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Purpose – Many cities have taken action in order to reduce their carbon footprints. Moreover, the European city has historically been the home of democratic institutions, which have proven to be crucial for successful policy. The leading question of this chapter is whether or not this traditional link between democracy and active citizen participation also holds with respect to local climate policy.

Design/methodology/approach – In our chapter, we take a comparative look at two cities – Muenster in Rhineland Westphalia and Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg next to Berlin. We have a look at the track records of both cities’ carbon footprint and analyze the role of civil society in local climate policy. We develop a set of qualitative indicators, measuring local climate policy outcomes on the one hand and local climate policy performance on the other. We base our analysis on documents and on stakeholder interviews in both cities.

Findings – The findings show that Muenster has performed better in urban climate protection than Potsdam. Also the level of civil society engagement is higher in Muenster. Thus, the hypothesis that cities with a higher level of civil society engagement also perform better in urban climate policy can be confirmed. However, Muenster performs just slightly better than Potsdam. Both cities have failed to meet their climate goals. A closer look to the local climate policy performance leads us to the final conclusion that cities should be more active in supporting and including citizens in their local climate policies in all areas of life – including lifestyle politics and political consumerism.

Purpose – Adaptation to climate change requires that the population at risk and decision makers in various sectors become aware of the possible detrimental impacts in order to take whatever action is needed, especially in highly vulnerable countries and regions. In order to assess the climate change and impact awareness in a particularly vulnerable area – the Indian city Hyderabad, located within a semiarid region – we wanted to learn more about the local climate discourse, in particular the daily newspaper coverage of climate change and weather extremes.

Methodology/approach – After having looked at the Indian climate change discourse (CCD) in general, based on literature review, we were studying the local public CCD, based on the in-depth analysis of two English language daily newspapers, and three Telugu (the dominant local language) daily newspapers, covering the period of 2008–2009. This qualitative and quantitative analysis was completed by two expert interviews with local journalists.

Findings – We find that the more recent Indian CCD has shifted if compared to the dominant argumentation pattern of the period before, as reported in other analyses. While the former discourse was characterized by the scheme “the poor/developing countries suffer from anthropogenic climate change caused by the industrialized countries,” the recent Indian CCD has become more differentiated, taking into account both impacts elsewhere, and, most notably, conceding a (limited) responsibility of countries like India. On a local level, while reports on weather extremes are very common, we find that local newspapers of Hyderabad do not provide a link between these extreme events and (global) climate change.

Research limitations – Our discourse analysis could only cover a short time period of a local CCD, leaving open the questions of (a) its further development, and (b) how things might stand in other places in India. Furthermore it would be necessary to complement our study by analyses of the impact of mass media reporting on people's attitudes and behavior.

Originality/value of paper – Given the importance of public participation in adaptation measures, it is crucial to know if and how the wider public and the majority of the nonexpert public administration (which needs to be involved) understands the causes, potential impacts, and possible adaptive action in the face of climate change. This chapter provides a necessary (though not sufficient) element for that assessment. The findings can help to identify weaknesses, and thus to give hints how to improve the adaptive capacity in places like Hyderabad (India).

On the eve of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development's (UNCSD) conference on sustainable development (Rio+20) in June 2012, the United Nation's Environmental Program (UNEP)'s Global Outlook Report (GEO-5) provided sobering data on global environmental progress. The report indicated that world nations are making little headway on significant environmental targets set for themselves under the Millennium Development Goals. The UN indicated that world nations made progress on only 4 of the 90 most significant objectives from the Millennium Plan: reducing substances depleting the ozone layer, removing lead from fuel, increasing access to water supplies, and increasing research on ways to reduce pollution in marine environments. However, in some cases no progress or regression occurred in reaching goals on climate change issues including limiting increases in average global temperatures to less than two degrees above preindustrial levels nor advances in issues such as revitalization of depleted fish stocks, protection of biodiversity, and combating desertification (UNEP, 2012).

The purpose of this paper is to construct a typology of a disaster that informs humanitarian-relief supply chain (HRSC) design across the stages of disaster relief.

In addition to an interdisciplinary review of pertinent literature, this paper utilises a typology construction method to propose theoretically and methodologically sound dimensions of disasters.

Whilst semantic arguments surrounding the concept of a “disaster” are ongoing, the authors propose three typologies based upon six dimensions that serve as interdependent variables informing resultant HRSC design considerations. These are speed of onset, time horizon, spatial considerations, affected population needs, perceived probability of occurrence and perceived magnitude of consequence. These combinational and independent relationships of the variables offer insight into key HRSC design-making considerations.

The study improves conceptual knowledge of disasters, distilling the concept to only the dimensions applicable to HRSC design, omitting other applications. The typologies provide empirical cell types based on extant literature, but do not apply the models towards new or future phenomena.

This paper provides HRSC practitioners with normative guidance through a more targeted approach to disaster relief, with a focus on the impacted system and resulting interactions’ correspondence to HRSC design.

This paper provides three typological models of disasters uniquely constructed for HRSC design across the various stages of disaster relief.