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Opening Address
Greg Bourne
The Resilience
Challenge
CEO WWF-Australia and
Chair CERF Reference Panel
Playing
the World Cup!
Greg Bourne CEO WWF-Australia
1
Agenda
• The State of the World and Overshoot
• Continually missing thresholds
• Politics, climate change and courting thresholds
• Procrastination and “Good Enough” tools
• The Choice
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Drivers of biodiversity loss growing in intensity
•Most direct drivers of degradation in
ecosystem services remain constant or
are growing in intensity in most
ecosystems
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Overshoot into ecological debt
WWF Living Planet Report 2008
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Overshoot and collapse?
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How resilient are we?
J.Randers/Futures 40 (2008) 853-864
One scenario:
A more likely scenario:
The Carrying
Capacity
of the Planet
The Carrying Capacity
of the Planet
Overshoot
Collapse
The Ecological
Footprint of Humanity
1990
The Ecological
Footprint of Humanity
2100
“Smooth landing”
1990
2100
“Overshoot and collapse”
Fig.4. Overshoot and collapse – in principle
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Policy relevant “Tipping Elements”
in the Earth’s Climate System
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Tipping elements and thresholds!
Cold
Warm
In and out of ice
ages – last couple
of millions of years
oscillating every
70,000 years or so!
Hot
Tipping elements and thresholds!
Cold
Warm
Loss of each
“tipping element”
increases the risk of
passing thresholds
Hot
Tipping elements and thresholds!
Cold
Warm
Loss of each
“tipping element”
increases the risk of
passing thresholds
Hot
Tipping elements and thresholds!
Cold
Warm
Loss of each
“tipping element”
increases the risk of
passing thresholds
Hot
Tipping elements and thresholds!
Cold
Warm
At some point we
trigger runaway
global warming
Hot
Overshoot and
collapse to a new
stable state?
Agenda
• The State of the World and Overshoot
• Continually missing thresholds
• Politics, climate change and courting thresholds
• Procrastination and “Good Enough” tools
• The Choice
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Canada and Cod
STOCKS
Discontinuity
Probabilistic error
bar
1. External
Warnings
2. Expert
Warnings
3. Expert
Consensus
4. Rejection
due to cost
5. Cod
Collapse
Mid 1980s
1986
1990
1990-91
1992
eg inshore
fishermen
Keats
Report
Harris
Report
Ministry
(DFO)
Nothing left
to catch
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TIME
North Sea and Cod
STOCKS
Discontinuity
Probabilistic error
bar
1. External
Warnings
2. Expert
Warnings
3. Expert
Consensus
4. Rejection
due to cost
5. Cod
Collapse
by 1990s
1993-6
2000
2001
200?
environment
groups
Shephard,
Cook
Report
ICES
assessment
EU Council
of Ministers
Nothing left
to catch
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TIME
Arctic Ice Cover
AREA
Discontinuity
Probabilistic error
bar
1. External
Warnings
2. Expert
Warnings
3. Expert
Consensus
by 1980s
1990
2007
Scientists
NGOs
IPCC 1St
Assesment
Report
IPCC 4AR
4. Rejection
due to cost
5.Total ice
sheet loss?
20??
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TIME
World GDP and Traded Resource Needs
VOLUME AND PRICE
Discontinuity
Probabilistic error
bar
1. External
Warnings
2. Expert
Warnings
by 1970s
2007-8
2008-10
Limits to
Growth
Stern
Garnaut et
al
?
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Agenda
• The State of the World and Overshoot
• Continually missing thresholds
• Politics, climate change and courting thresholds
• Procrastination and “Good Enough” tools
• The Choice
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Unravelling trends, predicting discontinuities
Reinforcing
events
ISSUE
Probabilistic error
bar
Discontinuity
Detracting event
TIME
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Climate Change: Public awareness and concern
HIGH
IMPORTANCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Jobs
LOW
Health
Education
Law and order
Heightened
awareness
Drought
Bushfires
Heightened
public concern
Copenhagen
+ Sceptics
Erosion of
importance
TIME
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Climate change
What are the
best defensive
interventions
?
ISSUE
What are the
best offensive
interventions?
It is unacceptable to wait until
you know for sure!
“All science is always
provisional” (Karl Popper)
The probabilities are now too
high to ignore.
Discontinuities,
what type, impact,
magnitude and
probability?
Politicians may be
about to act!
TIME
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Political action lags societal concern
Law and
regulation
enacted
Heightened
confidence
PROPENSITY
TO
ENACT
HIGH
At the
stroke of a
pen!
Leave well alone
A large risk to
business is when
politicians make
up their minds
and then act!
LOW
TIME
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Propensity to really act on Climate Change
Lib
Lab
Grn
Nat
Howard
Government
Nat
Rudd
Government
Lab
Lib
Grn
Lab
Lib
Con
What next?
Nat
Grn
Here
or
Here???
High
Low
Progressive
Conservative
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Not to decide to win ..is to decide to lose!
Work for
Global Climate
Treaty to stay
below a 2oC
rise
Keep on as
Business
As Usual
(BAU)
Deliberately IGNORE
the climate
challenge and try to
“ACHIEVE
ADVANTAGE” in a
breakdown world
New Sustainability
Paradigm
BAU defaults to
societal,
economic and
environmental
breakdown. A
severe
procrastination
penalty
Societal, economic
and environmental
breakdown
-1 to 2%
GDP loss
But
possibly a
gain in
world GDP
But with Runaway
Climate Change
At least 20% GDP
loss
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Not to decide to win ..is to decide to lose!
Work for real
reductions
25% by 2020
&
a Global Deal
Keep on as
Business
As Usual
(BAU)
Deliberately IGNORE
the climate
challenge and try to
“Achieve Advantage
for Australia” in a
breakdown world
A Sustainable
Australia in a
Sustainable
World
A Transformed,
Productive and
Adapted Australia
BAU is
procrastination.
If copied
around the
world it quickly
defaults to
societal,
economic and
environmental
breakdown
But with Runaway
Climate Change
Overshoot and
Collapse
An Impoverished,
Environmentally
Unproductive
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Continent
Agenda
• The State of the World and overshoots
• Continually missing thresholds
• Politics, climate change and courting thresholds
• Procrastination and “Good Enough” tools
• The Choice
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Procrastination?
Procrastination?
Data more than enough to make a
defendable decision!
Decision Window
Data sufficient to avoid major
errors
Learning Period
Time doing research and positioning for decisions
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“Good Enough” tools
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“Good Enough” tools
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Avoiding the tip!
1. Elements can be identified which have the potential to tip.
(You can see other stable states and possible thresholds.)
2. Decisions taken within a “Political Time Horizon” can determine
what happens.
(There is still time to have an effect.)
3. The time to observe change plus the time to trigger it lie within an
“Ethical Time Horizon”.
(Events too far away have little chance of influencing today’s
decisions)
4. A significant number of people care about the consequences
should an element tip.
(A significant change in human welfare could occur or part of
the biosphere could be significantly disrupted.)
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Agenda
• The State of the World and Australia
• Continually missing thresholds
• Politics, climate change and courting thresholds
• Procrastination and “Good Enough” tools
• The Choice
31
If we choose to lose!
“The phenomenon of overshoot and collapse – and the
possibility of global collapse – is still relevant and worthy of
study.
Global collapse triggered by ever growing emissions of
greenhouse gases is still conceivable in the first half of the 21st
century, because of the unfortunate combination of global
decision delays and self-reinforcing feedback in the climate
system.
Interestingly it may prove difficult to verify that global collapse
did take place—even if it did, and even after the fact.
Global collapse – defined as a situation where more than one
billion people lose one half of what they hold dear in less than
20 years – may well be hidden from the headlines and the
history books.
J.Randers/Futures 40 (2008) 853-864
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If we choose to lose!
The 21st century is more likely to be described as a period of
intense local strife, institutional breakdown, regionalization and
general malaise. The root cause – humanity overstepping an
environmental limit – may well be lost in the clutter of historical
detail.
Global Collapse could remain fiction, even if it proved to be
fact.”
J.Randers/Futures 40 (2008) 853-864
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If we choose to win!
We must understand and incorporate the concepts of resilience
thinking into our political, economic and social structures.
We must start at the highest level of the system in which we
might want to intervene.
On Climate Change the geopolitical system and the biophysical
system are intimately inter-related and should be seen as one!
Decisions must be taken within the “political time horizon”.
Enough people must care about a positive outcome in
order for politicians to have the courage to take action!
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Opening Address
Greg Bourne
The Resilience
Challenge
CEO WWF-Australia and
Playing to win!
Chair CERF Reference Panel
Greg Bourne CEO WWF-Australia
35