve water efficiency and help address drought risk.
The Scottish Government asked for a brief on no-regret, low-regret and win-win actions supported by some ‘on-the-ground’ examples that might be used in the Scottish Adaptation Programme to inspire similar actions.
Terminology needs to be clear, understood and inclusive both in research and policy documents. What is the best term to use to describe how we are responding to and managing the consequences of a changing climate?
This brief looks at how the term ‘adaptation’ is used and how appropriate it is in different contexts. This is particularly important in relation to communicating the impacts of climate change to the general public and for motivating action. The Scottish Government asked for this brief to stimulate thinking around the language that could be used in the Scottish Adaptation Programme.
This brief sets out key principles and features for a good adaptation strategy, based on an international review of adaptation strategies. The summary was provided to the Scottish Government as a follow up to the international review and to inform the development of the Scottish Adaptation Programme.