Browsing by Author "Goron, Coraline"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    A HIPPIE CLIMATE, A RIGID SYSTEM. CLIMATE ADAPTATION TO RIVERINE FLOODS AND WATERLOGGING AT THE LOCAL LEVEL IN COLOMBIA
    (2024-04-26) Diaz Ramos , Jose Luis
    Climate change intensifies extreme events, posing risks to ecosystems and human populations. In the near-term in a 1.5°C global warming scenario, more intense and frequent extreme rainfalls are expected, which is associated with flooding. Colombia is a highly vulnerable country to extreme weather, particularly flood risks. While the country has made progress identifying its climate vulnerabilities, and adopting policies to address them, the implementation of actions at the local level requires further assessment. This Master Project seeks to understand if actions and institutional arrangements for flood risk adaptation at the local level in Colombia are commensurate with the challenges of climate change. To answer this question, Chía, one of the most densely populated municipalities in the country that has suffered from flood impacts in the past, is used as a case study. Review of current literature and regulations, interviews to key stakeholders, and petitions to obtain information on government actions were used for the analysis, as well as estimations using geographic information systems. From the analysis, it was found that current frameworks and literature analyzing flood risks focus on riverine floods and neglect other sources of floods, such as waterlogging, despite them being a significant hazard especially under climate change. Therefore, this brief presents a framework for local governments to analyze their current actions (if any) related to flood and waterlogging management, in order to identify gaps and overlaps that need to be addressed. The framework has ten components, including the following: area and climate change context, stakeholder analysis, regulatory analysis, current actions description and analysis, gaps description, problem definition, design of the alternatives, prioritization of alternatives, and monitoring and assessment actions. Applying this framework to the case study, it was found that the municipality of Chía has reduced its flood risk as during the last decade dikes have been built along the river; however, it is estimated that 1,866 (0.9%) people in 2022 were living in areas of high flood risk. In addition, more than 80% of the population has a medium threat of riverine floods, which is concerning as even though total yearly precipitation is not expected to change considerably, precipitation is expected to increase in short periods of time (1 and 5 days), representing a threat to a municipality that has been highly urbanized. The analysis of the actions deployed to tackle these risks reveals that they are fragmented both between the regional and local level, and within the local administration. Flood and waterlogging risks management face different challenges due to lack of information (outdated and limited public access to data), policy (lack of integrated plan with low consideration of climate change), administrative coordination (lack of clear responsibilities lead to overreliance on actors and actions), accountability (fragmented environmental management structure) and capacity (lack of specific expertise). Flood and waterlogging actions need to be built upon existing initiatives. For flood management the most critical action is to guarantee the long-term quality of the dikes that were built by improving, among others, a better joint work between regional and local levels, as well as with the community. For waterlogging risks, it requires a better involvement of the local Environment Secretary to incorporate climate adaptation actions, fostering transversality and avoiding duplication. Infrastructure investments should focus on improving sustainable drainage systems, permeable surfaces and green spaces due to the complexity of increasing drainage systems. Even though this policy brief considers a specific case study, it helps to identify barriers that municipal governments in Colombia are having to tackle climate change effects of floods and waterlogging.
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    Exploring the Perceptions of Local Citizens towards the Hangzhou Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) Program and its Outcomes
    (2023-05-02) Li, Ying
    This paper highlights the issue of a large number of stray cats in China and emphasizes the need for proper intervention to prevent further problems. The Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program policy has been implemented in many countries to control the overpopulation of stray cats, which has proven to be effective. However, in China, the TNR program has only been implemented in a few mega-cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and others. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perspectives of local citizens on the Hangzhou TNR program, including its necessity and results. To achieve this, surveys and qualitative interviews were conducted to capture the viewpoints of both supporters and opponents of the program. The research collected information from a diverse group of citizens to gain a comprehensive understanding of public attitudes towards the TNR program for the stray cat community. Surveys are particularly valuable in providing insights into public perceptions and support for the program. They can reveal people's knowledge and experiences with stray cats, their assessment of the effectiveness of the TNR program, their level of support for the program, and their recommendations for improving it. Interviews were also conducted with local animal protection non-governmental organizations (NGOs), hospital directors, and relevant businesspersons to gain insight into their knowledge of the TNR program. Additionally, a survey was conducted to gather data on local citizens' perceptions and attitudes toward stray cats and the TNR program. The collected data were analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of the TNR program in reducing the number of stray cats in Hangzhou, China, while considering and improving the current dilemma.
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    Green Is Not Enough: A Management Framework for Urban Biodiversity Friendly Parks
    (2023-05-05) Hu, Min
    The potential of cities to conserve biodiversity is increasingly gaining more recognition and cities mainly contribute to biodiversity through planning and managing urban green spaces (UGS), for example, urban parks. Research finds that the ability of UGS to support biodiversity depends on several factors, and management activities are one of them. Urban parks are important urban infrastructures and are under a high level of management. Proper management after planning and construction is significant for meeting human needs as well as providing suitable habitats for wildlife. Therefore, understanding how urban parks are managed and operated is critical for urban biodiversity enhancement but accepts insufficient attention in China. This research focuses on the management stage of Chinese urban parks and tries to answer: how could urban parks effectively enhance biodiversity by changing management practices? Through identifying the improvement spaces and exploring the root causes including government failure and market failure, I propose a policy suggestion of a certificate of urban biodiversity friendly parks and generate a management framework as a tool for urban parks to make changes.
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    Institutional Innovation for Biodiversity Finance with Direct Financing from International Foundations to IPLCs
    (2024-04-28) Yang, Shangyi; Wang, Siming; Li, Muyang
    Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) are pivotal stewards of biodiversity-rich areas, yet they often face significant financial constraints that impede their conservation efforts. This study, conducted in collaboration with the Global Environmental Institute, investigates the funding practices of international philanthropic foundations to identify how these can be enhanced to support IPLCs more effectively. Through interviews with seven international foundations who made commitments to support IPLCs, two intermediary organizations, and one IPLC group, this study explores the challenges within current funding mechanisms aimed at supporting biodiversity conservation by IPLCs. Our findings illuminate a complex funding landscape where long-term, unrestricted financial support is recognized as crucial yet hindered by several barriers. These include inadequate capacity within IPLC groups, misaligned priorities between donors and IPLCs, persistent language obstacles, trust issues, and hard to satisfy financial reporting demands. We also find that some organizations are already pursuing innovative practices that have the potential to overcome these barriers and serve as reference for other donors. Our analysis suggests that international foundations should focus on providing long-term, unrestricted funding directly to IPLC organizations while investing more in building their capacity to manage funds and projects, as well as to enhance their decision-making roles. Moreover, they should adopt policies that promote the use of indigenous local languages in their programs to enhance understanding, participation, and effectiveness. Foundations and other donor organizations who want to support IPLCs should also reform their governance structures to enable greater IPLC representation, and set explicit targets for reducing the number of intermediaries while also increasing direct funding to them. It is highly recommended that foundations ought to clearly define and plan to increase direct funding allocations to grassroots communities and local organizations in future funding cycles. They should also reevaluate their risk perceptions related to biodiversity conservation, prioritizing investment over avoidance, and maintain transparency and collaborative practices to strengthen local organizational capacities in alignment with IPLC priorities. Despite ongoing challenges, there is an increasing acknowledgment of the necessity for inclusive strategies and partnerships that align conservation efforts with the unique needs and priorities of IPLCs. This study serves as a reference for optimizing fund distribution to those who are integral to safeguarding global biodiversity.
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    Just Transition in China: How Did Chinese SOEs Avoid the Massive Unemployment While Reducing Coal Capacity (2015-2020)?
    (2020-05-09) Rong, Weijun
    The transition from fossil fuel to a low carbon economy is the main way to mitigate climate change. However, this will also inevitably impact the workers in the fossil fuel industry and their communities. This study focused on China’s recent round of phasing out coal capacity and investigated how China’s coal SOEs reallocated workers after reducing coal capacity by case studies of two SOEs in Anhui and Shanxi. In addition, it also evaluated the reallocation and mobilized the perspective of workers in these two SOEs by in-depth interviews with both leaders and workers. It finds that these two SOEs mainly reallocated layoffs by reemployment within SOEs and early retirement. It is just in the sense of high reemployment rates but questionable to call it a transition because most of the worker is still working coal mining and coal-related industries.
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    Prospects and challenges in regulating the emerging global biodiversity credit market
    (2024-04-29) Khatri, Jasmine
    Biodiversity loss is one of the key environmental issues of our time, with species declining at their fastest rate in human history and numerous key biomes under threat. Yet the gap in biodiversity financing remains vast, at USD $830 billion. Private sector approaches have been fast growing in order to meet this demand, with biodiversity credits being the latest market initiative to emerge. This report takes a deep dive into the current state of the biodiversity credit market and its regulatory tools, and whether the direction of the market is commensurate to the problem it is trying to solve. Using a mixture of content analysis and in-depth interviews with key market stakeholders, the report provides a critical analysis of the market state and offers pertinent recommendations that encourage a re-evaluation of market foundations.