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HKS climate change cases span the globe and cover a variety of disciplines from economics to leadership, and from energy policy to international trade. For your convenience, this resource has been categorized in two ways: by topic and by region .

Climate Change Cases by Topic

Climate Change Cases by Region

Negotiating toward the Paris Accords: WWF and the Role of Forests in the 2015 Climate Agreement  by Pamela Varley and Robert Wilkinson

Shaping the Future of Solar Power: Climate Change, Industrial Policy and Free Trade by Anjani Datla and Robert Lawrence

Shaping the Future of Solar Power: Climate Change, Industrial Policy and Free Trade (B)  by Anjani Datla and Robert Lawrence

Solar Panels and Safeguards: Rising Tensions in the Global Trading System by Anjani Datla and Robert Lawrence

Buchanan Renewables: Bringing Power to Liberia  by Tamara Heimur, Henry Lee, and Akash Deep Evaluating the Impact of Solar Lamps in Uganda  by Anjani Datla, Dan Levy, and Patricia Garcia-Rios

Fighting Pollution with Data: Environmental Audits and the Gujarat Pollution Control Board and sequel   by Anjani Datla and Rohini Pande

Central America

Costa Rica's Forests and the Market for Carbon Emissions Reduction Credits by Rene Castro Salazar and Jose Gomez-Ibanez

Rural Electrification in Nicaragua (Abridged)  by Tahir Sheikh and Jose Gomez-Ibanez

South America

Integrating Renewable Energy in Argentina  by Anjani Datla and Henry Lee

Untapped Potential: Renewable Energy in Argentina  and  sequel  by Anjani Datla and Henry Lee

U.S., Canada, and Europe

A Cascade of Emergencies: Responding to Superstorm Sandy in New York City (A)  by David W. Giles and Arnold M. Howitt 

A Cascade of Emergencies: Responding to Superstorm Sandy in New York City (B)  by David W. Giles and Arnold M. Howitt  Ambitious but Achievable: Using Land Use and Transportation Plans to Reduce GHG Emissions in California  and  sequel  by David Luberoff, Carl Allen, and Jose Gomez-Ibanez Caño Martín Peña: Land Ownership and Politics Collide in Puerto Rico  by Patricia Garcia-Rios and Quinton Mayne Choosing the Road Less Traveled: How Cycling Took Hold in Copenhagen by Pamela Varley and Quinton Mayne

Climate Resilience in New York City: The Battle over East River Park  by Patricia Garcia-Rios and Justin de Benedictis-Kessner Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards 2017-2025  by Anjani Datla and Albert Nichols Electric Vehicles in Cities  by Yennga Khuong and Jose Gomez-Ibanez Gainesville Regional Utilities' Feed-in Tariff  and  epilogue  by Leah Stokes and Henry Lee

Greenland and the Paris Agreement  by Katie Segal, Elsenguaq Silassen, and Halla Hrund Logadóttir Iceland's Energy Policy: Finding the Right Path Forward  by Halla Hrund Logadóttir and Henry Lee Implementing the Inflation Reduction Act: Can the Tax Code Transform American Energy?  by Laura Winig and John D. Donahue Innovation at GSA: Zero Environmental Footprint and the Extreme Challenge (A)  by James Quinn, Patricia Garcia-Rios, and Steven Kelman Miami-Dade County and Sea Rise  and  sequel  by Henry Lee, Natalie Unterstell, Shauna Theel, and Pinar De Neve Mothers Out Front by Laura Winig and Marshall Ganz Pricing Carbon: The Birth of British Columbia's Carbon Tax  and  sequel  by Anjani Datla and Henry Lee Oregon's Wind Energy Health Impact Assessment  by David Tannenwald and Arnold M. Howitt Power Partnership: The Creation of a Hybrid Electric Delivery Truck Eaton, Fedex, and Environmental Defense  by Barbara J. Mack and Alan Trager The California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32)  by Jose Gomez-Ibanez The Challenge of Adapting to Climate Change: King County Brings Local Action to a Global Threat  and  sequel  by Pamela Varley and John D. Donahue This Far and No Further: The Rise and Fall of the Committee on Earth and Environmental Sciences  by David Kennedy and Bill Clark

Economics of Climate Change

Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards 2017-2025  by Anjani Datla and Albert Nichols Pricing Carbon: The Birth of British Columbia's Carbon Tax  and  sequel  by Anjani Datla and Henry Lee Shaping the Future of Solar Power: Climate Change, Industrial Policy and Free Trade  by Anjani Datla and Robert Lawrence

Shaping the Future of Solar Power: Climate Change, Industrial Policy and Free Trade (B)  by Anjani Datla and Robert Lawrence Solar Panels and Safeguards: Rising Tensions in the Global Trading System  by Anjani Datla and Robert Lawrence Untapped Potential: Renewable Energy in Argentina  and  sequel  by Anjani Datla and Henry Lee 

Return to Topics

Government and Regulation Buchanan Renewables: Bringing Power to Liberia  by Tamara Heimur, Henry Lee, and Akash Deep Choosing the Road Less Traveled: How Cycling Took Hold in Copenhagen  by Pamela Varley and Quinton Mayne Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards 2017-2025  by Anjani Datla and Albert Nichols Gainesville Regional Utilities' Feed-in Tariff  and  epilogue  by Leah Stokes and Henry Lee Miami-Dade County and Sea Rise  and  sequel  by Henry Lee, Natalie Unterstell, Shauna Theel, and Pinar De Neve Pricing Carbon: The Birth of British Columbia's Carbon Tax  and  sequel  by Anjani Datla and Henry Lee The California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32)  by Jose Gomez-Ibanez The Challenge of Adapting to Climate Change: King County Brings Local Action to a Global Threat  and  sequel  by Pamela Varley and John D. Donahue

Evidence and Decision-Making Evaluating the Impact of Solar Lamps in Uganda  by Anjani Datla, Dan Levy, and Patricia Garcia-Rios Fighting Pollution with Data: Environmental Audits and the Gujarat Pollution Control Board  and  sequel  by Anjani Datla and Rohini Pande Mothers Out Front  by Laura Winig and Marshall Ganz

Leadership and Negotiation Innovation at GSA: Zero Environmental Footprint and the Extreme Challenge (A)  by James Quinn, Patricia Garcia-Rios, and Steven Kelman Mothers Out Front  by Laura Winig and Marshall Ganz Negotiating toward the Paris Accords: WWF & the Role of Forests in the 2015 Climate Agreement  by Pamela Varley and Robert Wilkinson Pricing Carbon: The Birth of British Columbia's Carbon Tax  and  sequel  by Anjani Datla and Henry Lee The Challenge of Adapting to Climate Change: King County Brings Local Action to a Global Threat  and  sequel  by Pamela Varley and John D. Donahue This Far and No Further: The Rise and Fall of the Committee on Earth and Environmental Sciences  by David Kennedy and Bill Clark

Energy Policy and Renewables

Ambitious but Achievable: Using Land Use and Transportation Plans to Reduce GHG Emissions in California  and  sequel  by David Luberoff, Carl Allen, and Jose Gomez-Ibanez Buchanan Renewables: Bringing Power to Liberia  by Tamara Heimur, Henry Lee, and Akash Deep Caño Martín Peña: Land Ownership and Politics Collide in Puerto Rico  by Patricia Garcia-Rios and Quinton Mayne Costa Rica's Forests and the Market for Carbon Emissions Reduction Credits  by Rene Castro Salazar and Jose Gomez-Ibanez Electric Vehicles in Cities  by Yennga Khuong and Jose Gomez-Ibanez Greenland and the Paris Agreement  by Katie Segal, Elsenguaq Silassen, and Halla Hrund Logadóttir

Iceland's Energy Policy: Finding the Right Path Forward  by Halla Hrund Logadóttir and Henry Lee Implementing the Inflation Reduction Act: Can the Tax Code Transform American Energy?  by Laura Winig and John D. Donahue Integrating Renewable Energy in Argentina  by Anjani Datla and Henry Lee Oregon's Wind Energy Health Impact Assessment  by David Tannenwald and Arnold M. Howitt Power Partnership: The Creation of a Hybrid Electric Delivery Truck Eaton, Fedex, and Environmental Defense  by Barbara J. Mack and Alan Trager

Rural Electrification in Nicaragua (Abridged)  by Tahir Sheikh and Jose Gomez-Ibanez

Disaster Preparedness

A Cascade of Emergencies: Responding to Superstorm Sandy in New York City (B)  by David W. Giles and Arnold M. Howitt Climate Resilience in New York City: The Battle over East River Park  by Patricia Garcia-Rios and Justin de Benedictis-Kessner  Miami-Dade County and Sea Rise  and  sequel  by Henry Lee, Natalie Unterstell, Shauna Theel, and Pinar De Neve

Climate Policies with Real-World Results

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Thousands of climate policies have failed to stop climate change, yet some governments have made tangible progress.
• The World Bank’s Reality Check report highlights 25 successful climate policies from countries as disparate as Egypt, Niger, China, and Peru.
• The report provides insights on how countries design and implement effective climate policies and on the compromises doing so can require.

All countries have promised to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to stop climate change. But promises are one thing and actions are another. Eight years after the 2015 Paris Agreement set ambitious, achievable goals to curb emissions and adapt to global climatic shifts, the world is still on track for unprecedented climate change -- and bureaucratic, political, and financial hurdles have stymied thousands of climate-friendly policies around the world.

Yet governments across the globe have made tangible progress and many climate policies have been successfully implemented. A new World Bank report, Reality Check: Lessons from 25 Policies Advancing a Low-Carbon Future showcases examples across sectors and five continents, from countries as disparate as Egypt, Niger, China and Peru.   

“These are real policies in countries with very different income levels and political contexts,” says Axel van Trotsenburg, World Bank Senior Managing Director for Development Policy and Partnerships . “They provide invaluable insights on how countries actually design and implement climate policies, and on the hard compromises that doing so can require, such as the rapid expansion of solar power in India, the use of waste to generate affordable energy in Mexico, and the greening of Colombia’s construction industry.”  

Climate policies typically try to achieve multiple objectives at once, such as reducing air pollution or building energy security or competitiveness. Successful climate policymaking often involves finding middle ground, so policies are easier to implement and win support, according to the report.

Decarbonizing Transport in Peru and South Africa

For example, Lima, Peru, is ranked as one of the world’s worst cities for traffic congestion. Although 60% of trips take place on public transport, private vehicle use has increased rapidly, causing air pollution, traffic accidents, and severe road congestion – and more than one-third of workers spend 90 minutes a day commuting. In 2010, Peru’s government issued the first country-wide law to improve conditions for bicycles and promote cycling.  The law did not immediately trigger bicycle-friendly investments in Peru’s cities: in 2019, only 0.9% of all trips in Lima were made by bicycle. But during the Covid 19 pandemic, Lima added almost 100 kilometers of bike lanes and separated them from the roadway – measures that helped convince some commuters to switch to biking. The use of bicycles in Lima rose from 3.7% before the pandemic to 6.2% in 2021.  The plan also expects for the modal share for bikes to grow from 0.9 percent in 2019 to 11.6 percent by 2050 and estimates that the project could reduce emissions in Lima by 0.64 ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) by 2030 and 1.03 tCO2e by 2050. Building on this progress, the city plans to develop a 1,383 km cycle network by 2040.

In South Africa, residents of the largest cities face long commutes from home to the workplace as a legacy of apartheid. Bus rapid transit (BRT) is seen as part of the solution under South Africa’s National Green Transport Strategy for easing traffic congestion and fast-growing GHG emissions from the transport sector. But BRT systems initially failed to coordinate with the loosely regulated, ubiquitous minibuses used by many residents because of their low cost. A pilot project in Cape Town set out minibus operating routes and schedules in and around the Mitchell’s Plain township. The increased efficiency demonstrated by this system offers a possible way forward for transport in Sub-Saharan Africa, helping make African cities more livable, more productive, and less carbon intensive.

Improving Energy Efficiency of Buildings in Türkiye and Colombia

Buildings and appliance consume about 30% of global energy and are responsible for 27% of carbon dioxide emissions.  Energy efficient construction is, therefore, a potential game-changer, but bureaucratic red tape, financing, low incentives, and inertia often get in the way of more sustainable building. Türkiye launched an initiative to renovate as many as 500 central government buildings and develop a market for broader public building renovations. So far, the project has renovated 30 buildings, with an average energy savings of 30%. Another 120 buildings started renovations in 2023.

When it comes to green building, Colombia has seen a remarkable transformation. Colombia’s mandatory green building code was enacted in 2015. The government introduced tax incentives for technical solutions such as insulation and energy-efficient air conditioning systems, and received catalytic financing from the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank. By the end of 2022, Colombia had 11.5 million square meters of green space certified under IFC’s  EDGE program ; in 2022 alone, 27% of new buildings were EDGE certified as green.

Taxing Carbon in British Columbia

A carbon tax aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by taxing activities that emit CO2 but can also be an efficient way for government to raise revenues. In 2008, the Canadian province of British Columbia began adding additional taxes to all fossil fuels purchased for transportation, home heating, and electricity, with the carbon tax covering 70% of GHG emissions. At the same time, the government clearly communicated that the tax would not raise the overall tax burden of firms and households but would finance reduction in other (less efficient) taxes. The carbon tax rate started at Can$10/ tCO 2 e and gradually increased to $50/ tCO 2 e by 2022. Extensive empirical evidence finds that the tax reduced emissions and inequality, raised growth and employment, and the reform now receives majority support from citizens.

Restoring Soil in the Sahel

In Africa’s Sahel region, where agriculture is the main employment and key for food security, healthy soils are key economic assets. But soil is also the dominant carbon sink, containing three times more carbon dioxide than the vegetation above ground. To preserve this valuable resource, farmers have adopted low-cost, efficient traditional practices, such as agroforestry and conventional rainwater harvesting techniques, to capture rainfall, reduce runoff, restore soils, and improve agriculture productivity. In Niger, farmer-managed natural regeneration increased yields by 16-30% between 2003 and 2008, while adding nearly 5 million hectares of tree cover.

Decarbonization: ‘Not a One Size Fits All Effort’

Decarbonization is not a one-size-fits-all effort, whether the solution involves new technology or traditional techniques. “The case studies outlined in this report show that with the right mix of political support and policy design we can decarbonize development,” said Juergen Voegele, Vice President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank .

Report:  Reality Check: Lessons from 25 Policies Advancing a Low-Carbon Future

Video:  Climate Policies for a Low Carbon Future: Lessons from 25 Case Studies

Video:  India's Solar Success and the Policies Behind It

Blog:  How real-world policies can lead to a low-carbon future

Website:  Climate Stories: How Countries and Communities Are Shaping A Sustainable Future

Website: World Bank - Climate Change

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Searchable Case Studies for Climate Change Adaptation

Communities across the United States are anticipating, planning, and preparing for the impacts of climate change. Below are examples of municipal, state, or tribal communities that have taken action.

Select from the options below to view cases according to the area of interest, geographic region, or level of government. Use the search function to view cases according to key words or areas of interest not provided below (Example: Sea Level Rise, Drought, or Green Infrastructure).

To see all the climate change adaptation case studies, click the Show All button.

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Climate adaptation case studies can help boost know-how across Europe

Press release Published 26 Jun 2024

While European countries have made considerable progress in putting in place policies to adapt to climate change, the pace and scale of adaptation actions need to increase and widen to cover more areas like the health, agriculture, and forestry sectors. A European Environment Agency (EEA) review of the EU’s Climate-ADAPT online platform, published today, shows that sharing examples of adaptation actions can boost learning across the EU, Member States as well as regional and local authorities to help societies better prepare for climate change.

The Climate-ADAPT platform , which is maintained by the EEA, targets governmental decision-makers as well as the organisations supporting them in the development, implementation, and evaluation of climate change adaptation strategies, plans and actions at all governance levels in Europe. The platform currently includes 134 case studies for learning and to inspire action.

According to the new EEA briefing ' Preparing society for climate risks in Europe — lessons and inspiration from Climate-ADAPT case studies' , the recently published European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA) stressed the need to scale up adaptation measures and actions across all policy sectors and governance levels to address escalating climate risks like extreme heat, drought, wildfires and flooding.

While Climate-ADAPT case studies cover many risks, gaps remain in practical examples that showcase adaptation in some specific risks under the food, and economy and finance risk areas. New perspectives for developing case studies for other key vulnerable sectors (such as forestry), for governance levels (such as transnational case studies to address cross-border impacts) and for some European regions and the outermost regions of Europe are also under consideration.   

Case studies play a key role for learning 

The EEA is encouraging EEA Member States which often have national case studies to help fill these gaps by sharing more examples of adaptation actions and initiatives that can serve to build knowledge and experiences and serve as inspiration. Showcasing these case studies on Climate-ADAPT helps users to explore the co-benefits and potential trade-offs of adaptation measures . They also highlight the need for enhanced monitoring, evaluation and learning to assess the effectiveness of these actions and prevent adaptation failures. 

The EEA briefing notes that the future development of Climate-ADAPT case studies will focus on addressing specific risks identified by the EUCRA . Cooperation between EEA Member States will be crucial to upgrade the Climate-ADAPT case studies and to share practical learning experiences, including best practices, across Europe.  

Climate-ADAPT webinar 

The EEA briefing is being launched to coincide with the 15 th Climate-ADAPT Webinar ‘Informing the new EU policy framework through Climate-ADAPT’ , to be held online on 26 June, 10.00-11.30 CEST. 

This event is to show how Climate-ADAPT informs the upcoming EU policy framework on adaptation to climate change in the coming years.  

For more information and registration , see the webinar page .

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The relevance of case studies in climate change research: a review of policy recommendations

• Review Paper
• Published: 10 September 2019
• Volume 1 , article number  1197 , ( 2019 )

Cite this article

• Jose Daniel Teodoro 1 ,
• Donal S. O’Leary III 1 ,
• Siobhan E. Kerr 2 ,
• Eva Peskin 3 &
• Julie A. Silva 1  

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In the age of big data, case studies build the foundation for the large-scale models that are increasingly being used for decision and policymaking. In this systematic literature review, we investigated the geographic, methodological, and conceptual characteristics of case studies in climate change science to evaluate the extent they provide policy recommendations to answer the questions: how can researchers best gather and report policy - relevant information for climate change adaptation, resilience, and/or recovery? What are the current themes within the literature, and how can these areas best advance as policy - relevant fields within climate change science? Findings highlight that policy recommendations were more robust, and significantly more likely, in case studies that employ participatory research methods; and geographic characteristics and use of theoretical frameworks are associated with providing policy recommendations. On the other hand, studies that focus on biophysical parameters of climate change offered weak or no policy recommendations. Thus, we conclude that local-level case study research can serve as validation and calibration data for large-scale models as long as they accurately represent the local values and perceptions of the people in the study area. We elaborate on the opportunities that exist in non-human, biophysical, research for communicating findings to policy-friendly audiences.

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1 Introduction

Anthropogenic climate change is a threat to all humans, causing risk to land quality, personal property, and livelihoods [ 1 , p. 80, 2 ]. The human capacity to adapt to these changes, remain resilient, and recover from climate disturbance is critical for the survival of communities, cultures, and countries in the twenty first century. In such a pursuit, scientists have ventured in studying different ways in which communities around the world mitigate and adapt to climate change’s dangerous impacts, such as novel forms of participatory governance [ 3 ], finding adaptation and mitigation synergies that increase carbon sequestration potential [ 4 ], understanding the role of social networks in climate communication [ 5 , 6 ], and identifying the benefits of community driven natural resource conservation programs [ 7 ]. Designing and enforcing policies that address the severity of climate change impacts is a complex process, and despite the abundance of examples in the literature policymakers may be hesitant to implement new regulations without practical and actionable evidence in support of their efforts [ 8 ]. As a result, there has been an increasing interest in policy-relevant scientific research supporting climate change resilience and adaptation at the local and global scales [ 9 , 10 ].

With the beginning of the digital revolution, policy-makers have been increasingly recognizing the potential of big data analytical methods to support their decisions, including climate-forecasting global circulation models [ 11 , p. 159], natural resource life cycle modelling [ 12 ], and social networking models [ 13 ]. The advancement of such models and techniques offers an unprecedented insight into regional and global phenomena [ 14 ]. Still, models like these are still in the earlier stages of development and require calibration and validation through the comparison with local data, which are most often generated through fieldwork and case study research [e.g., 15 ]. Such case studies run the gamut from systematic evaluations of timber harvest efficiency and succession [ 16 ], to local and regional surveys regarding human health and well-being [ 17 ]. The policy implications of a new landscape of small and big data are yet to be fully materialized. However, the degree and quality of policy engagement in recently published climate change research begin to unravel the role local-level data can play in policy-making in the digital age.

In this article, we systematically review case studies in climate change science to evaluate the relationship between the methodological characteristics of a study and the extent they provide implementable policy recommendations to answer the questions: In what ways is (case study) research design associated with reporting policy - relevant information for climate change adaptation, resilience, and/or recovery? What themes stand out within the literature in relation to engaging with climate change adaptation or mitigation policies, and how can these areas best advance as policy - driven foci within climate change science? The review includes a meta-analysis of climate change research on adaptation, resilience, and recovery that involve field data from case studies or study sites (e.g., sample plots) published between 2012 and 2017. The objectives of the systematic review were (1) to synthesize recent climate change research using case study or field site data to provide a general description of this body of literature; (2) gauge the extent to which research involving case and field study data provide policy recommendations, and how this varies by study characteristics; (3) assess how researchers integrate local-level data with secondary sources and; (4) qualitatively describe insights in case study research based on nuanced themes within the reviewed articles.

Our study stands out in two specific ways: First, our approach combines analysis of studies involving human and non-human actors. Second, the unique composition of the research team embodied interdisciplinary perspectives used to review and analyze the existing body of literature. Our results aim to inform researchers who desire to make explicit linkages between scientific findings and policy formulation, whether they are ‘foot soldiers’ collecting data in the field, or ‘big data’ analysts working to inform their models using case study data.

This review article blends systematic meta-analysis [ 18 ] with a focused qualitative approach [e.g., 19 ] in order to provide both statistical analysis of the evaluated literature and a nuanced qualitative assessment of some selected themes that emerged from the reviewed work. An interdisciplinary research team representing ecology, geography, public policy, and women’s studies conducted the review of climate change research involving case studies of human populations and/or the collection of biophysical field data. The research team met weekly from January to May, in 2017, to develop consensus regarding classification schemes, harmonize data collection, discuss findings, and engage in team-building exercises to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration. The following section describes the article selection process, including the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the process used to make the final determination of the article sample, data collection, statistical analysis and thematic foci for the qualitative review component.

2.1 Document selection and review

The title, abstract, and keywords of all peer-reviewed English articles indexed in the Web of Science SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI search engines were searched using the following code:

For the purposes of our analysis, case studies were defined following Yin [ 20 , p. 13] as an empirical inquiry investigating a contemporary issue within its real-life context by collecting data from individuals. The term study area was used to allow for the inclusion of research conducted in a specific geographically delimited area because it is representative of a larger ecological system.

The search was restricted to include only articles published between 2012 and 2017 in journals classified in at least one of the following Web of Science categories:

The basis for the journal classification selection involved an assessment of the journal outlets publishing climate change research involving case studies and other field data collection by both social and physical scientists. Figure  1 outlines the selection and review process in 5 phases. All potentially relevant articles identified in phase 1 were segmented into four categories using the bibliometric and visualization software VOSviewer [ 21 ]. This method clustered articles based on similarities between the works cited. Bibliometric clustering resulted in four article groupings unified by overarching themes. The team identified the main themes of each cluster based on a joint review of cited references and ten randomly sampled articles from each. The four clusters were assigned to members of the research team with the most demonstrated expertise in that area. The member of the team with the broadest range of research experience reviewed all articles, which ensured independent data screening by two analysts in all subsequent steps.

Flow chart of the article selection and screening phases

Drawing on the methodology described by Brandt et al. [ 22 ], two readers reviewed each abstract based on questions to identify relevant articles (Fig.  1 ). Team members discussed assessments of the inclusion criteria at weekly team meetings to ensure consistent interpretations. Questionable cases that arose throughout the process were discussed and cleared during meetings. In cases where a decision of inclusion/exclusion for a specific article differed between the two independent readers, additional time was allocated to arrive at a consensus-based decision. After completing the initial review of the abstracts, the team collectively reassigned some select papers based on their thematic area. During the previous phase, both reviewers noted when the topic of an article fell within the area of expertise of another member of the research team. All reassignments were based on team discussions and consensus.

All articles included in the sample were then downloaded and assessed independently by two reviewers using a pre-designed rubric to capture quantitative, qualitative, close-ended categorical data, and open-ended notes or comments (Supplementary Material 1). The rubric included questions regarding the characteristics of the author(s), the case studies conducted, the data collection and analytical methods employed, the stated policy implications of the research, and other factors. As in phase 3, the second reviewer read all articles in the sample in order to ensure continuity between the four different thematic clusters. In addition, some articles were excluded from the sample if the team determined, after a review of the full article, that it failed to meet the inclusion criteria outlined in phase 3. As with the previous phase, team members had weekly discussions regarding any questions that arose during the coding process to ensure a uniform analysis. A final sample of 155 articles was selected for coding and analysis (Supplementary Material 2).

2.2 Analytical approach

2.2.1 systematic meta-analysis review.

After the article selection and coding process was completed, data from the review rubric were entered into a database for analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the overall sample of articles. Cross-tabulations were used to examine how article characteristics (e.g., geographic region of study, spatial scope, rural or urban focus, data collection techniques, and methodological approaches) varied for articles employing case studies, field studies, or a combination of both. Chi square ( χ 2 ) and Fisher’s exact tests were conducted to identify statistically significant associations between article characteristics and the inclusion of policy recommendations. All p values refer to χ 2 tests unless otherwise indicated. The software SAS was used for all statistical analyses.

2.2.2 A qualitative review of selected themes

Following the example of Brown [ 19 ], this review discusses selective themes that emerged from the overall sample to illustrate in more detail the associations found in the analysis. This component of the review involved four team members from different disciplines conducting separate, in-depth assessments of selected articles which were then discussed and synthesized into a collective discussion below. The approach taken for the qualitative review allowed the team members, each with different disciplinary perspectives and backgrounds, to critically reflect on the literature they found to be illustrative of an insightful theme that emerged during the systematic review of the articles. Team members discussed the content of the qualitative reviews at weekly team meetings.

3.1 Descriptive characteristics of the dataset

Descriptive statistics of the final sample ( n  =155) show that 73% of the articles exclusively collected and analyzed primary data from individuals (In this article, we call these human studies), 15% focused on biophysical data from field sites (non-human studies), and the remaining 12% used both types of data (coupled studies). Figure  2 summarizes the geographical focus of the reviewed articles using the World Bank’s regional classification system. Figure  3 shows the relationship between the first author’s geographic region, the type of study, and the region where the study took place. From our sample, 70% of articles discussed the policy implications of their research or made recommendations decision-makers based on presented findings; although the degree to which articles engaged with policy varied substantially across the sample.

Geographic distribution of the affiliation of first authors (top) and region where the study took place (bottom)

Descriptive distribution of a country of the first author, b type of article (i.e., human, biophysical, or coupled studies), and c country where the study took place

In broad geographical terms, the majority of first authors were affiliated with institutions in Europe or Central Asia (36%), followed by East Asia and the Pacific (mainly Australia) and North America (25% and 25%, respectively). These three regions accounted for the majority of first authors in all subcategories, with almost half of the natural systems studies (48%) first authored by someone with institutional affiliation in Europe or Central Asia. When looking at where studies took place, East Asia and the Pacific had the greatest overall coverage (26%) and this region was the focus of the largest share of human systems studies (26%) and the second largest share of coupled human-natural systems studies (23%). The largest number of natural systems studies focused on locations within Europe and Central Asia (33%). Of the reviewed articles, only 1% had a study area located in the Middle East or in North Africa; only two human studies taking place in this regional grouping.

3.2 Statistical relationships

Few geographic characteristics have statistically significant associations with whether or not the article provided policy recommendations. Articles involving a case study or field site within Sub-Saharan Africa ( p  = 0.034) or a first author with an institutional affiliation there ( p  = 0.033, Fischer) were more likely to include policy recommendations. Indeed, all ten papers first authored by someone affiliated with the region did so. The opposite relationship was true for articles with study areas located in Europe and Central Asia ( p  = 0.008) or first authors affiliated with institutions in this region ( p  = 0.004). Despite the common critique that case studies prioritize the local level [ 23 , 24 ], 70% of the articles conducted research at the regional scale (extra-local but still subnational). The relationship between the scale of analysis (i.e., local or regional) and providing policy recommendations was not significant.

Scientific collaboration across fields was prevalent in our sample. Multidisciplinary teams authored 60% of the articles and 78% of the biophysical systems studies. The majority of articles had at least one author with an institutional affiliation where the study took place (79%), and that figure is even higher for biophysical systems studies (96%). Nevertheless, there was no statistical association between the multidisciplinary composition of authors, their institutional affiliation, and providing policy recommendations.

Methodological characteristics, like analytical frameworks and data collection, emerged as important characteristics associated with policy recommendations. Methodological representation was evenly divided between studies using quantitative approaches (33%), qualitative approaches (35%), or a blend of both (32%). However, as would be expected given the use of biophysical data, all non-human studies employed quantitative methodologies. Overall, studies using quantitative methodologies ( p  = 0.000) were less likely to highlight the policy relevance of the reported research. In contrast, data collection and methodological approaches associated with human studies, such as the participatory activities/exercises ( p  = 0.003), focus groups ( p  = 0.001), and the use of ethnographic techniques ( p  = 0.002) were all more likely to discuss policy. Human studies ( p  = 0.000) were more likely than natural or coupled studies to include policy recommendations or discuss the policy implications of the research.

Exactly half of the articles explicitly mentioned the theory or conceptual framework guiding the research. These articles that referenced the theory or conceptual framework ( p  = 0.008) or discuss power asymmetries or structural inequalities that exacerbate the impacts of climate change ( p  = 0.084) were more likely to provide policy recommendations, but these characteristics were almost exclusively found in human studies.

When analyzing only the subset of human studies articles, a research methodology that included some kind of participatory activities ( p  = 0.079) and focus groups ( p  = 0.029) remain significantly more likely to provide policy recommendations. Only one relationship emerged as statistically significant within the human studies subset while insignificant for the overall sample: urban versus rural focus. Articles with case studies in rural areas ( p  = 0.019, Fischer) were more likely to make policy recommendations than those exclusively focused on urban areas.

The overall sample was evenly split between studies using only primary data (50%) and those integrating primary and secondary data sources (50%). However, the type of data had no significant association with policy engagement. This was true for the entire sample and for all three of the study subsets (i.e., human, biophysical, and coupled). Core concepts did display an association with policy engagement, with articles addressing adaptation ( p  = 0.003) more likely to do so and those addressing recovery ( p  = 0.019, Fischer) were less likely. However, most of these associations were not statistically significant within the three study subsets.

4 Emerging themes in the literature

The results from the meta-analysis broadly suggest that geographic location of study and affiliation of authors, the methodology employed, theoretically-framed research, and the type of data collected are all significant characteristics that are associated with research-policy integration through policy recommendations. The most apparent finding is the clear distinction between human and non-human studies, with the former being more likely to provide policy recommendations than the latter. The qualitative assessment of trends and themes in climate change adaptation and resilience literature is a useful mechanism to unpack these associations with nuance and with the aim of synthesizing our findings.

4.1 Human-oriented studies most likely to offer policy recommendations

When unpacking the significant characteristics of the human studies, Gibson-Graham’s [ 25 ] formulation of the “ethics of the local” is a helpful conceptual tool to imagine how locally focused research can have broader social and economic transformative significance. The Ethics of the Local primarily acknowledges the particularity of the “local” recognizing the difference and otherness with the intention of cultivating local capacity [ 25 ]. Particularity and contingency were demonstrated by reviewed studies that employed ethnographic methodologies that helped understand specific circumstances of different communities around the world [ 7 , 26 , 27 ]. Some case studies include clear policy recommendations that aimed at cultivating local capacity and reducing vulnerability [e.g., 28 ], while increasing the participation of local stakeholders in the research process. In this sense, these case studies sought not only to describe a scientific reality but also to influence and transform the social-environmental regime of that locality. Evidently, each case study highlights findings which are to some degree generalizable yet reinforce the specific conditions of each place.

Within the human studies sub-sample, a clear divide emerged between articles focused on urban high-income or rural low-income communities. In particular, researcher differed in the way elicited knowledge and perceptions from local inhabitants regarding climate change. In the former, researchers generally asked respondents to consider climate change as a broad, long-term scientific phenomenon, while in the latter the focus was more on asking about recent changes in the weather. Many of the studies conducted in rural or low-income study areas asked respondents questions such as whether they had observed rising temperatures [ 29 ], if rainfall had become more variable [ 30 ] or if drought was more frequent [ 31 ]. When researching rural low-income communities, the authors did not acknowledge or justify their decision to focus on observable variability rather than on long-term trends. This may be related to the way people understand climate change effects based on geographical location. Regardless, the apparent lack of consistency in methodology presents challenges to researchers or policy-makers who wish to understand how climate change is affecting livelihoods in a broader sense. Given this inconsistency, attempts to compare research results from different geographic areas will become increasingly challenging. Thus, designing and enforcing climate adaptation policy may broadly benefit from a greater integration of lessons learned from urban high-income and rural low-income communities.

4.2 Participatory methods are associated with policy recommendations

Data collection methods that are most commonly associated with human studies include interviews, surveys, focus groups and workshops, all of these are significantly associated with providing policy recommendations. These methods were employed in articles which engaged with communities and investigated how changes in climate are experienced by people at the local level. Based on the reviewed literature, it is clear that the weather today presents more and different challenges than it did in the past. These findings show that, overall, people quite accurately perceive the degree and magnitude of changes in the weather [ 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Case studies that used historical meteorological data for validation found that weather changes described by the community were generally correct [ 28 , 35 , 36 ]. This suggests that case study research have the potential to provide valuable information for climate change science, particularly in areas with limited long-term meteorological data. As such, participatory methods have the capacity to uncover relevant aspects of the local social life [ 37 ].

Some of the methods employed target local perceptions as a way to understand local values and past experiences that influence the way communities engage with governance structures and how they ultimately address climate change impacts [ 38 , 39 ]. Our analysis shows the importance of using local-level perception data to inform regional adaptation policies in ways that account for local priorities and needs [ 38 , 40 , 41 ]. Research in this area highlights the long-term benefits of employing participatory methods that support adaptive environmental management [ 38 , 42 , 43 ]. Openness to a diversity of views and perceptions can empower marginalized stakeholders and promote learning among diverse stakeholders about the trade-offs and benefits of different adaptation options. In addition, participatory research that facilitates the interaction among stakeholders with different views may contribute to building cooperation between individuals or groups with opposing interests [ 44 , 45 ].

Participatory research methods also promote local participation in areas where there are contentious, often opposing, views on how to address climate change risks and vulnerability [ 46 , 47 ]. Case study research that brings together scientists, policymakers, and local inhabitants through participatory methodologies like focus groups and workshops tend to provide opportunities to incorporate local knowledge into management processes [ 48 , 49 ]. These approaches have gained attention in policy and practitioner circles for their capacity to engage with multiple stakeholders and direct research in ways that benefit the overall community [ 10 ]. Moreover, these approaches have the potential to help identify awareness and information gaps among stakeholders, which may help in crafting tailored communication across different types of stakeholders and support the successful implementation of adaptation strategies [ 49 ].

Taken together, the human studies reviewed in this article that employ participatory research methods are strongly associated with providing policy recommendations. Further research is necessary to unpack and understand this trend. Nonetheless, integrating local participation in climate change adaptation is likely to facilitate discussion and learning on the appropriate responses to climate impacts.

4.3 Policy potential for carbon sequestration

Even though biophysical, non-human, studies did not have a statistically significant association with providing policy recommendations, some did employ qualitative forms of engagement with local actors. Within the biophysical subsample, carbon sequestration emerged as a prominent research focus. While local efforts to mitigate carbon emissions make a small difference to the global carbon budget, the potential for wide-reaching policies to make an impact remains large. There are three studies that focused on the decision-making process behind forest carbon management, though they found that carbon-smart policies were implemented with varying levels of success [ 7 , 50 , 51 ]. Each of the three studies interviewed forest managers, gaining insight into the on-the-ground management practices that drive long-term carbon retention and sequestration. Ellenwood et al. [ 50 ] interviewed federal forest managers in Durango, Colorado, USA and found that, while there is widespread interest in carbon sequestration, few management decisions are focused on these goals. Milad et al. [ 51 ] found similar results when interviewing forest managers across Germany.

Pandey et al. [ 7 ] focused on a set of community forests, rather than exclusive nationally-controlled forests (as in the USA and Germany), in Nepal, as they implemented new Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD +) policies. Their study combined interviews with field measurements of below- and above-ground forest carbon density as they studied the carbon sequestration effects of a locally-empowering policy shift. They found that by implementing carbon-smart strategies they were able to sequester more carbon while simultaneously empowering the poorest farmers; a true win–win. In this comparison, it was the developing country (Nepal) that had a far more effective carbon-smart forest management practice, compared to the two developed nations (USA and Germany). These findings suggest that, while national-level policies have the potential to make a large impact, they can be slow to implement. Conversely, community-level management can be quick to adapt to changing management goals and may offer faster, albeit smaller, results. These studies show that combining carbon sequestration objectives and active adaptation strategies into synergistic policies can effectively sequester atmospheric carbon while simultaneously building local capacity for climate change adaptation, particularly within the developing world.

Forestry as a practice has a rich literature where it is understood that large-scale forest management activities such as harvest, replanting, thinning, and burning have significant impacts on the carbon balance [ 52 ]. Countries such as Indonesia and Costa Rica act as a carbon source because they are undergoing deforestation in service of palm oil plantations, while the eastern United States is acting as a carbon sink as it regenerates from deforestation that occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries [ 53 ]. It is critical for nations, states, and communities to properly account for carbon emissions and sequestration if they seek to reach carbon-mitigation policy goals [e.g., 54 ]. Several papers found within our analysis report the effects of management activities on carbon storage, with examples from major forestry centers, including Australia [ 55 ], Canada [ 56 ], Nepal [ 7 ] and the United States [ 57 ]. Taken together, these papers demonstrate the need for quantifying carbon within a variety of forested ecosystems. While these reports are valuable for land managers as they inform carbon-smart strategies, ecosystem modelers need the rate of carbon sequestration and ecosystem recovery for their time-and-space sensitive analyses. Before they can be used to inform policy decisions, these models must be properly calibrated using field data derived from case studies. Some of the reviewed articles provide this information in detail [ 56 ] and others even provide a growth rate curve that is essential to most ecosystem models [ 55 ].

Carbon management within pastures is highly dependent upon SOM, which sequesters far more carbon than the above-ground fraction of the ecosystem [ 58 ]. Soil resilience is therefore critical to carbon sequestration success in the face of disturbances such as flood, erosion, and soil degradation [ 59 ]. Two papers studying pasture management of carbon report metrics such as biological diversity, SOM [ 59 ], carbon allocation, and macronutrients [ 60 ]. For agriculture practitioners, these metrics are of the utmost importance for management, and it is helpful that these papers display their results in terms that are familiar to farmers and scientists alike. These papers come from ecologically distinct, but regionally similar areas of Tibet [ 59 ] and Inner Mongolia [ 60 ], emphasizing the need for additional research in different geographic locations. Still, by framing their results with land management in mind, their findings are directly applicable to pasture managers who seek to maintain the quality of their soils while retaining carbon sequestered below ground.

This review also found a number of discussions of specialized agricultural practices and their impact on the carbon budget. Studies concerning the carbon sequestration benefits of small-scale farming practices in Ethiopia [ 15 ], intensive aquaculture in The Philippines [ 61 ], and cork production in Portugal [ 62 ] all provide useful quantifications of carbon as a result of management practices. The studies concerning farming and aquaculture appear to be highly applicable to other locales, however, some studies may be limited in their overall reach if their focus is highly localized in small industries with the relatively low potential for carbon sequestration [e.g., 62 ].

Taken together, these papers regarding carbon were less focused on framing their results to inform policy than the other papers within the review sample. Perhaps this is explained, in part, by papers that did discuss policy through interviews with land managers, which suggest that carbon sequestration land management practices have yet to be fully accepted within the policy world [ 50 , 51 ]. To improve this integration, future carbon sequestration studies should frame their results to appeal to land managers by including carbon sequestration potential, reproducible best management practices, quantified uncertainty, and economic analysis on return on investment or incentives.

For many biophysical researchers, implementing policy may be impossible, and advocating for policy change may be socially and professionally risky. There have even been recent directives from the executive branch of the United States government to limit scientist interaction with the media to ensure a unified public discourse [ 63 ]. Therefore, it would be understandable if federally-funded biophysical scientists are hesitant to recommend policy changes in the literature, or public media, as this could adversely affect the career of a federal land management employee. Still, there is ample opportunity for biophysical researchers to generate new information that can be useful in advising carbon-smart policies. As mentioned above, by quantifying and reporting the particular biophysical parameters that govern carbon in the ecosystem (along with other climate-sensitive compounds such as methane, aerosols, and pollutants) researchers are able to build a solid foundation for policy recommendations once this information gets to the appropriate decision-makers. Furthermore, by quantifying metrics such as the rate of carbon sequestration in forests [ 55 , 56 ] biophysical researchers can support higher-level research objectives, such as NASA’s global carbon monitoring system [ 64 ].

4.4 Opportunities and challenges for biophysical studies

The majority of non-human focused papers did not recommend any policies (20 out of 25). Of the five that did, policy recommendations were generally brief and vague. There was one non-human focused paper that gave specific policy recommendations, Boateng [ 65 ]; which is a single-authored paper by a civil engineer, that recommended policies to stabilize and protect the eastern coastline of Ghana. This example highlights the central role engineers play in the science-policy interface. Particularly in geographies where extreme climate-related events and sea level rise pose significant risks to infrastructure. Still, the strong majority of non-human focused papers did not make a policy recommendation.

4.5 The prominence of multidisciplinary teams

The call for a multidisciplinary approach to research is not new [ 66 , 67 ]. In climate change research, complex global problems warrant integrated scientific approaches to help understand the drivers and impacts from multiple perspectives [ 68 ]. Surprisingly, multidisciplinary author teams were not significantly associated with providing policy recommendations. This may be explained, in part, by the lack of academic integration found in multidisciplinary research, compared to research employing transdisciplinary methods that also include non-academic practitioners at multiple phases of the research [ 66 ].

In the case of this article, the author team was deliberately multidisciplinary involving geography, ecology, women’s studies, and public policy in an attempt to review the existing literature with a multidisciplinary perspective. This composition brought challenges while undergoing this project and required that the team spend hours synthesizing common definitions and learning how different scientific fields use different interpretations of similar concepts. These challenges are presumably akin to those encountered by authors of multidisciplinary papers included in our review, who may have found it difficult to reach a common understanding in research design and use of analytical methods. These challenges resonate with previous assessments of multidisciplinary work in sustainability science [ 69 ]. It is presumed that as research methods become more translatable across fields, and more non-academic stakeholders are involved in the research design process, multidisciplinary teams may increase their association with policy recommendations.

As mentioned above, the multidisciplinary composition of the team intentionally brought to the fore the known challenges of communicating climate science in different scientific disciplines. Even though two readers had to be in agreement on their interpretation and coding of a paper, some aspects of the paper remained reliant on each reviewer’s subjective judgment (e.g., understanding of national and subnational scope, number of ‘communities’ involved, and the extent a policy recommendation was concrete or vague).

Case study research that engages with local and community-defined geographies bares the ethical responsibility to capture and accurately represent those communities’ climate challenges. Future work may investigate the ethical components of community engagement, specifically the relationship between to the author’s national affiliation and the country where the study took place. Future work may also benefit from a closer look at the different methodological approaches that elicit climate change perceptions based on the urban-high-income country and rural-low-income country contexts. If case study data focusing on climate change impacts is to be incorporated into regional or global models, a detailed understanding of the comparison and contrast of those approaches will help researchers understand the implications of their methods.

This review used VOSviewer bibliometric and visualization software to cluster articles based on bibliometric similarities [ 21 ]. This method was a useful way to organize the articles into meaningful clusters, which facilitated the distribution of tasks among team members. It is possible that a larger number of clusters could have altered the review process, which is something future reviews that use this software may be able to explore. This review may serve as a guide for researchers who desire to engage in case study research on adaptation, recovery, and resilience to climate changes in both developing and developed countries and focused on human, natural, or coupled systems.

5 Conclusions

We conducted a systematic meta-review of 155 articles concerning climate change adaptation, resilience, and recovery from across the literature. Our aim was to characterize the aspects of case study research that are associated with providing policy recommendations. We found that policy recommendations were more robust, and significantly more likely, in papers that used methodologies focused on human subjects. Non-human, biophysical, studies make only 15% of our sample and they were not likely to provide policy recommendations. Methodological characteristics have a significant effect on the degree studies engaged with policy. Studies using quantitative methodologies were less likely to highlight the policy relevance of their research. In contrast, data collection and methodological approaches associated with human studies, such as the participatory research, focus groups, and the use of ethnographic techniques were all more likely to discuss policy. Within the human studies subset, we found that articles with case studies in rural areas were more likely to make policy recommendations than those exclusively focused on urban areas. Geographical characteristics, such as the country where the study takes place and the affiliation of the first author, also show significant associations with providing policy recommendations. Most notably, we found that studies conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa and studies first-authored by a person affiliated with that region were more likely to provide policy recommendations.

We also conducted a qualitative assessment of our sample in order to identify emerging themes in the literature and provide our own recommendations for researchers or decision-makers who wish to narrow the gap between science and policy. We emphasize the following conclusions based on the main themes within the literature: First, effective climate mitigation and adaptation are essentially local processes, therefore researchers must embrace the uniqueness of each locality at all stages of the research project. Second, trust in the governance institutions charged with addressing climate impacts is an important ingredient of effective participation and social learning [ 44 ]. Thus, large-scale models can rely on small-scale data validation approaches that are perceived to legitimately represent the uniqueness of the locality. Third, engagement of local populations and stakeholders is essential for effective and sustainable policy formation [ 7 ]. Fourth, studies that focus on biophysical parameters often lack policy recommendations, though the results of such studies provide essential supporting evidence for policymakers [ 55 , 56 , 64 ].

As climate change proceeds, developing countries will be hit the hardest [ 2 ]. By leveraging the big data era, researchers have an opportunity to inform policies that effectively mitigate the worst of these changes. Identifying the biophysical properties underlying, and the socio-political solutions to, these changes must be informed through case studies in a local context. Therefore, we must engage the locales of interest with care if researchers seek to improve their climate change prognosis and inform large-scale climate policy.

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Teodoro, J.D., O’Leary, D.S., Kerr, S.E. et al. The relevance of case studies in climate change research: a review of policy recommendations. SN Appl. Sci. 1 , 1197 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-019-1221-x

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• Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation

Adapting agricultural systems to dramatic changes in the physical environment may be limited by social factors such as values, beliefs, or world views. Those factors can be affected by access to finance, political norms and values, and culture and religious ideologies.

Increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide, rising temperatures, and altered precipitation patterns will affect agricultural productivity. Livestock production systems are vulnerable to temperature stresses. Projections for crops and livestock production systems reveal that climate change effects over the next 25 years will be mixed. Climate change will exacerbate current biotic stresses on agricultural plants and animals. Agriculture is dependent on a wide range of ecosystem processes that support productivity including maintenance of soil quality and regulation of water quality and quantity. The predicted higher incidence of extreme weather events will have an increasing influence on agricultural productivity. Over the last 150 years, U.S. agriculture has exhibited a remarkable capacity to adapt to a wide diversity of growing conditions amid dynamic social and economic changes.

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HHS Publishes First Round of Inflation Reduction Act Case Studies on Health Sector Climate Investments

The HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity highlights safety net health care providers using Inflation Reduction Act funds and tax credits to decarbonize their communities and protect patients

The HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE) published two case studies today highlighting how Boston Medical Center and OhioHealth, a pair of nonprofit safety net health care providers, are using the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to reduce carbon emissions. The case studies are meant to offer health organizations in similar situations a roadmap to use the IRA to serve their core mission, reduce climate-related health impacts and advance health equity.

One case study explains Boston Medical Center’s creation of a pilot program providing solar energy credits to patients. The other highlights OhioHealth’s decision to use IRA tax incentives to fund electric vehicle charging stations that offer free charging to residents in a rural area.

The case studies are part of OCCHE’s Catalytic Program on Utilizing the IRA, an ongoing effort to connect safety net health care providers to the billions of dollars the IRA makes available for energy efficiency, sustainability, and environmental justice. IRA funding opportunities help providers make investments that allow them to stay open before, during, and after emergencies and reduce their own pollution levels.

The case studies explore Boston Medical Center’s Clean Power Prescription and OhioHealth’s charging station infrastructure to help providers consider how they might successfully plan a project leveraging IRA funding to support their community. Both providers also share key lessons learned from their processes and advice for pitching a similar project to organizational leadership.

In addition to the new case studies, the Catalytic Program features more than two dozen hours of rewatchable, free-to-access webinars with experts from across the federal government and health sector, as well as a Quickfinder tool summarizing key IRA programs and policies.

“Boston Medical Center and OhioHealth are showing their peers the power of the Inflation Reduction Act to save hospitals money and reduce environmental health burdens at the same time,” said ADM Rachel L. Levine, MD, Assistant Secretary for Health. “The law offers unprecedented opportunities for health care providers and other nonprofits to make long-term investments that reduce their climate impact and protect public health. OCCHE’s work to educate safety net health care providers is vital to meeting our overall climate goals, and I look forward to seeing many more success stories in the months and years ahead.”

“The IRA is the most significant climate legislation in our country’s history, but it didn’t come with a roadmap telling the health sector where to plug in,” said John M. Balbus, MD, MPH, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate Change and Health Equity. “The health sector offers crucial support for frontline communities and also contributes about 8.5 percent of US carbon emissions, which is why it needs to reduce its own impacts as much as possible. The Catalytic Program is crucial to promoting health equity and a green energy economy, and I hope more health care providers take advantage of these opportunities.”

Many providers, including Boston Medical Center and OhioHealth, presented on their plans to use the IRA as part of the Catalytic Program’s webinar series over the summer. All previous sessions are recorded and available online. OCCHE will roll out new case studies over the course of this year.

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Seven case studies in carbon and climate

Every part of the mosaic of Earth's surface — ocean and land, Arctic and tropics, forest and grassland — absorbs and releases carbon in a different way. Wild-card events such as massive wildfires and drought complicate the global picture even more. To better predict future climate, we need to understand how Earth's ecosystems will change as the climate warms and how extreme events will shape and interact with the future environment. Here are seven pressing concerns.

The Far North is warming twice as fast as the rest of Earth, on average. With a 5-year Arctic airborne observing campaign just wrapping up and a 10-year campaign just starting that will integrate airborne, satellite and surface measurements, NASA is using unprecedented resources to discover how the drastic changes in Arctic carbon are likely to influence our climatic future.

Wildfires have become common in the North. Because firefighting is so difficult in remote areas, many of these fires burn unchecked for months, throwing huge plumes of carbon into the atmosphere. A recent report found a nearly 10-fold increase in the number of large fires in the Arctic region over the last 50 years, and the total area burned by fires is increasing annually.

Organic carbon from plant and animal remains is preserved for millennia in frozen Arctic soil, too cold to decompose. Arctic soils known as permafrost contain more carbon than there is in Earth's atmosphere today. As the frozen landscape continues to thaw, the likelihood increases that not only fires but decomposition will create Arctic atmospheric emissions rivaling those of fossil fuels. The chemical form these emissions take — carbon dioxide or methane — will make a big difference in how much greenhouse warming they create.

Initial results from NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) airborne campaign have allayed concerns that large bursts of methane, a more potent greenhouse gas, are already being released from thawing Arctic soils. CARVE principal investigator Charles Miller of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, is looking forward to NASA's ABoVE field campaign (Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment) to gain more insight. "CARVE just scratched the surface, compared to what ABoVE will do," Miller said.

Methane is the Billy the Kid of carbon-containing greenhouse gases: it does a lot of damage in a short life. There's much less of it in Earth's atmosphere than there is carbon dioxide, but molecule for molecule, it causes far more greenhouse warming than CO 2 does over its average 10-year life span in the atmosphere.

Methane is produced by bacteria that decompose organic material in damp places with little or no oxygen, such as freshwater marshes and the stomachs of cows. Currently, over half of atmospheric methane comes from human-related sources, such as livestock, rice farming, landfills and leaks of natural gas. Natural sources include termites and wetlands. Because of increasing human sources, the atmospheric concentration of methane has doubled in the last 200 years to a level not seen on our planet for 650,000 years.

Locating and measuring human emissions of methane are significant challenges. NASA's Carbon Monitoring System is funding several projects testing new technologies and techniques to improve our ability to monitor the colorless gas and help decision makers pinpoint sources of emissions. One project, led by Daniel Jacob of Harvard University, used satellite observations of methane to infer emissions over North America. The research found that human methane emissions in eastern Texas were 50 to 100 percent higher than previous estimates. "This study shows the potential of satellite observations to assess how methane emissions are changing," said Kevin Bowman, a JPL research scientist who was a coauthor of the study.

Tropical forests

Tropical forests are carbon storage heavyweights. The Amazon in South America alone absorbs a quarter of all carbon dioxide that ends up on land. Forests in Asia and Africa also do their part in "breathing in" as much carbon dioxide as possible and using it to grow.

However, there is evidence that tropical forests may be reaching some kind of limit to growth. While growth rates in temperate and boreal forests continue to increase, trees in the Amazon have been growing more slowly in recent years. They've also been dying sooner. That's partly because the forest was stressed by two severe droughts in 2005 and 2010 — so severe that the Amazon emitted more carbon overall than it absorbed during those years, due to increased fires and reduced growth. Those unprecedented droughts may have been only a foretaste of what is ahead, because models predict that droughts will increase in frequency and severity in the future.

In the past 40-50 years, the greatest threat to tropical rainforests has been not climate but humans, and here the news from the Amazon is better. Brazil has reduced Amazon deforestation in its territory by 60 to 70 percent since 2004, despite troubling increases in the last three years. According to Doug Morton, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, further reductions may not make a marked difference in the global carbon budget. "No one wants to abandon efforts to preserve and protect the tropical forests," he said. "But doing that with the expectation that [it] is a meaningful way to address global greenhouse gas emissions has become less defensible."

In the last few years, Brazil's progress has left Indonesia the distinction of being the nation with the highest deforestation rate and also with the largest overall area of forest cleared in the world. Although Indonesia's forests are only a quarter to a fifth the extent of the Amazon, fires there emit massive amounts of carbon, because about half of the Indonesian forests grow on carbon-rich peat. A recent study estimated that this fall, daily greenhouse gas emissions from recent Indonesian fires regularly surpassed daily emissions from the entire United States.

Wildfires are natural and necessary for some forest ecosystems, keeping them healthy by fertilizing soil, clearing ground for young plants, and allowing species to germinate and reproduce. Like the carbon cycle itself, fires are being pushed out of their normal roles by climate change. Shorter winters and higher temperatures during the other seasons lead to drier vegetation and soils. Globally, fire seasons are almost 20 percent longer today, on average, than they were 35 years ago.

Currently, wildfires are estimated to spew 2 to 4 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year on average — about half as much as is emitted by fossil fuel burning. Large as that number is, it's just the beginning of the impact of fires on the carbon cycle. As a burned forest regrows, decades will pass before it reaches its former levels of carbon absorption. If the area is cleared for agriculture, the croplands will never absorb as much carbon as the forest did.

As atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase and global temperatures warm, climate models show the threat of wildfires increasing throughout this century. In Earth's more arid regions like the U.S. West, rising temperatures will continue to dry out vegetation so fires start and burn more easily. In Arctic and boreal ecosystems, intense wildfires are burning not just the trees, but also the carbon-rich soil itself, accelerating the thaw of permafrost, and dumping even more carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

North American forests

With decades of Landsat satellite imagery at their fingertips, researchers can track changes to North American forests since the mid-1980s. A warming climate is making its presence known.

Through the North American Forest Dynamics project, and a dataset based on Landsat imagery released this earlier this month, researchers can track where tree cover is disappearing through logging, wildfires, windstorms, insect outbreaks, drought, mountaintop mining, and people clearing land for development and agriculture. Equally, they can see where forests are growing back over past logging projects, abandoned croplands and other previously disturbed areas.

"One takeaway from the project is how active U.S. forests are, and how young American forests are," said Jeff Masek of Goddard, one of the project’s principal investigators along with researchers from the University of Maryland and the U.S. Forest Service. In the Southeast, fast-growing tree farms illustrate a human influence on the forest life cycle. In the West, however, much of the forest disturbance is directly or indirectly tied to climate. Wildfires stretched across more acres in Alaska this year than they have in any other year in the satellite record. Insects and drought have turned green forests brown in the Rocky Mountains. In the Southwest, pinyon-juniper forests have died back due to drought.

Scientists are studying North American forests and the carbon they store with other remote sensing instruments. With radars and lidars, which measure height of vegetation from satellite or airborne platforms, they can calculate how much biomass — the total amount of plant material, like trunks, stems and leaves — these forests contain. Then, models looking at how fast forests are growing or shrinking can calculate carbon uptake and release into the atmosphere. An instrument planned to fly on the International Space Station (ISS), called the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar, will measure tree height from orbit, and a second ISS mission called the Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) will monitor how forests are using water, an indicator of their carbon uptake during growth. Two other upcoming radar satellite missions (the NASA-ISRO SAR radar, or NISAR, and the European Space Agency’s BIOMASS radar) will provide even more complementary, comprehensive information on vegetation.

Ocean carbon absorption

When carbon-dioxide-rich air meets seawater containing less carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas diffuses from the atmosphere into the ocean as irresistibly as a ball rolls downhill. Today, about a quarter of human-produced carbon dioxide emissions get absorbed into the ocean. Once the carbon is in the water, it can stay there for hundreds of years.

Warm, CO 2 -rich surface water flows in ocean currents to colder parts of the globe, releasing its heat along the way. In the polar regions, the now-cool water sinks several miles deep, carrying its carbon burden to the depths. Eventually, that same water wells up far away and returns carbon to the surface; but the entire trip is thought to take about a thousand years. In other words, water upwelling today dates from the Middle Ages – long before fossil fuel emissions.

That's good for the atmosphere, but the ocean pays a heavy price for absorbing so much carbon: acidification. Carbon dioxide reacts chemically with seawater to make the water more acidic. This fundamental change threatens many marine creatures. The chain of chemical reactions ends up reducing the amount of a particular form of carbon — the carbonate ion — that these organisms need to make shells and skeletons. Dubbed the “other carbon dioxide problem,” ocean acidification has potential impacts on millions of people who depend on the ocean for food and resources.

Phytoplankton

Microscopic, aquatic plants called phytoplankton are another way that ocean ecosystems absorb carbon dioxide emissions. Phytoplankton float with currents, consuming carbon dioxide as they grow. They are at the base of the ocean's food chain, eaten by tiny animals called zooplankton that are then consumed by larger species. When phytoplankton and zooplankton die, they may sink to the ocean floor, taking the carbon stored in their bodies with them.

Satellite instruments like the Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra and Aqua let us observe ocean color, which researchers can use to estimate abundance — more green equals more phytoplankton. But not all phytoplankton are equal. Some bigger species, like diatoms, need more nutrients in the surface waters. The bigger species also are generally heavier so more readily sink to the ocean floor.

As ocean currents change, however, the layers of surface water that have the right mix of sunlight, temperature and nutrients for phytoplankton to thrive are changing as well. “In the Northern Hemisphere, there’s a declining trend in phytoplankton,” said Cecile Rousseaux, an oceanographer with the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at Goddard. She used models to determine that the decline at the highest latitudes was due to a decrease in abundance of diatoms. One future mission, the Pre-Aerosol, Clouds, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite, will use instruments designed to see shades of color in the ocean — and through that, allow scientists to better quantify different phytoplankton species.

In the Arctic, however, phytoplankton may be increasing due to climate change. The NASA-sponsored Impacts of Climate on the Eco-Systems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment (ICESCAPE) expedition on a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker in 2010 and 2011 found unprecedented phytoplankton blooms under about three feet (a meter) of sea ice off Alaska. Scientists think this unusually thin ice allows sunlight to filter down to the water, catalyzing plant blooms where they had never been observed before.

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• Published: 25 September 2014

Explaining and overcoming barriers to climate change adaptation

• Klaus Eisenack 1 ,
• Susanne C. Moser 2 ,
• Esther Hoffmann 3 ,
• Richard J. T. Klein   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9458-0944 4 , 5 ,
• Christoph Oberlack 6 ,
• Anna Pechan 1 ,
• Maja Rotter 7 &
• Catrien J. A. M. Termeer 8  

Nature Climate Change volume  4 ,  pages 867–872 ( 2014 ) Cite this article

• Climate-change impacts
• Scientific community

The concept of barriers is increasingly used to describe the obstacles that hinder the planning and implementation of climate change adaptation. The growing literature on barriers to adaptation reveals not only commonly reported barriers, but also conflicting evidence, and few explanations of why barriers exist and change. There is thus a need for research that focuses on the interdependencies between barriers and considers the dynamic ways in which barriers develop and persist. Such research, which would be actor-centred and comparative, would help to explain barriers to adaptation and provide insights into how to overcome them.

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Acknowledgements

Parts of this paper are work of the Chameleon Research Group ( www.climate-chameleon.de ), funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research under grant 01UU0910. Further parts have been supported by the Norden Top-level Research Initiative sub-programme 'Effect Studies and Adaptation to Climate Change' through the Nordic Centre of Excellence for Strategic Adaptation Research (NORD-STAR). We thank M. Steinhäuser for his support in coding of case studies, and all participants of the International Research Workshop on the Barriers to Adaptation to Climate Change.

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Klaus Eisenack & Anna Pechan

Susanne Moser Research and Consulting, Santa Cruz, 95060, California, USA

Susanne C. Moser

Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Potsdamer Str. 105, Berlin, 10785, Germany

Esther Hoffmann

Stockholm Environment Institute, Linnégatan 87D, Box 24218, Stockholm, 104 51, Sweden

Richard J. T. Klein

Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research and Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Linköping, 58183, Sweden

Department of Economics, University of Freiburg, Platz der Alten Synagoge, Freiburg, 79085, Germany

Christoph Oberlack

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 40, Bonn, 53113, Germany

Maja Rotter

Public Administration and Policy Group, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, Wageningen, 6700 EW, The Netherlands

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All authors contributed to the intellectual content. K.E., S.M. and C.O. conducted systematic literature reviews. A.P., K.E., E.H. and M.R. planned the project. All authors contributed references to the review. K.E. led the drafting of the text, with main contributions from S.M. All authors reviewed and edited the text.

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Eisenack, K., Moser, S., Hoffmann, E. et al. Explaining and overcoming barriers to climate change adaptation. Nature Clim Change 4 , 867–872 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2350

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Received : 20 March 2014

Accepted : 24 July 2014

Published : 25 September 2014

Issue Date : October 2014

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2350

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JSmol Viewer

A framework analyzing climate change, air quality and greenery to unveil environmental stress risk hotspots.

1. Introduction

• We design an environmental stress framework to incorporate multiple environmental stress criteria by computing rarely explored indices for each criterion and analyzing their temporal trend;
• We compute the preference weights using a decision-making framework that involves breaking down a complex decision into a hierarchical structure of criteria;
• We establish a correlation between environmental stress and vegetation and calculate the hotspots of environmental risk by considering factors such as stress severity, exposure, vulnerability and the criticality of vegetation status.

2. Study Area and Dataset Used

2.1. study area, 2.2. datasets used, 3. proposed methodology, 3.1. quantification of environmental stress severity, 3.1.1. surface thermal trend, 3.1.2. atmospheric air quality, 3.1.3. computing heat index, 3.1.4. analytic hierarchy process and consistency check.

• The weight vector w as the principal eigenvector of A was computed;
• The consistency index (CI) using the formula C I = λ max − n n − 1 (3) where λ max is the maximum eigenvalue of A was computed;
• The Random Index (RI) value corresponding to n was taken from the predefined table of RI values;
• The consistency ratio (CR) as C R = C I R I (4) where ( RI ) is the Random Index value corresponding to n was calculated.

3.2. Exposure and Vulnerability Analysis

3.3. vegetation-based criticality analysis, 3.4. identification of critical environment risk hotspot and ranking of province, 4. results and discussions, 4.1. consistency check: assigned weights, 4.2. thermal and air quality-based environmental stress magnitude, 4.2.1. surface urban heat island intensity analysis, 4.2.2. air quality index (aqi) assessment, 4.2.3. heat index analysis, 4.3. evi and its correlation with environment-risk magnitude variables, 4.4. cumulative environmental stress magnitude, settlement exposure, population vulnerability and vegetation-based criticality, 4.5. risk hotspot mapping and province ranking, 5. conclusions, future work, author contributions, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Rao, P.; Tassinari, P.; Torreggiani, D. A Framework Analyzing Climate Change, Air Quality and Greenery to Unveil Environmental Stress Risk Hotspots. Remote Sens. 2024 , 16 , 2420. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16132420

Rao P, Tassinari P, Torreggiani D. A Framework Analyzing Climate Change, Air Quality and Greenery to Unveil Environmental Stress Risk Hotspots. Remote Sensing . 2024; 16(13):2420. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16132420

Rao, Priyanka, Patrizia Tassinari, and Daniele Torreggiani. 2024. "A Framework Analyzing Climate Change, Air Quality and Greenery to Unveil Environmental Stress Risk Hotspots" Remote Sensing 16, no. 13: 2420. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16132420

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• v.108(Suppl 2); Apr 2018

Climate Change, Public Health, and Policy: A California Case Study

CONTRIBUTORS

Anthropogenic activity will bring immediate changes and disruptions to the global climate with accompanying health implications. Although policymakers and public health advocates are beginning to acknowledge the health implications of climate change, current policy approaches are lagging behind.

We proposed that 4 key policy principles are critical to successful policymaking in this arena: mainstreaming, linking mitigation and adaptation policy, applying population perspectives, and coordination. We explored California’s progress in addressing the public health challenges of climate change in the San Joaquin Valley as an example.

We discussed issues of mental health and climate change, and used the San Joaquin Valley of California as an example to explore policy approaches to health issues and climate change. The California experience is instructive for other jurisdictions.

Climate change is currently affecting the health of populations and is projected to do so far into the future. 1 With the current chaotic policy environment in the United States, gains made in policy addressing climate change may be reversed or halted at the federal level. Without continued progress on these issues, it will likely become more difficult in the future to address the potential serious health implications of climate change. In this environment, it may be critical for states to lead when the federal government lags behind. The policy literature recommends several principles 1 that public health policymakers can use to address this important issue. We believe that 4 of these are the most important: mainstreaming, a linked approach, a population perspective, and coordination ( Table 1 ). 3–6 Our choice of these 4 principles is further supported by the work of Gould and Rudolph, whose analysis of individual-level and structural barriers to greater public health engagement in climate change and public health indicated that these principles were supported by perceptions in the field. 7 Our goal was to explore the health impacts of climate change and examine how California has implemented public health policy, based on these 4 principles. We performed a policy scan to identify associations between health and climate change, relied on published research, and used publically accessible state data for our analysis. We discuss public health policy and climate change in California, using mental health as an example. Our goal is to highlight larger policy issues and interrelationships among climate change, public policy, and the public, and how these 4 principles might be instructive to law and policy for other jurisdictions.

TABLE 1—

Key Principles That Public Health Policymakers Can Use to Address Health Implications of Climate Change

Note. GHG = greenhouse gas; PM2.5 = particulate matter ≤ 2.5 μm in diameter; SJV = San Joaquin Valley, California.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY

To review policy “on the ground,” we narrowed our analysis to the San Joaquin Valley in central California. We chose to examine the San Joaquin region because of its significant climate disruptions and its concentration of vulnerable populations. We sought to study the resulting public health implications and to understand how California policy addressed health issues and climate change at the local level. The San Joaquin Valley is often called “the nation’s salad bowl” because of its fertile soil and the variety of produce grown in the region. It is a significant part of California’s agricultural industry, which generated $47 billion in 2015. The San Joaquin Valley has 8 counties—Kings, Fresno, Kern, Merced, and Stanislaus counties, and parts of Madera, San Luis Obispo, and Tulare counties—and had a population of 3.9 million according to the 2010 census. The socioeconomic conditions in the San Joaquin Valley are strikingly different compared with the rest of California and the rest of the nation; Hispanics made up 48.5% of the population, one fifth of the households in the region had incomes below the poverty level, approximately 30% of the population did not have a high school diploma, and most of the communities were linguistically isolated because 84% of the population had limited English proficiency. 8

California became dramatically hotter in the last several years, with temperatures in 2014 more than 3°F higher compared with the historical data from 1949 to 2005. In the San Joaquin Valley, a persistent decline in both precipitation and run-off led to drought conditions, with 2012 to 2014 being the hottest and driest years recorded. 9,10 Although previous studies dismissed any link between anthropogenic climate change and the California drought, 11 recent studies concluded that anthropogenic activity accounted for up to 30% of the drought conditions from 2012 to 2014. 12 These conditions led farmers in California to dig 1800 feet down to tap into ground water. Increased pumping of groundwater led to land subsidence, with parts of the San Joaquin Valley sinking by as much as 28 feet. Land subsidence is known to stress water systems, which leads to permanent failures in wells. 13 In March 2017, Tulare County’s Office of Emergency Services reported 1612 cumulative domestic well failures in Tulare County alone. 14 The air quality in San Joaquin Valley is one of the nation’s worst and has repeatedly failed to meet federal standards for fine atmospheric particulate matter 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller (PM2.5) pollution. The PM2.5 pollution arises from farming practices (e.g., tilling, burning crop harvesting, and so on), dairy operations, animal feed, and off-road vehicles. Climate change may further affect exposures to PM2.5 by affecting weather patterns and anthropogenic emissions. 15

We found that the health-related effects of climate change were particularly striking in the San Joaquin Valley. Compared with the state average of 11 per 100 000 of the population, the rates of heat-related emergency room visits from 2005 to 2010 were considerably higher in the San Joaquin Valley, ranging from 17 to 28 per 100 000 of the population. Because the main occupation in the region is agriculture, the rise in heat-related hospitalizations could be the result of the physical strain combined with continuous exposure to the heat outdoors, which could lead to fatigue and respiratory illnesses. A strong correlation was observed between exposure to particulate matter (PM2.5) and negative health outcomes, such as cardiovascular illnesses and exacerbation of asthma symptoms. A combination of heat waves, dust storms, and changing weather patterns also led to a 6-fold increase in Valley Fever (a disease caused by a fungus that is found in the soil) in California between 2000 and 2011, with more than 75% of the cases reported in the San Joaquin Valley. 16

In addition to physical health implications, climate change can have grave consequences for the mental health of affected populations. In the United States, the mental health consequences among populations affected by extreme weather events, especially Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, and Ike were well documented. 1 Most individuals affected by acute weather events experience trauma, shock, stress, grief, and distress symptoms, which ameliorate once safer conditions are restored. However, for many individuals, the experience leads to major clinical and anxiety disorders, substance abuse disorders, posttraumatic stress disorders, and suicidal ideation. 1 Persistent drought has financial implications for individuals who rely on rainfall for their economic survival, which places an increased burden on their mental health. 1 Individuals who live in drought-affected areas experience psychological distress and ongoing worry about future drought conditions that might affect their livelihood. Long-term stress further affects their physical health, strains social relationships, and creates a cycle of despair. Psychological distress contributed to suicides among farm workers in countries (e.g., Australia and India) that experienced prolonged drought. 17,18 Drought was also a major contributor to the increase in suicides among male farm workers in the Midwestern United States in the 1980s. 19 Similarly, exposure to extreme heat was correlated with an increase in hospital and emergency room admissions, aggressive behaviors among those with mental illnesses, and death among those who experienced psychosis and dementia. 20,21 Another profound impact of climate change is solastalgia, which is a sense of desolation and loss of identity that an individual experiences as their familiar home environment changes, becomes uninhabitable, or hampers their livelihood. 22 Loss of identity because of climate change is often associated with occupations such as farming and fishing, which are place-based. 23 Finally, the impacts of climate change are unequal. Many populations such as indigenous communities, low-income groups, women, children, older adults, individuals with disabilities, and those living in high-risk areas are more vulnerable to the mental health impacts of climate change. 24 Although the health burdens caused by climate change are significant, persistent, and intractable, the impacts of mental health consequences are particularly concerning and are the focus of our discussion.

We used published data to examine the mental health burden in the San Joaquin region and reviewed climate change policies for their inclusion of mental health. We also examined the current mental health burden in the region. According to the California Health Care Foundation, more than 16% of adults have a mental health need, and 5% have a serious mental illness in California. 25 San Joaquin Valley had some of the highest rates of mental illness in California, with 8% of adults with serious mental illness and 5.3% of children with serious emotional disturbances. The burden of mental illness and the unmet need became even more significant, when we examined the mental health workforce in the Valley. The numbers of all licensed mental health professionals in the San Joaquin Valley were well below the state average. 25 A community health needs assessment conducted by Kaiser found that in select San Joaquin Valley counties (i.e., Fresno, Kings, Madera, and Tulare), access to health care services was the main concern among residents. Other prominent issues included lack of transportation, difficulty in scheduling appointments and navigating the system, language barriers, and paying for copayments and medications. More than 80% of the population in these counties lived in a health professional shortage area for primary care. 26 The high rates of mental illness, low access to providers, and the likely impacts of drought and climate change on mental health made this a serious climate-related health issue. We consider California’s approach to addressing this issue in this article.

CALIFORNIA’S APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE

There are 2 goals in addressing climate change: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation seeks to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs). Policy approaches here include cap-and-trade systems, carbon sequestration, changes to energy generation systems, and transportation policy. Adaptation seeks to respond to the inevitable changes resulting from climate disruption. Many of these policies provide opportunities or “co-benefits” to improve the health of communities.

Mitigation Policy

California has taken aggressive steps to reduce GHGs and has been singled out as a leader in climate change policy. The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 is the center of California’s mitigation policy. It originally required California to reach 1990 levels of GHG emissions by 2020 and was recently updated to require a reduction in GHGs to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. 27 This policy also requires the state to evaluate mitigation efforts in terms of public health. Currently, California uses a cap-and-trade system to reduce GHGs and to achieve its reduction goals. This system generates funds that the state uses on projects that reduce GHG emissions. In 2012, the legislature passed SB 535, which requires that, in addition to reducing GHG emissions, 25% of the monies from the GHG fund must be spent to benefit disadvantaged communities (DACs). Specifically, 10% of these funds must be spent on projects located within DACs. 27

The California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) created a tool, CalEnviroScreen, to identify these DACs for purposes of GHG mitigation by measuring pollution burden and population characteristics by census tracts. 28 We used CalEnviroScreen 2.0 to study the San Joaquin Valley and found that 38.4% of census tracts in the San Joaquin Valley had a CalEnviroScreen score in the highest 15% (i.e., 85%–100%). With such a high percentage of DACs, the San Joaquin Valley communities experienced a unique combination of environmental pressures and inequities.

Adaptation Policy

California’s first step toward preparing for the impacts of climate change—its adaptation policy—was the result of a 2008 Executive Order that required state agencies to develop a strategy to identify and prepare for climate impacts. 29 Since then, California has continued to update its Climate Adaptation Strategy. 30 Although these policies are not as well developed as California policies that target mitigation, the Climate Adaptation Strategy has now moved to include more structural elements in adaptation goals, and the state’s adaptation policy has continued to expand, to rely on regular assessment of the issue through the California Climate Change Assessments. 31 In terms of public health explicitly, county public health departments have been working with the California Department of Public Health to identify public health risks in their communities, by building awareness and documenting climate change efforts in communities. 32

EVALUATING CALIFORNIA’S HEALTH POLICY

We propose 4 key principles to evaluate health policies focusing on climate change: mainstreaming, linked approach, population perspective, and coordination. The California example shows us how these principles have been incorporated, where they have fallen short, and the ensuing implications.

Mainstreaming

Mainstreaming is “a process whereby adaptation measures are integrated ‘into some aspect of related government policy such as water management, disaster preparedness and emergency planning or land-use planning.’ Mainstreaming is not, therefore, a specific policy proposal, like a carbon tax, but rather a policy for policy proposals.” 5 (p25) With mainstreaming, the effects of climate change are integrated into public health policy and planning. California has taken steps to integrate climate change adaptation and resiliency into its requirements for the general planning process of communities. 33 The Governor’s office has also required the integration of climate adaptation planning into state policy, which also mandates the California Natural Resources Agency to develop a state adaptation plan. That adaptation plan, Safeguarding California, focuses on community resilience and response capacity to health threats, indicator development, and improved coordination. 34 The recommendations provided in these adaptation plans are in broad strokes and lack the granular detail available in other climate change policies, and may not be sufficient to address more serious health problems in California.

We noted that a mix of public sources fund mental health services in California when we reviewed California policy with regard to our issue of mental health in the San Joaquin Valley. California counties, through their public health systems, have significant responsibilities related to the provision of mental health services. Services are paid for through a combination of federal, state, and local funds that combine revenue from Medi-Cal, sales taxes, vehicle fees, property taxes, and other miscellaneous funding. 35 Low-income uninsured adults who have no other source of care receive care from a medical indigent program run by counties known as County Medical Services Program (CMSP). Although some counties have expanded their CMSP offerings, many others have considerably cut back on coverage and services provided because of financial constraints. County funding decisions for mental health are currently independent of statewide policy priorities. 35 We believe that if climate change adaptation planning were part of policymaking in this area, additional mental health resources might be made available to residents of the San Joaquin Valley counties, thus providing cobenefits. States and counties could include the effects of climate change when planning and then provide additional resources for areas particularly affected by climate disruptions. Counties participating in the CMSP have already embarked on several innovative approaches to manage care for the neediest patients (e.g., contracting with local health plans, changing program benefits, providing more preventative care rather than episodic care, using technology for application screening, and so on). Even if the structure of mental health funding makes this mainstreaming difficult initially, simply moving the issue into the mainstream of mental health policy would help to identify structural policy barriers that were previously unknown. The narrow focus of public health funding and the mandate of programs could contribute to the difficulty of mainstreaming climate change in policy discussions. Addressing the larger political, policy, and legal constraints to public health would be key here. 7

Linked Approach

A linked approach that views adaptation and mitigation as parts of the same climate policy is required, as one can influence the other, and each can have serious implications for health. 4,5 For example, mitigation policy might promote smart growth solutions that emphasize public transit and dense urban development as a tool to reduce GHG emissions. An unintended consequence of this policy might be the development of urban heat islands that are detrimental to human health. 5 In this example, a linked approach would include the possible exacerbation of heat islands in the adaptation planning process itself.

Mitigation and adaptation policies need better linkage in California. California took strides in explicitly and expressly linking mitigation policies to environmental justice policy goals when it enacted the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006: Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (SB 535), which required investments on GHG mitigation specifically in communities that experienced poor outcomes related to environment. California spent approximately $320 million for GHG mitigation projects in the San Joaquin counties (excluding the funding for the California high-speed rail project), with only $58 million of the total amount targeting or benefiting DACs. By comparison, the state spent approximately $2.2 billion dollars across California. 36 Although these SB 535 investments targeted DACs in California, they did not necessarily target investments that would reduce the health burden related to climate change in this area. For example, a number of projects in the San Joaquin counties related to affordable housing, vehicle replacement, irrigation improvements, and carbon sequestration received SB 535 investment funding under the California system of GHG mitigation. Although these projects succeeded in bringing resources to DACs, these mitigation strategies might have exacerbated or failed to address climate-related health issues in the short term. For example, SB 535 investments included additional affordable housing in Fresno, 37 although the San Joaquin counties had some of the highest PM2.5 concentrations in California. As stated earlier, exposure to PM2.5 is associated with poor health outcomes. The legislature acknowledged this issue in a series of reforms passed in August 2016 that sought to improve oversight of the Air Resource Board and improve data on individual pollution sites. 38 Even with this attempt at reform, there is no expressed link between mitigation cobenefits strategy for SB 535 and adaptation policy in California. This tenuous link could have serious health consequences in the short- and long-term, as we found in the San Joaquin region, where none of the currently funded projects addressed mental health issues. Although more work is needed here, SB 535 and the California approach demonstrated that it is possible to link mitigation policy to other policies, including adaptation. We also noted that an emphasis on the health co-benefits of climate change policy might facilitate improved linkages and engagement with the public health sector. 7 Linking adaptation and mitigation, along with coordination, might be the 2 most difficult challenges facing any community or state that seeks to address the health effects of climate change.

Population Perspective

The California approach using CalEnviroScreen is an example of how societies might apply the population perspective to public health and health policy around climate change. By relying on a strong evidence base and indicators supported by research, CalEnviroScreen provides a fair tool for making comparative evaluations at the census level. It provides a useful way to compare and contrast populations in California and can allow policymakers to visualize health inequities, structural and social determinants of health, and other population-level health issues. Health policy planners could explore use of CalEnviroScreen data for mainstreaming issues related to climate change in California into public health and health policy planning, and direct funding to areas where the public health impact of climate change would be substantial. For example, policymakers in California could overlay the prevalence of mental illnesses, the current distribution of mental health resources, and the CalEnviroScreen Scores in the San Joaquin Valley to address the impact of climate change in this area and develop policies and investments to target affected communities. SB 535–related investments demonstrated how funding could be linked to clear policy goals. Inclusion of additional measures of health indicators in the CalEnviroScreen tool might help to identify vulnerable populations that might be particularly sensitive to the disruptions associated with climate change. However, CalEnviroScreen scores are calculated using parameters that rely heavily on pollution measures, and therefore, might not capture other climate change vulnerabilities. CalEPA continues to modify the tool and has recently included new indicators (e.g., cardiovascular disease and rent-adjusted income) to the CalEnviroScreen tool. This approach, although not perfect, is particularly effective and may help to facilitate the political process in addressing climate change. In addition to CalEnviroScreen, the CalEPA has other tools that focus on environmental justice 39 ; other states and jurisdictions have developed similar tools. 40 The use of the population perspective would facilitate the analysis of health policy problems. Inclusion of scores from tools such as CalEnviroScreen would provide a transparent and open system to guide policy decisions in this arena.

Coordination

Finally, any approach should focus on coordination. The Lancet Commission made this point most clearly:

[governments should] adopt mechanisms to facilitate collaboration between Ministries of Health and other government departments, empowering health professionals and ensuring that health and climate considerations are thoroughly integrated in government-wide strategies. A siloed approach to protecting human health from climate change will not work. 41 (p1862)

Legal scholars suggested multiple approaches to achieving this coordination and noted the difficulties in designing a legal regimen that could manage the complex issues associated with this topic. 6 California addressed this coordination issue in several ways. Three are worth noting: participation in subnational agreements; the Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Program (ICARP) at the Office of Planning and Research to coordinate among levels of government; and the Climate Action Team to coordinate within the state government. California worked with other jurisdictions on a subnational level to coordinate efforts around climate change. These included the Western Climate Initiative, which is made of up of several Western states and Canadian provinces and agreements with subnational counterparts in China. 42 ICARP was created in 2015 to provide a framework for coordinating among state, regional, and local governments. The framework also created a Technical Advisory Council to assist planning efforts. At the state government level, California relies on a Climate Action Team composed of state agency secretaries and the heads of various boards and departments. This team is led by the Secretary of CalEPA. Each of these approaches are important steps in coordinating responses to climate change and might be the most important and challenging aspect of public health policy and its approach to climate change.

The actual approaches to coordination are less important than understanding the role of politics and political will in responding to initiatives linked to climate change. A key factor contributing to the creation of these systems has been strong grassroots and community support, coupled with strong leadership in state government. Public health advocates and practitioners must be more tightly integrated into these coordination initiatives. They must lead the efforts to coordinate health responses within our complex and uncoordinated health care systems. Without a formal mechanism to coordinate the various funding sources and state policy objectives, we see a mismatch between health burden and health resources. Although policies in California emphasize the importance of coordination and are taking great strides, this issue has not moved into the policy fore in the way SB 535 moved environmental justice concerns into the realm of mitigation policy. This coordination of policy efforts may be the most difficult legal and policy challenge facing the public health sector as it seeks to address the health impacts of climate change.

CONCLUSIONS

The California approach demonstrated how to link resources to outcomes in a way that emphasized accountability and to connect mitigation and adaptation concerns. However, the experiences of the San Joaquin Valley region suggested a need for greater coordination of resources. Importantly, we believe California might have benefited from linking adaptation and mitigation policy from the beginning. Legal theorists also suggested that an approach that addresses both mitigation and adaptation as part of one regulatory policy might be useful. 5 California’s experience suggests that, to be effective, coordination must be incentivized, there must be political will, and the issues might need to be mandated. Finally, we believe that there are opportunities to link climate change and public health policy. For jurisdictions that rely on tools such as CalEnviroScreen to link climate change and health, policymakers must understand fully the inclusion and exclusion of population and environmental indicators and their implications for health equity. Focusing on the health implications of climate change and the health cobenefits of mitigation strategies might benefit the health of populations, as well as address the ongoing and future impacts of climate change. California’s successes, challenges, and willingness to update policy in this area are all instructive for communities working to prepare for the health effects of climate change and to mitigate its causes.

HUMAN PARTICIPANT PROTECTION

No protocol approval was necessary for this study because no human participants were involved.

See also Perker-Flynn, p. S58 .

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

How relevant is climate change research for climate change policy? An empirical analysis based on Overton data

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Science Policy and Strategy Department, Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society, Munich, Germany, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation SciTech Strategies, Inc., Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC), Berlin, Germany

• Lutz Bornmann, 
• Robin Haunschild, 
• Kevin Boyack, 
• Werner Marx, 
• Jan C. Minx

• Published: September 22, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274693
• Reader Comments

Climate change is an ongoing topic in nearly all areas of society since many years. A discussion of climate change without referring to scientific results is not imaginable. This is especially the case for policies since action on the macro scale is required to avoid costly consequences for society. In this study, we deal with the question of how research on climate change and policy are connected. In 2019, the new Overton database of policy documents was released including links to research papers that are cited by policy documents. The use of results and recommendations from research on climate change might be reflected in citations of scientific papers in policy documents. Although we suspect a lot of uncertainty related to the coverage of policy documents in Overton, there seems to be an impact of international climate policy cycles on policy document publication. We observe local peaks in climate policy documents around major decisions in international climate diplomacy. Our results point out that IGOs and think tanks–with a focus on climate change–have published more climate change policy documents than expected. We found that climate change papers that are cited in climate change policy documents received significantly more citations on average than climate change papers that are not cited in these documents. Both areas of society (science and policy) focus on similar climate change research fields: biology, earth sciences, engineering, and disease sciences. Based on these and other empirical results in this study, we propose a simple model of policy impact considering a chain of different document types: The chain starts with scientific assessment reports (systematic reviews) that lead via science communication documents (policy briefs, policy reports or plain language summaries) and government reports to legislative documents.

Citation: Bornmann L, Haunschild R, Boyack K, Marx W, Minx JC (2022) How relevant is climate change research for climate change policy? An empirical analysis based on Overton data. PLoS ONE 17(9): e0274693. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274693

Editor: Alberto Baccini, University of Siena, Italy, ITALY

Received: March 21, 2022; Accepted: September 1, 2022; Published: September 22, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Bornmann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The data underlying the results presented in the study are available from https://doi.org/10.17617/3.DUY0LD .

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

People have long believed that nature is so vast and powerful that mankind has not the potential for any major and lasting effect on the earth’s climatic system. One century ago, Arrhenius [ 1 ], one of the discoverers of the greenhouse effect, even welcomed a hotter climate for Northern Europe. According to Weart [ 2 ], the World Climate Conference in Geneva in 1979 and the reports of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1983 are important milestones at the beginning of the climate debate, particularly beyond the scientific community.

In the 1960s many experts assumed that swings of the global mean temperature take tens of thousands of years; in the 1970s, they assumed thousands of years. Meanwhile, ice core data from the last Glacial Period show that abrupt global warming is possible and can happen within a few decades or even within a few years as a climate shock [see 3 , climate change beyond 2100, irreversibility and abrupt changes]. In the 1980s, climate change was no longer a theoretical problem. It was widely agreed among experts that global warming could be a concrete threat. A growing number of well-respected climate researchers (like Roger Revelle, Stephen Schneider, James Hansen, Bert Bolin) were deeply concerned and pointed out that the earth was getting noticeably warmer. A series of meetings of meteorologists held in Villach, Austria, led to a growing conviction that global warming may not be a problem of the far future but might become serious within the scientists’ own lifetimes. Subsequently, scientists took an active stance and prompted governments to act soon, because the rate and degree of future warming could be influenced by governmental policy [see 2 , breaking into policy].

The year 1988 marked an important turning point for climate science and policy. Supported by governments around the globe, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was founded under the roof of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as a unique science-policy interface. The panel, i.e., participating governments, tasked a set of elected scientists to assess the state of climate science in dedicated reports, i.e., to review and synthesize scientific information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of climate change and of its risk, its environmental, political, and economic impacts and possible response options (see https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ ). The latest report is from 2021 [ 4 ].

These assessments follow strict principles and procedures (see https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/09/ipcc-principles.pdf and https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/09/ipcc-principles-appendix-a-final.pdf ) to ensure policy relevance without being policy prescriptive. Hundreds of scientists and other experts contribute to the assessment in diverse author teams from a wide range of disciplines including climate physics, engineering, economics, geography, political science, psychology, sociology or urban science and from different world regions to ensure balanced findings. Review is another critical element of IPCC reports. Authors have to respond to tens of thousands of submitted comments by experts and governments in two rounds of review. Important for the dignity of IPCC assessments in the political sphere is the formal acceptance of the reports by the 195 member countries and the line-by-line approval of the summary for policymakers [ 5 – 8 ].

IPCC has been designed and used as the prime scientific input to international climate diplomacy under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change–and as such contributed to international climate agreements–most importantly, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile, climate policy has become an integral part of most national policy programs. These programs include political actions that governments take to achieve the goal of limiting climate change and its consequences [see 9 ].

In its summary for policymakers, the Climate change 2014 synthesis report [ 3 ] states that “human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems” (p. 2). A recent study found that detectable and attributable climate impacts are documented in tens of thousands of scientific studies affecting 80% of the world’s land area, where 85% of the world population resides [ 10 ]. As such, it is unsurprising that the topic of climate change has become a hot topic in political and public debates and now features widely on political agendas across many different fields.

In this study, we deal with the question of how research on climate change and policy are connected. According to Yin, Gao [ 11 ], the systematic understanding of the connection between science and policy is still limited, since reliable data are missing on a global scale. In 2019, however, the new Overton database of policy documents was released including links to research papers that are cited by policy documents. Yang, Huang [ 9 ] define policy documents in this context as “‘carriers’ of policies … [that] provide a channel through which policy science researchers can study the main contents of policies, policymaking processes and policy instruments”. Using Overton data, Yin, Gao [ 11 ] analyzed the connection between science and policy with respect to COVID-19. They found that “many policy documents in the COVID-19 pandemic substantially access recent, peer-reviewed, and high-impact science. And policy documents that cite science are especially highly cited within the policy domain. At the same time, there is a heterogeneity in the use of science across policy-making institutions. The tendency for policy documents to cite science appears mostly concentrated within intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), such as the World Health Organization (WHO), and much less so in national governments, which consume science largely indirectly through the IGOs” (p. 128).

Impact measurement of scientific papers on the policy area is part of a new branch in scientometrics: measurement of societal impact [ 12 ]. Whereas science impact measurements of papers were restricted to citation analyses (using Web of Science, WoS, or Scopus data) until recently, societal impact measurements are focused on impact analyses of papers on other parts of society than science [ 13 ]. One part of the society is of special interest in this respect: the policy area. The policy area is permanently required to find answers on certain societal demands (such as COVID-19 or climate change). Since science permanently produces research results that can (and should) be used in the response to these demands, it is interesting to know, whether and to what extent this happens. Fang, Dudek [ 14 ] defines the term ‘policy impact’ in this respect as impact that “tells the story of how research outputs provide concrete evidence to support policy-making processes, which can be reflected by the references to research outputs in policy documents”. The use of research findings in the policy-making process is denoted as evidence-based policy-making [ 15 ] or science-based policy-making [ 16 ]. OPENing UP [ 17 ] regards “informing policy and influencing decisions … as one of the most notable effects of scientific research” (p. 24).

Overview of studies on policy impact

The overview of studies dealing with the use of scientific information/publications in policy making by Vilkins and Grant [ 18 ] reveals that a number of studies exists that are based on interviews and surveys (with policymakers). These studies show, e.g., that the use of scientific publications in policy documents seems to depend on organizational culture and perspectives towards their use. Furthermore, some policy areas (such as information technology) use scientific information more frequently than others (e.g., immigration or justice). The use of scientific information in policy might be distinguished according to three stylized purposes: “‘instrumental’ use is direct and measurable for policy; ‘conceptual’ use … [is] indirect but rather affects thinking over a longer period of time; ‘symbolic’ use is when specific findings are selected for rhetorical or political argument” [ 18 ]. Sources of scientific information preferred by policymakers are the internet, meetings, and emailing colleagues. Yang, Huang [ 9 ] reviewed some studies that have analyzed networks of policymaking institutions to gain insights into their relationships. These studies focused on policymaking organizations’ networks, public service organizations’ networks, and policy collaboration networks.

In the area of altmetrics research, a recent overview of studies on measuring policy impact using altmetric data can be found in Fang, Dudek [ 14 ] and Yang, Huang [ 9 ]. A number of studies has used policy impact data from Altmetric ( https://www.altmetric.com ) or PlumX ( https://plumanalytics.com ) [see 19 , 20 ]. Very recent studies used Overton data [e.g., 11]. In the following, we summarize some of these policy impact studies chronologically. One of the first studies in this new altmetrics area was published by Bornmann, Haunschild [ 21 ] using an extensive publication set of climate change papers. The authors were interested in the question of how intensively policy documents have cited science publications. Although climate change is an ongoing policy topic worldwide, they found that only 1.2% out of 191,276 papers on climate change in the dataset have at least one policy citation (using data from Altmetric). The results of Bornmann, Haunschild [ 21 ] revealed that review papers were more frequently cited in policy documents than articles. In order to investigate whether the percentage of 1.2% can be thought of as high or low, two of the authors investigated the percentage of papers indexed in the WoS that are mentioned in policy-related documents [ 22 ]. They found that less than 0.5% are mentioned at least once. Thus, the results show that although only 1.2% of climate change papers were relevant for policy documents, this percentage is substantially higher than the percentage among all papers from the database.

Vilkins and Grant [ 18 ] did not use data from Altmetric or PlumX for their empirical study, but used publications from policy-focused Australian Government departments. The authors were interested in the research and reference practices of Australian policymakers. The study is based on 4,649 cited references in 80 government publications from eight departments. They found that mostly peer-reviewed journal articles, federal government reports, and Australian business information have been cited. The study also revealed “a possible increased chance for academic research to be cited if it was open access. Despite criticisms of citation analysis, at least in the field of research utilisation we cannot solely rely on interview or survey data, as cited evidence use differs from reported evidence use” [ 18 ].

Tattersall and Carroll [ 23 ] used Altmetric policy documents data to investigate policy impact of papers published by authors at the University of Sheffield. They found that 0.65% of the papers were cited by at least one policy document. This percentage is slightly higher than that mentioned by Haunschild and Bornmann [ 22 ] for the WoS database. The field-specific policy-impact analysis revealed that “the research topics with the greatest policy impact are medicine, dentistry, and health, followed by social science and pure science” [ 23 ]. In a more recent study, Yang, Huang [ 9 ] used the Chinese database iPolicy that includes policy documents issued by the Chinese government since 1949. The authors used the data to construct networks of policy-making ministries and government departments. They were interested in identifying core policymakers in China and possible changes of their positions in the networks. Yang, Huang [ 9 ] present 15 ministries in China with the highest eigenvector centrality as core government ministries in the policy networks.

Fang, Costas [ 24 ] focused on hot research topics reflected by citations in policy documents (using Altmetric.com data). The study is based on more than 10 million WoS papers published in various disciplines. The authors identified the hot topics in various broad disciplines. For example, they found that infectious diseases were typically of concern to policy-makers, but also topics that focus on industry and finance as well as child and education. In addition, “potential health-threatening environment problems (e.g., ‘ambient air pollution’, ‘environmental tobacco smoke’, ‘climate change’, etc.) drew high levels of attention from policy-makers too” [ 24 ].

Hicks and Isett [ 25 ] published a case study that investigated the policy impact of papers published in the area of quantitative studies of science. The authors speculated that many papers in this area have limited policy impact, but some papers such as the papers selected for their case study received a lot of policy impact. Hicks and Isett [ 25 ] explain in detail the policy impact of the selected papers. For example, the authors selected the well-known study by Mansfield [ 26 ], Mansfield [ 27 ] that estimated the social rate of return to public research spending. Hicks and Isett [ 25 ] describe the diverse policy impact reached by this paper using several sources.

In the most recent study, Pinheiro, Vignola-Gagné [ 28 ] used publication data from Framework Programmes (FPs) for Research and Technological Development. The authors investigated the relationship of cross-disciplinarity on the paper level and policy impact measured by policy citation data from the Overton database. Pinheiro, Vignola-Gagné [ 28 ] conclude as follows: “Our approach enables testing in a general way the assumption underlying many funding programs, namely that cross-disciplinary research will increase the policy relevance of research outcomes. Findings suggest that research assessments could benefit from measuring uptake in policy-related literature, following additional characterization of the Overton database; of the science-policy interactions it captures; and of the contribution of these interactions within the larger policymaking process” (p. 616).

Dataset used

For many years, policy documents’ and policy citations’ data were aggregated only by the companies Altmetric and PlumX. Recently, however, the Overton database (see https://www.overton.io ) was launched with the goal of becoming the largest database of policy documents and citations [ 29 ]. In Overton, policy documents are defined “very broadly as documents written primarily for or by policymakers” (see http://help.overton.io/en/articles/3823271-what-s-your-definition-of-a-policy-document ). Overton includes documents from governments, think tanks (i.e., research institutions that perform research and advocacy in climate change), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs, i.e., organizations that are composed of states) (see http://help.overton.io/en/articles/5062448-which-publications-does-overton-collect ). The database includes not only various bibliographic information on policy documents (e.g., title and appearance), but also the citation links that exist between policy and science as well as among the policy documents in the database themselves. The citation relations are identified by Overton by using text-mining methods. According to Yin, Gao [ 11 ], the Overton database “includes all major economies and large population centers, with a notable exception of mainland China” (p. 128). The database is updated on a weekly basis. In December 2020, the database includes 799,716 policy documents with citation relations to either other policy documents or scientific papers in 66 different languages from 168 countries (including the European Union and IGOs) and more than 1250 different policy sources.

Yin, Gao [ 11 ] studied the reliability of the science-policy citations in the Overton database, by comparing them with the citation links provided by the Microsoft Academic Graph database (see https://academic.microsoft.com/home ). The results show that “although the two datasets are collected for different purposes using different approaches and technologies, the measurements carried out independently across the two datasets show remarkable consistencies” (p. SI). Since the results by Yin, Gao [ 11 ] confirm the reliability of the Overton data, we decided to use the data for the current study on climate change. Overton provided a snapshot (dated December 04, 2020) of their database to some of us (LB and RH). This snapshot has been imported into a local PostgreSQL database at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (Stuttgart, Germany). After an analysis of publication dates of policy documents and consultation with Euan Adie (Overton), we excluded the policy documents with the publication dates ‘1970-01-01’, ‘1970-01-02’, and ‘2002-07-01’ from our analysis because they were confirmed as ‘dummy’ publication dates by Euan Adie or contained many policy documents published later than the specified date (see https://help.overton.io/article/why-am-i-seeing-unknown-date-instead-of-a-publication-date ). We used PostgreSQL and R [ 30 ] commands including the R package ‘tidyverse’ [ 31 ] for data analysis.

We searched in the fields ‘title’, ‘translated title’, and ‘snippet’ for climate-change-related terms in the Overton snapshot. We searched for ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ (note that both terms were truncated on both sides and a single arbitrary character was allowed instead of the white space between the words) to cover the bulk of policy documents that are related to climate change. The search strategy is based on keyword analyses in connection with search queries of previous climate change related papers [ 21 , 22 ]. We found 10,846 policy documents that met the climate change search criteria out of 799,716 policy documents with any citation relation to a scientific paper or another policy document.

The Overton database includes links to scientific publications via digital object identifiers (DOIs)–“scholarly” references in Overton must have a DOI. There are 8,533,973 citation relations from 492,958 policy documents to 3,242,626 scientific papers. We used the SciTech Strategies’ in-house version of Scopus containing 52.04 million items indexed as of May 2020 and published between 1996 and 2019 as a database for scientific papers. 76.7% of these items have a DOI. We were able to match 2,071,085 DOIs cited in Overton to Scopus papers. Thus, nearly 4.98% of Scopus items with a DOI have been cited by policy documents indexed in the Overton database. This is substantially higher than the 1.12% mentioned in Fang, Costas [ 24 ].

We used the journal metric CiteScore to measure the citation impact of journals [ 32 ]. It is the mean number of citations for papers published in a journal. For the current study, CiteScore values were downloaded from https://www.scopus.com/sources.uri on November 10, 2020. The most current CiteScore values from 2019 were used for our analyses.

Policy documents

This study is based on 10,846 climate change policy documents covered in the Overton database. This corresponds to 1.36% of all policy documents in the database. Fig 1 shows the distribution of the climate change policy documents across publication years. For a better interpretation of this distribution, we also included distributions for all policy documents in the Overton database and the papers on climate change in the Scopus database. The comparison of climate change with all policy documents reveals that the climate change policy documents reached a plateau in 2015 whereas all policy documents steadily increased until 2018. Since the scientific paper distribution also shows a steadily increasing trend, it seems that the discussion of climate change in the policy area reached its maximum several years ago (at least temporarily).

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Policy documents can be published by various types of institutions. Based on the classification of these institution types used in Overton, Fig 2 shows the percentage of policy documents published by think tanks, governments, and IGOs. The comparison of climate change policy documents with all policy documents in Fig 2 reveals that climate change documents were published by think tanks and IGOs at higher than expected rates given their overall share of policy documents; fewer climate change documents were published by governments than expected.

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This substantially lower share of climate documents issued by governments could be a reflection of their hesitance in dealing with the problem of climate change as documented in continued emissions growth [ 33 – 35 ] as well as the gap between long-term ambition and short-term actions [ 36 , 37 ]. NGOs and IGOs might be particularly active in the field of climate change. IGOs, for example, may consider climate change as a problem of international coordination in nature.

Fig 3 analyzes sectors publishing policy documents in more detail by considering single institutions. The figure shows the relationship for single institutions between number of policy documents and number of climate change policy documents. On the one hand, the results reveal those institutions (with high output) that are focused on climate change and those institutions that deal with climate change besides other topics. For example, due to its focus on a sector that is highly vulnerable to climate change, documents by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations cover frequently the topic of climate change (please see the interactive version of Fig 3 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274693.g003

This is different in the field of health. Policy documents by the World Health Organization often do not cover climate change, even though this is starting to change now. This corresponds to the comparatively small share of publications in the field of medicine related to climate change research [ 38 ]–even though there is a sizable and fast-growing number of research papers on climate and health in absolute terms [ 39 ]. On the other hand, the colors of the institutional dots in Fig 3 point out the relatively high number of think tanks and IGOs with a focus on climate change–of which some like the Global Warming Policy Foundation are alleged to focus on global warming misinformation and ‘climate sceptic’ contents ( https://www.desmog.com/climate-disinformation-database/ ).

Papers cited in policy documents

In this section, we additionally consider the literature cited by climate change policy documents. We would like to know, for example, (1) whether these documents focus on recently published or older science literature and (2) the research institutions that seem to be very important for the policy area (since they were frequently cited). Fig 4 shows the document types of the publications cited by climate change policy documents. In order to facilitate the interpretation of the results, the results for all policy documents have been added. We have aggregated “article in progress” with “article”. The type “other” contains empty document type entries, “abstract”, and “missing”. The results in the figure show that most policy documents reference “articles”, followed by “reviews” and “conference papers”. The other document types play a minor role. The referencing behavior seems rather similar in policy documents in general and in policy documents that are related to climate change.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274693.g004

Yin, Gao [ 11 ] found that “the COVID-19 policy frontier appears to be deeply grounded in extremely recent, peer-reviewed scientific insights” (p. 129). We expect there to be a similarly short time lag for climate change research on the one hand; but we can imagine a “classics” effect that certain foundational papers are referred to over and over again on the other hand (some of the policy documents might actually reiterate outdated findings/outliers as well). For scientific papers that cite other scientific papers, the results indicate a “classics” effect: If we look at cited references in papers, the average reference age is 13.1 years for all items in Scopus from 1996 to 2019. However, on average, climate change papers (published between 2010 and 2019) cite other scientific papers that are on average 9.7 years old. In this study, we also investigated the time between appearance of the policy document and its cited scientific papers. This difference is on average 5.8 years for climate change policy documents and 6.7 years for all policy documents. Both differences are significantly shorter than the average references ages in scientific papers and correspond to the results by Yin, Gao [ 11 ].

Fig 5 shows the proportions of accumulated citations of scientific papers in climate change policy documents over time. These proportions are compared with the proportions in all policy documents. We expected that climate change policy documents cite more recently published papers than other policy documents because of the great societal relevance of the topic. The results in Fig 5 show that this is indeed the case: The distribution for climate change policy documents increases faster than the distribution that refers to all policy documents. Yin, Gao [ 11 ] found a similar result for COVID-19 policy documents–another topic with high societal relevance.

The publication year differences are the time between publication year of the policy document and publication year of the scientific paper.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274693.g005

We expected that policy documents preferentially cite papers published in reputable journals. The most valuable papers can be expected to be published in these journals. The results by Yin, Gao [ 11 ] show, for example, that “COVID-19 policy documents disproportionately reference peer-reviewed insights, drawing especially heavily on top medical journals, both general (such as Lancet) and specialized (such as Clinical Infectious Diseases)” (p. 129). In this study, we used CiteScore as the indicator for measuring reputation. Fig 6 shows the correlation between number of policy document citations received by papers in various scientific journals and the CiteScore of these journals. With a Spearman rank correlation coefficient of 0.24 (on the journal level), the relationship between journal reputation and policy citations is quite low.

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One reason for the low correlation might be that Citescore values at the top of the distribution are very spread out. If one were to use journal ranks rather than using Citescore, the coefficient would likely be much higher. In fact, this is the argument made in Fig 7 . We found that scientific literature cited in policy documents is frequently published in high-impact journals: 69.31% of the papers with at least one policy citation were published in first-quartile journals. Thus, one can expect that policy citations of scientific papers correlate with citations of these papers in the scientific literature.

In the first journal quartile, e.g., are those journals that belong to the 25% of the journals with the highest CiteScore in their subject areas. For about 7% of the journals, a CiteScore was not available.

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The results by Yin, Gao [ 11 ] for COVID-19 policy documents show that “the coronavirus research used by policy-makers aligns with what scientists heavily engage with themselves” (p. 129). In this study, the Spearman rank correlation coefficient between Scopus citations and policy citations of papers (n = 2,071,085) that were cited by policy documents at least once is 0.16. The correlation coefficient is slightly higher (0.20) between Scopus citations and policy citations of papers (n = 102,372) that were cited by climate change policy documents at least once. However, climate change papers that are cited in climate change policy documents received significantly more citations (between 3.3 and 5.6 times) on average than climate change papers that are not cited in these documents (see Fig 8 ).

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Fig 9 includes the journal perspective to show the correlation between the number of climate change policy document citations and Scopus citations. The Spearman rank correlation between both citation counts is high at 0.81. The results in the figure point out that some journals receive more policy citations than can be expected based on science citations such as Climatic Change and Nature Climate Change . These climate change specific journals have emerged more recently. We speculate that the scientific communities of some highly specialized research topics are comparatively small, thereby limiting the mean number of citations per paper. Nature and Science papers received many citations in both areas of science and policy.

The size of the circles reflects the CiteScore of the journals (Spearman rank correlation = 0.81; an interactive version can be viewed at: https://s.gwdg.de/4weLvb ).

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The journal analyses in the previous figures could not reveal the field-specific orientation of the papers cited in climate change policy documents. The journals that are labeled in the figures are mostly multi-disciplinary journals such as Science or Nature or are directly related to climate change. In order to explore the fields in which papers cited in climate change policy documents were published, we produced so called overlay maps that are presented in Fig 10 . The overlay maps were created using the global mapping process outlined in Boyack and Klavans [ 40 ]. Here, clustering was done on 46.14 million Scopus-indexed documents (1996–2019) and 27.23 million non-indexed documents cited at least twice with over 1.1 billion citation links using the Leiden algorithm [ 41 ]. Graph layout was then done on the resulting 104,677 clusters using OpenOrd/DrL [ 42 ] and cluster-level relatedness based on the bm25 text relevance measure, which has been shown to produce better clustering than a simple tf-idf measure [ 43 – 45 ].

The maps include (1) all papers, (2) climate change papers, (3) climate change papers with at least one policy citation, (4) all papers in Scopus with at least one policy citation.

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Over 11% of Scopus-indexed documents were not included in clusters or the map because they had no references and were not cited. Each cluster is represented as a dot on the map and was assigned to its dominant field (and colored) using the journal-to-field assignments from the UCSD map of science [ 46 ]. Clusters with similar topical content are close to each other on the map. Aggregations of clusters can be perceived as discipline-level structures; local areas that contain clusters of many colors are multidisciplinary. Although dot sizes for overlays are based on the number of documents matching overlay criteria, the intent is to provide a qualitative (gestalt) visual view of the data, e.g. to show where result sets are concentrated or if they are evenly spread throughout the map.

Fig 10 shows four maps for comparison: (1) All papers from Scopus, (2) Climate change papers in total, (3) Climate change papers with at least one policy citation, and (4) Papers with at least one policy citation. Comparing map (2) with map (3), for example, one can see that there are areas with climate change papers (such as computer science, pink in map 2) that are not well cited by climate change policy documents–there is far less pink in map 3 than in map 2.

Similar to all papers from the Scopus database shown in map (1) of Fig 10 , papers with at least one policy citation extend across all scientific fields [see map (4) of Fig 10 ]. However, some major fields appear less pronounced in map 4: in particular chemistry, physics, computer sciences, and engineering. Biology, disease sciences, and health sciences are accentuated, indicating that in general these fields are more policy relevant. The fields of climate change papers in map 2 of Fig 10 are concentrated in biology, earth sciences, engineering, disease sciences, and physics (less pronounced). Climate change papers with at least one policy citation [see map 3 of Fig 10 ] show a field-specific pattern similar to the overall climate change policy papers in map 2. It seems that politics does not have a specific field, but reflects the field-specific orientation of climate change research.

For COVID-19 research, Yin, Gao [ 11 ] investigated the temporal shift of the literature cited in policy documents concerning the field-specific distribution (compared to the whole policy literature). Their results reveal “a clear shift from drawing primarily on the biomedical literature to citing economics, society, and other fields of study, which is consistent with overall shifts in policy focus” [ 11 ]. In this study, we also investigated whether there is a field-specific shift using the 27 high-level ASJC journal categories. Fig 11 shows the field-specific orientation of papers (with policy citations) over the entire period (1996–2019). For better readability of the figure, we used the top 10 ASJCs of both sets of papers (Scopus papers with policy citations and Scopus papers that were cited by climate change policy documents) and obtained twelve ASJCs as common top 10 ASJCs (the interactive version of the figure shows the same analysis with all 27 ASJCs). Fig 11 demonstrates that there are some subtle shifts but the early years (2000–2010) suffer from small number effects relative to the most recent decade. Climate change policy documents cite different fields than the whole. The large shifts shown in Yin, Gao [ 11 ] aren’t seen here, but COVID-19 is a rather unique situation where social concerns followed after the medical ones on a short time scale.

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Scientific institutions and policy sources involved in political climate change discussions

In the final section of the empirical results, we focus on the scientific institutions and policy sources that are involved in the political climate change discussions. We are interested in the policy sources that are very active in political climate change discussions (and decisions) and science institutions that provide research results as inputs for the discussions. Table 1 shows the policy sources with the highest number of climate change policy documents. The table also reveals the number of scientific papers cited by these institutions and the number of climate change papers (the number in brackets is the number of policy documents citing the climate change papers). The results show that Publications Office of the European Union and World Bank are the institutions with the most climate change policy documents. According to Euan Adie (founder and director of Overton) the Publications Office of the European Union is a special case as it aggregates documents from many different EU agencies. Cross-regional institutions such as European Union and World Bank are best-suited for dealing with global issues and thus are focused on major problems such as global warming.

The table also reveals the number of scientific papers cited by these institutions and the number of climate change papers (the number in brackets is the number of policy documents citing the climate change papers).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274693.t001

Table 2 focuses on policy sources that are rooted in climate change research. The results in the table reveal that IPCC is the source that referenced the largest number of papers. Considering the large amount of scientific information collected and presented in the various IPCC reports over many years, this is not surprising as the assessment of the scientific literature on climate change is its core mandate.

The table shows policy sources that cited more than 4.000 papers.

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We differentiated the results in Table 2 further by specifically looking at government, IGO, and think tank sources: We show policy sources in Table 3 that cite science for governments, IGOs, and think tanks. Yin, Gao [ 11 ] reveal the results of similar analyses based on COVID-19 datasets. The results show that governments and IGOs are of similar importance, both with regard to the overall number of policy documents and climate change related policy documents. The top ranked think tanks produced about half of the overall number of policy documents compared to the top ranked governmental organizations and IGOs. Their share of climate change research related documents is roughly the same.

The table differentiates between all documents of the sources citing these papers and documents focussing on climate change.

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Table 4 is related to the cited institution side of the science-policy link: Which science institutions received the most citations from policy documents? The table presents reputable institutions of climate change research or research units located at universities, with the University of East Anglia with its long-lasting tradition in climate change research and meteorology at the top.

The table includes all institutions with more than 2000 papers cited.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274693.t004

It is noteworthy that throughout Tables 2 to 4 , we find institutions that are alleged to focus on climate misinformation according to the Climate Disinformation Database ( https://www.desmog.com/climate-disinformation-database/ ) like the Heartland Institute, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Heritage Foundation, and Acton Institute; those are very active publishers of policy documents. The Acton Institute also features among the most prolific think thanks publishing policy documents related to climate change. In the overall climate change dataset, we found 17 policy organizations that are listed in the Climate Disinformation Database. The organizations produced 99 policy documents (that cited any Scopus paper) within our dataset; these documents cited 6507 Scopus papers. That is 1.4% of the policy documents and 4.1% of the cited Scopus papers in our dataset.

The use of results and recommendations from research on climate change might be reflected in citations of scientific papers in policy documents. Studies analyzing the impact of research on policy belong to the area of societal impact measurements in scientometrics [ 13 ]. According to Vilkins and Grant [ 18 ], “capturing this impact on policy has significant potential benefits, including showing the impact of research on real-world settings, and building a better case for support for researchers and institutions or even broader research directions” (p. 1682). For Yin, Gao [ 11 ] policy-science citations may occur “for different reasons … including (i) instrumental uses (knowledge directly applied to solve problems); (ii) conceptual uses (research influences or informs the way policymakers think); (iii) tactical uses (citing research to support or challenge an idea) among others, suggesting the need to understand the semantics of the policy science citations” (p. SI).

This study focusses on the connection of climate change research and policy. The study is based on data from the (new) Overton database including policy documents (10,846 climate change policy documents covered in the database) and their citations of scientific publications. With this study, we followed other studies using Overton data investigating links between policy and research (e.g., on COVID-19). Although the Overton database captures a large collection of policy documents, potential biases in coverage and data sample cannot be excluded [ 11 ]. For example, the Overton providers will not have access to many governmental archives, and if they have access, it will be restricted to only a part of the existing documents. Other shortcomings of Overton are mentioned by Yang, Huang [ 9 ]: “the metadata of such policy documents cannot reveal the semantic information contained in the policy process. At the same time, some policy documents have unstructured features, so attribute identification and labeling may be required”.

Overton uses a very broad definition of policy documents, i.e., “documents primarily written by and for policy makers”. The idea behind this is to cover not only text that documents the policy or legislation itself in the corpus, but also documents that were written to inform or influence decisions. Our analyses do not distinguish between those two fundamentally different classes of policy documents. Documents written for policymakers are often written with the purpose to inform or influence documents authored by policymakers and are as such fundamentally different from documents authored by scientists. Moreover, under this wide umbrella definition there are very different types of documents: scientific assessments by the scientific community, legislations, policy reports by IGOs and NGOs, policy briefs, speeches etc.

The different nature of these documents explains some of the results here. For example, it is the main purpose of scientific assessments as those by IPCC to assess the state of knowledge in climate change research and inform international climate diplomacy and national climate policy with robust evidence. In nature, these assessments are comprehensive reviews of the literature with tens of thousands of references. On the other hand, policy briefs are designed for communications and often deliberately strip out literature sources. The policy impact analysis in this study, therefore to some extent simply highlights different policy document types. Any interpretation of policy impact of research can only be undertaken based on such an important caveat.

In this study, we empirically targeted several aspects of the connection between climate change research and policy. Focusing on the time trend of this connection reveals that the discussion of climate change in policy seems to have had its peak some years ago. Although we suspect a lot of uncertainty related to the coverage of policy documents in Overton, there seems to be an impact of international climate policy cycles on policy document publication. We observe local peaks in climate policy documents around major decisions in international climate diplomacy. For example, we observe temporal peaks in policy documents around the failed Copenhagen Summit in 2009 and the Paris Agreement; there is a growth in policy documents from IPCC’s Fifth Assessment in 2013/2014 with a peak in 2015 when the Paris Agreement was made. IPCC reports might play a particular role as they are usually released 2–3 years ahead of major international climate diplomacy events and could trigger substantial co-publication activities. In 2023, the first Global Stocktake on progress with the Paris Agreement is scheduled with IPCC AR6 being released during 2021 and 2022. We might thus expect to see increases in climate change policy documents and citations to the scientific literature in the 2–3 years following.

Various types of institutions publish policy documents. Our results point out that IGOs and think tanks–with a focus on climate change–have published more climate change policy documents than expected given their overall share of policy documents (this result may be partly driven by the biased coverage of the Overton database). The policy documents published by the different types of institutions have especially cited more recent publications. Since climate change is of great societal relevance worldwide, research activities are on a high level (compared to other topics) that can be picked up in a timely manner by the policy area. Although one might expect that policy and science impact correlate (what is relevant for the scientific discourse might be equally relevant for the policy discourse), we found the opposite: The correlation between policy citations and science citations and the correlation between policy citations and the impact factor of the journals publishing the papers are both low. Thus, it seems that both areas of society (science and policy) focus on different papers from climate change research. If the scientific discourse and the policy discourse are scarcely related in terms of citation counts, one might expect that they focus on different fields. Our results reveal, however, that this is not the case: Climate change papers with at least one policy citation are concentrated on similar fields as all climate change papers (biology, earth sciences, engineering, and disease sciences). Since field differences scarcely exist between both publication sets of interest, it would be interesting to explore in future studies how the differences can be characterized by other means.

What are the policy sources that are very active in the political climate change discourse and which scientific institutions provide the necessary scientific information? Our results show that the Publication Offices of the European Union, World Health Organization, and World Bank have published the most climate change policy documents. Since climate change is a worldwide problem and demand, it comes as no surprise that these cross-regional institutions have the highest publication output. The relevant science institutions for policy sources are mostly institutions with high reputation in science–this might be in contrast to the low correlation between science and policy citations on the single paper level. On the institutional level, policy sources seem to trust scientific institutions being renowned for reputable research on climate change (e.g., the University of East Anglia).

In this study, we found that some research outcomes seem to be more relevant for the scientific discourse and some outcomes that seem to be more relevant for the policy area. This discrepancy has been found also in other studies. One reason for the differences might be barriers to academic outcomes from policy institutions such as access to climate change publications [ 18 ]. Another reason might be missing summaries of research results that are understandable for people outside academia. Bornmann and Marx [ 47 ] recommend therefore that researchers should write assessment reports (such as the IPCC) summarizing “the status of the research on a certain subject … Societal impact is given when the content of a report is addressed outside of science (in a government document, for example)” (p. 211).

Our analyses revealed the challenges in measuring policy impact via citation patterns. In fact, the closer a document is related to actual decision-making the fewer citations it may contain. For example, scientific assessments of the literature contain large numbers of citations, but they are not directly used in policy-making. Instead they are further built upon and “translated” in policy briefs, policy reports, briefing notes or ministerial expertise. The final political decision–usually a legal text–usually does not contain any citations. As we move towards real decisions it therefore gets increasingly challenging to measure impact in this way. Future work may therefore be organized around a simple model of policy impact considering a chain of different document types. Scientific assessment reports, systematic reviews or meta-analyses–as recommended by Bornmann and Marx [ 47 ]–may be the starting point as rigorous syntheses of the available summaries. Next might be science communication documents such as policy briefs, policy reports or plain language summaries. Government reports might be compiled to directly inform particular decisions and, finally, legislative documents cover the policies themselves. In this context, Isett and Hicks [ 48 ] speak about knowledge intermediaries in document chains. Future research could attempt measuring the impact on policy along such a document chain. As citations would be expected to fade away as you move down the chain, it will become increasingly relevant to use text mining or other methods from natural language processing (e.g., text similarity approaches; argumentation mining) to measure impact.

Finally, as primary studies are very dependent on their specific research design, data and methods applied, there is a widespread argument that policy should be informed by the most robust scientific evidence and as such be built from secondary research (reviews) whenever possible [ 49 ]. Therefore, future scientometric research may explore to what extent primary and secondary research is used in policy documents and how this varies across different sectors.

Acknowledgments

The bibliometric data used in this paper are from an in-house database developed and maintained by SciTech Strategies, Inc. derived from Scopus, prepared by Elsevier BV (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The policy document data were shared with us by Overton on December 04, 2020.

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Call for case studies on climate change and health

The year 2021 is due to be a crucial year for international climate action, with far-reaching consequences for the long-term health and resilience of communities and societies. In recovering from the global shock caused by COVID-19 - and the resulting damage to livelihoods, health, and sustainable development – governments are increasingly urged to prioritise a healthy and sustainable recovery of their economies that takes into account the broader social and environmental determinants of health.

In May 2020, millions of health professionals called for a healthy recovery , and WHO released its  Manifesto for a green, healthy recovery from COVID-19 , laying out 6 prescriptions and over 70 actionables for more sustainable and healthy societies post-COVID.

In 2021, WHO and the global health community will continue to drive the conversation on recovery and resilience by envisioning how a healthy, equitable recovery from COVID-19 can advance the rapid decarbonization of the world economy. To further this goal, WHO will be collecting case studies on health and climate change, to be highlighted in upcoming events and initiatives throughout the year, including at the COP26 climate conference.

What kind of case studies are we looking for?

We are looking for short, real-life stories about an initiative, project or advocacy campaign that showcase some of the great work that is already being implemented to reduce the impact of climate change on human health, and to help communities and societies recover from COVID-19 and transition to a healthy, climate-resilient and climate-just future. Sharing experiences of less successful case studies and lessons learned is also welcome. 

What should a climate & health case study look like?

• Be solutions-driven : make sure your case study is a concrete and real-life example of progress being made on reducing the impacts of climate change on human health;
• Be visual : share images, video or graphic elements if possible;
• Be diverse : highlight different stakeholders and sectors driving positive change, such as representatives from cities, regions, businesses and civil society from sectors such as health, biodiversity, transport, economy and energy, as well as health professionals, scientists, policymakers, celebrities, local authorities and mayors, government representatives, representatives from vulnerable communities and youth leaders;
• Be personal : show the people behind the initiative, and share at least 1 quote or personal perspective, ideally from a person directly involved in the project or from an expert in the field;
• Be short and concise : limit your story to 1-1.5 page (1200 words max), if possible.

How to submit a case study?

The case studies can be submitted via this online form or in text format (1200 words max) , following the guiding questions , by email to [email protected] . The guiding questions are meant to help you structure your case study and help ensure all relevant information is present, but are not mandatory. Complementing the case studies with visual materials, such as photos from the field, would be most welcome.

Interested organizations and individuals are also encouraged to showcase their projects by submitting a short 1-2 minute video with footage and testimonials from the field, by email to [email protected] . These recordings could be used to create an advocacy video “The healthy, equitable and climate resilient future we want” that will be projected at the 2021 Global Conference on Health and Climate Change at the margin of COP26.

The deadline for submitting the case studies is August 31 st .

How will the case studies be used?

A selection of case studies will be presented at the upcoming Regional consultations on Climate Change and Health prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA) in April-May 2021.

Case studies will also be featured in the COP26 Special Report "The Health Argument for Climate Action", to be published in November 2021, and will be featured on the WHO website and on a forthcoming WHO/WMO Online Portal on Climate Change and Health*.

*Selected submissions will be further co-developed into case studies in collaboration with the WHO climate change team. Case studies aim to highlight the scope and diversity of ongoing global efforts on climate change and health, but do not necessarily imply endorsement from WHO.

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Climate Change and Corporate Governance

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This report provides an overview of the main trends and issues related to the implications of climate change for corporate governance. It focuses on economic, legal and accounting issues related to shareholder rights, corporate disclosure and the responsibilities of company boards. Importantly, this report informs the ongoing review of the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance which help policy makers evaluate and improve the legal, regulatory and institutional framework for corporate governance.

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Climate Change, Public Health, and Policy: A California Case Study

Affiliation.

• 1 Chandrakala Ganesh and Jason A. Smith are with the Department of Nursing and Health Sciences at California State University, East Bay.
• PMID: 29072936
• PMCID: PMC5922194
• DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.304047

Anthropogenic activity will bring immediate changes and disruptions to the global climate with accompanying health implications. Although policymakers and public health advocates are beginning to acknowledge the health implications of climate change, current policy approaches are lagging behind. We proposed that 4 key policy principles are critical to successful policymaking in this arena: mainstreaming, linking mitigation and adaptation policy, applying population perspectives, and coordination. We explored California's progress in addressing the public health challenges of climate change in the San Joaquin Valley as an example. We discussed issues of mental health and climate change, and used the San Joaquin Valley of California as an example to explore policy approaches to health issues and climate change. The California experience is instructive for other jurisdictions.

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• Linking Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change. Parker-Flynn JE. Parker-Flynn JE. Am J Public Health. 2018 Apr;108(S2):S58-S59. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.304294. Am J Public Health. 2018. PMID: 29698091 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

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Under the umbrella of the IAP, more than 140 national, regional and global member academies work together to support the vital role of science in seeking evidence-based solutions to the world’s most challenging problems.

IAP empowers academies and regional academy networks to provide independent, authoritative advice on global, regional and national issues.

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Read the latest news from the IAP and its international network.

Open call for ‘Climate Change and Health’ policy case studies

Climate change has the potential to disrupt the progress of humanity because it affects the provision of food, safe water and clean air on which we all depend, and magnifies already existing socially-mediated risks, such as displacement and access to essential health services. Thus climate change is expected to exacerbate risks to health.

When considering climate adaptation and mitigation actions, therefore, countries must also consider the health impacts of such actions. Not doing so could result in trade-offs and unintended consequences which could ultimately undermine health, while well-designed climate adaptation and mitigation actions can provide opportunities to reduce and prevent risks to health.

To build governments’ awareness of multi-sectoral, systems-based studies and policies, IAP is now calling for examples of case studies of approaches to problem-solving and policies, which have been used to address the interlinked challenges of climate and health. Selected case studies will be edited into a volume to be made freely available that we hope will provide practical examples to decision makers that can be replicated in other situations.

The project builds on the IAP ‘ Climate Change and Health ’ project, as well as the Save the Children’s new strategic initiative ‘ Climate and Health: Accelerating action on climate with health benefits ’.

Priority will be given to case studies that focus on the linkages between climate and health in four thematic areas:

• food systems and agriculture;
• energy, including production, distribution, access, and efficiency;
• urbanization, including urban planning; and
• health systems strengthening.

Submissions of case study summaries should be made using the online form here by 11 June 2023 .

An expert committee will review the submissions and the authors of the most appropriate will be invited to present their case studies at a workshop and follow this up with a full-length case study that will be edited and peer-reviewed for publication by the end of 2023.

It is expected that such a resource of policy-relevant, solutions-oriented case studies will assist governments in improving their practices of addressing climate and health in a holistic way.

For a more technical description of the background to this project and the kinds of case study we are looking for, please refer to the supplementary material here .

Climate Change and Health

The InterAcademy Partnership (IAP)

Sabina Caris

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RBC Global Asset Management: Measuring portfolio net-zero alignment

Suite of climate metrics used to gauge weighted average carbon intensity of portfolios

ClearBridge Investments: Verifying net-zero alignment

Investment universe shaped by net-zero alignment assessments

Allianz: Decarbonisation strategy for listed equity

Differentiated approach addresses the range of strategies used within a core-satellite structure.

EOS at Federated Hermes: promoting human capital management through engagement

2022-05-25T01:00:00+01:00

Case study by EOS at Federated Hermes

Harvest Fund Management: Exercising stewardship to drive transitions towards carbon neutrality

Case study by Harvest Fund Management

ChinaAMC: Improving ESG performance via engagement

Case study by ChinaAMC

Vista Equity Partners: partnering with portfolio companies to measure emissions and set targets

2022-05-13T07:00:00+01:00

Vista Equity Partners is working with portfolio companies to measure, report, reduce and offset greenhouse gas emissions. 

Cycle Capital: Implementing a greenhouse gas emissions measurement strategy

2022-04-13T06:00:00+01:00

Cycle Capital describes its process for assessing and quantifying the impact that it and its investees can have on climate change.

Schroders: Quantifying social and environmental impact

2022-02-18T07:56:00+00:00

Case study by Schroders

Tabula Investment Management: Launching a Paris-aligned bond ETF

2021-12-03T12:00:00+00:00

Case study by Tabula Investment Management

Robeco: Launching a Paris-aligned fixed income strategy

2021-12-03T11:59:00+00:00

Case study by Robeco

Neuberger Berman: Developing a net zero multi-asset class portfolio solution

2021-12-03T11:58:00+00:00

Case study by Neuberger Berman

Cushon: Engaging with pension savers on net-zero investing

2021-12-03T11:57:00+00:00

Case study by Cushon

Andra AP-fonden (AP2): Aligning the portfolio with the EU Paris-aligned Benchmark

2021-12-03T11:46:00+00:00

Case study by Andra AP-fonden (AP2)

Amundi: Facilitating a just transition for climate

2021-12-03T11:42:00+00:00

Case study by Amundi

UniSuper’s Sustainable Path to 2050

2021-11-02T15:40:00+00:00

Case study by UniSuper

2021-11-02T15:34:00+00:00

Case study by KEHATI Foundation

Satellite-based engagement towards no deforestation

2021-11-02T13:44:00+00:00

Case study by ACTIAM

Collaborative engagement against the construction of Vung Ang 2 coal-fired power plant

2021-11-02T13:38:00+00:00

Case study by Nordea Asset Management

Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment

2021-11-02T13:36:00+00:00

Case study by Willis Towers Watson

Prime climate risk ratings

2021-11-02T13:33:00+00:00

Case study by Insight Investment

Incorporating Remote Sensing Data to ESG and Alternative Risk Monitoring

2021-11-02T13:30:00+00:00

Case study by MioTech

Climate & Nature Sovereign Index: WWF & Ninety One

2021-11-02T13:26:00+00:00

Case study by WWF & Ninety One

A climate risk framework for farmland investments

2021-11-02T11:18:00+00:00

Case study by Nuveen

“Preserve, Strengthen, Rebuild” COVID-19 Response

2021-11-02T09:02:00+00:00

Case study by CDC Group

Sustainalytics - 10 for 2021 - Investing in the Circular Food Economy

2021-11-02T08:45:00+00:00

Case study by Sustainalytics

Applying responsible investment principles to multi-asset credit manager selection

2021-06-23T10:24:00+01:00

Organisation name: Brunel Pension Partnership

Engaging external managers on sustainable investment

2021-06-23T10:22:00+01:00

Organisation name: Cardano

ESG Research Platform

2020-11-01T06:00:00+00:00

Case study by Resultante Consultoria

Agile & comprehensive ESG management system

Case study by Abris Capital Partners

The journey to net zero

Case study by M&G Investments

The AXA Impact Fund: climate & biodiversity - making a difference

Case study by AXA Investment Managers

AfricaGrow: a fund of funds for financing African SMEs and start-ups

Case study by Allianz Global Investors

Green for Growth Fund

Case study by Finance in Motion

Analysis of the impact of an investment portfolio on society and on SDGs

Case study by VidaCaixa

The Coller FAIRR Climate Risk Tool

Case study by FAIRR Initiative

2020 ESG Trends project: what are the big challenges for the new decade?

Case study by MSCI

FTSE developed TPI climate transition index – aligning a global equity portfolio with the climate transition

Case study by FTSE Russell, Church of England Pensions Board & Transition Pathway Initiative

Layering climate goals onto a sustainable, risk-targeted, multi-asset strategy

2020-10-16T08:06:00+01:00

Case study by Morgan Stanley Investment Management

EU taxonomy alignment case study: responsAbility

2020-09-25T07:34:00+01:00

Case study by responsAbility Investments AG

EU taxonomy alignment case study: ESG Portfolio Management

2020-09-09T18:20:00+01:00

ESG Portfolio Management’s mission is to advise a diversified set of investment funds and mandates, including on ESG factors, SDG impacts and climate risk.

EU taxonomy alignment case study: Carmignac

2020-09-09T18:19:00+01:00

Carmignac launched a fund in May 2020 to support solutions for climate mitigation while actively engaging with companies to transition their business models and operations to a lower carbon paradigm.

EU taxonomy alignment case study: La Française

2020-09-09T18:17:00+01:00

La Française has been involved in responsible investment for more than a decade and our Carbon Impact product series has been a key element of our ESG investment strategy.

EU taxonomy alignment case study: Neuberger Berman

Neuberger Berman believes the implementation of the taxonomy can help shift global capital flows towards more sustainable economic activities and help prevent the worst consequences of climate change.

EU taxonomy alignment case study: Wells Fargo Asset Management

2020-09-09T18:14:00+01:00

The EU Taxonomy offers some key benefits for users, including guidance on activities to prioritize for decarbonization, climate change adaptation and other environmental goals.

EU taxonomy alignment case study: Impax Asset Management

2020-09-09T18:07:00+01:00

Impax is a specialist asset manager focused on investing in opportunities arising from the transition to a sustainable economy.

EU taxonomy alignment case study: AXA Investment Managers

2020-09-09T18:02:00+01:00

AXA IM has established a definition of green investing for both investment and reporting purposes, using a grid organised around four green categories.

EU taxonomy alignment case study: Morgan Stanley Investment Management

2020-09-09T13:00:00+01:00

As the number of signatories to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) rises, and ESG-integrated assets under management (AUM) across the world reach over $30 trillion, carbon emissions and global temperatures also continue to rise.

Using climate change scenarios in asset liability modelling

2020-08-13T10:24:00+01:00

Case study by BCI

Aligning strategic asset allocation to a +1.5°C world: a proposed framework

2020-08-13T10:23:00+01:00

Case study by AXA Investment Managers

A total portfolio approach to climate alignment, ESG integration and real-world impact

2020-08-13T10:21:00+01:00

Case study by The Scott Trust Limited (Guardian Media Group)

Climate change: optimal choices in strategic asset allocation are a must

2020-08-13T09:05:00+01:00

Case study by ASR Nederland / ASR Asset Management (a.s.r.)

Caisse des Depots Groupe: Climate

2020-08-03T06:45:00+01:00

SDG outcomes case study

STOA SDG case study

2020-07-27T07:13:00+01:00

Signatory type: Private equity investor / Asset ownerOperating region: Developing countriesAssets under management: €180 millionSDG targets: SDGs 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 & 13Practice area: Engagement for impact

Bringing forest projects to the carbon markets

2020-06-18T13:37:00+01:00

Case study by Campbell Global

Integrating climate change in passive investments: A developed markets equity strategy

2020-03-17T12:21:00+00:00

Case study by UBS Asset Management

Incorporating climate considerations into a multi-factor equity index

2020-03-11T11:31:00+00:00

Case study by FTSE Russell

PRI Awards 2019 case study: Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index

2019-09-10T08:53:00+01:00

Company: FAIRR

PRI Awards 2019 case study: Impact-Cubed White Paper

Company: Auriel Investors

PRI Awards 2019 case study: Australian Infrastructure Carbon Emissions Reduction and Energy Efficiency Initiative

2019-09-10T08:52:00+01:00

Company: IFM Investors

Case study: Rio Tinto shareholder resolution 2018 - LGIM's perspective

2018-05-30T16:44:00+01:00

Case study by Legal & General Investment Management

Case study: seeking clarity on third-party lobbying practices

2018-05-30T16:37:00+01:00

Case study by LGS

Case study: focusing on the climate lobbying practices of Swedish companies

2018-05-30T16:30:00+01:00

Case study by Öhman

Case study: understanding lobbying practices as part of carbon risk management

2018-05-30T16:26:00+01:00

Case study by GES International

Case study: Putting the spotlight on corporate climate lobbying

2018-05-30T16:18:00+01:00

Case study by AP7

Case study: Are the world's largest banks stepping up to the risks and opportunities of climate change?

2018-05-30T16:08:00+01:00

Case study by Boston Common Asset Management

Climate lobbying case study: ExxonMobil - perspective from Walden Asset Management

2018-05-30T15:07:00+01:00

Case study by Walden Asset Management

Case study: Shareholder interaction on fracking

2017-01-01T13:05:00+00:00

Case study: Fracking practices at oil and gas companies

2017-01-01T11:25:00+00:00

As part of the PRI Fracking Engagement, a group of PRI investor signatories – led by Martin Currie, a UK-based investment manager – engaged with an Asian oil and gas company.

Weighting vs exclusion in low-carbon indexes

2016-09-05T00:00:00+01:00

Valuing the impact of increasingly stringent environmental regulation

Case study by Standard Life Investments

UN Global Compact companies on COP progress

2013-09-01T16:28:00+01:00

The Carbon Disclosure Project

2013-09-01T15:37:00+01:00

Working with partners for green investment innovation

2012-06-01T00:00:00+01:00

Case study by PKA

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Climate Change and Foreign Policy

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Climate Change and Foreign Policy: Case Studies from East to West and its companion volume, Environmental Change and Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice , examine and explain the role of foreign policy politics, processes and institutions in efforts to protect the environment and natural resources. They seek to highlight international efforts to address human-induced changes to the natural environment, analyze the actors and institutions that constrain and shape actions on environmental issues, show how environmental changes influence foreign policy processes, and critically assess environmental foreign policies.

This book examines the problem of global climate change and assesses the manner in which governments and other actors have attempted to deal with it. It presents a series of in-depth international case studies on climate policy in Australia, Japan, China, Turkey, Hungary, Denmark, France, the European Union and the United States. The authors demonstrate how studying environmental foreign policy can help us to better understand how governments, businesses and civil society actors address—or fail to address—the critical problem climate change.

This book will be of strong interest to scholars and students of environmental policy and politics, foreign policy, public policy, climate change and international relations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 | 17  pages, climate change in environmental foreign policy: science, diplomacy, and politics, chapter 2 | 18  pages, australia at a discursive crossroads: climate change and foreign policy, chapter 3 | 17  pages, japanese foreign policy on climate change: diplomacy and domestic politics, chapter 4 | 15  pages, climate change in chinese foreign policy: internal and external responses, chapter 5 | 17  pages, turkey’s foreign policy on global atmospheric commons: climate change and ozone depletion, chapter 6 | 16  pages, understanding hungary’s environmental foreign policy: the cases of the climate change and biodiversity regimes, chapter 7 | 16  pages, climate change and danish foreign policy: options for greater integration, chapter 8 | 17  pages, environmental foreign policy in france: national interests, nuclear power, and climate protection, chapter 9 | 14  pages, who decides eu foreign policy on climate change actors, alliances, and institutions, chapter 10 | 14  pages, exceptionalism as foreign policy: us climate change policy and an emerging norm of compliance, chapter 11 | 16  pages, mainstreaming adaptation to climate change in official development assistance: challenges to foreign policy integration.

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A String of Supreme Court Decisions Hits Hard at Environmental Rules

Four cases backed by conservative activists in recent years have combined to diminish the power of the Environmental Protection Agency.

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By Coral Davenport

A spate of decisions over the past two years by the Supreme Court has significantly impaired the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to limit pollution in the air and water, regulate the use of toxic chemicals and reduce the greenhouse gasses that are heating the planet.

This term, the court’s conservative supermajority handed down several rulings that chip away at the power of many federal agencies.

But the environmental agency has been under particular fire, the result of a series of cases brought since 2022 by conservative activists who say that E.P.A. regulations have driven up costs for industries ranging from electric utilities to home building. Those arguments have resonated among justices skeptical of government regulation.

On Friday, the court ended the use of what is known as the Chevron doctrine, a cornerstone of administrative law for 40 years that said that courts should defer to government agencies to interpret unclear laws. That decision t hreatens the authority of many federal agencies to regulate the environment and also health care, workplace safety, telecommunications, the financial sector and more.

But more remarkable have been several decisions by the court to intervene to stop environmental regulations before they were decided by lower courts or even before they were implemented by the executive branch.

On Thursday, the court said the E.P.A. could not limit smokestack pollution that blows across state borders under a measure known as the “good neighbor rule.” In that case, the court took the surprising step of weighing in while litigation was still pending at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

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