The Climate conference in ParisDecember 2015 is described as “last chance” or “5 to twelve” but in the climate arena there is a risk that we have over-utilized the doomsday vocabulary already in the run-up to Copenhagen, 2009 the better part of a decade ago. For those who have worked on climate issues for several decades it poses a special challenge to calibrate language.Words like “immediate” need careful explanation.

Make wind and solar power even cheaper by opening up access to the electricity gridand ending fossil-fuel subsidies, urge Gernot Wagner and colleagues. Putting a price on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to curb emissions must be the centrepiece of any comprehensive climate-change policy. We know it works: pricing carbon creates broad incentives to cut emissions. Yet the current price of carbon remains much too low relative to the hidden environmental, health and societal costs of burning a tonne of coal or a barrel of oil.

In this paper we review current approaches and recent advances in research on climate impacts and adaptation in South Africa. South Africa has a well-developed earth system science research program that underpins the climate change scenarios developed for the southern African region. Established research on the biophysical impacts of climate change on key sectors (water, agriculture, and biodiversity) integrates the climate change scenarios but further research is needed in a number of areas, such as the climate impacts on cities and the built environment.

States have treaty-based and customary international law-based responsibilities to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions emanating from their territory do not cause transboundary harm. However, those international legal responsibilities conflict with the observed behavior of states, which suggests a general rule of irresponsible treatment of the global commons.

We estimate the effect of hydro-meteorological emergencies on internal migration in Costa Rica during 1995–2000. We find that, on average, emergencies significantly increase average migration. However, we also find that emergencies with the most severe consequences, those with loss of lives, decrease migration. The severity of the consequences may explain the differences in the sign of the effect in previous research. We also find that emergencies significantly increase population in metropolitan areas. Less severe emergencies significantly increase migration toward metropolitan areas.

Top-down climate negotiations embodied by the Kyoto Protocol have all but stalled, chiefly because of disagreements over targets and objections to financial transfers. To avoid those problems, many have shifted their focus to linkage of bottom-up climate policies such as regional carbon markets.

Forest tenure reforms are occurring in many developing countries around the world. These reforms typically include devolution of forest lands to local people and communities, which has attracted a great deal of attention and interest. While the nature and level of devolution vary by country, all have potentially important implications for resource allocation, local ecosystem services, livelihoods and climate change.