Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Mitigation and Adaptation

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Aims To understand how can we limit or adapt to climate change. What are the national and small scale strategies for limiting or coping with climate change? What are the contributions of individuals to help reduce the impacts of climate change ?

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Enquiry What are the strategies for dealing with climate change? Mitigation Means reducing the output of greenhouse gases and increasing the size of carbon sinks. Examples of mitigation are: Setting targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions Switching to renewable energy, such as wind power Capturing carbon emissions from power stations and storing them – what do you think?

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1Adaptation Adaptation means changing our lifestyles to cope with a new environment rather than trying to stop climate change. Examples of adaptation include: Managed retreat of coastlines vulnerable to sea level rise Managed retreat of coastlines vulnerable to sea level rise Developing drought resistant crops Developing drought resistant crops Enlarging existing conservation areas to allow for shifting habitat zones Enlarging existing conservation areas to allow for shifting habitat zones Many scientists argue that climate change would still occur even if we stopped polluting the atmosphere now so even 100% mitigation would require some adaptation. -what do you think?

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 The UN Environment Programme strategies to climate change Most of these strategies need resources, which many LEDCS lack

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 There is much disagreement about how to deal with climate change For human systems like the economy mitigation would involve an upfront cost to reduce atmospheric pollution to ‘safe levels’. Adaptation might mean the costs were spread over a longer time scale and were more gradual. For natural systems like ecosystems, mitigation could limit the damage. Adaptation might condemn natural systems which cannot adapt to climate change. Species may become extinct and biodiversity be degraded as threats to ecosystems increased.

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 The value of natural ecosystems is a strong argument for acting now to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. The value of natural ecosystems is a strong argument for acting now to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. MEDCS may have the resources to act now but parts of the world that are LEDCS lack the adaptive capacity. MEDCS may have the resources to act now but parts of the world that are LEDCS lack the adaptive capacity. This means that they do not have the human, physical or financial resources to cope with climate change. This means that they do not have the human, physical or financial resources to cope with climate change. To increase climate adaptive capacity they need: To increase climate adaptive capacity they need: To reduce poverty to meet the costs of adaptation Increased access to resources including energy resources and materials Improved education and skills to develop understanding of the challenges and the ability to change Improved health Improved infrastructure such as roads, energy supply and communications So the ability to adapt is linked to development So the ability to adapt is linked to development Most adaptive strategies will be LOCAL in scale as they will be tailored to the local impacts of climate change. Most adaptive strategies will be LOCAL in scale as they will be tailored to the local impacts of climate change. Mitigation can occur at a range of scales. Mitigation can occur at a range of scales.

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Scales of mitigation International agreements are important, but individual governments decide how agreements should be implemented. Often it is the local agencies (eg local councils) who decide how to make individuals to make the right choices.

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Climate change coping strategies

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Mitigation Adaptation Adapting to climate change?

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Vector Eradication – airborne disease Transit – public transport

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Where does CO2 come from? Media attention?

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Is mitigation free?

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 The costs of cutting carbon emissions in different ways P Oxford

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Wind Turbines Biofuels Improved building insulation Afforestation Large Dams Low-till cultivation Forest conservation Forest pest control Over to you – consider the statements – where would you place them? Think about would it affect biodiversity good or bad Urban tree planting Green rooftops Increased farmland irrigation Species translocation Sea wall defence Flood-control infrastructure Ex situ conservation New desalinisation plants

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Over to you – consider the statements – where would you place them? Think about would it affect biodiversity good or bad Win-Lose- Win Win – Lose- Lose Lose- Win- Lose Lose-Win- Win

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1

Carbon sequestration This is a geoengineering technique for the long-term storage of carbon dioxide or other forms of carbon, for the mitigation of global warming. Carbon dioxide is usually captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical or physical processes. It has been proposed as a way to mitigate the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere released by the burning of fossil fuels. CO 2 may be captured as a pure by- product in processes related to petroleum refining or from flue gases from power generation. CO 2 sequestration can then be seen as being synonymous with the storage part of carbon capture and storage which refers to the large-scale, permanent artificial capture and sequestration of industrially-produced CO 2 using subsurface saline aquifers, reservoirs, ocean water, aging oil fields, or other carbon sinks.

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1

cheapest-way-to-combat-climate-change.html cheapest-way-to-combat-climate-change.html

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 What should be done – think wedges! The idea of stabilisation wedges from Princeton University provides a useful structure to allow a greater understanding to develop. The basic concept is shown here (adapted from ‘the Guardian’). The graph shows the predicted increase in carbon dioxide levels to An increase to 43.7 billion tonnes equates to a carbon dioxide concentration of ppm – in other words about the level considered by many to be ‘dangerous’ (unavoidable increase of 2  C).

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Anglian Water

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Thanks, Darling

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1VED Car tax, or VED (Vehicle Excise Duty) is one the minds of the average 17 year old! The UK government is using VED as one of the key planks of its mitigation strategy. The aim is to use the tax system to change our car buying behaviour. VED linked to carbon dioxide emissions was first introduced in 1998 (see table, right)

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 They have become the fashionable target for environmentalists, but four-wheel-drive vehicles may be less damaging to the environment than the cows and sheep essential to the rural economy. The methane emissions from both ends of cattle and sheep are causing so much concern in government that it has ordered researchers to find ways to cut down on the emissions from livestock, which account for about a quarter of the methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful at driving global warming than carbon dioxide – pumped into the atmosphere in Britain. Each day every one of Britain’s 10 million cows pumps out an estimated litres of methane. This is the equivalent of up to 4,000 grams of carbon dioxide and compares with the 3,419g of carbon dioxide pumped out by a Land Rover Freelander on an average day’s drive of 33 miles. With the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation predicting that methane emissions from livestock could increase by as 60 per cent by 2030, the issue is being treated with some urgency. Scientists attempting to find new foods for cattle have already exploded the myth that most bovine emissions come from the rear. They have found the majority come from belching.

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1Mitigation European Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) p 52 Oxford Shell p 53 Oxford London Congestion Charge p 53 Oxford Bunge, Brazil p 53 Oxford New York p 54 Oxford Nuclear in the UK p 57 Oxford Kyoto Protocol (to come in class) Adaptation Tuvalu p 67 Philip Allan

Date: 13-Nov-15 AS Global Challenges Unit 1 Essay “Mitigation is the only way to manage climate change”. Discuss (15)