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Since 2015, the intended climate actions of the Paris Agreement signatories have been reported as nationally determined contributions (NDC). These climate actions are fully aligned with the 13th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) which calls for urgent action to combat climate change. The same, however, cannot be said for their relation to the other 16 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, since climate action can either enhance or compromise the prospects for SDG implementation. In light of this challenge, this paper proposes a simple method for quantifying the synergies and trade-offs between national climate actions and the SDGs. The method, referred to as Q-SCAN, makes use of a seven-step scale and the SDG Climate Action Nexus tool. The effectiveness of the method has been demonstrated on a case study of North Macedonia, a non-Annex I, Western Balkan country with a coal-intensive energy system. Based on the experience in the preparation of the country’s enhanced NDC, the paper elaborates how the method can be used to contribute to the alignment of the national climate actions with the SDGs and how it can be used to improve stakeholder engagement.

Effective societal responses to rapid climate change in the Arctic rely on an accurate representation of region-specific ecosystem properties and processes. However, this is limited by the scarcity and patchy distribution of field measurements. Here, we use a comprehensive, geo-referenced database of primary field measurements in 1,840 published studies across the Arctic to identify statistically significant spatial biases in field sampling and study citation across this globally important region. We find that 31% of all study citations are derived from sites located within 50 km of just two research sites: Toolik Lake in the USA and Abisko in Sweden. Furthermore, relatively colder, more rapidly warming and sparsely vegetated sites are under-sampled and under-recognized in terms of citations, particularly among microbiology-related studies. The poorly sampled and cited areas, mainly in the Canadian high-Arctic archipelago and the Arctic coastline of Russia, constitute a large fraction of the Arctic ice-free land area. Our results suggest that the current pattern of sampling and citation may bias the scientific consensuses that underpin attempts to accurately predict and effectively mitigate climate change in the region. Further work is required to increase both the quality and quantity of sampling, and incorporate existing literature from poorly cited areas to generate a more representative picture of Arctic climate change and its environmental impacts.

Abstract Cities play a vital role in the global climate change mitigation agenda. City population density is one of the key factors that influence urban energy consumption and the subsequent GHG emissions. However, previous research on the relationship between population density and GHG emissions led to contradictory results due to urban/rural definition conundrum and the varying methodologies for estimating GHG emissions. This work addresses these ambiguities by employing the City Clustering Algorithm (CCA) and utilizing the gridded CO2 emissions data. Our results, derived from the analysis of all inhabited areas in the US, show a sub-linear relationship between population density and the total emissions (i.e. the sum of on-road and building emissions) on a per capita basis. Accordingly, we find that doubling the population density would entail a reduction in the total CO2 emissions in buildings and on-road sectors typically by at least 42%. Moreover, we find that population density exerts a higher influence on on-road emissions than buildings emissions. From an energy consumption point of view, our results suggest that on-going urban sprawl will lead to an increase in on-road energy consumption in cities and therefore stresses the importance of developing adequate local policy measures to limit urban sprawl.

Espresso coffee grounds constitute a residue which is produced daily in considerable amounts, and is often pointed out as being potentially interesting for plant nutrition. Two experiments (incubations and field experiments) were carried out to evaluate the potential nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) supply for carrot (Daucus carota L.), spinach (Spinacea oleracea L.) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) nutrition.Immobilisation of nitrogen and phosphorus was detected in all the incubations and, in the field experiments, germination and yield growth were decreased by the presence of espresso coffee grounds, in general for all the species studied.The study showed an inhibition of N and P mineralisation and a reduction of plant germination and growth. Further research is required to determine whether this is related to the immobilising capacity of the residue or possibly due to the presence of caffeine.

Lack of consensus on an international agreement for reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) emissions eventually leads to asymmetric climate policies which not only increase the cost of reducing emissions but also decrease the effectiveness of the climate policy, through carbon leakage. We calculate the carbon leakage rate when EU undertakes a unilateral climate policy and we assess the importance of the competitiveness channel on carbon leakage. Our analysis is global and mirrors energy and climate policies and commitments that are currently announced at country level. The effectiveness of possible measures to mitigate carbon leakage is also evaluated and the results emphasize on the importance of the size of the group of countries participating in the GHG mitigation effort. The analysis is based on the results obtained using the GEM-E3 model, a global multi-sector and multi-country computable general equilibrium model. It is found that total carbon leakage is around 28%, over the 2015–2050 period, when the EU acts alone with moderate Armington trade substitution elasticity values; leakage rates are found to increase when assuming higher trade elasticities. The size and composition, in terms of GHG and energy intensities, of the group of regions undertaking emission reductions matter for carbon leakage. The paper finds that the leakage is significantly reduced when China joins the mitigation effort. If the USA joins the EU effort, the leakage rate drops only to 25% and if alternatively China joins the EU the leakage rate drops to 3% over the 2015–2050 period. This is attributed to both the market size of China and to the energy intensity features of its production. Chemicals and metals are industries prone to higher leakage rates.

Abstract Lignocellulosic biomass contains inorganic elements (ash) that are known to act catalytically during fast pyrolysis and result in a decrease of the process' selectivity towards the desired liquid product. In this work, the removal of inorganic elements from two forestry residues, two agricultural residues and two energy crops was studied with the aim to maximize the liquid product yield from the fast pyrolysis process. The biomass samples were washed with water and solutions of nitric or acetic acid and the effects of time, temperature, acid type and acid concentration in the washing solution were studied. The original and the pretreated biomass samples were then pyrolyzed in a bench-scale fixed bed reactor in order to investigate the effects of the demineralization on the yields and composition of the pyrolysis products. Washing with water was effective for the removal of up to 42% of the inorganics in the biomass samples, whereas washing with acidic solutions achieved inorganics removal higher than 90%. The most important factor during the biomass pretreatment proved to be the washing temperature; higher temperatures (50 °C) were more effective for the removal of the inorganics than room temperature. The type of acid used in the washing solution was also an important factor, as nitric acid proved to be more effective than acetic acid. In the pyrolysis experiments, the demineralized biomass samples yielded less gas products and solid residue, while the selectivity towards the liquid product was substantially increased in all cases.

A priority of the industrial applications of microalgae is the reduction of production costs while maximizing algae biomass productivity. The purpose of this study was to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the effects of pH control on the production of Nannochloropsis gaditana in tubular photobioreactors under external conditions while considering the environmental, biological, and operational parameters of the process. Experiments were carried out in 3.0 m3 tubular photobioreactors under outdoor conditions. The pH values evaluated were 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, and 10.0, which were controlled by injecting pure CO2 on-demand. The results have shown that the ideal pH for microalgal growth was 8.0, with higher values of biomass productivity (Pb) (0.16 g L-1 d-1), and CO2 use efficiency ([Formula: see text]) (74.6% w w-1); [Formula: see text]/biomass value obtained at this pH (2.42 [Formula: see text] gbiomass-1) was close to the theoretical value, indicating an adequate CO2 supply. At this pH, the system was more stable and required a lower number of CO2 injections than the other treatments. At pH 6.0, there was a decrease in the Pb and [Formula: see text]; cultures at pH 10.0 exhibited a lower Pb and photosynthetic efficiency as well. These results imply that controlling the pH at an optimum value allows higher CO2 conversions in biomass to be achieved and contributes to the reduction in costs of the microalgae production process.

As a consequence of increasing atmospheric CO(2), the world's oceans are warming and slowly becoming more acidic (ocean acidification, OA) and profound changes in marine ecosystems are certain. Calcification is one of the primary targets for studies of the impact of CO(2)-driven climate change in the oceans and one of the key marine groups most likely to be impacted by predicted climate change events are the echinoderms. Echinoderms are a vital component of the marine environment with representatives in virtually every ecosystem, where they are often keystone ecosystem engineers. This paper reviews and analyses what is known about the impact of near-future ocean acidification on echinoderms. A global analysis of the literature reveals that echinoderms are surprisingly robust to OA and that important differences in sensitivity to OA are observed between populations and species. However, this is modulated by parameters such as (1) exposure time with rare longer term experiments revealing negative impacts that are hidden in short or midterm ones; (2) bottlenecks in physiological processes and life-cycle such as stage-specific developmental phenomena that may drive the whole species responses; (3) ecological feedback transforming small scale sub lethal effects into important negative effects on fitness. We hypothesize that populations/species naturally exposed to variable environmental pH conditions may be pre-adapted to future OA highlighting the importance to understand and monitor environmental variations in order to be able to to predict sensitivity to future climate changes. More stress ecology research is needed at the frontier between ecotoxicology and ecology, going beyond standardized tests using model species in order to address multiple water quality factors (e.g. pH, temperature, toxicants) and organism health. However, available data allow us to conclude that near-future OA will have negative impact on echinoderm taxa with likely significant consequences at the ecosystem level.