University Initiatives in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

This final chapter introduces the International Climate Change Information Programme (ICCIP) and describes some of its activities, outlining what the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences is doing in respect of climate change adaptation. It also outlines various opportunities for cooperation with universities interested on matters related to climate change.

Traditionally, internal views from UK businesses expect the maximisation of profits and delivery of value for the customer; the external view expects realistic profits and provision of employment. However, this view is changing, with customers increasingly demanding products and services that also demonstrate environmental responsibility and minimise climate impacts. Although the cause–effect relationship between business operations, negative environmental impacts and climate change is well established, there is now an enhanced appreciation that environmental challenges are systemic, interlinked and cannot be addressed in isolation. Despite the proliferation of ‘low-cost’ or ‘no-cost’ technological and behavioural opportunities, businesses struggle to realise opportunities that address these interlinked challenges, demonstrate environmental responsibility and minimise climate impacts, as they are embedded in economic systems in which improvement equals investment. Environmental improvement interventions have become synonymous with cost consumption rather than cost saving—frequently at odds with corporate financial strategies. In an attempt to change this view, support the mitigation of climate change through the reduction in environmental impacts and develop successful employment-ready graduates skilled in effective environmental improvement techniques, an innovative Environmental Strategy Module engaging postgraduate students in environmental management strategy design is taught at Coventry University. This offers students a more financially accessible approach to environmental improvement: a self-funding environmental management strategy created through the Environmental Value for Money Framework. This paper presents a conceptual study of the Environmental Value for Money Framework and its engagement of students as future employees in creating self-funded, economically viable environmental management strategies. It also offers this framework as a mechanism to encourage businesses to engage in carefully planned and economically viable strategic environmental improvements.

Climate change and increasing carbon emissions are the biggest challenges for the modern world. Organisations are facing increasing pressure from governments and stakeholders to reduce carbon emissions. The Higher Education (HE) sector has a huge environmental, social and economic impact. In 2012–13, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) consumed 7.9 billion kWh of energy and emitted 2.3 million tonnes of carbon emissions, which strengthens the role of universities in implementing carbon management for a low carbon built environment. The HE sector is not exempt from implementing carbon management strategies and respond to the UK government’s Climate Change Act by developing its own targets in England, which are in line with the national targets—80% reduction by 2050 and 34% by 2020 from the 1990 baseline. This indicates the scale of the challenge to implement carbon management through effective planning procedures. The aim of this paper is to explore the key elements of the carbon management planning process in UK universities and identify potential areas of improvements. This exploratory study adopted a qualitative and inductive research approach. The data were collected through the content analysis of eighteen universities’ carbon management plans (CMPs). The study found that key elements of carbon management planning are senior management leadership, carbon footprinting, carbon reduction targets, stakeholder engagement, funding and resources, governance and evaluation and reporting. Universities have shown policy commitment and developed CMPs for implementation, but the performance of universities varies significantly. There is also a disconnect between planning and delivery. The findings of this research show that CMPs can be valuable tools to assist universities in their carbon management journey. However, weaknesses are identified in the current design of CMPs, for example, overly focusing on the technical issues of carbon management (to the detriment of socio-technical factors), unsupportive of stakeholder engagement, not aligned with core policies and strategies and being static documents. CMPs are not comprehensive with regard to the operational boundary of carbon emissions and need standard approach for measuring, targeting and reporting. This study will be useful to academics and practitioners aiming to improve carbon management planning in universities and other organisations.

The networks that support collaboration and knowledge exchange around climate risk and response are emerging as central to climate adaptation. Yet, there is limited empirical knowledge about the conditions by which these networks can go beyond knowledge sharing to achieving on the ground. This paper presents two case studies of networks between universities, the private sector, civil society, and decision-makers at the local government level in different African municipalities: Karonga District (Malawi) and the Eden District (South Africa). The chapter considers conditions that enable collaboration to move from knowledge sharing to adaptation action. It does this by demonstrating how the origins of networks, the characteristics of partner organizations, the needs of each partner, the nature of the relationships between partners and the activities of the network, all combine to affect adaptation responses. For example, the high vulnerability of the Eden District to weather hazards prompted a private insurance company to collaborate with academics and local governments to understand how to reduce flood and fire risk to limit their insurance payouts in the region. The insurers invested in early warning systems and better fire response vehicles, as well as in a more holistic strategy of partnership, which has improved risk responses. The experiences presented in this paper highlight why and how networks can integrate knowledge from different partners into decision-making to result in adaptation actions on the ground.

Higher education institutions around the world are confronting challenges associated with climate change, and many are trying to model practices that support climate change mitigation and resilience. This work initiates an inventory of good practices and introduces a theoretical framework for the assessment of resilience planning in order to guide and support institutions of higher education in their efforts to plan for resilience. We analyzed the resilience planning initiatives of three higher education institutions. Smith College, a small liberal arts college, conducted participatory research to help plan for climate change. Large, research-focused Cornell University nurtured collaborations and examined its own capacity for climate action. Boston University played an important role in the efforts of the Boston Green Ribbon Commission to plan for climate resiliency in the city of Boston. We analyzed the climate change mitigation and resilience planning processes of these three institutions using a theoretical framework of organizational change, resilience thinking, and adaptive co-management. Our analysis showed that, although each institution approached the process differently, all three gained significant benefits beyond the scope of climate action. Each experienced a meaningful opportunity to engage with its community and explore the values of stakeholders, and each fostered local social capital and action while building a strong consensus on directions for the future. Aspects of the process supported the institutions’ missions of education, research, and outreach and provided opportunities to pause and think deeply about how the institution chooses to engage with the world. All three organizations learned valuable lessons and experienced transformation, but Boston University in particular developed new ways to promote institutional learning on the topic of climate change, a process we describe as triple-loop learning.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the linguistic adequacy of the lexical resources used in climate change discourse in Mulanje district in order to determine how language of sustainability can be achieved to foster citizen participation in climate change mitigation. In Malawi, emphasis has been on creating messages without regard to the effect the language being used may have, thus resulting in misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the concepts and facts. This paper argues that the use of language of sustainability can be a critical factor in attainment of climate change mitigation. This paper draws its conclusions from the first stage of the research project which was aimed at examining the language used in the climate change mitigation project in Mulanje district and its impact on citizen participation in climate change mitigation projects. It was demonstrated that there is disconnection in the contextualisation of the language as it does not reflect the everyday use of the language by the local communities in the project area. This paper suggests that language must be reprocessed to meet the expectations of the local communities and must be contextually appropriate to the context of situation in which the discourse is taking place.

Farmers’ behavioural attitudes towards climate change are complex and poorly understood, making difficult the development of mitigation and adaptation policies that would be accepted and implemented. The purpose of this paper is to assess the behavioural approaches of rural women farmers to adaptation measures of climate change in Abia State, Nigeria. Specifically, this paper ascertains perceived effects of climate change in the study area and adaptation measures practised by the women in the study area and identifies farmers’ behavioural responses to adaptation measures to climate change and factors that influence farmers’ behavioural approach to adaptation measures to climate change in the study area. Multistage sampling techniques were used in selecting 180 respondents for the study. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis, while Tobit regression model and Pearson’s correlation were used to test the hypotheses. Results show that high sunshine intensity, increased drought, inadequate access to water and crop losses are major perceived changes to climate change, while change of planting time (\(\bar{x} = 4.79\)), enterprise diversification (\(\bar{x} = 4.51\)) and crop rotation (\(\bar{x} = 4.22\)) are major adaptation measures practised by the women in the study area. Seeking for information based on observed changes (\(\bar{x} = 5.00\)), reverting to indigenous or self-help methods and changing cropping style and time (\(\bar{x} = 3.41\)) were identified as major behavioural responses of the women to climate change, while Tobit regression result indicated that age (−2.795**), household size (2.705**), level of education (3.389***) and income (2.505**) were major factors that influence the women farmers’ behavioural approach to adaptation measures to climate change in the study area. Pearson’s correlation analysis shows that there is a significant relationship between the women’s behavioural responses to adaptation measures to climate change and adoption of adaptation measures by the women. The study has examined and shown the women’s level of conformity, constraints and factors that influence their adoption of adaptation and mitigation strategies in the study area. It is therefore recommended among others that targeted and timely information be provided to the women through agricultural extension and mass media, the most effective and sustainable indigenous technologies used by the farming communities could be incubated with a view to upscale and out scale them in other to enhance adaptation to climate change and variability by the resource-poor farmers. ICT-driven virtual platform that provides weather advisory services for small-scale farmers should be made available through rural advisory services (RAS). This will help farmers handle climate risk situation promptly.

Climate change is anticipated to have, and is already having, negative impacts on small island developing states (SIDS). Biophysical impacts include sea level rise, increased coastal erosion, ocean acidification and increased frequency of extreme events, leading to incidents of loss and damage in these states. The impacts of loss and damage are leading to negative consequences for the economies of these states, including shrinking public budgets, decreased availability of finances, negative impacts on industries such as fishing and tourism, as well as negative impacts on livelihoods, leading to what the authors argue is an unvirtuous cycle of eroding development and resilience. Given the severity of these impacts, it would be assumed that increased research on climate change, and its impacts, would have been ramped up in these states. However, Caribbean states suffer from capacity constraints, and research, including systematic observation, particularly of slow onset events, has consequentially been limited. The lack of localised data on climate change further hampers research initiatives in tertiary institutions. This paper seeks to explore the relationship between capacity constraints in Caribbean SIDS and research gaps in climate change. This paper provides a brief analysis of current activities of tertiary institutions in the region in relation to climate change and seeks to provide remarks on how research efforts in the region can be further coordinated and improved by bridging existing capacity constraints.

This paper provides insight into how sustainability literacies can be embedded in theatre performance and production practices in a university context and consequently offers a model of sustainable theatre education that may adopted by others in the university and tertiary sector. The aim of this paper is to discuss sustainable theatre performance and production, practices in the Contemporary and Applied Theatre Department at Griffith University, Australia. Theatre production is resource vociferous and can be acknowledged as inefficient in its wastage and consumption of power. The negative impact of traditional theatre production practices upon the natural environment has seen inroads into policy change and practices within theatre companies at national and international levels. Further, the adaptation of green changes in higher education sectors suggests that there are initiatives being implemented in subjects other than science and environmental studies (Shephard 2008). The adoption of Greening the Theatre at Griffith University suggests the theatre department has a commitment to fostering environmentally sustainable societies through teaching and learning and campus operations. This paper specifically discusses one project: Dust (Hassall 2015) as being one of the major outcomes to date of the Greening the Theatre Project (Rowan 2015). The Greening the Theatre Project embeds green philosophies and practices within its university theatre production outputs. The qualitative practice-led research draws on theories of ecocriticism to generate the creative development methods that informed the development of the performance script. The production practices that were implemented in the staging of Dust were informed by Rowan’s (2015) case study research of sustainability practices in an independent theatre production context. Consequently, the paper discusses how ecocritical themes were investigated as creative process and further how the performance practice aligns with the adoption of a green philosophy for production, specifically in design considerations, staging realisation and administration.

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) has been practiced and promoted to address the temporal and spatial variability of rainfall, thereby enhancing agriculture production in rainfed systems. The practices could also address the problem of land degradation. However, there is limited practice of approaching RWH from the perspective of managing both the water and land resources. Research on water productivity and impact for poverty reduction mainly focused on irrigated agriculture while it is potential to provide the water needed to produce food for rapidly growing population is the subject of intense debate these days. An important option is to upgrade rainfed agriculture through better land and water management that improves soil moisture conservation and rainwater harvesting that provides supplementary irrigation. In the meantime, studies on impact of agricultural water management focused more on unidimensional poverty while poverty is multidimensional. This study investigates the impact of integrated RWH practices (IRWHPs) on multidimensional poverty in Ethiopia. Results show that the use of IRWHPs has a significant negative impact on the probability that a household is multidimensionally poor. This study suggests that policies that enhance the promotion of IRWHPs would be central for the sustainable intensification of smallholder agriculture that simultaneously alleviate poverty and enhance resource sustainability.

Purpose: This study aims to explore low temperature and pressure to extract the lignocellulosic content of palm fruit fibre and pyrolyse it for energy (bio-oil) and chemical feedstock productions as alternative technology to improper disposal causing environmental pollution as strategies for climate change and adaptation. Design/Methodology/Approach: Burning of refuse and agricultural residue releases harmful gases or carbon emission to the climate which causes global warming. Renewable technology can therefore be introduced to utilize agricultural residues to produce energy and chemical feedstock. Vacuum pyrolysis of the lignocellulosic material prepared from palm fruit fibre was performed by considering pyrolysis temperature of 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 °C and biomass particle size of 0.25, 0.30, 0.42 and 0.55 mm. The bio-oil produced at different process parameters was then characterized by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and ultimate analysis. The response was efficiently used for modelling and optimization of the process parameters. The results showed that experimented and predicted data are in reasonable agreement with the values of coefficient of determination, R² (0.8098) and Adj. R² (0.700). Findings: It was found that the optimal conditions for pyrolytic product were temperature 300 °C, biomass particle size 0.55 mm and retention time between 14 and 18 min. Temperature and particle size had effect on the yielded gaseous products, liquid and char materials. And various chemical compounds were produced at different process parameters. Research Limitation/Implications: The contribution of renewable technology framework is a process of educating for climate stewardship, at this stage of practical and theoretical. It is good approach of converting residues to useful products as one of the ways of solving climate change problem with the relevant stakeholders that its true potential can be assessed. Social Implications: Educating the public for climate stewardship will be more effective if it adopts an approach which seeks a co-production of knowledge. Clean environment with less global warming will be attained. Originality/Value: This agricultural residue can be recommended for biofuel, biogas and used as chemical feedstock for industrial purpose. The char can also be used to increase soil organic components. These benefits can therefore be used for policy making on residue disposal and as strategy for climate change and adaptation or mitigation in Nigeria and other African countries.

Rainfall variability, which ultimately leads to climate change, is a major threat to smallholder agriculture. It affects time of sowing time and productivity, amongst other challenges. There is therefore need to evaluate the different strategies for their effectiveness in managing climate variability. This study assessed the effects of different strategies on sowing date, season length and maize yields under variable rainfall conditions. Maize (Zea mays L.) yield simulations for Southern Africa were conducted using the DSSAT model. Simulated conservation agriculture (CA)-based cropping systems included basins prepared early (CA-Basins early) and late (CA-Basins late), draught powered planter (CA-Direct seeder), ripper (CA-Ripper) and Dibble stick (CA-Dibble). Conventional systems were mouldboard ploughing early (CMP-early) and late (CMP-late). Rainfall seasons were classified into low, medium and high based on the total rainfall amount. Results showed that high-rainfall seasons were seeded earlier and had a greater season length compared to low rainfall seasons in drier agro-ecologies, translating to higher yields and vice versa. Reduced labour requirements and use of draught power, enabled early seeding of CA-ripper, direct seeder, basins early and CMP-early systems compared to CA-Basins late, Dibble stick and CMP-late systems. However, performance of cropping systems did not vary across season types suggesting that there was thus no evidence of higher yield advantages from CA technologies even during low rainfall seasons. This puts the merits of drought mitigation by CA technologies into doubt despite enabling early planting.

Taking into consideration (1) the extent to which climate change impacts humans (and non-humans) globally; (2) the continuous political discussions around this issue; and (3) claims that post-secondary educational institutions (PSIs) make through their mission statements in regards to their roles within societies, this research sought to explore climate change curricula responses in Canadian PSIs. Specifically, this paper presents an analysis of climate change curricula in 225 Canadian PSIs, focusing on the academic year (2014–15). Three key terms are used to identify course syllabi: “climate change,” “global warming,” and “greenhouse gases or GHGs.” Our analysis codes syllabi (N = 562) into Tiers-of-Concentration and Streams according to area/discipline of concentration (technical/scientific, managerial, environmental/sociological, economics, policy/governance). Gathered data reveals a series of trends, including: (i) a relative paucity of courses with climate change focus; (ii) an emphasis on scientific/technical aspects of climate change, and (iii) complex relationships between provincial and institutional policies and climate change curricula practices. We conclude discussing implications of these trends for higher education theory and practice.

Climatic variation results from the gradual warming of our planet, which accounted for the variability of the weather globally. This variation in turn affects agricultural crop production negatively; this often necessitates price increase and hence food scarcity. Maize is an important food in Nigeria, especially in the south-west Nigeria. Maize farmers are in need of data to better plan crops planting and monitor rate of yield. Thus, the study examined the relationship between the inter-annual climate variability (temperature and rainfall) and the maize yield in south-western states of Nigeria. Annual maize yield data for years 1991–2007 were collected from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Nigeria, while temperature and rainfall data were obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Station. Analysis of the relationship between climate variation of temperature, precipitation on maize yield and maps of the respective parameters was produced using GIS for selected years. The results of the work include production of geospatial variation maps of the rainfall, temperature and maize yields and the correlation of the variables in study area. Ekiti State had the highest rainfall value of 182.86 cm, while Ogun State had the least rainfall value of 110.81 cm. Projecting for the year 2017, Ondo and Ekiti states would have a joint highest rainfall value of 190.13 cm while Ogun State may have rainfall value of 110.25 cm. For temperature, Ogun State had the highest temperature value of 32.21 °C while Lagos State had the lowest temperature value of 31.39 °C. By prediction, Ogun State will have mean annual temperature of 32.08 °C by the year 2017, while Lagos State would have the least temperature value of 31.43 °C. Mean annual maize yield on temperature-based is highest for the year 2012 at Osun State (1.81 tonne value) and lowest at Ogun (1.43 tonne). Mean annual maize yield, however, varied from state to state. By the year 2017, mean annual maize yield would decline to 1.46 tonne for Osun State and least in Ogun State with 1.16 tonne. The study depicted a general pattern, but the results change from state to state. The findings from the study will help governments and farmers to better plan crops production activities in order to address the problem of increasing food security.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the possibility of creating software for the automated assessment of bioclimatic comfort in Russian cities. This research is relevant because 74% of the population in Russia live in cities, and these areas require the development of primarily standardized methods for the assessment of bioclimatic comfort. To select the bioclimatic indices that are suitable for use across the territory of Russia, a critical analysis of the existing and applied bioclimatic indices used in Russia and worldwide was carried out. Based on the results of the analysis, the three most relevant indices were selected, and software was developed for their calculation. Using this software, the evaluation of bioclimatic comfort in 112 large Russian cities (with populations over 100,000) was conducted for 2010–2014, and the results are displayed in map view for cartographical analysis. These results will be the basis for further research on categorizing Russian cities according to their level of thermal comfort and developing climate change adaptation measures.

Climate change is now a palpable threat to sustainable agriculture in Africa. Whereas some advances have been made in the agricultural sector on climate change adaptation, the same cannot be said of mitigation. Climate-smart approaches have been experimented on and recommended, but stunning results are yet to be achieved. The objectives of this chapter were to examine the contribution of conservation agriculture (CA) to soil organic carbon (SOC) stock and how SOC management could enhance climate change mitigation under southern Africa conditions. Whereas application of CA increased SOC stock by up to 104% under experimental conditions, it was not sustainable in the field because the organic matter input was limited and unreliable. Increased use of inorganic fertilizers, especially nitrogen, has been recommended to boost biomass production. Unfortunately, inorganic fertilizer manufacture and application e.g. urea is associated with increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Instead, this study proposes increased use of biofertilizers namely biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) bacteria and vesicular–arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi. This review concluded that biofertilizers would sustainably boost SOC input without the danger of GHG emission and should be a compulsory aspect of CA.

Climate change as a serious environmental issue has been subjected to many management studies. Yet the issue of allocating global responsibilities to emission reduction in a reasonable way is an unconcluded challenge. Two main groups of responsibility allocation systems are production-based responsibilities (PBR) and consumption-based responsibilities (CBR). PBR takes territorial emissions within borders into account that is applied to global policy makings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In contrast, CBR considers the emission transfers through international trade and allocates the responsibilities based on the goods and services being consumed by each country. Both two methods are discouraged by some logics. The PBR does not consider the effects of indirect emissions of imported materials/services. By contrast, in the CBR the consumer is the only one being charged for the emission costs, ignoring the profitability of the emissions for the producers, thus lowering incentives of exporters toward greener production (usually developing nations). Moreover, the calculation of the embodied emissions in the CBR method requires massive interindustry and intercountry trade data. This research aims at defining and applying a new less data-intensive method for the calculation of embodied carbon loads on streams on the one hand and sharing environmental responsibilities (SBRs) among producers and consumers on the other hand. The method is based on thermodynamic quantities to internalize the external environmental damages using the exergy concept. The main notion of the new method is that the traceable exergy destruction could be representative of environmental burdens. Therefore, shared responsibilities motivate net importers (i.e., developed nations) to buy from greener producers and simultaneously push net exporters (i.e., developing nations) toward greener production to reduce their responsibilities. In this study, the global model is simplified into three country categories: developed countries, BRIICS, and rest of the world. The emission transfers are calculated using international trade statistics and are applied to the developed shared responsibility accounting model. Shared responsibilities lie between PBR and CBR. However, derived SBR recommends higher contribution of producers to reduce emissions.

Climate change and a rising number of extreme weather events increase the demand for regional climate adaptation concepts. Consequently, the need for supporting the development of such concepts, for example through the usage of digital climate services, is growing. In particular, the adequate use of geospatial data and Web services could accompany actors in the development and primarily in the implementation of climate adaptation measures. The paper describes the potential of current geo-Web services and innovative data exchange formats for future climate services. The hypothesis is to determine whether the use of innovative exchange formats and interoperable geo-Web services can contribute to an increase of quality and an expanded usage of Web services during the definition of regional climate adaptation measures. Aiming at the verification, or falsification, of this hypothesis, various investigations were and are being carried out. They are embedded in a research project, focusing on climate adaptation measures in small river catchments. Initial results suggest that the hypothesis can be confirmed. It will be tested based on the development of innovative climate services aimed at producing maps that inform users about erosion vulnerabilities in two exemplary catchments. Resulting findings will be presented, and conclusions are drawn.

Energy efficiency regulations are one of the important policy packages employed for climate mitigation. Recent evaluations from the USA and the European Union (EU) indicate that the setting of minimum mandatory energy performance standards (MEPS) for different products—such as electric motors, TVs, and dishwashers—are among the best-performing climate policies and that these regulations are also cost-effective. In the EU, MEPS are adopted under the Ecodesign Directive. Despite the positive evaluations, MEPS have also come under criticism from media and some researchers, questioning their unintended effects and their cost-effectiveness. This chapter reflects the research of a five-year, interdisciplinary research program (2013–2018) which researched the effects and potential of the Ecodesign Directive. Multiple methods were employed in the project, which have resulted in various insights. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the main experiences with this interdisciplinary research project, including the variety of research methods, the ways the results have been communicated to policymakers and other actors outside academia, and the need for future research to better understand the interactions between resource efficiency and climate mitigation in the context of product regulation. Two issues of high importance in the climate change mitigation research arena are highlighted. The first issue concerns the need for research that looks at interactions between energy efficiency and resource efficiency in the case of MEPS, and the need to develop new methods and approaches. Secondly, in the case of the “policy mix” for effective climate mitigation, there is a need to develop new theories, and also to consider the political feasibility of proposed policies.

It cannot be denied that a robust national emission inventory (NEI) serves as a powerful policy tool to formulate effective mitigation policies. The literature agrees that the official principle of the UNFCCC to construct an NEI is not powerful enough to capture causes of national emissions and has agued about alternative principles to replace the existing principle. Nonetheless, since each principle offers different emission profile, and all profiles could supplement each other in policymaking process therefore, a gap remains in which conditions additional principles could be implemented to supplement the existing official principle. Therefore, a gap remains in which conditions additional principles could be implemented to supplement the existing official principle. This paper fills this gap by examining conditions in which additional principle(s) can be adopted as secondary NEIs. Sitting in a realm of policy research with Thailand as a case study, and borrowing lens of a theory of institutions defined in New Institutional Economics, the paper offers perspectives from policymaking in a developing country, which is sparse in the literature landscape. The paper’s results inform policymakers that they should prepare secondary NEIs for their own benefits in effectively governing climate change mitigation. These extensions could be achieved by collective advocacy from climate change research communities acting as an agent for change. Lastly, the paper concludes that none of currently used principles is without a flaw, and therefore it is crucial that the climate research communities continue to research for a best possible principle to count the hot air.

This paper intends to make a contribution to the global debate on climate change mitigation by suggesting the transposition of a peculiar human rights-enhancing notion (developed by the European Institutions over the past three decades) towards the intersection between international trade law and climate change issues. The said notion, “conditionality”, is a practice which entails that the obligations assumed by the EU in the international cooperation and development agreements it signs with developing countries are conditional on those recipients’ continuous and clear respect of basic human rights. This paper’s hypothesis is that if obligations in cooperation and development agreements can be made conditional on the respect by other parties of human rights, then obligations in international trade agreements can be made conditional on the respect by other parties of their respective climate change obligations. In other words, “climate change conditionality” would mean that there would be no free-trade benefits without effective fulfilment of international climate-change-related obligations. The feasibility of this idea will be assessed via the textual analysis of the current wording and content of environmental/climate-change-related elements already present in a sample of relatively recent and/or upcoming free-trade agreements. This exercise intends to ascertain whether elements already present therein may be used to build climate change conditionality upon them.

Indigenous people knowledge is classified as comprehension of the skills, practices and ideologies of cultures that have had long histories of harmonious living with their natural surroundings. This knowledge forms important contributions to the world’s adaptive capabilities and is a contributor to the accomplishments of the 2030 Paris Agreement. Granting land rights to indigenous people societies has been proven to significantly curb deforestation and thus is a low-cost solution to reducing carbon emissions. Considering the importance of indigenous people knowledge, and the role the Amazon rainforest and its original inhabitants play in climate change, a three-month Participatory Action Research approach was embarked upon in various communities of the Peruvian Amazon. This paper aims to highlight how the Peruvian government and external agents have interacted with the natives throughout history and emphasises the outcomes of these encounters in regard to the protection of indigenous people knowledge, the rainforest and climate change. Due to the short time span of the field research, the indigenous people communities where the primary knowledge was obtained cannot be representative of the whole Peruvian Amazon; however, together with the literature review and further research, the stance of both the Peruvian government and the indigenous people populations can be seen. While evidence shows that the world has never been better geared towards legally granting the indigenous people land rights, the results in this paper seem to indicate that Peru’s progress towards securing tenure rights and upholding the sustainable development goals highlighted in the Conference of Parties and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is not being met, and consequently, the knowledge, rights and lives of the natives are being overlooked, causing a ripple effect on the rest of the world.