Beyond Science: The Economics and Politics of Climate Change

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Discussion of
Beyond Science The Economics and Politics of
Climate Change Rice University, February 8,
2008 Rosina Bierbaum, Dean and Professor,
University of Michigan
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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

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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
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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

• Societys current path leads to increasingly
  serious climate-change 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 worlds
  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

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Overview A Sense of Urgency

• Climate issue at scientific/political turning
  point
• Global climate change accelerating caused
  mainly by humans
• Average temperature 0.8C 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 MDGs
  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
Stern,2006
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Projected Impacts of Climate Change
Stern, 2006
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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 ill-prepared to manage climate
  change impacts. Enhanced preparedness/response
  strategies are a global priority

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The Millennium Development Goals

• 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.
• Achieve Universal Primary Education
• Promote Gender Equality Empower Women
• Reduce Child Mortality--Reduce by 2/3, between
  1990 and 2015, the under-5 mortality rate.
• Improve Maternal Health--Reduce by 3/4, between
  1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality rate
• 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.
• Ensure Environmental Sustainability
• Develop a global partnership for Development

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The Millennium Development Goals

• 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.
• Achieve Universal Primary Education
• Promote Gender Equality Empower Women
• Reduce Child Mortality--Reduce by 2/3, between
  1990 and 2015, the under-5 mortality rate.
• Improve Maternal Health--Reduce by 3/4, between
  1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality rate
• 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.
• Ensure Environmental Sustainability
• Develop a global partnership for Development

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Agro-Economic Vulnerability to Future Climate
Change
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Ecological Vulnerability to Future Climate Change
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Both Mitigation and Adaptation are needed.

• A mitigation only strategy wont work because
  its already too late to avoid substantial
  climate change.
• An adaptation only strategy wont 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

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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

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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

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The Roadmap - Adaptation
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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
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Among the Presidents 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 sustainable-development and
poverty-reduction strategies. - SEG,
Confronting Climate Change, p 82
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