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This chapter explores the nexus between climate change and jobs. For the International Labour Organization (ILO), the relevance of climate change and low carbon development has not always been evident. Member states and social partners have long been reluctant to include the transition to low carbon economies in the programme of work and commit resources to it. But in recent years, environmental issues have become a policy priority among ILO member states and social partners. Why, then, is climate change now more relevant than ever for the world of work? What are the current and forecasted employment and social implications of climate change and the policies for adaptation and mitigation? How can the distributional impact of the move to a low-carbon society be better understood and managed? In this respect, how relevant is the concept of ‘green jobs’? What policy approach has emerged within the ILO despite initial resistance and disagreement among constituents? Finally, what role could the ILO play in the future to promote social justice in the transition?

AbstractIndirect climate effects on tree fecundity that come through variation in size and growth (climate-condition interactions) are not currently part of models used to predict future forests. Trends in species abundances predicted from meta-analyses and species distribution models will be misleading if they depend on the conditions of individuals. Here we find from a synthesis of tree species in North America that climate-condition interactions dominate responses through two pathways, i) effects of growth that depend on climate, and ii) effects of climate that depend on tree size. Because tree fecundity first increases and then declines with size, climate change that stimulates growth promotes a shift of small trees to more fecund sizes, but the opposite can be true for large sizes. Change the depresses growth also affects fecundity. We find a biogeographic divide, with these interactions reducing fecundity in the West and increasing it in the East. Continental-scale responses of these forests are thus driven largely by indirect effects, recommending management for climate change that considers multiple demographic rates.

Understanding and predicting the spread of invading insects is a critical challenge in management programs that aim to minimize ecological and economic harm to native ecosystems. Although efforts to quantify spread rates have been well studied over the past several decades, opportunities to improve our ability to estimate rates of spread, and identify the factors, such as habitat suitability and climate, that influence spread, remain. We review emerging sources of data that can be used to delineate distributional boundaries through time and thus serve as a basis for quantifying spread rates. We then address advances in modeling methods that facilitate our understanding of factors that drive invasive insect spread. We conclude by highlighting some remaining challenges in understanding and predicting invasive insect spread, such as the role of climate change and biotic similarity between the native and introduced ranges, particularly as it applies to decision-making in management programs.

The world, society and education are constantly evolving, and to respond to these changes, the main governmental institutions have been proposing different global strategies to focus efforts in the same direction. Currently, the United Nations and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have presented a series of indicators that could help to minimise the environmental, economic and social instability we are experiencing. In this sense, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been described as a fundamental factor. Specifically, in previous work, we argued that physical education (PE) could be a good tool to contribute to SDGs. Based on this, no research analysing the voices of Physical Education Teachers (PET) on how this contribution could be made has been identified in previous literature. Therefore, the objectives of this research are: (1) to analyse the voices and opinions of active PETs in terms of the knowledge they have about Sustainable Development (SD); (2) to determine their opinions about the contribution that PE could make to SDGs; and finally, (3) to identify the challenges and limitations of pedagogical action of SD in PE. For this purpose, a qualitative analysis through a semi-structured interview with 41 active PETs was carried out. The main findings will be presented and discussed around four themes: (a) agreement on the concept of sustainability; (b) PE can contribute to the achievement of SDGs; (c) ambiguity in applying SDGs to PE lessons; and (d) teachers’ constraints on how to implement SDGs in PE. It seems to indicate that PETs do not have a multidimensional vision of sustainable development. While they recognise the potential of PE to contribute to SDGs through awareness raising and student learning, they point to its pedagogical and formative constraints as the main barriers to being able to contribute. They pointed to a lack of knowledge on how to do so, guidelines on how to integrate ESD, lack of involvement, shortage of time or resources in school physical education.

Fil: Marchelli, Paula. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Patagonia Norte. Estacion Experimental Agropecuaria San Carlos de Bariloche; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas; Argentina

The increasing of atmospheric CO2, which is considered as a major greenhouse gas, plays a crucial role in global warming and climate change. In addition to reducing CO2 emissions from anthropogenic activities, it is more urgent to actively remove CO2 from the air. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a feasible but high-cost technology to remove CO2 from the flue gases of coal-fired power plants. On the other hand, CO2 sequestration by biological approaches shows potential and has the benefit that the biomass generated from the fixed CO2 can then be utilized for other purposes. However, CO2 bio-mitigation technology is still under development because the efficiency of CO2 capture and fixation is too low to be applicable in industry. In this study, we enhanced a photobioreactor-based microalgal CO2 mitigation system by combining the chemical capture/transformation of CO2 by carbonic anhydrase (CA) with the biological fixation of captured CO2 by cyanobacteria. We genetically engineered the cyanobacteria to produce and secrete CAs in the medium. The secreted CAs efficiently transformed dissolved CO2 to HCO3−. And HCO3− was taken up by the cyanobacteria and further fixed into biomass through photosynthesis. To our knowledge, we have demonstrated for the first time that CO2 can be sequestrated in a sustainable way through combining the chemical transformation of CO2 with the biological CO2 fixation in a microalgal photobioreactor system.

Food provides energy and nutrients, but its acquisition requires energy expenditure. In post-hunter-gatherer societies, extra-somatic energy has greatly expanded and intensified the catching, gathering, and production of food. Modern relations between energy, food, and health are very complex, raising serious, high-level policy challenges. Together with persistent widespread under-nutrition, over-nutrition (and sedentarism) is causing obesity and associated serious health consequences. Worldwide, agricultural activity, especially livestock production, accounts for about a fifth of total greenhouse-gas emissions, thus contributing to climate change and its adverse health consequences, including the threat to food yields in many regions. Particular policy attention should be paid to the health risks posed by the rapid worldwide growth in meat consumption, both by exacerbating climate change and by directly contributing to certain diseases. To prevent increased greenhouse-gas emissions from this production sector, both the average worldwide consumption level of animal products and the intensity of emissions from livestock production must be reduced. An international contraction and convergence strategy offers a feasible route to such a goal. The current global average meat consumption is 100 g per person per day, with about a ten-fold variation between high-consuming and low-consuming populations. 90 g per day is proposed as a working global target, shared more evenly, with not more than 50 g per day coming from red meat from ruminants (ie, cattle, sheep, goats, and other digastric grazers).