Climate change damage functions in LCA – (2) data availability and selection of indicators Ingeborg Callesen 1,2, Beier, C. 2, Bagger Jørgensen R. 2, Olsen, S.I. 1 and Hauschild, M.Z. 1 1 DTU Management Engineering, Section for Quantitative Sustainability Assessment 2 Biosystems division, Risø DTU, Technical University of Denmark, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark. Abstract : The unknown magnitude of future GHG emissions and the complexity of the climate-carbon system induce large uncertainties in the projected changes in the Area of protection ‘Natural environment’. These may together be termed ‘global change’. A changed climate may result in new interactions between global change drivers and new directions of ecosystem change due to differing adaptive capacities of biota and new species assemblages in ecosystems with consequences for e.g. biodiversity. Within the framework ‘ecosystem services’ both marketed and non- marketed utilities of the natural environment are formulated. Provisioning, cultural, supporting, and regulating ecosystem services have been described. How will these services be affected by the increasing atmospheric GHG concentrations ? How can the changes be expressed in a damage model for LCIA? For the area of protection ‘Natural environment’ both sensitive and robust responses to climate change may be foreseen for different species within ecosystems and between ecosystems. A common metric may thus show high variability. Plural metrics may be needed to adequately describe the variety of different ecosystem services in different regional settings. Topic C: Environmental health assessment. Abstract TH010 Data: The www is full of on-line data. What to choose for LCIA of climate damage? Q: WHAT WE SUGGEST FOR LCIA re: impact category ’climate change’ ? A: Adoption of the ’global change’ world view – focus on important possible, clearly negative interactions between other damage drivers and climate change damage on the natural environment and thus on ecosystem services. Observation-based on-line access indicators from the science and the management/policy domains. Examples of subject areas of future ES indicators: Future ecosystem services: Q: If global warming potential is the midpoint what is then the endpoint damage ? A: Loss of ecosystem services or loss of biodiversity ? SCENARIO ?? DomainFrameworkSubject areas for IndicatorsProviders or sources ScienceSTATUS- Protected areas - Status of selected threatened and endagered species, species groups and ecosystems or more aggregated the living planet index (WWF) - Observed plant stress anomalies based on climate data (fire, drought), e.g. ecosystem experiments - FAO – forest inventory data on reserves and stocks IUCN, GBIF, WWF, ScienceENVIRON- MENT SCENARIO - Future climate-carbon – feedback through dynamic exchanges between marine and terrestrial carbon pools and the atmosphere. - Future sea level rise - Assessment of invasive species’ potential range enlargements due to climate change (a negative interaction with climate change) PolicyMITIGATION STATUS - Index for public and private spendings on nature conservation and restoration, and law and regulation compliance at national scale UNEP, other ? Manage- ment MITIGATION STATUS - REDD+ status, quantitative indicators for certified sustainable forest management in a development context, energy efficiency of the technosphere redd.org UNEP Terrestrial global change leads to changes in ecosystem services THE MODELLING CHALLENGE FOR ECOSYSTEM SERVICES Modelling of future damages to ecosystem services requires a mix of assessment and valuation techniques. Market economy based provisioning ecosystem services (ES) can be described (e.g. agriculture and forest yields, and traded CO 2 emissions). Damages to provisioning services can be measured as insured economic losses. For ES without market it’s more difficult, e.g. supporting and regulating services. WHAT WE KNOW Terrestrial global change signifies changes in the physical growth environment (water and nutrient cycles, heat regimes, acidifying and ecotoxic substances, ozone, and CO 2 ). Effects on ecosystems in response to global change will be diverse in time and space. Ecosystem damages should be assessed from fine resolution dynamic spatial models with detailed soil, climate and ecosystem state and function (process) data adopting an ecosystem view and a landscape perspective. WHAT WE DON’T KNOW The extent of growth environment changes. These depend on socio- economic scenarios of the future including population growth, technological development, life styles, mitigation activities (climate policy) and societal efforts within ecosystem conservation and restoration activities. The sensitivity of many species and ecosystems towards global environment changes Worldwide detailed descriptions of ‘valuable’ ecosystems and their species assemblies WHAT WE NEED – a global assessment of ecosystem services and their relation with global change and biodiversity loss. Keywords for sustainability assessments: ECOSYSTEM VIEW – LANDSCAPE PERSPECTIVE – RELEVANT SCALES IN TIME AND SPACE Suggested ranking of ‘game changing’ drivers for ecosystem change by severity: Flooding > land use change > invasive species, local extirpations, nitrogen saturation, acidification, ozone, toxic compounds, changed precipitation, temperature and wind regimes. Figure 1. F1-F6 are possible damage functions of cumulative global change pressures for different environmental services. On that timescale climate change will be prominent, and interacting with most other drivers will occur. Modeling of possible damages will require socio-economic scenarios. Come see our platform presentation on Thursday 19., hrs in the White 1 hall, session CS01B