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The Climate Change laureate co-led the impacts analysis in the latest IPCC
report
Christopher Field points up the
opportunity “to build a better, more
vibrant world” by confronting climate
change

The report of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), dealing with Impacts, Adaptation and
Vulnerability, warns that the Mediterranean region is the least prepared
in Europe to cope with the coming changes.

Field remarks that “even the richest societies are vulnerable to climate
variability. Acting against climate change is not just about protecting
the poor.”
Madrid, June 18, 2014.- “Climate change is no longer a future environmental
problem but a here-and-now force that affects food security, ecosystems and the
global economy,” warns Christopher Field, winner of the BBVA Foundation
Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Climate Change category. Our efforts now
should be geared to adaptation, and to preventing the changes running so deep
that adaptation is no longer an option. After picking up his prize yesterday, Field
insisted at this morning’s press call that “there is a solution space,” in which
climate-change mitigating investments “can help build a better, more vibrant
world.”
Field is co-chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), dealing with Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability in the face of
planetary warming, which released its fifth report in March this year. Its content, he
“deeply hopes”, will have a meaningful influence on politicians and decisionmakers.
“We are no longer talking about a hypothetical future, climate change is
happening now,” he informed the assembled journalists. “We are seeing impacts
from the equator to the poles, across all continents and a wide spectrum of
sectors. In biological and physical systems – glaciers, river runoff, wildfires, species
ranges, etc. – and in human systems too – agriculture, transportation, economic
activities in general and, even, the risk of conflict.”
He offers as an example the fact that global wheat and maize yields are no
longer growing at the accustomed rate, making it “increasingly difficult” to meet
the worldwide demand for food.
Realism and the search for solutions
Field is careful to avoid an alarmist tone. Instead he seeks to provide a realistic
analysis, as he remarked during the report’s presentation in Yokohama, Japan:
“One of the things I like most about the report is that it combines cold, analytical
realism with a careful look at a broad range of possible solutions.”
For Field, “learning to manage risks” is a vital component of our adaptation
response. “The real challenge in coping effectively with climate change is to
recognize the value of wise and timely decision-making,” he remarks. And that
challenge is for everyone: “Even the richest societies are vulnerable to climate
variability, and the experience with Hurricane Sandy really demonstrated that
acting against climate change is not just about protecting the poor.”
On this point, he stresses the “unfairness” of the fact that climate change has hit
most severely at the communities that have contributed to it least and, also, the
least prepared to combat its effects,
The report that Field coordinated not only analyzes existing changes but projects
a series of future scenarios by geographical area, sector and varying degrees of
increase in the emission of CO2. For, as he points out, it is important to draw a clear
distinction between the impact of a two-degree rise in average temperatures and
that of a four-degree rise or even hotter.
The picture he draws is one of a world at the point of inflection. “The planet is now
almost a degree hotter than at the start of the industrial age. If warming reaches
one more degree, the world will still look a lot like ours, but with more extreme
warming, we come up against something entirely different.” So different that “all
bets are off” as to what the changes might be, or whether adaptation will even
be possible.
Exactly where we stand between these two worlds beyond the year 2050, he
insists, will depend on our ability to cut emissions. On the one hand, we need to
devise immediate adaptation responses looking to the short and medium term,
because “the effects of past emissions are already in the system, and, due to
system inertia, are by now irreversible.” But we also have to cut emissions “sooner
rather than later”, since that is our only hope to avoid the worst-case scenarios of
extreme future warming.
On a positive note, Field stresses that some countries are already pressing ahead
with “adaptation planning”, citing for example the construction of flood barriers in
the Netherlands. “Investments are neither comprehensive or sufficient, but we are
beginning to get experience with the real-life consequence of investing in
adaptation, figuring out where the opportunities and the co-benefits are.”
Impacts in the Mediterranean
The recent report also emphasizes the yawning gaps between European regions
in their capacity for adaptation. The Mediterranean, concretely, is among the
least prepared for a series of threats headed by extreme heat and prolonged
periods of drought, affecting water supply and key economic sectors from
agriculture to tourism by way of construction.
It also warns of ecosystem changes brought about by the arrival of invasive
species, increased risk of forest fires, new agricultural plagues, and changes in
fishing grounds – with the resulting territorial disputes between countries – as
marine species seek out more benevolent climes. Spain, furthermore, is on the list
of countries that will need to reinforce its “coastal defenses” against rising sea
levels.
U.S. leadership
Asked about the U.S. government’s announcement of an energy policy geared to
combating climate change, the Frontiers laureate describes it as “a first step”
whose importance lies in its potential “to encourage other countries, like China, to
adopt a similar course of action.”
And on the subject of which sector we should be first to target with emissionreducing measures, he responds without any hesitation: “The elephant in the room
is undoubtedly the link between CO2 and our energy system.” In his view, the
world will remain at least partly reliant on fossil fuels until the second half of the
present century, but by then we should also be making wide use of non-carbonbased energy sources. “The important thing, is to move in the right direction.”
Ecosystems as powerful tools
Christopher Field, Director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie
Institution for Science and a professor at Stanford University (United States), was
granted the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for discovering the
importance of ecosystems and their effective management in the battle against
climate change.
His work has allowed to quantify the global climate impact of deforestation,
agriculture and other changes in vegetation cover. And vice versa. It has helped
predict how climate change will impact on land ecosystems.
CO2 exchange between ecosystems and the atmosphere is a full twenty times
greater than human-induced emissions. Field’s insights have brought this evidence
to light by quantifying how ecosystems influence the amount of carbon
circulating in the atmosphere. Not only that, they have shown that terrestrial
vegetation plays a part in global climate control by modifying water evaporation
and the solar radiation absorbed by the planet.
It was this, the jury explains, that led to the conclusion that effective ecosystem
management can aid in mitigating climate change.
In the words of its citation, the award recognizes “Professor Field’s visionary
research on the global carbon cycle, which demonstrated that projections of
future climate require the explicit consideration of land ecosystems and their
management.”
For more information, contact the BBVA Foundation Communication Department (+34 91
374 5210 / +34 91 537 3769, [email protected]) or visit www.fbbva.es