Download Class 5: Drivers and Causes of GCC

Capstone: Climate Change
CofC Spring 2011
P. Brian Fisher
CLASS 6:
ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL EMISSIONS
Vids
 Jon Stewart on Renewable Energy
 Michele Bachman (US Rep, R, Minn) on
Global Warming Hoax
Carbon Emissions Facts
 Per person emissions: 4.6 metric tons or 10,000 pounds
of CO2 per individual.
 American: 26 metric tons
 African: 0.9 metric tons
 45% of CO2 from human activities stays in atmosphere;
55% absorbed by sinks.
 US Home today has 4 times the space a home did in
1950—emissions growing at 2%/yr
 Transportation—also growing 2%/yr (China/India)
Individual Daily Emission Avgs
Country Emissions
 US historically responsible for 30% of all
emissions, and 20% of annual emissions
 China’s emissions growing at 10% annually
 China passed US in total emissions recently
(2006-2008)
 UK: 6% historically b/c of ind rev, but now 2%.
Measures of Emissions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Total CO2 Emitted (by country), Annually
Total GHG Emitted (by country), Annually
Total CO2 Emitted per person, Annually
Total GHGs Emitted per person, Annually
Historic GHG Emissions, by Country
Historic GHG Emissions, per person
Country Contribution to Temperature Increase
“Carbon Intensity” (by country)
Change in
GHG
Emissions
(1990-2006)
2007: in US, 1.4%
increase over 2006
(mainly from CO2)
Total GHG Emissions Annually
(2005)
CO2 Emissions Annually
(2005)
Historic CO2 Emissions
(1850-2005)
Historic CO2 Emissions Per Person
(1850-2005)
Contributions to
Temperature
Increase
(1950-2005)
GHG Intensity of
Economy 2005
“Carbon Intensity”
The ratio of carbon emissions
produced to GDP.
“Bush Plan”: Called for 18% reduction
in CI by 2012.
However, CI dropped by 17.4%
between 1990 and 2000.
China’s CI dropped 47% during ’90-’00
while emissions increased 39%
CO2 Emissions’ Projections
(2009-2025)
GCC: Global Scale Problem
 Global biophysical system (e.g. climate, oceans, ozone), but
fragmented international political system.
 Inhibiting Solutions: Nations (through acts of their citizens)
create environmental problems at the global scale, and yet
solutions must be created through this same fractured global
political system.
 “We live in world fragmented by political divisions of sovereign
states,” but “reassembled by pervasive flows of people, goods,
money, ideas, images, and technology across borders.”
Primary (Historical) Drivers of
Environmental Change
Environmental change has resulted from:
1) massive population increase: both from increased
consumption of earth’s resources and our ecological footprint
(straining earth’s carrying capacity)
2) rapid technological innovation: permits massive
extraction and exploitation of resources
3)
an explosion in energy use: 1 & 2 facilitate energy
use, complemented by elite discourse promoting
consumptive behavior
4) economic integration: promoted through globalization
(Fordism) led to mass consumerism and the “growth
imperative”
Globalization of Environmental
Threats
ITEM
Increase Factor
1890-1990
Global Population
4
Urban Population
Global Economy
13
14
Industrial Output
Energy Use
Coal Production
Air Pollution
CO2 emissions
Sulfur dioxide
Lead emissions
Water Use
Marine Fish Catch
40
16
7
5
17
13
8
9
35
10 Drivers of
Environmental Degradation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Population increase (but “gross abstraction”, felt locally)
Affluence (leads to heightened consumption)
Technology (can avoid environ costs; “progress”; who owns?)
Poverty (1/2 world lives less than $2/day)
Market failure (consumption of ‘nature’s capital’ as income)
Policy/political failure (not big/small, but changing capacity)
Economic growth (scale/rate) (most imp idea of 20th C.)
Nature of economic system (Neoliberal)
Culture and values (US) (anthropocentrism & contempocentrism—
present over future)
10. Forces of globalization (vs. Sustainable Development)
Consequences of Human Activities
UNEP (p. 132): “Human activities are progressively reducing the planet’s life-supporting
capacity at a time when rising human numbers and consumption are making
increasingly heavy demands on it. The combined destructive impacts of a poor
majority struggling to stay alive and an affluent minority consuming most of the
world’s resources and undermining the very means by which all people can survive
and flourish.”
2 Driving Forces of Environmental Change:
1. Overuse or misuse of resources
2. Increases in pollutive outputs (mercury, GHGs, CFCs, Toxic Chems, etc)
This has led to affluence (in the North) without responsibility for the consequences:
1. underwritten by the degradation of people (South and lower classes in North) and
land, biosphere, and environment.
2. While in the South, factors such as increased population and low technology also
caused environmental stress.
So, many scholars see that environment problems are tethered to larger social,
moral, ethical issues in which these environmental problems are embedded.
Global Environmental Concerns
Ozone Depletion: ’87 Montreal Protocol
Climate Change: ’92 FCCC (at Rio)
Desertification: ’94 Conv Combat Desert
Deforestation: None
Biodiversity Loss: ’92 CBD (at Rio)
Population Growth: None—Plan at Cairo ’94
Freshwater Sources: Conv on Non-Navigable Uses of Int’l
Watercourses—not in effect
8. Marine Environment Degradation: UNCLOS
9. Toxification: Basel Convention int’l toxic waste
- Stockholm Convention (’00) on Persistent Organic Pollutants
(POPs)
10. Acid Rain: Conv on Long-Range TB Air Pollution (EU)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Hardin’s ‘Tragedy of Commons’
 Def’n: areas beyond the sovereignty of any nation which
produces a conflict b/w individual and the common good
over resources and protecting spaces.
 EXs/ Oceans, subsoil, atmosphere, outer space, Antarctic
 ‘Tragedy’: It’s rational to use, which leads to exploitation, of
these areas without reciprocation or regeneration
 Positive : the herder receives all of the proceeds from each additional
animal
 Negative : the pasture is slightly degraded by each add’l animal
Interconnection of Issues
 Global Enviro Challenges are complex and have
multiple causal and consequential pathways.
 For Example, deforestation is an environmental
degrading outcome, but it is also a cause of global
warming, biodiversity loss, and desertification. In
turn, GW and desertification (acid rain, toxins, ozone
depletion) contribute to deforestation.
 Environmental issues are also linked with Economic
ones (e.g. globalization of trade, commerce,
transportation has increased fossil fuel use leading to
greater enviro damage.
IPAT
Environmental Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology
I = PAT
Population: Size of human pop
Affluence: level of consumption
Technology: processes designed to transform raw materials
* Ex/ (P doubles * A (per cap income) triples = 6 fold increase in CO2
emissions. If only 4 fold increase, then technology mitigating factor
Insights:
1. Population is part of problem
2. Enviro probs are more than pollution
3. Enviro probs driven by multiple factors that compound
Best applied to: Air pollution and Climate Change (IPCC)
Core of Environmental
Problems?
 Top 20% in world income consume 85% of its
wealth and produce 90% of its waste
 Simple Explanation: Although environmental
problems are not new in themselves,
industrialization and rapid population growth,
technology have greatly increased the scale and
intensity of the over-exploitation of natural
resources and environmental degradation,
generating a wide range of urgent international and
global problems.
Factors beyond I=PAT
Global Policy since 1950 has been an emphasis on:
•
faster economic growth “growth fetish”
Increasing power in fewer hands
Profit motive bottom line of corps
lack of true cost accounting--enviro costs not included--it is
treated as public good and thus exploited
5. Unregulated economic globalization without concern for social
and environmental consequences
1.
2.
3.
4.


Elite powerbrokers/nations erected new politics, ideologies, and institutions predicated on
these ideas/principles.
Harnessing fossil fuels played a central role in widening int’l wealth & power

RESULT:




1. More environmental degradation than any pt in history
2. More inequality between humans than any pt in history
3. More complexity to problems themselves
4. Ideology that technology is part of “progress” that will save day; abstraction of nature