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Variation in food resources can result in dramatic fluctuations in the body condition of animals dependent on those resources. Decreases in body mass can disrupt patterns of energy allocation and impose stress, thereby altering immune function. In this study we investigated links between changes in body mass of captive cane toads (Rhinella marina), their circulating white blood cell populations, and their performance in immune assays. Captive toads that lost weight over a 3-month period had increased levels of monocytes and heterophils and reduced levels of eosinophils. Basophil and lymphocyte levels were unrelated to changes in mass. Because individuals that lost mass had higher heterophil levels but stable lymphocyte levels, the ratio of these cell types was also higher, partially consistent with a stress response. Phagocytic ability of whole blood was higher in toads that lost mass, due to increased circulating levels of phagocytic cells. Other measures of immune performance were unrelated to mass change. These results highlight the challenges faced by invasive species as they expand their range into novel environments which may impose substantial seasonal changes in food availability that were not present in the native range. Individuals facing energy restrictions may shift their immune function towards more economical and general avenues of combating pathogens.

An important outcome of a university business education is to shape individuals who are capable of working in and operating businesses that deliver economically profitable, socially responsible and ecologically viable services. In preparing future sustainable tourism workers, universities also need to design curricula that develop students’ skills in critical thinking and acting with a sense of ethics and empathy. Research evidence indicates, however, that students often graduate without these skills. A potential reason for this is the design of tourism curricula based on weaker conceptualisations of sustainability (e.g. triple bottom line) as opposed to stronger conceptualisations of sustainability (more holistic and inclusive approaches). Another possible reason could be that educators are not successfully cultivating students’ abilities to think in more complex ways about sustainability nor are they adequately acknowledging the ways in which their students make sense of a complex concept such as sustainability. To add to the complexity of the sustainability phenomenon, there is growing international pressure on the tourism industry by the United Nations (UN) to work towards achieving the 17 global sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030. Despite recognition that tourism can help contribute towards the SDGs, a UN report provides evidence that tourism policymakers are not actively and sufficiently engaging with the SDGs. The UN’s recognition of the tourism industry’s ability to advance the SDGS through economic growth (SDG 8) is further problematic, even if this is seen as sustainable economic growth. The term ‘sustainable development’ has long been contested as a weaker form of sustainability due to its progrowth and development emphasis. Given the current global overtourism crisis, it seems more important than ever that universities pay attention to how sustainable tourism is being interpreted and implemented. This is necessary if educators are to truly encourage stronger sustainability mindsets in future tourism workers and change makers. Therefore, the overarching aim of this thesis is to explore how conceptualisations of strong sustainability amongst university students can be strengthened. This study is the first to explore the usefulness of variation theory in strengthening conceptualisations of strong sustainability amongst university tourism students. It provides the tourism literature with evidence of: 1) the conceptualisation of sustainability currently being integrated into undergraduate tourism courses by universities internationally; 2) the benefits of phenomenography as a research approach for studying qualitative difference in understanding concepts such as sustainability and sustainable tourism; 3) the viability of using a learning study approach to develop ‘stronger’ understandings of sustainability; and 4) the potential of variation theory to explain how individuals acquire understandings of sustainability. The empirical research is presented in three studies to address three main research objectives. The first research objective was ‘to identify the conceptualisations of sustainability currently being used in university undergraduate sustainable tourism courses internationally’. The first study, in Chapter III, identifies whether ‘strong sustainability’, sustainability skills and the SDGs are currently underpinning 60 international sustainable tourism courses. Chapter IV ‘explores the different ways in which tourism students, academics and industry practitioners currently conceptualise sustainability’ by conducting phenomenographic interviews with 20 participants. A continuum of less to more complex understandings of sustainability was then developed to identify qualitatively different ways of understanding sustainability. The third research objective was ‘to investigate alternate teaching and learning approaches that might encourage stronger conceptualisations of sustainability amongst undergraduate tourism students’. Chapter V, discusses how the continuum explored in Chapter IV was used in an Australian university sustainable tourism course, underpinned by variation theory, to implement a learning study to enhance students’ understandings of sustainability and the conceptual complexity of the term sustainability. The findings revealed that internationally, sustainable tourism courses do not include ‘very strong’ conceptualisations of sustainability, and that sustainability pedagogies (such as systems and holistic thinking) are not widely used. Phenomenographic interviews with (predominantly Australian-based) lecturers, students and industry workers initially revealed four qualitatively different ways of understanding sustainability ranging from weak to very strong understandings of sustainability. Whilst many tourism lecturers seemed to show understandings of moderate to strong sustainability, very few showed very strong sustainability conceptualisations. This implies that some tourism courses may potentially be designed and underpinned by a weak to moderate articulation of sustainability. These interviews also revealed that industry owners tended to demonstrate a much stronger sustainability understanding than tourism lecturers. Most industry owners had a longer-term focus and key motives centred on giving back to society and a ‘pay-it-forward’ attitude towards the environment. Further findings in the learning study revealed that variation theory offers a valuable teaching and learning strategy to help develop more complex conceptualisations of ‘very strong’ sustainability within a university tourism course. Based on these findings, a number of implications for theory and practice are examined. These include recommendations regarding the design of sustainable tourism courses such as strengthening the sustainability conceptualisations underpinning them; better integration of the SDGs; and the development of critical and systems thinking skills. The three studies also provide examples for use in practice. For example, in Chapter III, a questioning strategy is provided. The phenomenographic continuum in Chapter IV provides a teaching and learning tool for educators to incorporate into sustainability courses to help students’ understandings of the phenomena. Chapter V provides insight into how this continuum can be incorporated into a learning study and provides practical ways of using variation theory. By implementing the continuum into teaching and learning activities, both educators and industry can develop deeper and stronger conceptualisations of sustainability for the tourism industry. Limitations of the study are discussed, and recommendations put forward for future research. In addition, ways in which educational institutions and governments can use the findings of the study to enhance teaching and learning, both in the classroom and industry workplaces, are discussed. Such enhancements will provide a foundation of ‘strong sustainability’ mindsets within our future tourism industry, which in turn will contribute to the 2030 SDGs being achieved.

Climate change is a pervasive global issue that threatens the livelihoods and wellbeing of billions living globally. Climate change is a risk multiplier impacting all ecosystems, society, and sectors of the economy. The agriculture sector is one such sector that is highly vulnerable to changes in climate. In a country like Nepal where rainfed agriculture is a dominant occupation and a key pillar of the country’s economy, climate change brings risks and negative consequences for on-farm production, farmers' livelihoods as well as on the country’s development. The impacts of climate change including rising temperatures, an increase in the frequency or intensity of extreme weather events such as drought, and shifts in the rainfall seasonality, can cause a decline in food production and threaten the quality of food supplies, leading to reduced food security. The rise in the global population will increase global demand for food which implies that agriculture needs to boost production and increase yields, among other things. The unprecedented risks posed by climate change potentially undermine the ability of farms and farm holders to grow adequate and quality food. The severity of these risks varies due to a range of underlying factors including low economic development, their location, existing biophysical and socioeconomic conditions, and institutional arrangements. While the impacts of climate change on food production as well as agricultural practices in Nepal have been documented, there is a dearth in scholarly literature that has assessed the impacts of climate change on household food security in Nepal incorporating farmers’ perspectives and in particular smallholder subsistence farmers. Furthermore, there is only modest literature that has examined geographical variations in those experiences and understandings. This PhD study aimed, therefore, to investigate the effects of climate change on agricultural practices and food security, with a focus on subsistence smallholder farmers in three main agro- ecological zones of Nepal known as The Mountains, Hills, and the Terai. The study aimed to respond to the primary research question: How are Nepalese farming communities being impacted by climate change and how are they responding to ensure their continued food security? To answer this main research, question the study posed the following secondary research questions: Q1. How is climate changing and how is it impacting subsistence agriculture? Q2. What are the farmers experiencing and what is their understanding? a. Are there gender differences in understanding and experiencing? Q3. What is the state of food insecurity among these farmers? a. How is it being impacted by climate change? Q4. What adaptation strategies have been adopted by smallholder farmers to address threats to agricultural practices and food security from climate change and other pressures? Both the qualitative and qualitative data were collected using multiple methods to address the identified research questions. Methods included a narrative literature review, systematic review, face to face interviews with farmers, individual interviews with key informants and focus groups with the women's group. Climate data on temperature between 1971-2013 and rainfall between 1967-2013 were analysed. Additionally, secondary data on crop yield from 1980 to 2016 were also analysed to gain a better empirical understanding of the relations between climate change and yield pattern and to triangulate and validate the findings from the interviews. Quantitative data on cereal crop yields and climate data were systematically tabulated and further statistically analysed using software R. This study employed the Bayesian approach to statistical modelling. Besides, this study undertook an integrated risk assessment of food insecurity using the Bayesian Belief Network model to reflect how the risk of food insecurity is influenced under two scenarios: (1) current climate conditions and (2) the influences of different adaptation strategies employed. NVivo was used for content analysis for qualitative data obtained from the key informant interview and focus group data and analysis of transcripts from farmers' structured interviews. The findings showed that agricultural practices have undergone various changes over the past 30 years. Climate change impacts were experienced by farmers in all three agro-ecological zones of Nepal. However, the impacts varied between these zones in terms of frequency and intensity. The effect of climate change was highly pronounced in the Mountains zone followed by the Hills and the Terai. The results confirmed that rural subsistence smallholder farmers dependent on rainfed agriculture are vulnerable to climate change impacts. Moreover, it disproportionately affects the poor farmers whose income hinges solely on agriculture and associated activities. Boosting agricultural production and empowering these smallholders is key to enhancing their food security. The experiences reported by farmers are well aligned with the trend of the climatic variables obtained from climate data analysis, highlighting the importance of perception-based survey in complementing climate research. The study demonstrated both the climatic and non-climatic factors are affecting agricultural practices as well as household food security of these farming communities. It is, therefore, difficult to isolate the influence of any of these factors. This was supported by the findings from the risk assessment undertaken by Bayesian modelling. Based on Bayesian modelling, the smallholder farmers mainly at the Mountain zone were at the risk of food insecurity. The measures to increase the adaptive capacity of these smallholders were found to help them manage the risk of food insecurity. Addressing the complicated and multifaceted concerns of climate change and food security needs multidisciplinary and multisectoral adaptation interventions acknowledging underlying biophysical, social, economic, geographical and environmental circumstances. Farmers have taken some actions to adapt and reduce the worsening impacts of climate change. Nevertheless, farmers encountered several barriers in effectively adapting to climate change. This study concluded there is an urgent need for a transformative level of intervention that warrants a coordinated action and collaboration between relevant stakeholders working in this field, including governments and non-governmental organizations, to target the most vulnerable and the needy smallholder farmers addressing the constraints and pressures they face. Policy and decision-makers should work extensively and sensitively with smallholders to ensure the maintenance of their livelihood and to guarantee their food security. Combining local and scientific knowledge is needed to help direct research and tailor adaptation solutions that meet local conditions and needs.

Anthropogenic climate change poses a significant threat to the planet’s natural ecosystems on which human civilisation depends. Since industrialisation, society has relied on the burning of fossil fuels to supply human settlements with energy. To avoid severe climate change impacts requires: a transformation in the energy supply mix, together with a step-change in energy efficiency of technologies and change in energy consumption behaviours. Yet little is known about the tensions that these necessary changes may provoke. This research is motivated by the need to understand these tensions that arise from action to address sustainable development concerns. Urban consolidation is hypothesised as one form of action which has the potential to address sustainable development concerns through the influence of built environment on energy consumption. For instance, spread-out cities mean energy distribution networks have to cover longer distances (and hence consume more energy), while compacter cities based on high-rise buildings mean fewer opportunities to use solar photovoltaics for energy supply. Research efforts directed towards understanding such tensions place urban planning theory and practice at a crossroads with: a long-standing literature on energy consumption, emerging evidence on society’s transition to renewable energy, and thriving debates on the principles/norms upon which just societies are governed. The tensions which may arise among these domains of inquiry remain under-researched in the scientific literature. The purpose of this thesis is, through a series of related essays, to redress this gap and uncover the tensions between urban life, disadvantage, energy consumption, and the transition to renewable energy for Australian households. To undertake this investigation a number of different data sources are drawn on. This thesis takes advantage of two nation-wide surveys: the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, and the Household Energy Consumption Survey. Furthermore, this thesis uses administrative data on the installation of photovoltaics from the Australian Photovoltaic Institute, in addition to several other datasets readily available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This data is prepared using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software (ArcGIS 10.4.1) and a statistical software package (Stata/SE 14.2). A range of micro-econometric techniques were applied to reveal new insights. In the main this thesis: (1) highlights the presence of mechanisms in urban areas which can have an impact on the amount of energy consumed and on the number of energy saving actions undertaken; (2) shows the connection between the built environment and fuel poverty and how it may be moderated by financial disadvantage; (3) compiles a unique dataset for feed-in tariff policies throughout Australia’s States and Territories over time; and (4) approximates the short-run and long-run causal impacts of the built environment and feed-in tariffs on solar photovoltaic technology installations. The findings of this thesis draw attention to the more nuanced role of the built environment in energy consumption and the disparity in opportunity that disadvantaged groups confront and their potential to create energy injustice. In this respect, this thesis provides a distinct contribution to the existing stock of knowledge. Moreover, this thesis also informs further research to build on and extend these findings. Finally, this thesis also serves to support energy and land-use policy debates and decisions as they relate to the tensions between urban life, disadvantage, energy consumption, and the transition to renewable energy.

The furious pace of global urbanisation has serious impacts on the long-term sustainability and health of the local communities in which we live. The debate about relationships between population size, environmental management and human well-being must now encompass the fundamental concept of sustainability (Rees, 1992; WCED, 1990; McMichael, 2002; Hancock, 1996). Increasingly, the local municipal level is the most influential setting in which to change our relationship with the environment (Chu, 1994; Chu et al., 2000). In the 1980s, the World Health Organisation (WHO) met this global challenge by advocating healthy public policy and laying foundations for its global Healthy Cities Movement. Significant support developed in the early nineties for participatory health planning action in local government: over 2000 cities world-wide developed municipal public health plans (MPH Plans). The Healthy Cities Movement through regional networks of cities and towns encouraged government partnerships with non-government agencies and industry, to anticipate and mitigate urbanisation’s negative impacts. In Queensland eighteen local governments have developed and implemented MPH Plans using a seven-step process (Chapman and Davey, 1997; WHO (1997b) to improve local planning for health and address the social determinants of health through agency collaboration. There is however limited understanding and evidence of the success factors for the effective implementation of MPH Plans. Studies of the evaluation of Municipal Public Health Planning (MPHP) approaches have focused predominately on the evaluation of the process of planning, without conducting comprehensive evaluation of its implementation. The organisational barriers that contribute to ineffective health-planning implementation have not been well researched and documented. Here lies the gap in the research: MPHP requires thorough qualitative assessment, not only of the planning process, but also the implementation impacts. This research explores the achievements, barriers and success factors associated with MPHP implementation in local government organisations by developing a process and impact evaluation framework and applying it to two MPHP projects in Queensland: one, local planning in an expanding tourist city of over 400,000 people; the second, a regional approach involving two provincial cities with a combined population of 100,000 residents. The research examines the degree of collaboration resulting from health planning and assesses if the aims of the MPH Plans have been met. MPHP is both a health promotion tool and a strategic business planning process applied in local communities: this research seeks to understand more about organisational strategic management issues that act as barriers to planning or impact on the success of planning outcomes. This study design uses qualitative methods with a triangulation approach to analyse and understand the complexities of MPH Plan implementation. Grounded theory provides a methodology for interpreting meanings and discovering themes from the comprehensive process and impact evaluation consisting of preliminary cases studies, key informant interviews, using specific process and impact indicator questions and an analysis of MPHP models compared to other CPHP models and legislative frameworks. The impacts of the intervention are discussed and relate to the implementation effects of MPHP on individuals and organisations including council, government and non-government agencies and on the community. Achievements and barriers associated with MPHP are identified and discussed. Three main factors emerged. Firstly, MPHP had significantly increased the degree of intersectoral collaboration between the agency project partners, with particular success in clarifying the role of agencies in the management and delivery of public health services. The principles of successful partnerships need to be further articulated in local government settings to successfully implement MPHP. Secondly, positive political and organisational support was found to be a critical factor in the success of the planning implementation. Thirdly, and most importantly, the aims of the MPHP had not been substantially met due to a lack of financial and human resources. The study concluded that, although MPHP has strengths and weaknesses compared to other CPHP models, its features most suit local government. Success factors recommended for effective MPHP include formalising collaboration and partnerships and improved agency organisational governance in planning; building individual and organisational capacity to strengthen strategic planning; integrating the many layers of regulatory planning in local government and other agencies; sustaining planning structures and processes through regulation and commitment to investment in implementation stages of MPHP. The study’s major recommendation is that, for MPHP local government should facilitate a three-dimensional platform approach: healthy governance – long-term vision, recognising the many layers of planning, supported by state legislation and local industry and with awareness of legislative planning frameworks; a platform mechanism – sustaining agency networking, hosting the stakeholder forum, supporting the advisory committee, enhancing communication; and strategy implementation – in the context of an improved understanding of organisational behaviour, local government and agencies must action priority strategies, formalising agency partners responsibility, articulating desired outcomes, monitoring progress and evaluation. This recommended Platform Approach to MPHP provides an effective model for managing and implementing future MPH Plans, allocating resources three ways: to build people’s capacity to engage in planning mechanisms, to build organisational capacity to manage planning outcomes and to build more effective Healthy Cities planning approaches. The MPHP evaluation framework developed in this thesis could be used to evaluate other MPHP projects in local governments both in Australia and internationally.

A major issue with all flow batteries is the control of the imbalance between the two half-cell electrolytes that arises as a result of the differential transfer of ions across the membrane and the inevitable gassing side reactions that can occur during charging. While a number of methods are available to rebalance electrolyte state of charge and restore capacity, reliable methods are needed to monitor the state-of-charge of each individual half-cell solution in order to determine the appropriate action to be taken by the battery control system. In this study different methods of state-of-charge monitoring have been considered for application in the All-Vanadium Redox Flow Battery (VRB). Half-cell potentials and electrolyte conductivities were calibrated as a function of state-of-charge and evaluated for state-of-charge monitoring of individual half-cell electrolytes for the purpose of capacity restoration and control. An empirical model based on experimental conductivity data has been shown to provide accurate predictions, with an average error of 0.77%, of the conductivity of the positive half-cell electrolyte as a potential state-of-charge detection tool. Separate monitoring of the two half-cell electrolyte potentials has also been used to determine the state-of-charge of each half-cell solution in order to detect system imbalance. This was used in small laboratory cell tests to determine necessary actions to restore capacity by either remixing the two solutions, or by using chemical rebalancing methods, depending on the cause of the solution imbalance. European Chemical Bulletin, Vol 1, No 12 (2012): European Chemical Bulletin

Climate change has been identified as one of the biggest challenges of our time and the impacts of global warming are becoming increasingly notable and damaging. As a result, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges for drastic actions to address and mitigate climate risk. This is highly relevant for the tourism industry which has been identified as a sustainable development option and which provides important economic activity to destinations globally, including many small island developing states, such as Vanuatu. Yet, tourism is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, while at the same time contributing to global greenhouse gas emissions. For tourism to deliver on its development promise under a changing climate, climate risk to destinations and how it can be reduced needs to be better understood. To address this need, this thesis aims to understand what role tourism can play to reduce climate risk to the wider destination. The relevance of climate change is not new to the tourism literature, and there is evidence that tourism businesses are already coping with changes in their environment. Yet actions to address climate risk are often reactionary without the consideration of potential flow-on effects that may be created. This can be problematic, particularly in the South Pacific where tourism activity is highly integrated with local communities and the natural environment. For tourism to create benefits and reduce climate risk beyond the tourism businesses, the wider destination needs to be considered. However, our understanding of how different destination characteristics and elements link, interact, and change under increased climate risk and how flow-on effects between destination elements can themselves influence climate change remains limited. To address these gaps, this thesis applies general systems theory to advance our understanding of climate risk to destinations in Vanuatu, and to identify the systemic change that is required to collectively and holistically address climate change through tourism. A qualitative multi-stage research design was developed to first assess how academic, practical and political tourism and climate change knowledge is produced and how it can be enhanced to better inform the sector’s climate response. Following this literature review, the systems approach guides the development of the Vanuatu Tourism Adaptation System which identifies economic, socio-cultural, political, and environmental variables, how they interlink and thereby influencing climate risk to destinations in Vanuatu. Destination trade-offs are discussed and policy recommendations of how they may be reduced presented. Building on this systemic understanding of risk to Vanuatu destinations, the potential of Ecosystem-based Adaptation for tourism is empirically tested. Results highlight the potential this approach provides to reduce climate risk and contribute to destination well-being. A number of barriers to successful implementations were identified, and strategies presented of how to address those. To discuss the results and learnings of the empirical studies of this thesis, the concepts resilience and transformation, system characteristics linked to change, are critically reflected upon to develop seven leverage points for holistic climate risk reduction to Vanuatu destinations. Results of this thesis highlight the opportunity systems thinking provides to reduce climate risk to destinations. It can help enhance awareness, support collaboration to integrate projects and policies across sectors and inform the selection and implementation of climate risk reducing interventions in tourism. This thesis makes several significant theoretical and practical contributions. It contributes to our theoretical understanding of how tourism climate change knowledge is created, and to our systemic knowledge on climate risk to destinations. It thus advances systems approaches in tourism, including our understanding of destinations as social-ecological systems. Linking resilience to leverage points provides a novel way of assessing system change and provides insights into how to manage such change to reduce climate risk. In addition, this thesis provides practical recommendations for Vanuatu destinations relevant to decision makers at local, provincial and national level. It seeks to stimulate a different way of thinking about the means of tourism and how to address complex problems such as climate change more holistically.

As interconnected knowledge and policy priorities, the Philippines needs to develop more effective community engagement approaches and policies—particularly for its highly vulnerable coastal communities—to better enable robust local responses to climate change impacts, with increasing extreme weather events highlighted. Several social and policy barriers currently impede the development of more proactive and robust adaptation approaches at the community level. They comprise persistent top-down decision-making and planning approaches, poor institutional capacity, conflicting social power dynamics at the local level, and complex social, economic, and cultural community relations. In such context, this thesis advances a highly considered best option for effectivecommunity engagement approach/es to better increase adaptive capacity to climate change in the Philippines, based on knowledge building and practice. To reach this conclusion, the research involved three stages of investigation. First, an extensive literature review, as informed by the areas of environmental management, climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and management, community engagement, and local knowledge, in both international and Philippine contexts. Secondly, development of a conceptual framework to more clearly understand the relationship between community engagement and the Philippines context of climate change adaptation, assisted by the broader international context. The conceptual framework consisted of a synthesis of three meta-themes, and numerous themes informing them, as drawn from the existing theory and empirical research on the topic: (i) community engagement and climate change adaptation in international contexts; (ii) local knowledge and climate change adaptation; and (iii) community engagement and climate change adaptation in the Philippine context. Third, empirical data as collected through interviews with 24 local experts and focus group discussions with 91 community representatives in two disaster-prone research sites. More exactly, 11 local experts and 38 community representatives from Sorsogon City, and 13 local experts and 53 community representatives from the Municipality of Lavezares; as provinces on the eastern seaboard highly subject to extreme weather events with contrasting weak and strong community engagement styles for climate change adaptation. All participants had relevant knowledge and experience on community engagement for climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and management, and other related environmental issues typically experienced by Philippine coastal communities. The findings revealed that both strong (inclusive and active) and weak (passive and inactive) community engagement approaches for climate change adaptation (and by association, disaster risk reduction and management) existed in the Philippines, as wellevidenced by the representative case studies of Sorsogon City and the Municipality of Lavezares regarding community, government, and non-government-based initiatives and actions. Strong community engagement approaches pertained to (i) community capacity building; (ii) knowledge and awareness; (iii) community support; (iv) input in decisionmaking processes; and (v) community characteristics of unity, empowerment, and positive traditional Filipino community engagement practices. While participants recognised the contribution of strong community engagement to climate change adaptation, weak community engagement approaches reflected participatory barriers of (i) poverty and lack of funding and budget; (ii) disunity, class conflict, and a culture of dependency; (iii) top-down approaches to decision-making; and (iv) political affiliations and unequal social power dynamics. Concomitantly, information dissemination mechanisms, as traditionally weak community engagement, was mostly regarded as a precursor to strong approaches. Similarly, community-based consultations were considered as strong approaches when transparency and open communication were enabled at the community level, to better contribute meaningful input to decision-making processes. In turn, participants suggested four key conduits to strengthen community engagement for climate change adaptation: (i) community capacity building and empowerment; (ii) socio-cultural community and place-based contexts; (iii) leadership and good governance; and (iv) multi-stakeholder and sectoral networks, partnerships, and linkages. Knowledge integration was also emphasised, as was broader intra-jurisdictional coherence involving good governance principles. Positive community characteristics and practices such as bayanihan and pintakasi were also regarded as crucial for strong community engagement. However, in adopting such suggestions, local governments, communities, and NGOs would need to exercise vigilance as these practices can be misused or manipulated by those in power to the disadvantage of those engaging. Overall, the strong community engagement approach was found the best approach for Philippine coastal communities to build effective climate change adaptation to build more robust local adaptive capacity and resilience. That said, the thesis makes an original contribution to the literature in three ways. First, by consolidating the diverse meanings and interpretations of community engagement found in the literature into two broad approaches: ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ community engagement. Second, by comparing community engagement experiences in climate change adaptation involving local governments and communities specifically in the Philippine context. Third, by strongly contributing to the relevant and existing knowledge and practices in the Philippines for strengthening the policy development process of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction and management policies (with a flow-on knowledge contribution to the international literature). This contribution was based on many policy insights generated through dialogue in the Philippines with policy actors and practitioners involved in policy design, particularly regarding communities and local governments. Key policy suggestions included integration of socio-cultural and place-based contexts of communities in policy processes, established political leadership and government and community structures, policy coherence across all governmental levels, increased budget allocation at the local level, and strengthening community engagement approaches for interrelated climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction and management in the Philippines; which also appears to have wide applicability elsewhere.

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Global warming and other adverse climate change impacts induced by anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is a major public policy concern around the world. This paper examines the impacts of market-based economic reforms on per capita CO2 emissions in the European and Central Asian transition economies where environmental degradation was pervasive prior reforms. A dynamic panel data model is employed for this purpose for 28 countries covering 22 years from 1990-2012. Our results suggest that reforms in competition policy and corporate governance are the significant driver of emissions reductions in the region. Therefore, advances in competition policy and governance reforms are desirable given the available scope to extend these reforms. The Kyoto Protocol had no significant effect in reducing emissions levels while the relationship between economic growth and emissions seems weak based on our results. The results indicate that reducing energy use by increasing energy efficiency and investments in renewable energy are necessary to reduce the carbon emissions level and mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change in the region.