Judicial Typification of Human Rights Protection Amid Climate Risks:Legal Analysis and Path Choice

In accordance with the canonical sources of the right of legal claim,the targets of judicial review,and the intensity of judicial review intervention policies,lawsuits that directly and indirectly activate the function of human rights protection amid climate risks can be divided into the following categories:climate change lawsuits based on international human rights law,climate change lawsuits based on the domestic constitution,and judicial review of administrative procedures.Due to the singularity of the legal status and force of international human rights law,its“direct applicability”and“explanatory applicability”limit its function in protecting human rights;Climate change lawsuits based on domestic constitutions have the identification of basic right of claim,the judgment of basic rights and function,and the scope of state obligations as the judgment process.Factors such as the difficulty in right typification caused by the integration of climate law and interests,the expansion of discretionary and administrative power in legislation under the context of risk prevention,and the functional boundary of the judicial system cause the dysfunction of the dichotomous review standard of positive rights and negative rights.Procedural rights represent an important dimension of climate-related human rights.With the standardization of administrative procedures on addressing climate risks,the courts are gradually reinforcing decision-making authorities’obligation of due diligence through judicial review of risk decision-making procedures,thus indirectly guaranteeing the realization of tangible human rights.

Changes of crop climate risk degree:a case study on cotton in Henan Province

The agricultural climate risk in the geographical transitional zones is very sensitive to climate change. Based on previous researches, this article established the cotton climate suitability model and the risk index to analyze the cotton climate risk degree in Henan Province. The result shows that, in the last 40 years, the cotton climate risk degree has a gradual increasing trend in which the precipitation plays a very important role, and the climate suitability and its deviation have different performances in the influence on the risk change in different phases; the increase rate of risk degree has significant regional and transitional characteristics, for example, from the eastern plain to the western mountains, the risk change rate becomes slower and slower, so the contrast between the central-southern Huang-Huai plain and the Funiu mountains is the most remarkable; and in the north-south direction, the contrast between the fast increase belt from the central-southern Huang-Huai plain to the middle Yellow River and the slow increase belt near the Yellow River is particularly remarkable, which is possibly the results of topographic and climatic transitional belt; and the risk change process also has obvious regional difference. For instance, abrupt change is an important characteristic in eastern Henan where this sudden change type has notable latitudinal difference, while in the western mountainous area it is very rare. Although the temperature change over the 40 years is still increasing in this area, the trend has reduced gradually since the end of the 1980s.

Socioenvironmental Drivers of Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change Risk in Agroforestry Parklands of West Atacora in Benin (West Africa)

Throughout the world, climate change is threatening the human population. In West Africa, smallholder farmers in indigenous agricultural societies typically hold considerable knowledge. Therefore, this study was conducted in West Atacora of Benin Republic to assess the drivers of farmers’ perceptions of climate change risk. We used a random sampling technique to select 360 households’ heads who were interviewed regarding different climate change risks perception. Binomial logistic regression was used to assess the drivers of farmers’ perceptions of climate change risks. The results showed that the farmers in drier areas had a higher perception of the global risk of climate change than those in humid areas. The same trend was observed for the seven different individual’s climate change risk investigated. The study identified also membership of farm organizations as main sociodemographic characteristic that explains farmers’ perception of climate change risk perception. These findings are helpful tools to sensitize the local people on climate change risk and cope with the risk in agricultural lands.

Evolution of research on climate risk insurance:A bibliometric analysis from 1975 to 2022

Insurance against climate risk is essential for mitigating the adverse effects of climate change.However,theoretical consensus regarding climate risk insurance remains elusive,and the implementation of climate insurance policies varies markedly between countries owing to various challenges.This study conducted bibliometric analysis of 1082 relevant publications(1975–2022)to determine the theoretical basis,evolution of research hotspots,and methodologies associated with climate risk insurance.Climate insurance publications are growing at an average annual rate of 8.9%,with more than 2333 authors from 1103 organizations in 78 countries publishing on the subject.On the basis of milestones of global climate change assessment,i.e.,the publication of the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,climate insurance research can be divided into three major phases.In the start-up phase(1975–2007),research schemes examined the feasibilities and potentials of the National Flood Insurance Program in the United States,and the socioeconomic implications of transferring climate risk through reinsurance.The methodologies used in these studies were relatively simple owing to lack of comprehensive data.Research on flood insurance increased rapidly during the development phase(2008–2014),with increasing emphasis on the possibility of developing a flood insurance market in the Netherlands.Studies utilized catastrophe modeling and probabilistic approaches to estimate natural disaster losses and financial impacts.The boom phase(2015–2022)involved more research on the affordability of climate risk insurance given income inequality.The topic of climate insurance and the scope of its impact have developed global and interdisciplinary characteristics in terms of journal,sector,and disciplinary base.In the future,a trend might develop whereby big data will be combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning to design and implement index insurance.

Regulatory mode selection and legal governance of China's response to climate change risk

The regulation of climate change risk is an important measure for China to achieve the goal of"carbon neutrality and carbon peak".Although China has built a legal regulation system for environmental risk at the macro level,and normative and functionalism have constructed different paths for regulating climate change risk,it is necessary to analysis the two paths at the micro level,in order to examine its adaptability to climate change risk.The normative mode of climate change risk regulation emphasizes the clarity of the legal regulation system,controls the regulatory subject formally,and pays attention to the role of judicial review;The functionalist mode of climate change risk regulation emphasizes the authorization of regulatory subjects,and identifies and manages climate change risks in the way of administrative self-control.In order to regulate climate change risk,in addition to the traditional way of solving the problem of"normalization"and"functionalism",there is also a third regulatory mode,that is,to overcome the inherent shortcomings and defects of both functionalism and normalization,and to integrate the two necessary:not only pay attention to the legal normative requirements of the normative mode,but also mobilize the initiative of administrative regulation under functionalism,and strengthen the judicial prevention function,and then improve the effe ctiveness of China’s participation in global climate change governance.

Changes of citrus climate risk in subtropics of China

Based on the citrus temperature, precipitation, sunlight and climate risk degree, the article divides subtropics of China into three types： the low risk region, the moderate risk region and the high risk region. The citrus temperature risk increases with increasing latitude （except for the western mountainous area of subtropics of China）. The citrus precipitation risk in the central part of subtropics of China is higher than that in the northern and western parts. The distributions of citrus sunlight risk are not consistent to those of the citrus precipitation risk. The citrus climate risk is mainly influenced by temperature. There is latitudinal zonal law for the distribution of the climate risk, that is, the climate risk increases with increasing latitude At the same time the climate risk in mountainous area is high and that in eastern plain area is low. There are differences in the temporal and spatial changes of the citrus climate. In recent 46 years, the citrus climate risk presents a gradual increasing trend in subtropics of China, especially it has been increasing fast since the 1980s. Because of the global warming, the low risk region in the eastern and southern parts has a gradual decreasing trend, however, the high risk region in the northern and western parts has an increasing trend and the high risk region has been extending eastward and southward. The article analyses the distribution of the citrus climate risk degree of reduction rates of 〉10%, 〉20% and 〉30% in subtropics of China, and studies their changes in different time periods. Results show that the risk is increasing from southeast to northwest.

Construction and Application of a Climate Risk Index for China

In the context of global warming,China is facing with increasing climate risks.It is imperative to develop quantitative indices to reflect the climate risks caused by extreme weather/climate events and adverse climatic conditions in association with different industries.Based on the observations at 2288 meteorological stations in China and the meteorological disasters data,a set of indices are developed to measure climate risks due to water-logging,drought,high temperature,cryogenic freezing,and typhoon.A statistical method is then used to construct an overall climate risk index(CRI)for China from these individual indices.There is a good correspondence between these indices and historical climatic conditions.The CRI,the index of water-logging by rain,and the high temperature index increase at a rate of 0.28,0.37,and 0.65 per decade,respectively,from 1961 to 2016.The cryogenic freezing index is closely related to changes in the consumer price index for food.The high temperature index is correlated with the consumption of energy and electricity.The correlation between the yearly growth in claims on household property insurance and the sum of the water-logging index and the typhoon index in the same year is as high as 0.70.Both the growth rate of claims on agricultural insurance and the annual growth rate of hospital inpatients are positively correlated with the CRI.The year-on-year growth in the number of domestic tourists is significantly negatively correlated with the CRI in the same year.More efforts are needed to develop regional CRIs.

Advancing index-based climate risk assessment to facilitate adaptation planning:Application in Shanghai and Shenzhen,China

One of the key issues in climate risk management is to develop climate resilient infrastructure so as to ensure safety and sustainability of urban functioning systems as well as mitigate the adverse impacts associated with increasing climate hazards.However,conventional methods of assessing risks do not fully address the interaction of various subsystems within the city system and are unable to consolidate diverse opinions of various stakeholders on their assessments of sector-specific risks posed by climate change.To address this gap,this study advances an integrated-systems-analysis tool-Climate Risk Assessment of Infrastructure Tool(CRAIT),and applies it to analyze and compare the extent of risk factor exposure and vulnerability over time across five critical urban infrastructure sectors in Shanghai and Shenzhen,two cities that have distinctive geo-climate profiles and histories of infrastructure development.The results show significantly higher level of variation between the two cities in terms of vulnerability levels than that of exposure.More specifically,the sectors of critical buildings,water,energy,and information&communication in Shenzhen have significantly higher vulnerability levels than Shanghai in both the 2000s and the 2050s.We further discussed the vulnerability levels of subsystems in each sector and proposed twelve potential adaptation options for the roads system based on four sets of criteria:technical feasibility,flexibility,co-benefits,and policy compatibility.The application of CRAIT is bound to be a knowledge co-production process with the local experts and stakeholders.This knowledge co-production process highlights the importance of management advancements and nature-based green solutions in managing climate change risk in the future though differences are observed across the efficacy categories due to the geographical and meteorological conditions in the two cities.This study demonstrates that this knowledge co-creation process is valuable in facilitating policymakers'decision-making and their feedback to scientific understanding in climate risk assessment,and that this approach has general applicability for cities in other regions and countries.

Attentiveness to Early Warning Drought Information:Implications for Policy Support and Climate Risk Reduction in Ghana

Successful drought planning is dependent on the generation of timely and accurate early warning information.Yet there is little evidence to explain the extent to which crop farmers pay attention to and assimilate early warning drought information that aids in the policy formulation in support of drought risk reduction.A socioecological survey,using a structured questionnaire administered to 426 crop farming households,was carried out in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region,Ghana.The data analytic techniques used were frequency tables,relative importance index,and multinomial logistics embedded in SPSS v.20 software.The results show that crop farmers predominantly rely on agricultural extension officers for early warning drought information,with an estimated 78% of them paying little to very much attention to the information.The likelihood ratio Chi-square test showed that there is a significant improvement in fit as X^(2)(20)=96.792,p<0.000.Household status,average monthly income,and age were the significant predictors for crop farmers paying no attention at all to early warning drought information,while household status was the only significant factor among those paying a little attention.The drive to build a climate-resilient society with effective early warning centers across Ghana will receive 60% lower support from crop farmers paying no to a little attention as compared to farmers paying very much attention to early warning drought information.Broader stakeholder engagements should be carried out to harness inclusive support from crop farmers to build a climate-resilient society in Ghana.

Moving past the rhetoric： Policy considerations that can make Sino-African relations to improve Africa＇s climate change resilience and the attainment of the sustainable development goals

Climate change is a threat to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) in sub-Saharan Africa as its impacts can lead to increased incidences of poverty and inequality which can subsequently lead to a 12% decline in the Human Development Index(HDI) for subSaharan Africa. Emerging countries such as China have the potential to support Africa to achieve the SDGs by pioneering Southe South Climate Finance(SSCF) modalities. In order to increase knowledge on climate informed development and the role of China in global climate governance, the paper examined various research articles, case studies, policy briefs and project reports. Sino-African aid, investments and trade were noted as essential in mitigating Africa's climate change vulnerabilities which induce poverty traps and inequality. Some African countries were noted to have a comparative advantage in environmental standards over China but lacked the initiative to use this comparative advantage to enhance the Forum on Chinae Africa Cooperation(FOCAC) and assist China to have a sustainable growth trajectory. The paper concludes that SSCF modalities can enhance climate risk management in Africa if they focus on improving financial inclusion and improving climate finance flows towards climate change adaptation activities in Africa. Additionally, to increase the effectiveness and impact of Chinese climate finance support to Africa, African policymakers should not allow political and market forces to decide how climate related support from China should be allocated as decisions based on political and market forces could potentially promote an inequitable distribution of funds and ignore the most vulnerable countries and regions.

China's climate policy:does an Arctic dimension exist?

The article discusses whether and to what extent an Arctic dimension in Chinese climate policy exists, and whether there are signs of potential linkages between China＇s engagement in the Arctic and its domestic climate policies. Although the Arctic is not directly addressed in domestic climate policy, the article concludes that an Arctic dimension exists, in the following areas： the growing awareness in China of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, climate risk, resilience and vulnerability, which has contributed to increased attention to climatic change in the Arctic and its impact on China; polar scientific research, which is largely climate related, plays a significant role in determining China＇s Arctic climate agenda; China＇s climate policymaking and domestic institutional set-up is a contributing factor to climate engagement in the Arctic; China＇s status as an observer nation in the Arctic Council might potentially raise the profile of domestic climate policies and lead to the addition of an Arctic pillar to national climate change strategies.

Utilization of Geospatial Technology to Track Effects of Global Warming on Climate Changes in India

In order to track the global warming issues in India, “Satellite Remote Sensing” can be used effectively and the main reason for choosing this is that it gives climate associated variables with a massive regional coverage and global coverage. The survey has been effectively conducted through Ipsos and through this survey it can be stated that the global warming issue of India is increasing day by day. In addition, effective materials and methods have been highlighted and four models in this material part have been shown in a succinct manner. Uncertainty, poverty and the weak role of the local government are the major factors and these factors are increasing the climate risk issue.

Farmers' Perception and Awareness and Factors Affecting Awareness of Farmers Regarding Crop Insurance as a Risk Coping Mechanism Evidence from Pakistan

This study has been conducted in three districts of Punjab Province namely, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajan Pur and Bahawalpur of Pakistan. The study showed the results of a survey of 300 farmers which was organized to assess awareness level of farmers regarding crop insurance, factors affecting the awareness level among farmers and the perception of farmers about crop insurance. Based on exploratory research work upon the responses of farmers, the average and standard deviation were calculated. Probit model was applied to explore the factors affecting the awareness level of farmers. SPSS was used for the analysis of the collected data. The results revealed that out of 300 farmers, 184 farmers were aware with crop insurance and rests of the 116 farmers were not aware. Banks and E-media were found to be the two most important sources of the awareness for the respondent farmers. In the study area, the climatic risks were reported as the most severe risks faced by the farmers. The results also revealed the existence of negative perceptions of the farmers about crop insurance i.e. farmers perceived crop insurance as a kind of tax and they believed premium was so high that it was out of range of poor farmers and only large scale farmers could afford it. Results obtained by applying Probit model revealed that ＂education＂ and ＂previously availed agricultural credit＂ were the two most important factors which affected the awareness of the farmers regarding crop insurance.

Improving risk reduction potential of weather index insurance by spatially downscaling gridded climate data-a machine learning approach

Open-access gridded climate products have been suggested as a potential source of data for index insurance design and operation in data-limited regions.However,index insurance requires climate data with long historical records,global geographical coverage and fine spatial resolution at the same time,which is nearly impossible to satisfy,especially with open-access data.In this paper,we spatially downscaled gridded climate data(precipitation,temperature,and soil moisture)in coarse spatial resolution with globally available longterm historical records to finer spatial resolution,using satellite-based data and machine learning algorithms.We then investigated the effect of index insurance contracts based on downscaled climate data for hedging spring wheat yield.This study employed countylevel spring wheat yield data between 1982 and 2018 from 56 counties overall in Kazakhstan and Mongolia.The results showed that in the majority of cases(70%),hedging effectiveness of index insurances increases when climate data is spatially downscaled with a machine learning approach.These improvements are statistically significant(p≤0.05).Among other climate data,more improvements in hedging effectiveness were observed when the insurance design was based on downscaled temperature and precipitation data.Overall,this study highlights the reasonability and benefits of downscaling climate data for insurance design and operation.

Climate change risk assessment for ski areas in China

The successful bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics has provided a strong impetus for the development of China's ski industry.Ski areas have sprung up throughout the country,even in the low latitudes south of 30°N.However,ski tourism is extremely susceptible to weather and climate conditions.In the context of global warming,it has become important to assess the climate reliability of ski areas.Therefore,this study demonstrates a novel approach to assessing the ski tourism sector's climate risks,which can be easily applied in other markets catering to the same industry.Using the random forest regression model based on climate projections and survey data,we projected the ski season start dates,end dates and season lengths of 694 existing ski areas in China under three emission scenarios(RCP2.6,RCP4.5 and RCP8.5).Climate projections,including air temperature,snowfall,rainfall,wind speed and air humidity,were the ensemble means from five climate models.Results indicate that ski areas in China may have later start dates,earlier end dates and shorter ski seasons before 2099.By the 2090s,under RCP2.6,RCP4.5 and RCP8.5,20%(139),28%(195)and 35%(245)of ski areas are projected to be at high climate risk(ski season less than 60 d),respectively,while 28%(197),23%(157)and 8%(56)of ski areas are at low climate risk(ski season with at least 100 d),respectively.The climate risks are ranked from the highest to lowest in East,Central,Southwest,North,Northwest and Northeast China.Furthermore,the ski tourism sector in the latitudes south of 40°N is exposed to much higher climate risks than in areas north of 40°N.Therefore,climatic reliability should be carefully considered before establishing or expanding ski areas to avoid unnecessary resource waste and ecological damage,as well as to promote sustainable development in mountain areas.

Impacts of Anthropogenic Forcings and El Nio on Chinese Extreme Temperatures

This study investigates the potential influences of anthropogenic forcings and natural variability on the risk of summer extreme temperatures over China. We use three multi-thousand-member ensemble simulations with different forcings （with or without anthropogenic greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions） to evaluate the human impact, and with sea surface temperature patterns from three different years around the E1 Nino-Southern Oscillation （ENSO） 2015/16 event （years 2014, 2015 and 2016） to evaluate the impact of natural variability. A generalized extreme value （GEV） distribution is used to fit the ensemble results. Based on these model results, we find that, during the peak of ENSO （2015）, daytime extreme tem- peratures axe smaller over the central China region compared to a normal year （2014）. During 2016, the risk of nighttime extreme temperatures is largely increased over the eastern coastal region. Both anomalies are of the same magnitude as the anthropogenic influence. Thus, ENSO can amplify or counterbalance （at a regional and annual scale） anthropogenic effects on extreme summer temperatures over China. Changes are mainly due to changes in the GEV location parameter. Thus, anomalies are due to a shift in the distributions and not to a change in temperature variability.

Predictability and Risk of Extreme Winter PM_(2.5)Concentration in Beijing

Air pollution remains a serious environmental and social problem in many big cities in the world.How to predict and estimate the risk of extreme air pollution is unsettled yet.This study tries to provide a solution to this challenge by examining the winter PM_(2.5)concentration in Beijing based on the UNprecedented Simulation of Extremes with ENsembles(UNSEEN)method.The PM_(2.5)concentration observations in Beijing,Japanese 55-yr reanalysis data,and the Met Office near term climate prediction system(DePreSys3a)large ensemble simulations are used,and 10,000proxy series are generated with the model fidelity test.It is found that in Beijing,the main meteorological driver of PM_(2.5)concentration is monthly 850-hPa meridional wind(V850).Although the skill in prediction of V850 is low on seasonal and longer timescales,based on the UNSEEN,we use large ensemble of initialized climate simulations of V850 to estimate the current chance and risk of unprecedented PM_(2.5)concentration in Beijing.We unravel that there is a 3%(2.1%–3.9%)chance of unprecedented low monthly V850 corresponding to high PM_(2.5)in each winter,within the 95%range,calculated by bootstrap resampling of the data.Moreover,we use the relationship between air quality and winds to remove the meridional wind influence from the observed record,and find that anthropogenic intervention appears to have reduced the risk of extreme PM_(2.5)in Beijing in recent years.

Climate Transition Risk and Development Finance： A Carbon Risk Assessment of China＇s Overseas Energy Portfolios

The role of development finance institutions in low-income and emerging countries is fundamental to provide long-term capital for investments in climate mitigation and adaptation. Nevertheless, development finance institutions still lack sound and transparent metrics to assess their projects＇ exposure to climate risks and their impact on global climate action. To attempt to fill this gap, we develop a novel climate stress-test methodology for portfolios of loans to energy infrastructure projects. We apply the methodology to the portfolios of overseas energy projects of two main Chinese policy banks. We estimate their exposure to economic and financial shocks that would result in government inability to introduce timely 2~C-aligned climate policies and from investors＂ inability to adapt their business to the changing climate and policy environment. We find that the negative shocks are mostly concentrated on coal and oil projects and vary across regions from 4.2 to 22 percent of the total loan value. Given the current leverage of Chinese policy banks, these losses could induce severe financial distress, with implications on

Year-to-Year and Maturity Variation in Rainfed Soybean Yield by Planting Dates

The interactions on rainfed soybean yield among planting date, maturity, and year-to-yearclimate change were studied using CROPGRO-soybean model. Simulations were based on 19 plantingdates, maturity groupsⅢ, ⅣandⅤ, 30 years recorded weather data from Corbin, Suffolk,West Point in Virginia, USA. Yield was similar on early plantings and went down with lateplantings. Both grand and year-to-year variation of soybean yield declined linearly withplanting date. Year-to-year climate variation was dominant yield variation source inrainfed soybean production. Interaction occurred between planting date and maturity.Optimal planting dates for different sites lied within 130th-170th day of a year.Irrigation is recommended for profitable crops, especially in Corbin and West Point.

Research progresses and prospects of multi-sphere compound extremes from the Earth System perspective

Compound extremes,whose socioeconomic and ecological impacts are severer than that caused by each event occurring in isolation,have evolved into a hot topic in Earth Science in the past decade.In the context of climate change,many compound extremes have exhibited increasing frequency and intensity,and shown novel fashions of combinations,posing more pressing demands and tougher challenges to scientific research and disaster prevention and response.This article,via a perspective of multi-sphere interactions within the Earth System,systematically reviews the status quo,new scientific understanding,and deficiencies regarding the definition,mechanism,change,attribution,and projection of compound extremes.This study also sorts out existing challenges and outlines a potential roadmap in advancing the study on compound extremes with respect to data requirement,mechanistic diagnosis,numerical modeling,attribution and projection,risk assessment,and adaptive response.Further directions of compound extremes studies and key research topics that warrant multi-disciplinary and multisectoral coordinated efforts are also proposed.Given that climate change has reshaped the type of extremes,a transformation from the traditional single-event perspective to a compound-event perspective is needed for scientific research,disaster prevention and mitigation,and climate change adaptation,calling for bottom-up innovation in research objects,ideas,and methods.This article will add value to promoting the research on compound extremes and interdisciplinary cooperations.