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Adaptation, Vulnerability and Integrated Risk Assessment

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Adaptation, Vulnerability and Integrated Risk Assessment Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research Symposium on Global Change Research March 23, Canberra – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Adaptation, Vulnerability and Integrated Risk Assessment


1
Adaptation, Vulnerability and Integrated Risk
Assessment
Asia Pacific Network for Global Change
Research Symposium on Global Change
Research March 23, Canberra
  • Roger N. Jones

2
Risk
  • Can be broadly defined as the likelihood of an
    adverse event or outcome
  • How does this relate to Article 2 of the UNFCCC?

3
Article 2 UNFCCC
  • Aims to prevent dangerous
  • anthropogenic climate change
  • by stabilising greenhouse gas emissions,
  • thus allowing
  • Ecosystems to adapt naturally
  • Food security to be maintained
  • Sustainable development to proceed

4
What is dangerous climate change?
  • This is a value judgement best assessed by
    policymakers, stakeholders and the community.
    Research can help with problem definition,
    plausibility and likelihood of various aspects
  • Global thresholds of criticality grounded ice
    sheet melts, N. Hemisphere flips to cold
    conditions, Amazon wilts and burns in heat and
    drought
  • Local thresholds of criticality any activity
    where impacts become non-viable with no
    reasonable substitute or the harm caused exceeds
    given levels of tolerance

5
Attaching likelihood
  • What is the likelihood of exceeding given levels
    of criticality without risk management?
  • What type and level of management is needed to
    reduce these risks?
  • These questions can be assessed on a range of
    scales

6
Risk management
  • Mitigation reduces climate hazards
  • Adaptation reduces the consequences for a given
    level of climate-related hazard
  • Adaptation may act to
  • reduce harm,
  • take advantage of benefits, and
  • modify ongoing change processes

7
Linking climate to adaptation over time
8
Measuring the ability to cope
9
Coping under climate change
10
Four pillars of climate risk analysis
  • Most systems affected by climate variability have
    evolved to cope with that variability to some
    extent
  • Climate change will mainly be felt as changes to
    climate variability and extremes.
  • Without adaptation, damages will increase with
    successively higher levels of global warming
  • Critical thresholds occurring at low levels of
    global warming and sea level rise are much more
    likely to be exceeded than those occurring at
    higher levels

11
Bleaching thresholds
12
Simulated historical bleaching events at Magnetic
Island
13
Mortality threshold
14
Bleaching severity
Bleaching level Impact Recovery
Bleaching Loss of color lt1 year
0.5C Some mortality (e.g. 1998, 2002) 1-3 years
1.0C Widespread mortality (transplant experiments) 3-? years
1.5C Not experienced but worse Longer
2.0C Not experienced but even worse Longer
2.5C Not experienced catastrophic? Decades
15
Bleaching risk as a function of warming
16
When is the coping range of coral reef
communities exceeded?
  • Physical bleaching rates
  • Ecosystem damage
  • Peoples livelihoods affected (e.g. fishing,
    tourism)
  • Policy objectives
  • Species/ecosystem rights to exist
  • Are we happy with algal mats and seaweed?

17
Bioclimatic thresholds exceeded as a function of
warming
18
Macquarie River Catchment
  • Area 75,000 km2
  • P 1000 to lt400 mm.
  • Major dams Burrendong and Windamere
  • Water demands irrigation agriculture Macquarie
    Marshes town supply
  • Most flow from upper catchment runoff
  • Most demand in the lower catchment

19
Irrigation allocations and wetland inflows-
historical climate and 1996 rules
20
Critical thresholdsMacquarie River Catchment
  • Irrigation
  • 5 consecutive years below 50 allocation of water
    right
  • Wetlands
  • 10 consecutive years below bird breeding events
  • Both thresholds are exceeded if mean streamflow
    decreases
  • by 10 under a drought-dominated climate,
  • by 20 under a normal climate and
  • by 30 under a flood-dominated climate

21
Risk analysis resultsMacquarie 2030
22
Change in risk as a function of global warming
23
Metrics for measuring costs
  • Monetary losses (gains)
  • Loss of life
  • Change in quality of life
  • Species and habitat loss
  • Distributional equity

24
Estimating dangerous climate change
  • Assumptions
  • Atmospheric CO2 3541500 ppm
  • Climate sensitivity 1.54.5C
  • Non-CO2 forcing 0.53.5Wm-2
  • Randomly sampled at uniform distribution

25
Temperature at stabilisation
26
Temperature at stabilisation
27
Probabilities of meeting temperature targets at
given levels of CO2 stabilisation
28
Estimating dangerous climate change - Take 2
  • Assumptions
  • Atmospheric CO2 3541000 ppm (uniform)
  • Climate sensitivity Expert (Forrest et al. non
    linear)
  • Non-CO2 forcing 0.53.5Wm-2 , linked to CO2 (non
    linear)
  • Randomly sampled

29
Temperature at stabilisation
30
Temperature at stabilisation
31
Adaptation and mitigation
  • Adaptation increases the coping range through
    biological and social means
  • Mitigation reduces the magnitude and frequency of
    greenhouse-related climate hazards
  • Therefore, they are complementary, not
    interchangeable.
  • They also reduce different areas of climate
    uncertainty

32
Moving forward
  • Adaptation
  • Most suited to impacts vulnerable to current
    climate risks or small changes in climate change
    (These are the most likely to be affected)
  • Cannot cope with large changes or many impacts
    (too expensive and difficult)
  • Adaptation will be local and mainly shorter-term
    adjustments
  • Mitigation
  • Reduces climate hazards (e.g. global warming)
    progressively from the top down.
  • Unlikely to prevent a certain level of climate
    change adaptation will be needed for such
    changes.
  • Mitigation that presents as a cost now will
    become profitable when damages become more
    apparent and BAU for the energy system changes to
    low emission operation

33
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34
Activities most at risk
  • Those where
  • critical thresholds are exceeded at low levels of
    global warming,
  • adaptive capacity is low and/or adaptation is
    prohibitively expensive, difficult or unknown and
  • the consequences of exceeding those thresholds
    are judged to be serious
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