ORCID Profile
0000-0002-2862-0178
Current Organisations
Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change gGmbH
,
University of Leeds
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Publications
Carbon footprints of cities and other human settlements in the UK
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 09-2013
A CARBON FOOTPRINT TIME SERIES OF THE UK – RESULTS FROM A MULTI-REGION INPUT–OUTPUT MODEL
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-2010
Policy implications from aligning IPCC scenarios to national land emissions inventories
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 15-05-2023
DOI: 10.5194/EGUSPHERE-EGU23-6823
Abstract: Taking stock of global progress towards achieving the Paris Agreement requires measuring aggregate national action against modelled mitigation pathways. A key gap exists, however, in how scientific studies and national inventories account for the role of anthropogenic land-based carbon fluxes, resulting in a 5.5-6.0 GtCO2yr-1 difference between the respective present-day land-use estimates. Modelled pathways mainly include direct human-induced fluxes, while inventories submitted by countries to the UNFCCC (NGHGIs) generally include a wider definition of managed land area as well as the indirect removals on that land caused by environmental changes (e.g., the CO2 fertilization effect). This difference hinders comparability between targets set by countries and scientific benchmarks.& Scenarios assessed in AR6 show that a combination of deep near-term gross emissions reductions and medium-term carbon removal from the atmosphere are needed to reach net-zero and eventually net-negative CO2 emissions to limit warming in line with the Paris Agreement temperature goal. However, scenarios lacked key information needed to estimate land-based removals and to align their LULUCF projections with NGHGIs. Here, we estimate the land-based removals consistent with NGHGIs using a reduced complexity climate model with explicit treatment of the land-use sector, OSCAR, one of the models used by the Global Carbon Project. Of the 1202 pathways that passed IPCC vetting, 914 provide sufficient land-use change data to allow us to fill this information gap and enable alignment between pathways and inventories.Across both 1.5& #176 C and 2& #176 C scenarios, pathways aligned with NGHGIs show a strong increase in the total land sink until around mid-century. However, the & #8216 NGHGI alignment gap& #8217 decreases over this period, converging in the 2050-2060s for 1.5& #176 C scenarios and 2070s-2080s for 2& #176 C scenarios. These dynamics lead to land-based emissions reversing their downward trend in most NGHGI-aligned scenarios by mid-century, and result in the LULUCF sector becoming a net-source of emissions by 2100 in about 25% of deep mitigation scenarios.Our results do not change any climate outcome or mitigation benchmark produced by the IPCC, but rather provide a translational lens to view those outcomes. We find that net-zero timings on average advance by around 5 years however, this does not imply that 5 years have been lost in the race to net-zero, but rather that following the reporting conventions for natural sinks results in net-zero being reached 5 years earlier. Understanding how these different accounting frameworks can be mutually interpreted is a fundamental challenge for evaluating progress towards the Paris Agreement, given the reality that direct and indirect carbon removals cannot be estimated separately with direct observations.We propose three primary ways to address this science-policy gap. First, targets can be formulated separately for gross emission reductions, land-based removals, and technical carbon removals, allowing for nations to clearly define their expected contributions and to measure progress in each domain separately. Second, nations can clarify the nature of their deforestation pledges. Third, modelling teams can provide their assumptions for the NGHGI correction as part of their standard output which future IPCC assessments can use to vet scenarios.
Upscaling urban data science for global climate solutions
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2019
DOI: 10.1017/SUS.2018.16
Abstract: Manhattan, Berlin and New Delhi all need to take action to adapt to climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While case studies on these cities provide valuable insights, comparability and scalability remain sidelined. It is therefore timely to review the state-of-the-art in data infrastructures, including earth observations, social media data, and how they could be better integrated to advance climate change science in cities and urban areas. We present three routes for expanding knowledge on global urban areas: mainstreaming data collections, lifying the use of big data and taking further advantage of computational methods to analyse qualitative data to gain new insights. These data-based approaches have the potential to upscale urban climate solutions and effect change at the global scale.
Urban infrastructure choices structure climate solutions
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-11-2016
DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE3169
Supplementary material to "A comprehensive dataset for global, regional and national greenhouse gas emissions by sector 1970–2019"
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 14-07-2021
Biophysical and economic limits to negative CO2 emissions
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-12-2015
DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2870
A comprehensive and synthetic dataset for global, regional, and national greenhouse gas emissions by sector 1970–2018 with an extension to 2019
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 10-11-2021
DOI: 10.5194/ESSD-13-5213-2021
Abstract: Abstract. To track progress towards keeping global warming well below 2 ∘C or even 1.5 ∘C, as agreed in the Paris Agreement, comprehensive up-to-date and reliable information on anthropogenic emissions and removals of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is required. Here we compile a new synthetic dataset on anthropogenic GHG emissions for 1970–2018 with a fast-track extension to 2019. Our dataset is global in coverage and includes CO2 emissions, CH4 emissions, N2O emissions, as well as those from fluorinated gases (F-gases: HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3) and provides country and sector details. We build this dataset from the version 6 release of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR v6) and three bookkeeping models for CO2 emissions from land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF). We assess the uncertainties of global greenhouse gases at the 90 % confidence interval (5th–95th percentile range) by combining statistical analysis and comparisons of global emissions inventories and top-down atmospheric measurements with an expert judgement informed by the relevant scientific literature. We identify important data gaps for F-gas emissions. The agreement between our bottom-up inventory estimates and top-down atmospheric-based emissions estimates is relatively close for some F-gas species (∼ 10 % or less), but estimates can differ by an order of magnitude or more for others. Our aggregated F-gas estimate is about 10 % lower than top-down estimates in recent years. However, emissions from excluded F-gas species such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are cumulatively larger than the sum of the reported species. Using global warming potential values with a 100-year time horizon from the Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global GHG emissions in 2018 amounted to 58 ± 6.1 GtCO2 eq. consisting of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and industry (FFI) 38 ± 3.0 GtCO2, CO2-LULUCF 5.7 ± 4.0 GtCO2, CH4 10 ± 3.1 GtCO2 eq., N2O 2.6 ± 1.6 GtCO2 eq., and F-gases 1.3 ± 0.40 GtCO2 eq. Initial estimates suggest further growth of 1.3 GtCO2 eq. in GHG emissions to reach 59 ± 6.6 GtCO2 eq. by 2019. Our analysis of global trends in anthropogenic GHG emissions over the past 5 decades (1970–2018) highlights a pattern of varied but sustained emissions growth. There is high confidence that global anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased every decade, and emissions growth has been persistent across the different (groups of) gases. There is also high confidence that global anthropogenic GHG emissions levels were higher in 2009–2018 than in any previous decade and that GHG emissions levels grew throughout the most recent decade. While the average annual GHG emissions growth rate slowed between 2009 and 2018 (1.2 % yr−1) compared to 2000–2009 (2.4 % yr−1), the absolute increase in average annual GHG emissions by decade was never larger than between 2000–2009 and 2009–2018. Our analysis further reveals that there are no global sectors that show sustained reductions in GHG emissions. There are a number of countries that have reduced GHG emissions over the past decade, but these reductions are comparatively modest and outgrown by much larger emissions growth in some developing countries such as China, India, and Indonesia. There is a need to further develop independent, robust, and timely emissions estimates across all gases. As such, tracking progress in climate policy requires substantial investments in independent GHG emissions accounting and monitoring as well as in national and international statistical infrastructures. The data associated with this article (Minx et al., 2021) can be found at 0.5281/zenodo.5566761.
CO2 emission clusters within global supply chain networks: Implications for climate change mitigation
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2015
Corrigendum: A review of trends and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions by sector from 1990 to 2018 (2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 073005)
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 24-03-2022
Demand-side solutions to climate change mitigation consistent with high levels of wellbeing
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 07-01-2021
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-127928/V1
Abstract: Climate mitigation solutions are often evaluated in terms of their costs and potentials. This accounting, however, shortcuts a comprehensive evaluation of how climate solutions affect human well-being, which, at best, may only be crudely related to cost considerations. Here, we systematically list key sectoral mitigation options on the demand side, and categorize them into avoid, shift and improve categories. We show that these options, bridging socio-behavioral, infrastructural and technological domains, can reduce counterfactual sectoral emissions by 50-80% in end use sectors. Based on expert judgement and literature survey, we then evaluate 324 combinations of wellbeing outcomes and demand side options. We find that these are largely beneficial in improving wellbeing across all measures combined (76% have positive, 22% neutral, and 2.4% have negative effects), even though confidence level is low in the social dimensions of wellbeing. Implementing demand-side solution requires i) an understanding of malleable not fixed preferences, ii) consistently measuring and evaluating constituents of wellbeing, and iii) addressing concerns of incumbents in supply-side industries. Our results shift the emphasis in the climate mitigation solution space from supply-side technologies to demand-side service provision.
Climate action for health and wellbeing in cities: a protocol for the systematic development of a database of peer-reviewed studies using machine learning methods
Publisher: F1000 Research Ltd
Date: 05-03-2021
DOI: 10.12688/WELLCOMEOPENRES.16570.1
Abstract: Cities produce more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Action by cities is therefore crucial for climate change mitigation as well as for safeguarding the health and wellbeing of their populations under climate change. Many city governments have made ambitious commitments to climate change mitigation and adaptation and implemented a range of actions to address them. However, a systematic record and synthesis of the findings of evaluations of the effect of such actions on human health and wellbeing is currently lacking. This, in turn, impedes the development of robust knowledge on what constitutes high-impact climate actions of benefit to human health and wellbeing, which can inform future action plans, their implementation and scale-up. The development of a systematic record of studies reporting climate and health actions in cities is made challenging by the broad landscape of relevant literature scattered across many disciplines and sectors, which is challenging to effectively consolidate using traditional literature review methods. This protocol reports an innovative approach for the systematic development of a database of studies of climate change mitigation and adaptation actions implemented in cities, and their benefits (or disbenefits) for human health and wellbeing, derived from peer-reviewed academic literature. Our approach draws on extensive tailored search strategies and machine learning methods for article classification and tagging to generate a database for subsequent systematic reviews addressing questions of importance to urban decision-makers on climate actions in cities for human health and wellbeing.
The effects on public health of climate change adaptation responses: a systematic review of evidence from low- and middle-income countries
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 07-2021
Abstract: Climate change adaptation responses are being developed and delivered in many parts of the world in the absence of detailed knowledge of their effects on public health. Here we present the results of a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature reporting the effects on health of climate change adaptation responses in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The review used the ‘Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative’ database (comprising 1682 publications related to climate change adaptation responses) that was constructed through systematic literature searches in Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar (2013–2020). For this study, further screening was performed to identify studies from LMICs reporting the effects on human health of climate change adaptation responses. Studies were categorised by study design and data were extracted on geographic region, population under investigation, type of adaptation response and reported health effects. The review identified 99 studies (1117 reported outcomes), reporting evidence from 66 LMICs. Only two studies were ex ante formal evaluations of climate change adaptation responses. Papers reported adaptation responses related to flooding, rainfall, drought and extreme heat, predominantly through behaviour change, and infrastructural and technological improvements. Reported (direct and intermediate) health outcomes included reduction in infectious disease incidence, improved access to water/sanitation and improved food security. All-cause mortality was rarely reported, and no papers were identified reporting on maternal and child health. Reported maladaptations were predominantly related to widening of inequalities and unforeseen co-harms. Reporting and publication-bias seems likely with only 3.5% of all 1117 health outcomes reported to be negative. Our review identified some evidence that climate change adaptation responses may have benefits for human health but the overall paucity of evidence is concerning and represents a major missed opportunity for learning. There is an urgent need for greater focus on the funding, design, evaluation and standardised reporting of the effects on health of climate change adaptation responses to enable evidence-based policy action.
A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-10-2021
Reviewing the scope and thematic focus of 100 000 publications on energy consumption, services and social aspects of climate change: a big data approach to demand-side mitigation
Publisher:
IOP Publishing
Date:
19-02-2021
Abstract: As current action remains insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris agreement let alone to stabilize the climate, there is increasing hope that solutions related to demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation can close the gap. However, given these topics are not investigated by a single epistemic community, the literature base underpinning the associated research continues to be undefined. Here, we aim to delineate a plausible body of literature capturing a comprehensive spectrum of demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation. As method we use a novel double-stacked expert—machine learning research architecture and expert evaluation to develop a typology and map key messages relevant for climate change mitigation within this body of literature. First, relying on the official key words provided to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by governments (across 17 queries), and on specific investigations of domain experts (27 queries), we identify 121 165 non-unique and 99 065 unique academic publications covering issues relevant for demand-side mitigation. Second, we identify a literature typology with four key clusters: policy, housing, mobility, and food/consumption. Third, we systematically extract key content-based insights finding that the housing literature emphasizes social and collective action, whereas the food/consumption literatures highlight behavioral change, but insights also demonstrate the dynamic relationship between behavioral change and social norms. All clusters point to the possibility of improved public health as a result of demand-side solutions. The centrality of the policy cluster suggests that political actions are what bring the different specific approaches together. Fourth, by mapping the underlying epistemic communities we find that researchers are already highly interconnected, glued together by common interests in sustainability and energy demand. We conclude by outlining avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration, synthetic analysis, community building, and by suggesting next steps for evaluating this body of literature.
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 19-02-2021
Abstract: As current action remains insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris agreement let alone to stabilize the climate, there is increasing hope that solutions related to demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation can close the gap. However, given these topics are not investigated by a single epistemic community, the literature base underpinning the associated research continues to be undefined. Here, we aim to delineate a plausible body of literature capturing a comprehensive spectrum of demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation. As method we use a novel double-stacked expert—machine learning research architecture and expert evaluation to develop a typology and map key messages relevant for climate change mitigation within this body of literature. First, relying on the official key words provided to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by governments (across 17 queries), and on specific investigations of domain experts (27 queries), we identify 121 165 non-unique and 99 065 unique academic publications covering issues relevant for demand-side mitigation. Second, we identify a literature typology with four key clusters: policy, housing, mobility, and food/consumption. Third, we systematically extract key content-based insights finding that the housing literature emphasizes social and collective action, whereas the food/consumption literatures highlight behavioral change, but insights also demonstrate the dynamic relationship between behavioral change and social norms. All clusters point to the possibility of improved public health as a result of demand-side solutions. The centrality of the policy cluster suggests that political actions are what bring the different specific approaches together. Fourth, by mapping the underlying epistemic communities we find that researchers are already highly interconnected, glued together by common interests in sustainability and energy demand. We conclude by outlining avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration, synthetic analysis, community building, and by suggesting next steps for evaluating this body of literature.
Allocating ecological footprints to final consumption categories with input–output analysis
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2006
Demand-side solutions to climate change mitigation consistent with high levels of well-being
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-11-2021
A review of trends and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions by sector from 1990 to 2018
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 29-06-2021
Abstract: Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be traced to five economic sectors: energy, industry, buildings, transport and AFOLU (agriculture, forestry and other land uses). In this topical review, we synthesise the literature to explain recent trends in global and regional emissions in each of these sectors. To contextualise our review, we present estimates of GHG emissions trends by sector from 1990 to 2018, describing the major sources of emissions growth, stability and decline across ten global regions. Overall, the literature and data emphasise that progress towards reducing GHG emissions has been limited. The prominent global pattern is a continuation of underlying drivers with few signs of emerging limits to demand, nor of a deep shift towards the delivery of low and zero carbon services across sectors. We observe a moderate decarbonisation of energy systems in Europe and North America, driven by fuel switching and the increasing penetration of renewables. By contrast, in rapidly industrialising regions, fossil-based energy systems have continuously expanded, only very recently slowing down in their growth. Strong demand for materials, floor area, energy services and travel have driven emissions growth in the industry, buildings and transport sectors, particularly in Eastern Asia, Southern Asia and South-East Asia. An expansion of agriculture into carbon-dense tropical forest areas has driven recent increases in AFOLU emissions in Latin America, South-East Asia and Africa. Identifying, understanding, and tackling the most persistent and climate-damaging trends across sectors is a fundamental concern for research and policy as humanity treads deeper into the Anthropocene.
Editorial: Fifty Campbell systematic reviews relevant to the policy response to COVID‐19
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-08-2020
DOI: 10.1002/CL2.1107
INPUT–OUTPUT ANALYSIS AND CARBON FOOTPRINTING: AN OVERVIEW OF APPLICATIONS
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-2009
Mapping evidence of human adaptation to climate change
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 29-01-2021
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-100873/V1
Abstract: We present the first systematic, global stocktake of the academic literature on human adaptation. We screen 48,316 documents and identify 1,682 articles that present empirical research documenting human efforts to reduce risk from climate change and associated hazards. Coding and synthesizing this literature highlights that the overall extent of adaptation across global regions and sectors is low. Adaptations are largely local and incremental rather than transformative. Behavioural adjustments by in iduals and households are more prevalent than any other type of response, largely motivated by drought and precipitation variability. Local governments and civil society are engaging in risk reduction across all sectors and regions, particularly in response to flooding. Urban technological and infrastructural adaptations to flood risk are prevalent in Europe, while shifts in farming practices dominate reporting from Africa and Asia. Despite increasing evidence of adaptation responses, evidence that these responses are reducing risks (observed and projected) remains limited.
A comprehensive dataset for global, regional and national greenhouse gas emissions by sector 1970–2019
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 14-07-2021
Abstract: Abstract. To track progress towards keeping warming well below 2 °C, as agreed upon in the Paris Agreement, comprehensive and reliable information on anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) is required. Here we provide a dataset on anthropogenic GHG emissions 1970–2019 with a broad country and sector coverage. We build the dataset from recent releases of the “Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research” (EDGAR) for CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industry (FFI), CH4 emissions, N2O emissions, and fluorinated gases, and use a well-established fast-track method to extend this dataset from 2018 to 2019. We complement this with data on net CO2 emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) from three bookkeeping models. We provide an assessment of the uncertainties in each greenhouse gas at the 90 % confidence interval (5th–95th percentile) by combining statistical analysis and comparisons of global emissions inventories with an expert judgement informed by the relevant scientific literature. We identify important data gaps: CH4 and N2O emissions could be respectively 10–20 % higher than reported in EDGAR once all emissions are accounted. F-gas emissions estimates for in idual species in EDGARv5 do not align well with atmospheric measurements and the F-gas total exceeds measured concentrations by about 30 %. However, EDGAR and official national emission reports under the UNFCCC do not comprehensively cover all relevant F-gas species. Excluded F-gas species such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are larger than the sum of the reported species. GHG emissions in 2019 amounted to 59 ± 6.6 GtCO2eq: CO2 emissions from FFI were 38 ± 3.0 Gt, CO2 from LULUCF 6.6 ± 4.6 Gt, CH4 11 ± 3.3 GtCO2eq, N2O 2.4 ±1.5 GtCO2eq and F-gases 1.6 ± 0.49 GtCO2eq. Our analysis of global, anthropogenic GHG emission trends over the past five decades (1970–2019) highlights a pattern of varied, but sustained emissions growth. There is high confidence that global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased every decade. Emission growth has been persistent across different (groups of) gases. While CO2 has accounted for almost 75 % of the emission growth since 1970 in terms of CO2eq as reported here, the combined F-gases have grown at a faster rate than other GHGs, albeit starting from low levels in 1970. Today, F-gases make a non-negligible contribution to global warming – even though CFCs and HCFCs, regulated under the Montreal Protocol and not included in our estimates, have contributed more. There is further high confidence that global anthropogenic GHG emission levels were higher in 2010-2019 than in any previous decade and GHG emission levels have grown across the most recent decade. While average annual greenhouse gas emissions growth slowed between 2010–2019 compared to 2000–2009, the absolute increase in average decadal GHG emissions from the 2000s to the 2010s has been the largest since the 1970s – and within all human history as suggested by available long-term data. We note considerably higher rates of change in GHG emissions between 2018 and 2019 than for the entire decade 2010–2019, which is numerically comparable with the period of high GHG emissions growth during the 2000s, but we place low confidence in this finding as the majority of the growth is driven by highly uncertain increases in CO2-LULUCF emissions as well as the use of preliminary data and extrapolation methodologies for these most recent years. While there is a growing number of countries today on a sustained emission reduction trajectory, our analysis further reveals that there are no global sectors that show sustained reductions in GHG emissions. We conclude by highlighting that tracking progress in climate policy requires substantial investments in independent GHG emission accounting and monitoring as well as the available national and international statistical infrastructures. The data associated with this article (Minx et al. 2021) can be found at 0.5281/zenodo.5053056.
The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2022
Related Organisations
Mercator Research Institute On Global Commons And Climate Change GGmbH
Location: Germany
Stockholm Environment Institute
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
University Of Leeds
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
University Of York
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Related Funding Activities
No related grants have been discovered for Jan Christoph Minx.