Climate Change: An Inter-disciplinary Approach to Problem Solving (CLIMATE 480 // NRE 480) Richard B. Rood Cell: Space Research Building (North Campus) Winter 2016 February 18, 2016

Class Information and News Ctools site: CLIMATE_480_001_W16CLIMATE_480_001_W16 –Record of course Rood’s Class MediaWiki SiteClass MediaWiki Site – A tumbler site to help me remember – Assignment: –For Thursday: Antarctic Sea Ice –For March 8: Will be added to Ctools Site

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, , 2003Winners and losers in the context of global change Barnett et al.Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions, Nature, 438, , 2005Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions Sandvik: Wealth and Climate Change

Reference The Nature of Environmental Stewardship: Understanding Creation Care Solutions to Environmental Problems, Johnny LinThe Nature of Environmental Stewardship: Understanding Creation Care Solutions to Environmental Problems Environmental ethics book by a climate scientist.

Outline: Class 12, Winter 2016 Discussion of Ethics and Social Justice

Managing Climate Complexity TEMPORAL NEAR-TERMLONG-TERM SPATIAL LOCAL GLOBAL WEALTH

Where do Ethics Fit In?

What Are Ethical Issues?

Short-term versus long-term We 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?

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 affected 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

Environmental Ethics “A goal of ethics is to provide us with a language, a set of concepts, effective arguments, and a comprehensive vision whereby we can claim that some kinds of actions are right or wrong, or some forms of living are better or worse, perhaps independently of one’s cultural or legal context.” Karl Clifton-Soderstrom, North Park University, Chicago

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

Oil Consumption - Production CONSUMPTION PRODUCTION Energy Information Administration

ENERGY VERSUS HUNGER RICH VERSUS POOR Amigos de la Tierra Int. y Acción Ecológica Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos ENERGY HUNGER

Development versus climate change

What is the value of “nature?”

The Islands are Sinking My village is washing away.

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil position on climate change and their internal research on climate change.

ExxonMobil and AGU Should American Geophysical Union accept ExxonMobil’s sponsorship?

What do you think of hydraulic fracturing? (fracking)

Should University of Michigan Endowment Invest in Fossil Fuel Companies?

Responses to the Climate Change Problem Autonomous/ Individual Policy/ Societal Reactive Anticipatory Adaptation Mitigation

Some definitions 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. 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.

Thinking about MITIGATION Mitigation: 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

About the Global Good from the world of business... –Corporate Strategies for Climate Change Andrew Hoffman, Pew, 2006Corporate Strategies for Climate Change Global good without benefit to the bottom line profit is a poor motivator. –Coupled with benefit to the bottom line great motivator

About the Global Good from the world of faith... –Faith CommunityFaith Community Global good from a perspective that might be independent of the bottom line profit

Thinking about ADAPTATION Adaptation: 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 AlaskaMoving villages in Alaska

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 years There are a lot of arguments, based on economics, that lead towards adaptation –Mitigation always looks expensive, perhaps economically risky, on the time scale of 50 years. Adaptation looks easier because we will know more This will remain true as long as the consequences seem incremental and modest –The Innovators Dilemma, evolution vs revolution?The Innovators Dilemma

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

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?

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.

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”

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

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

Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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

Summary: Class 12, Winter 2016 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

Outline: Class 12, Winter 2016 Discussion of Ethics and Social Justice

Appendix Some Issues of Adaptation, Resilience, Ethics

Sensitivity Sensitivity: different geographical scales, time scales, degrees of exposure and levels of predictability Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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

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

Some evaluation Adaptive 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

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 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

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

Brooks, Adger and Kelly (2005) 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

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

Physical/Biophysical Vulnerability (risk)  IPCC: Vulnerability is a function of ƒ( hazard, sensitivity, adaptive capacity) Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos