Climate Change: An Inter-disciplinary Approach to Problem Solving - PowerPoint Presentation

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Climate Change: An Inter-disciplinary Approach to Problem Solving(AOSS 480 // NRE 480)

Richard B. Rood

Cell: 301-526-8572

2525 Space Research Building (North Campus)

rbrood@umich.edu

http://

aoss.engin.umich.edu

/people/rbrood

Winter 2015

March 24,

2015

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Class Information and News

Ctools

site:

AOSS_SNRE_480_001_W15

Record of course

Rood’s

Class MediaWiki Site

http://climateknowledge.org/classes/index.php/Climate_Change:

_The_Move_to_Action

4/9 Lecture will be given on 4/14.

4/14 Lecture will be not be given.

4/9 Class we will have SHORT status reports presented on all projects.

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Resources and Recommended Reading

O

’

Brien et al.,

Winners and losers in the context of global change

,

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

,

93

, 89-102, 2003

Barnett et al.

, Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions

,

Nature,

438,

303-309, 2005

Sandvik: Wealth and Climate Change

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Resources and Recommended Reading

Stern Report: Primary Web Page

Stern Report: Executive Summary

Nordhaus: Criticism of Stern Report

Tol and Yohe: Deconstruction of Stern Report

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Outline: Class 20, Winter 2015

Discussion of Ethics and Social Justice

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Managing Climate Complexity

TEMPORAL

NEAR-TERM

LONG-TERM

SPATIAL

LOCAL

GLOBAL

WEALTH

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Where do Ethics Fit In?

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What Are Ethical Issues?

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Short-term versus long-termWe return to the short-term versus long-term tension.

This is a classic short-term versus long-term problem.

Ethics

Economics

React versus anticipation

Knowledge base versus business base?

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November 15, 2006Ethics in Public Life

Fundamental Ethical Questions

Contrast between rich and poor, haves and have nots.

Those who use energy are not those most impacted by climate change.

Those with wealth are more resilient, more adaptable.

Winners and losers in climate change?

Climate change versus the other challenges we face.

Our use of knowledge

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Climate Injustice

“

Those who use too much of the carbon dioxide absorption capacity of the world

’

s oceans, vegetation and soil

owe a debt to all living creatures

whose habitat is threatened. They owe a particular debt to the carbon creditors, the poor of the South who use less than their fair share of the CO

2

absorption capacity. The poor and Indigenous peoples, are among those who are likely to suffer the most severe effects of … climate change. These consequences of global warming are

another manifestation of environmental racism

.

” (Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice 2001)Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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Oil Consumption - Production

CONSUMPTION

PRODUCTION

Energy Information Administration

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ENERGY VERSUS HUNGER

RICH VERSUS POOR

Amigos de la Tierra Int. y Acción Ecológica 2002.

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

ENERGY

HUNGER

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Responses to the Climate Change Problem

Autonomous/

Individual

Policy/

Societal

Reactive

Anticipatory

Adaptation

Mitigation

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Some definitionsMitigation: The notion of limiting or controlling emissions of greenhouse gases so that the total accumulation is limited.

Adaptation: The notion of making changes in the way we do things to adapt to changes in climate.

Resilience: The ability to adapt.

Geo-engineering: The notion that we can manage the balance of total energy of the atmosphere, ocean, ice, and land to yield a stable climate in the presence of changing greenhouse gases.

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Thinking about MITIGATIONMitigation: Things we do to reduce greenhouse gases

Reduce emissions

Increase sinks

Mitigation is for the global good

Mitigation has slow time constants

Mitigation is anticipatory

policy

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About the Global Goodfrom the world of business ...

Corporate Strategies for Climate Change

Andrew Hoffman, Pew, 2006

Global good without benefit to the bottom line profit is a poor motivator.

Coupled with benefit to the bottom line great motivator

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About the Global Goodfrom the world of faith ...

Faith Community

Global good from a perspective that might be independent of the bottom line profit

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Thinking about ADAPTATIONAdaptation: What people might do to reduce harm of climate change, or make themselves best able to take advantage of climate change.

Autonomous that people do by themselves

Can be encouraged by public policy

Command and control tell you to do it

Incentives

Subsidies

Can be anticipatory or reactive

Adaptation is local; it is self help.

Adaptation has short time constants - at least compared to mitigation

 Hence people see the need to pay for it.

Some amount of autonomous-reactive adaptation will take place.

Moving villages in Alaska

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Some Mitigation-Adaptation considerations

Those who are rich and technologically advanced generally favor adaptation; they feel they can handle it

Plus, technology will continue to make fossil fuel cheap, but with great(

er

) release of CO

2

Those who are poor and less technologically advanced generally advocate mitigation and sharing of adaptation technology

Perception that emission

scenarios

“don

’

t matter”

for the next 50 yearsThere are a lot of arguments, based on economics, that lead towards adaptationMitigation always looks expensive, perhaps economically risky, on the time scale of 50 years.Adaptation looks easier because we will know moreThis will remain true as long as the consequences seem incremental and modestThe Innovators Dilemma, evolution vs revolution?

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Scale

What is the best scale to measure vulnerability and adaptive capacity?

National:

inform states on needed policy response; allow for better decision making; allows for comparison of differential vulnerability

Regional

Impacts are likely not to be defined by national borders

Local

Ground truth

Allows for the understanding of the local factors that mediate sensitivity and resilience

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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Return to Mitigation-Adaptation

Mitigation: The notion of limiting or controlling emissions of greenhouse gases so that the total accumulation is limited.

Adaptation: The notion of making changes in the way we do things to adapt to changes in climate.

Resilience: The ability to adapt.

Think about the impacts on people:

Formalize or quantify?

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Vulnerability

the interface between exposure to physical threats and the capacity of systems to resist, cope or adapt to such threats.

Reducing vulnerability: identifying points of intervention in the causal change between hazard and human consequences.

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Impacts (Hazards)

extreme events move to the top

variation in climate patterns

Cause: storms, dry climate

Outcome: floods, mudslides, drought, fire etc.

External or intrinsic sources of vulnerability

for example,

“

place

”

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Social Vulnerability (vulnerability/sensitivity)

is a state that exists within a system before it encounters a hazard event

An inherent property of a system arising from its internal characteristics (e.g. poverty, inequality, entitlements, institutional landscape, etc)

Generic and specific

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Determinant:

Encompasses:

Human capital

Knowledge (scientific,

“

local

”

, technical, political), education levels, health, individual risk perception, labor

Information & Technology

Communication networks, freedom of expression, technology transfer and data exchange, innovation capacity, early warning systems, technological relevance

Material resources and infrastructure

Transport, water infrastructure, buildings, sanitation, energy supply and management, environmental quality

Organization and social capital

State-civil society relations, local coping networks, social mobilization, density of institutional relationships

Political capital

Modes of governance, leadership legitimacy, participation, decentralization, decision and management capacity, sovereignty

Wealth & financial capital

Income and wealth distribution, economic marginalization, accessibility and availability of financial instruments (insurance, credit), fiscal incentives for risk management

Institutions and entitlements

Informal and formal rules for resource conservation, risk management, regional planning, participation, information dissemination, technological innovation, property rights and risk sharing mechanisms

Eakin and Lemos 2006

Determinates of Adaptive Capacity

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Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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Significant variables

(1) population with access to sanitation,

(2) literacy rate, 15–24-year olds,

(3) maternal mortality,

(4) literacy rate, over 15 years,

(5) calorific intake,

(6) voice and accountability,

(7) civil liberties,

(8) political rights,

(9) government effectiveness,

(10) literacy ratio (female to male),

(11) life expectancy at birth.

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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Summary: Class 20, Winter 2015

When we start to consider the impact of climate change and how to respond we

Faced with the existing situation, without regard to climate change

Are immediately brought to the capabilities and practices of societies and cultures

Response is, largely, non-scientific

There are important issues of social justice and liability

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Outline: Class 20, Winter 2015

Discussion of Ethics and Social Justice

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AppendixSome Issues of Adaptation, Resilience, Ethics

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SensitivitySensitivity: different geographical scales, time scales, degrees of exposure and levels of predictability

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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Resilience

Ability of people and societies to mitigate, cope and adapt to hazard

Highly variable among countries, groups, gender, etc.

Coping capacity:

“

combination of all the natural and social characteristics and resources available in a particular location that are used to reduce the impacts of hazards

”

(UNDP Report).

“

internal

”

processes, entitlements, income access to resources, institutional and market structures

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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What is the connection between human induced environmental change and vulnerability?

Human induced changes have reduced the environment

’

s capacity to absorb the impacts of change and to deliver the goods and services to satisfy human needs.

Global climate change is likely to exacerbate the severity and frequency of impacts

Examples: mudslides, land-use change, coastal degradation, etc

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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Some evaluationAdaptive capacity, resilience, etc., vary widely from country to country. Depends on exposure, but largely dependent on wealth.

Wealth is largely related to energy use.

Brings up issues of social justice

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World Average

CO2 Emissions

Per Capita, 2000:

1.56 Tons

Source: Boden, 2003

The Result of Global Inequality

is Gross Carbon Inequality

Rich countries emit around 2.5-6 metric tons carbon annually per person,

while the middle income nations are around 0.6 mT

and the poorest around 0.02 mT

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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If we want to measure ability to adapt

We must

Measuring social and cultural processes

Data availability and reproduction

Trade-off between model that better depict reality and usable policy tools

Consideration of equity and ethical issues

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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Brooks, Adger and Kelly (2005)Global Environmental Change

risk = hazard x vulnerability

Risk: numbers of people killed by climate-related disaster per decade per national population.

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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Physical/Biophysical Vulnerability (risk)

Exposure: amount of (potential) damage caused to a system by a particular climate-related event or hazard

Vulnerability = I( impacts) – R (resilience)

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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Physical/Biophysical Vulnerability (risk)

IPCC: Vulnerability is a function of

ƒ( hazard, sensitivity, adaptive capacity)

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos