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In recent decades, many societal changes have unfolded, including population ageing, reconfigurations of household structures, labour market transformation, and a secular deceleration of economic growth. These shifts pose considerable challenges to preexisting welfare states, particularly to the efficacy of countries’ pension systems. This dissertation examines the context and trajectory of pension reforms in Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Its contribution is to ascertain the viability and political feasibility of reforms that enhance the financial sustainability of their pension systems, while maintaining adequate income and coverage levels. The dissertation builds on political economy approaches and on the institutionalist literature, which highlight how the role of interest groups and structure of institutions and political systems shape policy outcomes. The frameworks of blame avoidance and credit-claiming are also considered, to provide a comprehensive analysis of the complex dynamics surrounding pension systems and reform efforts. This dissertation uses a mixed-methods approach – including public opinion surveys of 3,000+ individuals, semi-structured elite interviews, historical document analyses, and specialized fiscal and actuarial projections of selected pension reforms in the three selected countries. It addresses three core research questions: 1) What is the current context for pension reform in Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States given their histories? 2) Is the necessary (for achieving specific minimum levels of sustainability, adequacy, and coverage) pension reform politically feasible? 3) How do the characteristics of each reform affect its political feasibility? Corollary: The modification of which channel (benefits, contributions, retirement age) is perceived as more politically feasible for diverse stakeholders? The methodology chosen provides a timely picture of the context surrounding potential pension reforms in the three case studies. In Mexico, credit-claiming and the interests of private stakeholders explain the success of recent pension reforms, and partisan politics are the key determinants for future fiscal changes. For the United Kingdom, the institutionalist literature helps explain the reasons for the relatively easier reform avenues; the most politically feasible reforms are those in the private sector, while the housing market is of key importance for pensions. In the United States, the institutionalist literature and the framework of blame avoidance also help explain the current legislative gridlock and the reasons why no major reform has been enacted for decades. For Mexico and the United Kingdom there exist politically feasible reforms, notably a modification of the retirement age channel, that can increase the system’s sustainability while maintaining income adequacy and coverage; whereas based on the current context of extreme polarisation and legislative gridlock, there do not seem to exist politically feasible pension reforms that preserve the structure of Social Security in the United States. The dissertation brings the lens of political feasibility to bear on a previously technical literature on the structure of the pension systems in the three countries, and thus on the feasibility of reform to deliver financial sustainability, adequacy of retirement incomes, and adequate coverage of the old age population. It identifies the feasible routes for reform in Mexico and the United Kingdom, but concludes that the political economy context the United States has reached rules out feasible reforms of its current pension structures.

Abstract While it is generally accepted that our fossil fuel-dominated energy systems must undergo a sustainable transition, researchers have often neglected the potential impacts of this on water and land systems. However, if unintended environmental impacts from this process are to be avoided, understanding its implications for land use and water demand is of crucial importance. Moreover, developed countries may induce environmental stress beyond their own borders, for instance through extensive imports of bioenergy. In this paper, Germany serves as an example of a developed country with ambitious energy transformation targets. Results show that in particular, the politically-driven aspiration for more organic farming in Germany results in a higher import quota of biomass, especially biofuels. These imports translate into land demand, which will exceed the area available in Germany for bioenergy by a factor of 3–6.5 by 2050. As this will likely bring about land stress in the respective exporting countries, this effect of the German energy transformation ought to be limited as much as possible. In contrast, domestic water demand for the German energy system is expected to decrease by over 80% through 2050 due to declining numbers of fossil-fuelled power plants. However, possible future irrigation needs for bioenergy may reduce or even counterbalance this decreasing effect. In addition, energy policy targets specific to the transport sector show a high sensitivity to biomass imports. In particular, the sector-specific target for greenhouse gas reductions will seemingly promote biomass imports, leading to the above-described challenges in the pursuit of sustainability.

AbstractThe Homeless Heritage project took place across two English cities (Bristol and York) between 2010 and 2014. The project sought to use a range of participatory heritage practices to engage contemporary homeless people in documenting their perspectives on each city. Drawing on data gathered over three and a half years this paper reflects on how collaborative cultural heritage practices can be useful in recording diverse stakeholder perspectives which can become catalysts for social change. It is further argued that two interactive exhibitions that resulted from the Homeless Heritage project contributed to the democratisation of knowledge, aiding negotiation of the complicated politics of contemporary homelessness in valuable ways.

Moisture availability is a strong determinant of decomposition rates in forests worldwide. Climate models suggest that many terrestrial ecosystems are at risk from future droughts, suggesting moisture limiting conditions will develop across a range of forests worldwide. The impacts of increasing drought conditions on forest carbon (C) fluxes due to shifts in organic matter decay rates may be poorly characterised due to limited experimental research. To appraise this question, we conducted a meta-analysis of forest drought experiment studies worldwide, examining spatial limits, knowledge gaps and potential biases. To identify limits to experimental knowledge, we projected the global distribution of forest drought experiments against spatially modelled estimates of (i) future precipitation change, (ii) ecosystem total above-ground C and (iii) soil C storage. Our assessment, involving 115 individual experimental study locations, found a mismatch between the distribution of forest drought experiments and regions with higher levels of future drought risk and C storage, such as Central America, Amazonia, the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, equatorial Africa and Indonesia. Decomposition rate responses in litter and soil were also relatively under-studied, with only 30 experiments specifically examining the potential experimental impacts of drought on C fluxes from soil or litter. We propose new approaches for engaging experimentally with forest drought research, utilising standardised protocols to appraise the impacts of drought on the C cycle, while targeting the most vulnerable and relevant forests.

Green energy technologies (GETs) are environmentally friendly in nature, making a promising contribution to attaining net-zero carbon goals. Although the Pakistani government has begun using GETs to minimize the adverse effects of carbon emissions, consumers' adoption rate is quite low. There are few studies examining consumers' desire to adopt GETs in the country. This study attempts to fill this research gap and also contributes by adding three novel factors to the theory of planned behavior (i.e., green energy technology awareness, openness to experience, and green energy technology discomfort) to comprehensively analyze the impact of various factors influencing consumers' desire to adopt GETs. For this purpose, the study establishes a systematic research framework. Data were collected from (n = 330) households in the five major cities (Peshawar, Abbottabad, Mardan, Mingora, and Swabi) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province via an inclusive questionnaire survey. The formulated hypotheses are evaluated and scrutinized using structural equation modeling. The results reveal that environmental concern (β = 0.245), green energy technology awareness (β = 0.362), openness to experience (β = 0.256), and green energy technology benefits (β = 0.225) positively affect consumers' desire to adopt GETs. On the other hand, green energy technology costs (β = 0.325) and green energy technology discomfort (β = 0.395) have a negative effect on consumers' adoption of GETs. The research findings emphasize the importance of increasing recognition of GETs, reforming policy frameworks, and providing budget-friendly and user-friendly technologies. Research limitations and future research perspectives are also addressed.

The climate crisis is the biggest threat to the health, development, and wellbeing of the current and future generations. While there is extensive evidence on the direct impacts of climate change on human livelihood, there is little evidence on how children and young people are affected, and even less discussion and evidence on how the climate crisis could affect violence against children.In this commentary, we review selected research to assess the links between the climate crisis and violence against children.We employ a social-ecological perspective as an overarching framework to organize findings from the literature and call attention to increased violence against children as a specific, yet under-examined, direct and indirect consequence of the climate crisis.Using such a perspective, we examine how the climate crisis exacerbates the risk of violence against children at the continually intersecting and interacting levels of society, community, family, and the individual levels. We propose increased risk of armed conflict, forced displacement, poverty, income inequality, disruptions in critical health and social services, and mental health problems as key mechanisms linking the climate crisis and heightened risk of violence against children. Furthermore, we posit that the climate crisis serves as a threat multiplier, compounding existing vulnerabilities and inequities within populations and having harsher consequences in settings, communities, households, and for children already experiencing adversities.We conclude with a call for urgent efforts from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to further investigate the specific empirical links between the climate crisis and violence against children and to design, test, implement, fund, and scale evidence-based, rights-based, and child friendly prevention, support, and response strategies to address violence against children.

The activity of methanogens and related bacteria which inhabit the coal beds is essential for stimulating new biogenic coal bed methane (CBM) production from the coal matrix. In this study, the microbial community structure and methanogenesis were investigated in Southern Qinshui Basin in China, and the composition and stable isotopic ratios of CBM were also determined. Although geochemical analysis suggested a mainly thermogenic origin for CBM, the microbial community structure and activities strongly implied the presence of methanogens in situ. 454 pyrosequencing analysis combined with methyl coenzyme-M reductase (mcrA) gene clone library analysis revealed that the archaeal communities in the water samples from both coal seams were similar, with the dominance of hydrogenotrophic methanogen Methanobacterium. The activity and potential of these populations to produce methane were confirmed by the observation of methane production in enrichments supplemented with H2 + CO2 and formate, and the only archaea successfully propagated in the tested water samples was from the genus Methanobacterium. 454 pyrosequencing analysis also recovered the diverse bacterial communities in the water samples, which have the potential to play a role in the coal biodegradation fueling methanogens. These results suggest that the biogenic CBM was generated by coal degradation via the hydrogenotrophic methanogens and related bacteria, which also contribute to the huge CBM reserves in Southern Qinshui Basin, China.

Abstract The proposed Swansea Bay tidal energy lagoon is an example of a relatively small-scale tidal barrage demonstrator project. A key concern with this technology is that such structures may exacerbate other environmental problems. However, such structures might also create beneficial environmental effects in some areas, such as mitigating the impact of storm surges. In this paper we model the hydrodynamics of the Swansea lagoon and surrounding area using a depth-averaged numerical model. We simulate a number of storm surge events from the past 40 years and analyse how the presence of the Swansea Lagoon (under various operating strategies) modifies the resulting water levels.