Ilona M Otto
Biographic Data
| ID | 1370614 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ilona M Otto |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ilona M |
| FAMILY NAME | Otto |
| SIGNATURE | OTTO I M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Graz |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4935-7660 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 126 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Socio-metabolic class conflicts in the Anthropocene
The Anthropocene epoch is characterized by an excessive use of natural resources and energy that contributes to the environmental destruction of the planet. However, large inequalities exist among social groups that benefit to various degrees from the use of resources and energy, as well as among individuals suffering from the negative impacts of environmental destruction. In this paper, we systematically analyze these differences and discuss a s…
Critical intervention points for European adaptation to cascading climate change impacts
In an interconnected world, climate change impacts can cascade across sectors and regions, creating systemic risks. Here we analyse cascading climate change impacts on the EU, originating from outside the region, and identify critical intervention points for adaptation. Using network analysis, we integrate stakeholder-co-produced impact chains with quantitative data for 102 countries across foreign policy, human security, trade and finance. Our a…
Living beyond limits
A method to identify positive tipping points to accelerate low-carbon transitions and actions to trigger them
Meeting the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to "well below 2 °C" requires a radical acceleration of action, as the global economy is decarbonising at least five times too slowly. Tipping points, where low-carbon transitions become self-propelling, could be key to achieving the necessary acceleration. We deem these normatively 'positive', because they can limit considerable, inequitable harms from global warming and help achieve sustainabi…
Scoping Review of Climate Change Adaptation Interventions for Health
Climate change is among the greatest threats to health in the 21st century, requiring the urgent scaling-up of adaptation interventions. We aim to summarise adaptation interventions that were funded by the Belmont Forum and the European Union, the largest global funders of climate change and health research. A systematic search was conducted (updated February 2023) to identify articles on adaptation interventions for health within this funding ne…
Earth system boundaries and Earth system justice
The literature on planetary and Earth system boundaries calls on humans to live within those boundaries. Sharing such limited ecospace raises questions of justice. Global environmental assessments and scholarship are increasingly paying attention to justice issues, yet inadequately define how to share the limited ecospace. Against this background we ask: how can global environmental assessments’ concerns for justice be enhanced through an Earth s…
The Pareto effect in tipping social networks
How do social networks tip? A popular theory is that a small minority can affect network, or population wide change. This effect is roughly consistent with the properties of the Pareto principle, a semi-quantitative law which suggests that in many systems, 80 % of effects are produced by only 20 % of the causes. In the context of the transition to net-zero emissions, this vital 20 % can be a critical instigator of social tipping, a process which …
Whose house is on fire? Identifying socio-demographic and housing characteristics driving differences in the UK household CO2 emissions
Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries
The unjust just transition? Exploring different dimensions of justice in the lignite regions of Lusatia, Eastern Greater Poland, and Gorj
Calling energy inequalities into the transition agenda
The presented perspective paper delivers insights into the complex problem of energy inequalities in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The war resulted in a loss of stability in Europe's energy system and increased social issues and difficulties in meeting energy transition targets. The perspective presented calls for a broader framework for analyzing energy inequalities. It delivers an attempt at such a framework through which thre…
Understanding Socio-metabolic Inequalities Using Consumption Data from Germany
The Earth's population of seven billion consume varying amounts of planetary resources with varying impacts on the environment. We combine the analytical tools offered by the socio-ecological metabolism and class theory and contribute to a novel social stratification theory to identify the differences in individual resource and energy use. This approach is applied to German society, we use per capita greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) as a proxy for …
Impacts of meeting minimum access on critical earth systems amidst the Great Inequality
The Sustainable Development Goals aim to improve access to resources and services, reduce environmental degradation, eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. However, the magnitude of the environmental burden that would arise from meeting the needs of the poorest is under debate—especially when compared to much larger burdens from the rich. We show that the ‘Great Acceleration’ of human impacts was characterized by a ‘Great Inequality’ in using a…
Changing seasonal temperature offers a window of opportunity for stricter climate policy
Environmental catastrophes, including the increased severity and frequency of climate extremes, can act as “windows of opportunities” that challenge citizens’ mental models and motivate them to engage in reflective processes, challenging their pre-conceived ideas. Less well understood is whether experiencing changing weather conditions, common in mid-latitudes, can have a similar effect and increase the citizens’ concerns about climate change and…
Reconciling safe planetary targets and planetary justice
As human activity threatens to make the planet unsafe for humanity and other life forms, scholars are identifying planetary targets set at a safe distance from biophysical thresholds beyond which critical Earth systems may collapse. Yet despite the profound implications that both meeting and transgressing such targets may have for human wellbeing, including the potential for negative trade-offs, there is limited social science analysis that syste…
Human agency in the Anthropocene
Social Innovation in Community Energy in Europe
Citizen-driven Renewable Energy (RE) projects of various kinds, known collectively as community energy (CE), have an important part to play in the worldwide transition to cleaner energy systems. On the basis of evidence from 8 European countries, we investigate CE, over approximately the last 50 years (c.1970-2018), through the lens of Social Innovation (SI). We carry out a detailed review of literature around the social dimension of renewable en…
From “atmosfear” to climate action
Systematic evaluation of scenario assessments supporting sustainable integrated natural resources management
Reinhardt, J., S. Liersch, M. A. Abdeladhim, M. Diallo, C. Dickens, S. Fournet, F. F. Hattermann, C. Kabaseke, M. Muhumuza, M. L. Mul, T. Pilz, I. M. Otto, and A. Walz. 2018. Systematic evaluation of scenario assessments supporting sustainable integrated natural resources management: evidence from four case studies in Africa. Ecology and Society 23(1):5. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09728-230105
Social vulnerability to climate change
This article provides a review of recent scientific literature on social vulnerability to climate change, aiming to determine which social and demographic groups, across a wide range of geographical locations, are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts within four well-being dimensions: health, safety, food security, and displacement. We analyze how vulnerability changes over time and ask whether there is evidence of critical thresholds be…
Uncertainty in climate change impacts on water resources
Socio-economic data for global environmental change research
The effects of rules and communication in a behavioral irrigation experiment with power asymmetries carried out in North China
Opportunities and constraints of adopting market governance in protected areas in Central and Eastern Europe
This article analyses the transition from the traditional hierarchical governance of natural resources in Central and Eastern Europe towards the new forms of market governance of protected areas, including the introduction of fees and compensation. Our conceptual framework suggests that markets can be effective in governing transactions that involve low asset specificity and low frequency of disturbances. However, the introduction of markets shou…
Opportunities and constraints of adopting market governance in protected areas in Central and Eastern Europe
This article analyses the transition from the traditional hierarchical governance of natural resources in Central and Eastern Europe towards the new forms of market governance of protected areas, including the introduction of fees and compensation. Our conceptual framework suggests that markets can be effective in governing transactions that involve low asset specificity and low frequency of disturbances. However, the introduction of markets shou…
Opening up knowledge systems for better responses to global environmental change
Linking knowledge with action for effective societal responses to persistent problems of unsustainability requires transformed, more open knowledge systems. Drawing on a broad range of academic and practitioner experience, we outline a vision for the coordination and organization of knowledge systems that are better suited to the complex challenges of sustainability than the ones currently in place. This transformation includes inter alia: societ…
Impacts of meeting minimum access on critical earth systems amidst the Great Inequality
The Sustainable Development Goals aim to improve access to resources and services, reduce environmental degradation, eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. However, the magnitude of the environmental burden that would arise from meeting the needs of the poorest is under debate—especially when compared to much larger burdens from the rich. We show that the ‘Great Acceleration’ of human impacts was characterized by a ‘Great Inequality’ in using a…
Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries
The unjust just transition? Exploring different dimensions of justice in the lignite regions of Lusatia, Eastern Greater Poland, and Gorj
Calling energy inequalities into the transition agenda
The presented perspective paper delivers insights into the complex problem of energy inequalities in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The war resulted in a loss of stability in Europe's energy system and increased social issues and difficulties in meeting energy transition targets. The perspective presented calls for a broader framework for analyzing energy inequalities. It delivers an attempt at such a framework through which thre…
Uncertainty in climate change impacts on water resources
Understanding Socio-metabolic Inequalities Using Consumption Data from Germany
The Earth's population of seven billion consume varying amounts of planetary resources with varying impacts on the environment. We combine the analytical tools offered by the socio-ecological metabolism and class theory and contribute to a novel social stratification theory to identify the differences in individual resource and energy use. This approach is applied to German society, we use per capita greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) as a proxy for …
Reconciling safe planetary targets and planetary justice
As human activity threatens to make the planet unsafe for humanity and other life forms, scholars are identifying planetary targets set at a safe distance from biophysical thresholds beyond which critical Earth systems may collapse. Yet despite the profound implications that both meeting and transgressing such targets may have for human wellbeing, including the potential for negative trade-offs, there is limited social science analysis that syste…
From “atmosfear” to climate action
Changing seasonal temperature offers a window of opportunity for stricter climate policy
Environmental catastrophes, including the increased severity and frequency of climate extremes, can act as “windows of opportunities” that challenge citizens’ mental models and motivate them to engage in reflective processes, challenging their pre-conceived ideas. Less well understood is whether experiencing changing weather conditions, common in mid-latitudes, can have a similar effect and increase the citizens’ concerns about climate change and…
Earth system boundaries and Earth system justice
The literature on planetary and Earth system boundaries calls on humans to live within those boundaries. Sharing such limited ecospace raises questions of justice. Global environmental assessments and scholarship are increasingly paying attention to justice issues, yet inadequately define how to share the limited ecospace. Against this background we ask: how can global environmental assessments’ concerns for justice be enhanced through an Earth s…
Opportunities and constraints of adopting market governance in protected areas in Central and Eastern Europe
This article analyses the transition from the traditional hierarchical governance of natural resources in Central and Eastern Europe towards the new forms of market governance of protected areas, including the introduction of fees and compensation. Our conceptual framework suggests that markets can be effective in governing transactions that involve low asset specificity and low frequency of disturbances. However, the introduction of markets shou…
Opportunities and constraints of adopting market governance in protected areas in Central and Eastern Europe
This article analyses the transition from the traditional hierarchical governance of natural resources in Central and Eastern Europe towards the new forms of market governance of protected areas, including the introduction of fees and compensation. Our conceptual framework suggests that markets can be effective in governing transactions that involve low asset specificity and low frequency of disturbances. However, the introduction of markets shou…
Opportunities and constraints of adopting market governance in protected areas in Central and Eastern Europe
This article analyses the transition from the traditional hierarchical governance of natural resources in Central and Eastern Europe towards the new forms of market governance of protected areas, including the introduction of fees and compensation. Our conceptual framework suggests that markets can be effective in governing transactions that involve low asset specificity and low frequency of disturbances. However, the introduction of markets shou…
Opening up knowledge systems for better responses to global environmental change
Linking knowledge with action for effective societal responses to persistent problems of unsustainability requires transformed, more open knowledge systems. Drawing on a broad range of academic and practitioner experience, we outline a vision for the coordination and organization of knowledge systems that are better suited to the complex challenges of sustainability than the ones currently in place. This transformation includes inter alia: societ…
The effects of rules and communication in a behavioral irrigation experiment with power asymmetries carried out in North China
Socio-economic data for global environmental change research
Social vulnerability to climate change
This article provides a review of recent scientific literature on social vulnerability to climate change, aiming to determine which social and demographic groups, across a wide range of geographical locations, are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts within four well-being dimensions: health, safety, food security, and displacement. We analyze how vulnerability changes over time and ask whether there is evidence of critical thresholds be…
Uncertainty in climate change impacts on water resources
Systematic evaluation of scenario assessments supporting sustainable integrated natural resources management
Reinhardt, J., S. Liersch, M. A. Abdeladhim, M. Diallo, C. Dickens, S. Fournet, F. F. Hattermann, C. Kabaseke, M. Muhumuza, M. L. Mul, T. Pilz, I. M. Otto, and A. Walz. 2018. Systematic evaluation of scenario assessments supporting sustainable integrated natural resources management: evidence from four case studies in Africa. Ecology and Society 23(1):5. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09728-230105
Social Innovation in Community Energy in Europe
Citizen-driven Renewable Energy (RE) projects of various kinds, known collectively as community energy (CE), have an important part to play in the worldwide transition to cleaner energy systems. On the basis of evidence from 8 European countries, we investigate CE, over approximately the last 50 years (c.1970-2018), through the lens of Social Innovation (SI). We carry out a detailed review of literature around the social dimension of renewable en…
From “atmosfear” to climate action
Human agency in the Anthropocene
Reconciling safe planetary targets and planetary justice
As human activity threatens to make the planet unsafe for humanity and other life forms, scholars are identifying planetary targets set at a safe distance from biophysical thresholds beyond which critical Earth systems may collapse. Yet despite the profound implications that both meeting and transgressing such targets may have for human wellbeing, including the potential for negative trade-offs, there is limited social science analysis that syste…
Impacts of meeting minimum access on critical earth systems amidst the Great Inequality
The Sustainable Development Goals aim to improve access to resources and services, reduce environmental degradation, eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. However, the magnitude of the environmental burden that would arise from meeting the needs of the poorest is under debate—especially when compared to much larger burdens from the rich. We show that the ‘Great Acceleration’ of human impacts was characterized by a ‘Great Inequality’ in using a…
Changing seasonal temperature offers a window of opportunity for stricter climate policy
Environmental catastrophes, including the increased severity and frequency of climate extremes, can act as “windows of opportunities” that challenge citizens’ mental models and motivate them to engage in reflective processes, challenging their pre-conceived ideas. Less well understood is whether experiencing changing weather conditions, common in mid-latitudes, can have a similar effect and increase the citizens’ concerns about climate change and…
The Pareto effect in tipping social networks
How do social networks tip? A popular theory is that a small minority can affect network, or population wide change. This effect is roughly consistent with the properties of the Pareto principle, a semi-quantitative law which suggests that in many systems, 80 % of effects are produced by only 20 % of the causes. In the context of the transition to net-zero emissions, this vital 20 % can be a critical instigator of social tipping, a process which …
Whose house is on fire? Identifying socio-demographic and housing characteristics driving differences in the UK household CO2 emissions
Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries
The unjust just transition? Exploring different dimensions of justice in the lignite regions of Lusatia, Eastern Greater Poland, and Gorj
Calling energy inequalities into the transition agenda
The presented perspective paper delivers insights into the complex problem of energy inequalities in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The war resulted in a loss of stability in Europe's energy system and increased social issues and difficulties in meeting energy transition targets. The perspective presented calls for a broader framework for analyzing energy inequalities. It delivers an attempt at such a framework through which thre…
Understanding Socio-metabolic Inequalities Using Consumption Data from Germany
The Earth's population of seven billion consume varying amounts of planetary resources with varying impacts on the environment. We combine the analytical tools offered by the socio-ecological metabolism and class theory and contribute to a novel social stratification theory to identify the differences in individual resource and energy use. This approach is applied to German society, we use per capita greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) as a proxy for …
Scoping Review of Climate Change Adaptation Interventions for Health
Climate change is among the greatest threats to health in the 21st century, requiring the urgent scaling-up of adaptation interventions. We aim to summarise adaptation interventions that were funded by the Belmont Forum and the European Union, the largest global funders of climate change and health research. A systematic search was conducted (updated February 2023) to identify articles on adaptation interventions for health within this funding ne…
Earth system boundaries and Earth system justice
The literature on planetary and Earth system boundaries calls on humans to live within those boundaries. Sharing such limited ecospace raises questions of justice. Global environmental assessments and scholarship are increasingly paying attention to justice issues, yet inadequately define how to share the limited ecospace. Against this background we ask: how can global environmental assessments’ concerns for justice be enhanced through an Earth s…
Critical intervention points for European adaptation to cascading climate change impacts
In an interconnected world, climate change impacts can cascade across sectors and regions, creating systemic risks. Here we analyse cascading climate change impacts on the EU, originating from outside the region, and identify critical intervention points for adaptation. Using network analysis, we integrate stakeholder-co-produced impact chains with quantitative data for 102 countries across foreign policy, human security, trade and finance. Our a…
Living beyond limits
A method to identify positive tipping points to accelerate low-carbon transitions and actions to trigger them
Meeting the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to "well below 2 °C" requires a radical acceleration of action, as the global economy is decarbonising at least five times too slowly. Tipping points, where low-carbon transitions become self-propelling, could be key to achieving the necessary acceleration. We deem these normatively 'positive', because they can limit considerable, inequitable harms from global warming and help achieve sustainabi…
Political science (17 works) · Economics (15 works) · Ecology (12 works) · Environmental resource management (11 works) · Geography (11 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Environmental Science (8 works) · Biology (7 works) · Climate change (7 works) · Law (7 works)