Download Confronting Climate Change: The Sigma Xi/UN Foundation Report

Discussion of:
Beyond Science: The Economics and Politics of Climate Change
Rice University, February 8, 2008
Rosina Bierbaum, Dean and Professor, University of Michigan
SEG Coordinating Lead Authors
Rosina Bierbaum (Co-Chair), Professor and Dean, School of
Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan
John P. Holdren, Director, The Woods Hole Research Center, and
Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy, Harvard
University
Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change
Programs, Climate Institute, Washington DC
Richard H. Moss, Senior Director, Climate and Energy, United
Nations Foundation and University of Maryland,
Peter H. Raven (Co-Chair), President, Missouri Botanical Garden
SEG Lead Authors
Ulisses Confalonieri, Professor, National
School of Public Health and Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Jacques “Jack” Dubois, Member of the
Executive Board, Swiss Re
Alexander Ginzburg, Deputy Director,
Institute of Atmospheric Physics,
Russian Academy of Sciences
Peter H. Gleick, President, Pacific
Institute for Studies in Development,
Environment, and Security, Oakland,
California
Zara Khatib, Technology Marketing
Manager, Shell International, United
Arab Emirates
Janice Lough, Principal Research
Scientist, Australian Institute of Marine
Science
Ajay Mathur, President, Senergy Global
Private Limited, India
Mario Molina, Professor, University of
California, San Diego, U.S., and
President, Mario Molina Center, Mexico
Keto Mshigeni, Vice Chancellor, The
Hubert Kairuki Memorial University,
Tanzania
Nebojsa “Naki” Nakicenovic,
Professor, Vienna University of
Technology, and Program Leader,
International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis, Austria
Taikan Oki, Professor, Institute of
Industrial Science, The University of
Tokyo, Japan
Hans Joachim “John” Schellnhuber,
Professor and Director, Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact Research,
Germany
Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, Professor, Central
European University, Hungary
Jae Edmonds, University of Maryland, Special Advisor
These remarks
draw heavily upon
the February 2007
report of the UN
Foundation / Sigma
Xi Scientific Expert
Group (SEG) on
Climate Change
and Sustainable
Development
prepared for the
15th Session of the
CSD.
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Two Starkly Different Futures
• Society’s current path leads to increasingly serious climatechange impacts, including potentially catastrophic changes
that will compromise development objectives and threaten
living standards
• The other path leads to a transformed energy system and
improved stewardship of the world’s soils and forests to
reduce emissions, create economic opportunity, reduce global
poverty, and achieve sustainability
• Humanity must act collectively and urgently to change
course through leadership at all levels of society -There is no more time for delay
Overview – A Sense of Urgency
• Climate issue at scientific/political turning point
– Global climate change accelerating & caused mainly by humans
• Average temperature 0.8°C above pre-industrial value
• Increased incidence of extreme weather events
• Accelerating sea-level rise, reduction in summer sea ice
• Ecosystem boundaries moving
– Political recognition of changes & urgency of situation
• Expect continuing increases at 0.2°-0.4° per decade with potential
abrupt changes in climatic patterns and major impacts on economic
and social systems
• Climate change will make achievement of MDG’s harder
• Pressure building for resolute international action
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Conclusion
• Exceeding 2-2.5° C above 1750 levels would entail
sharply increasing risk of intolerable impacts
• Avoiding this will require prompt action
• Two-pronged strategy: avoid the unmanageable
(mitigation) and manage the unavoidable (adaptation)
• Mitigation and adaptation measures should be
integrated and reinforcing
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Projected Impacts of Climate Change
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Stern,2006
Projected Impacts of Climate Change
Stern, 2006
A World Vulnerable to Climate Change
• Most impacts are expected to be negative, especially for
the poorest, most vulnerable nations
• Water resources, coastal infrastructure, health,
agriculture, and ecosystems are expected to be
challenged in virtually every region of the globe
• International, regional, and national institutions are illprepared to manage climate change impacts. Enhanced
preparedness/response strategies are a global priority
The Millennium Development Goals
1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger--Halve,
between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people living on less than
$1/day and the proportion of people suffering from hunger.
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
3. Promote Gender Equality & Empower Women
4. Reduce Child Mortality--Reduce by 2/3, between 1990 and
2015, the under-5 mortality rate.
5. Improve Maternal Health--Reduce by 3/4,
between 1990
and 2015, the maternal mortality rate
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases-By 2015 have halted and begun to reverse the spread of HIV
aids and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
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8. Develop a global partnership for Development
The Millennium Development Goals
1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger--Halve,
between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people living on less than
$1/day and the proportion of people suffering from hunger.
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
3. Promote Gender Equality & Empower Women
4. Reduce Child Mortality--Reduce by 2/3, between 1990 and
2015, the under-5 mortality rate.
5. Improve Maternal Health--Reduce by 3/4,
between 1990
and 2015, the maternal mortality rate
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases-By 2015 have halted and begun to reverse the spread of HIV
aids and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
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8. Develop a global partnership for Development
Agro-Economic Vulnerability to Future
Climate Change
Ecological Vulnerability to Future
Climate Change
Both Mitigation and Adaptation are needed.
• A “mitigation only” strategy won’t work because it’s
already too late to avoid substantial climate change.
• An “adaptation only” strategy won’t work because
most adaptation measures become more costly and
less effective as the magnitude of the changes to
which one is trying to adapt gets larger.
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SEG adaptation strategy
• Identify & understand key vulnerabilities by sector and region, including
– health, food production, water resources, coastal communities,
biodiversity
• Expand adaptation research focusing on
– critical thresholds, multiple stresses, adaptive management, ocean
chemistry, opportunities opened by climate change
• Harness & enhance existing institutional capacity for the task of
planning for and adapting to climate change
– with emphasis on UN & other international institutions
– starting with an inventory of relevant organizations & instruments
• Improve early-warning systems, contingency planning, & information
systems for resource management
• Integrate adaptation concerns into social networks
SEG adaptation recommendations for the UN
• Inventory & evaluate the incorporation of adaptation concerns & programs
in existing UN organizations
– identifying needs/opportunities for improvements & additions
– establishing increased communication & data-sharing
• Conduct vulnerability analyses & monitoring, including
– focused efforts to identify regions & sectors of high vulnerability
– assistance to vulnerable regions in monitoring & capacity-building
• Integrate adaptation into ongoing development efforts by
– using 2006-2007 CSD focus on climate and 2008 International Year of
Planet Earth to integrate adaptation into Agenda 21 action plans and
national sustainable-development strategies
– create a global adaptation information clearinghouse
Adaptation recommendations for the UN (continued)
• Refocus UN diplomatic, scientific, & technological capabilities to
encompass additional adaptation work, e.g.,
– strengthen the proposed 5-year program on adaptation in the
UNFCCC, including efforts on altered cropping patterns, water
conservation, germ-plasm preservation, & weather-disaster
response
– accelerate the development of drought-, salt-, and flood-tolerant
crop varieties
– promote expedited development of improved forecasting models
and early-warning systems
• Develop an operational plan for environmental refugees
The Roadmap - Adaptation
Food and Agriculture Sector Tool Kit
Planning/Management
Technology/R&D
•Expand flood and drought
planning using climate
scenarios.
•Improve seasonal and
short-term forecasts and
their delivery and uptake.
•Remove perverse subsidies
that encourage inappropriate
climate-sensitive crops.
•Improve the application
of water, fertilizer, and
pesticides using
computerized “precision”
farming techniques.
•Encourage subsidies that
foster collaborative efforts to
both grow food and fiber and
protect local ecosystems.
•Promote agroforestry.
•Develop farm extension
programs to improve
knowledge transfer and
process innovation.
•Increase efforts to
encourage carbon
sequestration in soils and
terrestrial biomass.
•Develop new crops and
biotechnical solutions to
changing climatic
conditions.
Case Study
Rangeland rehabilitation in Sudan: Repeated
droughts caused poor grazing conditions that
exposed the land to high levels of wind erosion.
Community groups were mobilized and community
members trained to rehabilitate the grazing lands
through sand-dune revegetation and windbreak
installation.
Attention to addressing immediate socioeconomic
conditions, combined with the longer-term carbonsequestration plan, helped to make this community
more resilient to climate change.
This is also an example of working to fulfill the
Millennium Development Goals.
U.S. ADAPTATION RESEARCH IS INADEQUATE…
Understanding and predicting physical
climate change is progressing well
 Declining observing capability
 Inadequate human dimensions funding:

– $30 million; lack of collaboration

Inadequate progress
– in assessing impacts on human well being
and vulnerabilities
– in providing knowledge to support decision
making and risk analyses
– in communicating results and engaging
stakeholders in a two-way dialogue
NRC, Evaluating Progress of the US CCSP Program:
Methods & Preliminary Results, 2007
Among the President’s FY ’09 Priorities….
“So as to better inform policy, agencies should continue to make investments to
improve our ability to observe, model, assess, and adapt to impacts of climate
change, particularly on a regional scale, and to assure the availability of critical
long-term climate data.”
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Even more than with mitigation measures,
adaptation measures tend to be “win-win”
• Measures to improve water conservation & water management
have great value even in the absence of climate-driven increases
in stress on water systems.
• Strengthening public-health and environmental-engineering
defenses against climate-linked increases in the geographic
extent & virulence of certain diseases will also reduce damage
from disease more generally.
• Strengthening buildings and infrastructure against floods,
storms, & storm surges expected to increase under climate
change provides protection that would be valuable even absent
such increases, and also provides protection against other types
of extreme events (earthquakes, tsunamis).
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More broadly…
“The best way to address
climate-change impacts is by
integrating adaptation measures
into mainstream sustainabledevelopment and povertyreduction strategies.”
- SEG, Confronting Climate Change,
p 82
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