PCLM-D-23-00237

Tackling climate change: the Albarella island example

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Zanella,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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After completing the evaluation of your manuscript. The reviewers recommend reconsideration of your manuscript following major revision. Yherefore, your are invited to resubmit your revised manuscript after addressing the comments below.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by 30 January, 2024. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Noureddine Benkeblia, Dr. Sci., Dr. Agr.

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please upload all main figures as separate Figure files in .tif or .eps format only. For more information about how to convert and format your figure files please see our guidelines:

https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/figures

2. We have noticed that you have a list of Supporting Information legends in your manuscript. However, there are no corresponding files uploaded to the submission. Please upload them as separate files with the item type 'Supporting Information'. 

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

I have completed my evaluation of your manuscript. The reviewers recommend reconsideration of your manuscript following major revision. I invite you to resubmit your manuscript after addressing the comments below.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript presents a theoretical framework for meeting climate change mitigation efforts using a partially secluded island off the coast of Italy. Using climate change predictive modeling, socio-economic and ecological parameters are adjusted to manipulated in a predictive model to discriminate between 2 scenarios that could potentially lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

The reviewers has the following general comments:

- Despite the technical strengths of the research presented, it is crowded by unnecessary references to non scientific facts and information that do not add to the results or objectives of the research. The authors need to streamline and remove these and focus on their data and results.

- There is need for some formatting of the manuscript. Editing the manuscript for grammar and spelling is needed. the othors are encouraged to minimize figure explanations to a minimum. the explanation should be in the body of the manuscript. The manuscript should avoid using figures and images not directly related to the data or analyses being conducted.

- Including website links in the manuscript the way the authors have done is disruptive to the flow of the manuscript. these websites should be assigned citations and included in the reference section.

- The conclusion is too wordy and some of the statements made are unnecessary. The authors should simply state the facts and and take away from their analyses. There is no need to try and justify the findings with statements at this juncture of the manuscript.

Technical comments from reviewer:

- Using Darwin's approach to justify a model based on geographic isolation is actally an interesting concept. The assumptions associated with this type of connection need to be made very clear. Total isolation leads to evolutionary divergence in Darwin's model. This is not the case here. The connection to the mainland actually drives the CO2 eq for the island which is not climatically or geographically isolated. The authors need to make a convincing case for their assumptions on isolation. This is not really evident in the manuscript. Discrimination between mainland and island parameters should be considered in this case.

- the model will potentially benefit if economic parameters related to projected economic development and growth of the island were taken into consideration. If the authors assume the island will not grow beyond its current levels, then that is unrealistic. If this is not mentioned, then a justification for this must be added.

- Any scenarios that lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions, and climate change mitigations is usually welcome. How realistic this scenario is needs to be assessed critically. The flexibility of the model and the complexity of the issue being addressed must be clearly identified. The authors need to make this clear. The IPCC models and scenarios are truly complex compared to the models that generate the scenarios presented in this manuscript. it is important to make this clear when doing the comparisons.

- The model explanation is limited and needs to be explained in detail in the methodology section. can the authors please clarify.

Reviewer #2: Attempted to consider Albarella Island as a model for estimating the ability of humans and the capacity of the environment to react to climate change. On its 550 hectares, this island hosts management centers, 2800 private homes, several restaurants and hotels, shops, public and private swimming pools, a golf course, beaches, green areas equipped to satisfy the 2,000 stable inhabitants and more than 110,000 annual tourists. We collected data on the following variables: 1) net storage of the semi-natural ecosystems; 2) diet of humans staying on the island; 3) fossil energy currently used to keep the island economically active; 4) electricity demand; 5) waste produced and 6) transportation. I appreciate the effort you have put into preparing this manuscript and thank you for submitting it to the Journal. However, after careful evaluation, I regret to inform you that your manuscript does not meet the necessary standards for publication in this journal due to the following issues:

1. The structure of the article is not appropriate and needs to be revised completely.

2. The scientific originality and novelty of the manuscript are not well justified. The authors need to clearly address the knowledge gap in the introduction and explain their innovative approach to the problem.

3. The language needs further improvement and should be reviewed by a language expert.

4. The scientific content of the article is weak and requires further expansion.

5. I did not observe any comparison of the authors' work's novelty index with the latest articles published in the field for the years 2022 and 2023.

6. In some cases, newer references should be used instead.

7. The quality of some of the figures is low.

8. Also throughout the CO2 is wrongly.

9. Add Literature section to the manuscript.

10.Add equations for Figure 2. Vensim simplified model.

Based on these issues, I regret to inform you that your manuscript must be rejected by the Journal of Cleaner Production.

Thank you for submitting your work to our journal, and we encourage you to address these issues and consider submitting an improved version of the manuscript in the future.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-23-00237R1

Tackling climate change: the Albarella island example

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Zanella,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the following points.

1. Whilst we appreciate the extrapolation of the results obtained for the Albarella system to the global scale as a thought experiment, we do not feel that this component makes a strong contribution to the manuscript. We ask that you remove this section from the manuscript, and at most include a brief mention of the potential relevance of the findings from Albarella to other contexts.

2. We ask that you remove the Preface from the manuscript, and include all methodological details that pertain to the generation of the results presented in the manuscript within the main text. The Supporting Information should only contain details that are not strictly necessary to reproduce the study design and data analysis.

3. We note that several authors have commercial or professional affiliations that are not listed as potential competing interests in your Competing Interests statement. Please remember that we require anything that could be perceived as a conflict of interest to be declared (https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/competing-interests). We ask that you update your Competing Interests statement accordingly.

4. We note that Figures 6 and 7 contain depictions of artworks. Please confirm that you have received permission from the producers of these artworks to include images of the artworks for publication under PLOS's CC BY licence (https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/licenses-and-copyright). Please do this by uploading completed copies of our content copyright permission form (https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/file?id=c4ff/Content%20Copyright%20Permission%20Form.pdf) for each artwork/artist.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 03 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Jamie Males

Executive Editor

PLOS Climate

on behalf of

Noureddine Benkeblia, Dr. Sci., Dr. Agr.

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: Addressed

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: Yes: Deepak Kumar

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Tackling climate change: the Albarella island example

PCLM-D-23-00237R2

Dear Dr. Zanella,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Tackling climate change: the Albarella island example' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Noureddine Benkeblia, Dr. Sci., Dr. Agr.

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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The manuscript was carefully revised and the comments of the reviewers addressed. Therefore, a final decision was reached: Accept.

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: Ok

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: Yes: Deepak Kumar

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