Annual Review of Environment and Resources - Volume 46, 2021
Volume 46, 2021
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Restoring Degraded Lands
Vol. 46 (2021), pp. 569–599More LessLand degradation continues to be an enormous challenge to human societies, reducing food security, emitting greenhouse gases and aerosols, driving the loss of biodiversity, polluting water, and undermining a wide range of ecosystem services beyond food supply and water and climate regulation. Climate change will exacerbate several degradation processes. Investment in diverse restoration efforts, including sustainable agricultural and forest land management, as well as land set aside for conservation wherever possible, will generate co-benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation and morebroadly for human and societal well-being and the economy. This review highlights the magnitude of the degradation problem and some of the key challenges for ecological restoration. There are biophysical as well as societal limits to restoration. Better integrating policies to jointly address poverty, land degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions and removals is fundamental to reducing many existing barriers and contributing to climate-resilient sustainable development.
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How to Prevent and Cope with Coincidence of Risks to the Global Food System
Vol. 46 (2021), pp. 601–623More LessThe global food system faces major risks and threats that can cause massive economic loss; dislocation of food supply chains; and welfare loss of producers, consumers, and other food system actors. The interrelated nature of the system has highlighted the complexity of risks. Climate change, extreme weather events, and degradation and depletion of natural resources, including water, arable, forestry, and pastural lands, loss of biodiversity, emerging diseases, trade chokepoints and disruptions, macroeconomic shocks, and conflicts, can each seriously disrupt the system. Coincidence of these risks can compound the effects on global food security and nutrition. Smallholder farmers, rural migrants, women, youth, children, low-income populations, and other disadvantaged groups are particularly vulnerable. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic exemplifies a perfect storm of coincidental risks. This article reviews major risks that most significantly impact food systems and highlights the importance of prospects for coincidence of risks. We present pathways to de-risk food systems and a way forward to ensure healthy, sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food systems.
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Forests and Sustainable Development in the Brazilian Amazon: History, Trends, and Future Prospects
Vol. 46 (2021), pp. 625–652More LessOngoing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is the outcome of an explicit federal project to occupy, integrate, and “modernize” the region. Although there have been isolated periods of deforestation control, most recently between 2004 and 2012, the overall trajectory of the region since the colonial period has been one of forest loss and degradation. Addressing this challenge is especially urgent in the context of adverse climate-ecology feedbacks and tipping points. Here we describe the trends and outcomes of deforestation and degradation in the Amazon. We then highlight how historical development paradigms and policies have helped to cement the land use activities and structural lock-ins that underpin deforestation and degradation. We emphasize how the grounds for establishing a more sustainable economy in the Amazon were never consolidated, leading to a situation where forest conservation and development remain dependent on external programs—punitive measures against deforestation and fire and public social programs. This situation makes progress toward a forest transition(arresting forest loss and degradation and restoring forest landscapes) highly vulnerable to changes in political leadership, private sector engagement, and global market signals. After summarizing these challenges, we present a suite of measures that collectively could be transformational to helping overcome destructive path dependencies in the region. These include innovations in agricultural management, improved forest governance through landscape approaches, developing a local forest economy, sustainable peri-urbanization, and the empowerment of women and youth. These initiatives must be inclusive and equitable, enabling the participation and empowerment of local communities, particularly indigenous groups who have faced numerous historical injustices and are increasingly under threat by current politics.
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Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven't We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?
Isak Stoddard, Kevin Anderson, Stuart Capstick, Wim Carton, Joanna Depledge, Keri Facer, Clair Gough, Frederic Hache, Claire Hoolohan, Martin Hultman, Niclas Hällström, Sivan Kartha, Sonja Klinsky, Magdalena Kuchler, Eva Lövbrand, Naghmeh Nasiritousi, Peter Newell, Glen P. Peters, Youba Sokona, Andy Stirling, Matthew Stilwell, Clive L. Spash, and Mariama WilliamsVol. 46 (2021), pp. 653–689More LessDespite three decades of political efforts and a wealth of research on the causes and catastrophic impacts of climate change, global carbon dioxide emissions have continued to rise and are 60% higher today than they were in 1990. Exploring this rise through nine thematic lenses—covering issues of climate governance, the fossil fuel industry, geopolitics, economics, mitigation modeling, energy systems, inequity, lifestyles, and social imaginaries—draws out multifaceted reasons for our collective failure to bend the global emissions curve. However, a common thread that emerges across the reviewed literature is the central role of power, manifest in many forms, from a dogmatic political-economic hegemony and influential vested interests to narrow techno-economic mindsets and ideologies of control. Synthesizing the various impediments to mitigation reveals how delivering on the commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement now requires an urgent and unprecedented transformation away from today's carbon- and energy-intensive development paradigm.
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Discounting and Global Environmental Change
Vol. 46 (2021), pp. 691–717More LessDiscounting plays a central role in decisions about global environmental change that affect the well-being of future generations. Discounting the future more heavily tilts decisions toward the present, making it less likely that society will undertake actions to mitigate climate change or other global environmental change. This article reviews the standard economics approach to discounting that emerges from solving for optimal savings and investment through time. Discounting depends on the pure rate of time preference and differences in consumption levels across time, giving rise to different marginal utilities of consumption. Discounting for problems like climate change that impact future generations involves an ethical dimension. This article includes discussions of ethical dimensions of discounting related to intragenerational and intergenerational equity and also covers behavioral economics, ecological economics, and mainstream economics approaches to discounting. The article closes with a review of the debates over discounting in climate change policy.
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Machine Learning for Sustainable Energy Systems
Vol. 46 (2021), pp. 719–747More LessIn recent years, machine learning has proven to be a powerful tool for deriving insights from data. In this review, we describe ways in which machine learning has been leveraged to facilitate the development and operation of sustainable energy systems. We first provide a taxonomy of machine learning paradigms and techniques, along with a discussion of their strengths and limitations. We then provide an overview of existing research using machine learning for sustainable energy production, delivery, and storage. Finally, we identify gaps in this literature, propose future research directions, and discuss important considerations for deployment.
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Previous Volumes
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Volume 49 (2024)
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Volume 48 (2023)
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Volume 47 (2022)
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Volume 46 (2021)
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Volume 45 (2020)
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Volume 44 (2019)
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Volume 43 (2018)
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Volume 42 (2017)
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Volume 41 (2016)
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Volume 40 (2015)
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Volume 39 (2014)
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Volume 38 (2013)
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Volume 37 (2012)
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Volume 36 (2011)
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Volume 35 (2010)
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Volume 34 (2009)
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Volume 33 (2008)
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Volume 32 (2007)
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Volume 31 (2006)
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Volume 30 (2005)
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Volume 29 (2004)
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Volume 28 (2003)
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Volume 27 (2002)
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Volume 26 (2001)
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Volume 25 (2000)
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Volume 24 (1999)
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Volume 23 (1998)
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Volume 22 (1997)
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Volume 21 (1996)
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Volume 20 (1995)
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Volume 19 (1994)
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Volume 18 (1993)
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Volume 17 (1992)
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Volume 16 (1991)
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Volume 15 (1990)
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Volume 14 (1989)
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Volume 13 (1988)
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Volume 12 (1987)
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Volume 11 (1986)
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Volume 10 (1985)
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Volume 9 (1984)
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Volume 8 (1983)
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Volume 7 (1982)
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Volume 6 (1981)
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Volume 5 (1980)
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Volume 4 (1979)
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Volume 3 (1978)
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Volume 2 (1977)
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Volume 1 (1976)
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Volume 0 (1932)