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Framing Climate Policies: Discourse Analysis of Carbon Pricing Debates in Canada and Australia
Davidová, Kateřina ; Hornát, Jan (advisor) ; Fiřtová, Magdalena (referee)
Framing Climate Policies: Discourse Analysis of Carbon Pricing Debates in Canada and Australia Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze and compare the discourses of Stephen Harper and Tony Abbot during federal election campaigns where climate policies played an unusually important role (2008 in Canada and 2013 in Australia). The study builds on a hypothesis, that according to the post-materialist theory and the Environmental Kuznets Curve, such economically advanced, democratic countries as Canada and Australia should be at the vanguard of climate action. However, in reality they are some of the worst performers when it comes to tackling carbon emissions. Both Harper and Abbott publicly promised to put in serious efforts to tackle climate change. However, when the question of setting a national price on carbon came up for discussion during the above-mentioned election campaigns, they both not only opposed it, but even tried to discredit it by framing the whole debate in overwhelmingly negative terms. In order to uncover what kind of frames and other discursive strategies the two politicians used to shape the debate, critical discourse analysis was applied to their public statements on the policy of carbon tax. Results of this analysis show that they used all of the frames that are typically associated...
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Europe 2020 strategy and its implementation by the Czech Republic
Křivanec, David ; Palíšková, Marcela (advisor) ; Stříteský, Marek (referee)
At the beginning of the Bachelor's Thesis, there is a description of the European union and its history after World War II, phases of the European integration and benefits it brings for the member states. Then the process of how the economic policy of the EU is directed and coordinated with the policy of each individual state. Furthermore, the Europe 2020 strategy, which has goal to create a competitive EU on the global market, is in detail described and five areas are defined: Employment, Poverty, Education, Research and development and Climate change and energy. Analysis itself focuses on the implementation of the national targets using secondary data and future analysis. Results of the analysis shows, that the Czech Republic is successfully fulfilling most of the targets. The recommendation for the private and public sector is to focus on employment of the socially excluded groups, education of the children in early, pre-school stage of life and overall support of young people and graduates. From a long-time point of view, these steps should maximize work potential and increase education of the population.
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Analyzing the Kystone XL debate
Chaloupková, Barbora ; Fiřtová, Magdalena (advisor) ; Svoboda, Karel (referee)
This bachelor thesis examines the media debate over the possible construction of Keystone XL pipeline. In 2008 the Canadian company TransCanada submitted an application for presidential permit to construct the pipeline. Such permit was needed as the pipeline would be crossing the U.S. international border. In 2015 President Obama decided not to issue the permit. This thesis examines how was this topic debated in the two prestigious US newspapers The Washington Post and The New York Times. The research methodology that was chosen for this paper is content analysis. Unit of content is an article from abovementioned newspapers published between 2008 and 2015 that had the headword "Keystone XL" in its headline. The thesis relies on framing theory. It aims to identify the frames that dominated the debate and their main storylines. In its first part the paper defines the methodology and its theoretical framework; the second part examines the results of the content analysis and afterwards deals in depth with each of the frames. The three dominant frames were "environmental frame", "energy security frame" and "economic frame". Each frame is put into the broader context of the academic research dealing with the same topic.
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Comparing Climate Change Adaptation Measures: The Cases of the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland
Skupa, Marek ; Ditrych, Ondřej (advisor) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
The diploma thesis "Comparing Climate Change Adaptation Measures: The Cases of the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland" compares national adaptation strategies on climate change of the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland. These strategies represents general politics of selected states on the field of climate change adaptation and the author compares them regarding the adaptation measures they contain. For this comparison, framework based on options and recommendations provided by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the EU is used. Author also analyses mitigation policies of selected states and examines similarities and differences in both approaches. In conclusion author relates his findings towards existing research and using both, he introduces limited theoretical findings about possible relationship between mitigation and adaptation policies of states.
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The analysis of glacial retreat of selected mountain regions of New Zealand and natural hazards from GLOFs
Brambus, Ondřej ; Vilímek, Vít (advisor) ; Šobr, Miroslav (referee)
This thesis analyses the glacier fluctuations in New Zealand since late Pliocen until today (2017) and evaluates GLOFs (Glacier Lake Outburst Floods) hazards from all proglacial lakes of New Zealand. Background research of a wide range of scientific sources was used to describe New Zealand glacier fluctuations during the last ~2.6 Ma, uncover local climatic and tectonic specifics, describe uneven behaviour of different glacier types and summarise current knowledge about climatological forcings to New Zealand glaciers. Compared to the timing of glaciations in the Norther Hemisphere, an earlier onset of LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) and LIA (Little Ice Age) was recorded in New Zealand. A dramatic glacier advance of short- to medium-response time glaciers was recorded between 1983 and 1999. This advance was caused by changes of atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns around New Zealand. A detailed study of the past events revealed that really few events were recorded in New Zealand history. While englacial outburst floods are relatively common from Franz Josef Glacier, no moraine dam rupture and only two GLOFs from a proglacial lake were recorded in New Zealand history. Inventory of proglacial lakes of New Zealand completed from remote sensing data was done to further evaluate the hazards of GLOFs. 25...
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Long-Term Changes in Cloudiness and Sunshine Duration in Europe
Bílková, Jarmila ; Huth, Radan (advisor) ; Holtanová, Eva (referee)
LONG-TERM CHANGES IN CLOUDINESS AND SUNSHINE DURATION IN EUROPE Abstract The aim of this paper is to study long-term changes of two climatological parameters known as sunshine duration (SD) and cloudiness (CC) using several stations data located in Europe in the period 1965 - 2016. This paper is devided into two main parts. First part is paying attention to the literary research, which firstly introduce the chosen climatical variables (SD and CC) and then introduce the issue of the already known long term changes of this variables. Second part of this work is based on practical research. This paper uses a statistical linear regression to find out the seasonal and annual trends in sunshine duration and cloudiness. Data series were obtained from database ECA&D in total from 48 european climatic stations. Klíčová slova: cloud cover, sunshine duration, climate change, trends, Europe
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Creating of Dispatcher Graph for a Selected Dam Reservoir Considering Climate Change
Hakl, Petr ; Sobek, Martin (referee) ; Menšík, Pavel (advisor)
The aim of a thesis is construct a several dispatcher graphs for a selected Vír I. water dam, from real flow series, then extended by synthetic flow series generated by regional climatic models. Particular models will be discribed, so the construction of dispatcher graph. Graphs will be compared by appropriately selected parameters. In the end of the thesis will be comparision of requirements sets by manipulate order with predicted evolution of affluent to the dam and sustainability for todays claims relation on improved outflows in future with the same condition.
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Seasonal and long-term dynamic of plankton communities of small water-bodies
Pejsar, Patrik ; Černý, Martin (advisor) ; Juračka, Petr Jan (referee)
Zooplankton pool-inhabiting organisms form metacommunities and metapopulations. Locations are connected through dispersion which is an essential part of colonization-extinction dynamic. Locations vary with the environmental conditions, the specifics of the community and the biotic interactions taking place there. Differences in these parameters may occur between spatially separated pools or in one pool throughout time. These changes are caused by seasonal dynamics, disturbances, long-term development of environmental conditions or biotic factors such as predation, competition and parasite influence. On a long-term scale the locations are classified into rather stable and ephemeral. In pool environment the ephemeral locations may unexpectedly be the driving force of metacommunity and metapopulation processes according to the "inverse mainland-island" theory. Global climate change has an essential influence on zooplankton dynamic in smaller water-bodies. Hydrology of pools and through it also life dynamics of plankton organisms is directly influenced by temperature changes and precipitation. Regional metacommunity and metapopulation dynamics are changing in dependency on regional course of climate change and the specifics of these water-bodies and the communities living there.
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Analysis and assessment of ensemble simulations of regional climate models in Europe for selected scenarios of greenhouse gases
Kluková, Zuzana ; Halenka, Tomáš (advisor) ; Belda, Michal (referee)
An analysis of the air temperature and precipitation for historical and future experiments of regional climate models from Euro-CORDEX activity is presented. A validation of models was performed for the time period 1989 - 2005 using the comparison of model results with E-OBS dataset which represents real values. For this period results show good agreement for temperature, much worse agreement appears for precipitation where their overestimation is more typical. The future evaluation based on the scenarios of greenhouse gases RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 was investigated for periods 2021 - 2050 and 2071 - 2100 in comparison with the period 1971 - 2000 as reference. For the simulations of the future climate we can notice an approximately linear increase of temperatures which is most significant in the northeast Europe. For precipitation models predict their increase in the north Europe and decrease in the south Europe.
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Climate Skepticism in the Czech Republic: Countermovement and Its Strategies
Vidomus, Petr ; Loužek, Marek (advisor) ; Strmiska, Maxmilián (referee) ; Vráblíková, Kateřina (referee)
The climate change skepticism has been becoming a more and more distinct and apparently increasing social phenomenon. To date, western scholars have described the different forms it can take and the factors supporting its increase. In the recent years, we've been observing some signs of a similar trend in the Czech Republic because the number of people who find the anthropogenic climate changes significant has been decreasing and the proportion of the "skeptic population" has been growing. Although in the first part of this paper I present an overview of data concerning the "public climate change skepticism" (available poll data), its primary focus is on the research of activities carried out by individuals and groups that relativize the importance of climate changes constantly, publically and in a more or less organized manner. In such case we can talk about a certain form of a countermovement against the environmentalism and the mainstream climatology. This paper draws mainly from a qualitative study conducted between 2011 and 2014 by means of semi-structured interviews with active Czech climate change skeptics. The goal of the study was to describe the strategies of climate change skeptics actions in the changing political and discursive environment, the forms of their organization and the...
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