Browsing by Author "Leal Filho, Walter"
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- Assessing the connections between COVID-19 and waste management in BrazilPublication . Leal Filho, Walter; Salvia, Amanda Lange; Paço, Arminda; Ferreira, Célia; Neiva, Samara; Rampasso, Izabela Simon; Anholon, Rosley; Vasconcelos, Claudio Ruy Portela de; Eustachio, João Henrique Paulino Pires; Jabbour, Charbel Jose ChiappettaIn addition to the health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, several countries— particularly in developing regions—faced serious additional challenges in the economic, social and environmental areas. In Brazil, one of these challenges refers to the changes in consumption caused by the lockdowns, and the environmental impacts caused by new patterns of waste generation. Against this background, this paper investigates the changes in consumption and waste generation in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides a technical contribution to the topic by comparing the perception of survey respondents on the amount of household waste produced before and during the pandemic, and cross-checking these with information on current aspects of policymaking, the findings suggest that the amount of some specific types of household waste has noticeably increased, challenging even more the local waste management systems. The data instrument was validated by a pre-test, prior to deployment. According to the respondents, packaging (both plastic and paper/cardboard) was the type of waste that reported the highest increase in generation during the lockdowns, which is in line with the results of increased consumption of food delivery within this period. The results also suggest that current waste management policies make Brazil ill-equipped to deal with one of the non-intended effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has severely impacted Latin America’s largest country.
- Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): tendencies and perspectivesPublication . Leal Filho, Walter; Castro, Paula; Nicolau, Paula Bacelar; Azul, Anabela Marisa; Azeiteiro, UlissesThis introductory paper outlines some of the areas where research and action is needed, so as to allow a more systematic development of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the Biodiversity Conservation context. Apart from presenting the concepts of ecosystem services and biodiversity, this chapter indicates the main initiatives needed to be developed to incorporate ESD in the curricula as a multiple-perspective approach. Additionally, it is discussed how biodiversity conservation through education action fit within the actual premises and programmes of sustainability as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the 2010 Biodiversity Target or under the scope of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020. Tendencies and perspectives on Education for Biodiversity Conservation in the coming decades is also a subject of debate in the present chapter.
- Climate change and health: an analysis of causal relations on the spread of vector-borne diseases in BrazilPublication . Leal Filho, Walter; Bönecke, Juliane; Spielmann, Hannah; Azeiteiro, Ulisses; Alves, Fátima; Carvalho, Mauren Lopes de; Nagy, Gustavo J.The increases in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by anthropogenic activities such as industrial emissions, transport and burning of forests and other resources, recorded over the past decades, are known to have an impact on the global environment. In particular, this paper reviews the evidence that climate change has an impact on human health as a whole and on the spread of vector-borne diseases in particular. It offers an analysis of previous research on the connections between climate change and health, with a case study from Brazil, and lists some areas which may guide future policy-making.
- Climate change and health: an overview of the issues and needsPublication . Leal Filho, Walter; Azeiteiro, Ulisses; Alves, FátimaThis introductory chapter outlines some of the key issues related to climate change and health, as well as some areas where action is needed, so as to allow a more systematic approach towards the problem. It outlines the challenges of Climate change to societies and its impacts on human health; considers the influence on various groups of stakeholders and suggests some measures, which may lead to a better understanding of the connections between human health and ever changing climate conditions.
- Climate change and health: improving resilience and reducing risksPublication . Leal Filho, Walter; Azeiteiro, Ulisses; Alves, FátimaA major objective of this volume is to create and share knowledge about the socio-economic, political and cultural dimensions of climate change. The authors analyze the effects of climate change on the social and environmental determinants of the health and well-being of communities (i.e. poverty, clean air, safe drinking water, food supplies) and on extreme events such as floods and hurricanes. The book covers topics such as the social and political dimensions of the ebola response, inequalities in urban migrant communities, as well as water-related health effects of climate change. The contributors recommend political and social-cultural strategies for mitigate, adapt and prevent the impacts of climate change to human and environmental health. The book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners interested in new methods and tools to reduce risks and to increase health resilience to climate change.
- Climate change policies and agendas: facing implementation challenges and guiding responsesPublication . Alves, Fátima; Leal Filho, Walter; Casaleiro, Paula; Nagy, Gustavo J.; Diaz, Harry; Al-Amin, Abul Quasem; Farooq, Harith; Guerra, José Baltazar Salgueirinho Osório de Andrade; Margot, Hurlbert; Klavins, Maris; Saroar, Mustafa; Lorencova, Eliska Krkoska; Suresh, Jain; Soares, Amadeu; Morgado, Fernando; O’Hare, Paul; Wolf, Franziska; Azeiteiro, UlissesClimate policies are essential to mitigate climate change and to develop successful adaptation processes. However, there is a paucity of international studies that analyse the status of climate change policies. This paper reports on research undertaken in a sample of 13 highly diverse countries, in regards to their geography, socioeconomic development, vulnerability elements, adaptation, and climate-risks. The results draw attention to the global spread and standardisation of climate change policies, namely through the adoption of comprehensive National Adaptation Plans/Strategies (NAPs/NASs) that include mitigation measures and evaluation mechanisms. Although NAPs tend to take into account different non-governmental stakeholders, they are still mainly state-centred (i.e. their steering and implementation are the responsibility of each country´s Ministry of the Environment) in most of the 13 countries in which this study was carried out. The results show that NAPs’ objectives mainly reflect more a global agenda and pay less attention to national/regional vulnerabilities and contexts. In fact, despite different socioeconomic levels of development, diverse climate-risks, and dissimilar vulnerability and readiness status among countries, the examined NAPs tend to focus on the same critical sectors and objectives. Notwithstanding their similarities, our results highlight two different logics of adaptation reflected on the NAPs: one focused on economic risks and opportunities, characteristic of developed countries; and others focused on natural resources and conservation, characteristic of developing countries.
- COVID-19 and waste production in households: a trend analysisPublication . Leal Filho, Walter; Voronova, Viktoria; Kloga, Marija; Paço, Arminda; Minhas, Aprajita; Salvia, Amanda Lange; Ferreira, Célia; Sivapalan, SubarnaApart from the health aspects and the high death toll, the COVID-19 pandemic has, since its official recognition in March 2020 caused may social and economic problems. It has also led to many environmental ones. For instance, the lockdowns have led to higher levels of consumption of packaged products, and of take-away food. This paper reports on an international study on the increased consumption and subsequent changes in the amounts of waste produced since the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that 45–48% of the respondents observed an increased consumption of packed food, fresh food, and food delivery. One of the main reasons for the increased waste generation during the lockdown was the fact that people have spent more time at home. In addition, increases of 43% and 53% in food waste and plastic packaging. Drawing from comparisons on the amount of domestic waste produced before and during the pandemic, the findings suggest that some specific types of municipal waste have visibly increased, putting additional pressure on waste management systems. This characterises one of non-intended effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results from this study provide useful insights to city administrations and municipal utilities on consumption patterns during emergency situations. This, in turn, may support more systemic and strategic measures to be taken, so as to curtail the increase of household waste during pandemic situations.
- COVID-19: the impact of a global crisis on sustainable development teachingPublication . Leal Filho, Walter; Price, Elizabeth; Wall, Tony; Shiel, Chris; Azeiteiro, Ulisses; Mifsud, Mark; Brandli, Luciana; Farinha, Carla; Caeiro, Sandra; Salvia, Amanda Lange; Vasconcelos, Claudio Ruy Portela de; Sousa, Luiza Olim de; Pace, Paul; Doni, Federica; Avila, Lucas Veiga; Fritzen, Bárbara; LeVasseur, Todd JaredThe COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global crisis, one which also infuences the ways sustainability is being taught at universities. This paper undertakes an analysis of the extent to which COVID-19 as a whole and the lockdown it triggered in particular, which has led to the suspension of presence-based teaching in universities worldwide and infuenced teaching on matters related to sustainable development. By means of a worldwide survey involving higher education institutions across all continents, the study has identifed a number of patterns, trends and problems. The results from the study show that the epidemic has signifcantly afected teaching practices. The lockdowns have led to a surge in the use of on-line communication tools as a partial replacement to normal lessons. In addition, many faculty teaching sustainability in higher education have strong competencies in digital literacy. The sampled higher education educations have—as a whole—adequate infrastructure to continue to teach during the lockdowns. Finally, the majority of the sample revealed that they miss the interactions via direct face-to-face student engagement, which is deemed as necessary for the efective teaching of sustainability content. The implications of this paper are two-fold. Firstly, it describes how sustainability teaching on sustainable development has been afected by the lockdown. Secondly, it describes some of the solutions deployed to overcome the problem. Finally, the paper outlines the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic may serve the purpose of showing how university teaching on sustainability may be improved in the future, taking more advantage of modern information technologies.
- Crossing borders and linking plural knowledge : biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and human well-beingPublication . Alves, Fátima; Leal Filho, Walter; Araújo, Maria José; Azeiteiro, UlissesThe challenges we face today in terms of local, regional and global environmental changes and pressures on biodiversity can only be addressed with a close coupling of approaches from natural and social sciences together with local knowledge. The authors emphasise that biodiversity research and intervention should integrate this new comprehensive perspective, bringing together biological sciences, social sciences and local knowledge. This approach should demystify the traditional dichotomies that still impose epistemological and moral reductionist borders between nature and culture,systematically hiding the heuristic value of the social and cultural dimension of biodiversity loss. In this context, biodiversity is a field dominated by multiple tensions between plural knowledge within science itself and local knowledge (less visible), which brings to the discussion conflicts that are inherent to science, technology, economics, sociology, politics and culture. This is a fundamental dimension to understand and respond to the challenges we are facing on biodiversity loss.
- Deploying artificial intelligence for climate change adaptationPublication . Leal Filho, Walter; Wall, T.; Rui Mucova, S. A.; Nagy, G.; Balogun, A. L.; Luetz, J. M.; Ng, A. W.; Kovaleva, M.; Safiul Azam, F. M.; Alves, Fátima; Guevara, Z.; Matandirotya, N. R.; Skouloudis, A.; Tzachor, A.; Malakar, K.; Gandhi, O.Artificial Intelligence (AI) is believed to have a significant potential use in tackling climate change. This paper explores the connections between AI and climate change research as a whole and its usefulness in climate change adaptation efforts in particular. Using a systematic review of the literature on applications of AI for climate change adaptation and a questionnaire survey of a multinational and interdisciplinary team of climate change researchers, this paper shows the various means via which AI can support research on climate change in diverse regions, and contribute to efforts towards climate change adaptation. The surveyed articles are classified under nine areas, e.g., Global/Earth Related; Water-related Issues and agriculture, 95% of which are related to adaptation. The areas that have attracted the most studies about AI applications are water-related management issues (38%). In terms of the survey results, the most robust agreements were noted concerning the capacity of digitisation and AI to strengthen governance practices and afford policy coherence in climate change. Evidence gathered in the study suggests that, provided that due care is taken, the use of AI can provide a welcome support to global efforts to better understand and handle the many challenges associated with a changing climate.
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