Climate Change: The Move to Action (AOSS 480 // NRE 480)

1. Climate Change: The Move to Action(AOSS 480 // NRE 480) Richard B. Rood 734-647-3530 2525 Space Research Building (North Campus) rbrood@umich.edu http://aoss.engin.umich.edu/people/rbrood Winter 2010 March 30, 2010

2. Class News • Ctools site: AOSS 480 001 W10 • On Line: 2008 Class • Reference list from course • Rood Blog Data Base

3. Projects • Final presentation discussion; • April 20 last day of class • Summary lecture discussion • How to talk science? • Climate intertwined with everything? • After class meetings • 3/30: Transportation • 4/1: Efficiency, New York Utility • 4/6: Near-term solutions • 4/8: Michigan’s response

4. Events • Jim Hansen Global Climate Change What Must We Do Now? • April 6, 2010 • Blau Auditorium, Ross School of Business, • Time: 4:00 - 5:30, Reception following

5. Readings on Local Servers • Assigned • Stern Report: Executive Summary • Foundational • Stern Review: Primary Web Page • Recommended • Nordhaus: Criticism of Stern Report • Tol and Yohe: Deconstruction of Stern Report

6. From Last Time • Introduced a set of “big” issues • Energy summary • Atmospheric stabilization • Role of efficiency • Divide between oil consumers and oil producers • Divide between rich and poor • Motivation to respond • Policy response • Scientific uncertainty and policy • Policy Catalysts

7. Science, Mitigation, Adaptation Framework Adaptation is responding to changes that might occur from added CO2 It’s not an either / or argument. Mitigation is controlling the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere.

8. 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.

9. 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 Alaska

10. 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 • This is the “second” environmental problem we have faced with a global flavor. • Ozone is the first one. Is this a good model?

11. 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 CO2 • Those who are poor and less technologically advanced generally advocate mitigation and sharing of adaptation technology • Emission scenarios “don’t matter” for the next 30-50 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?

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

13. The previous viewgraphs have introduced “granularity” • This is a classic short-term versus long-term problem. • Ethics • Economics • Reaction versus anticipation • Similarly, regional versus global • Rich and poor • Competing approaches • Mitigation versus adaptation • Transportation versus Electrical Generation • This versus that

14. Granularity • No matter how we cut through this problem we come to the conclusion that there is a lot of granularity within the problem. This granularity represents complexity, which must be used to develop a portfolio of solutions rather than to classify the problem as intractable.

15. LONG SHORT There are short-term issues important to climate change. What is short-term and long-term? Pose that time scales for addressing climate change as a society are best defined by human dimensions. Length of infrastructure investment, accumulation of wealth over a lifetime, ... ENERGY SECURITY Election time scales CLIMATE CHANGE ECONOMY 25 years 0 years 50 years 75 years 100 years

16. LOCAL GLOBAL SPATIAL We arrive at levels of granularity Need to introduce spatial scales as well WEALTH Sandvik: Wealth and Climate Change TEMPORAL NEAR-TERM LONG-TERM Small scales inform large scales. Large scales inform small scales.

17. Complexity challenges disciplinary intuition • The details of the problem often de-correlate pieces of the problem. • This challenges the intuition of disciplined-based experts, and the ability to generalize. • For example --- Detroit is like Chicago. • The consideration of the system as a whole causes tensions – trade offs - optimization Problem Solving Unification Integration Knowledge Generation Reduction Disciplinary

18. Policy • A natural reaction to this situation is to look to government, to the development of policy to address the problems that we are faced with.

19. A Premise • Climate change problem cannot be solved in isolation. • Requires integration with all elements of society. • Requires identification of reasons to motivate us to take action • Apparent benefit • Excess Risk

20. Climate Science-Policy Relation KNOWLEDGE CLIMATE SCIENCE POLICY UNCERTAINTY PROMOTES / CONVERGENCE OPPOSES / DIVERGENCE

21. The need for “management”

22. Return to the Energy-Climate Problem • We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, while at the same time maintaining energy production and economic stability.

23. NEED CARBON POLICY • We need a “carbon policy” which is integrated with energy policy. • Some alternative energy sources don’t do much for reducing carbon dioxide in atmosphere. • Coal is our easy energy security • Without sequestration (carbon removal), coal makes the problem worse. • Concern: Quest for energy security-national security, economic stability, demand for cheap energy will reduce priority we give to reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

24. Basic Management • If there is a goal which you must meet, then you need to manage towards than goal. • If the goal is critical to success, • If the goal must be met on some schedule,

25. Some Basic Management Tenets WHERE WE ARE NOW WHERE WE ARE GOING WE WILL GET DESIRED RESULT AS A BENEFIT OF WHERE WE ARE GOING. THIS APPROACH INCREASES RISK OF NOT GETTING THE DESIRED RESULT, BECAUSE THE “COST” OF DESIRED RESULT IS NEVER INTEGRATED INTO THE PROCESS DESIRED RESULT

26. TRYING TO BE CLEAR WHERE WE ARE NOW ENERGY SECURITY WE WILL GET REDUCED CARBON FROM QUEST FOR ENERGY SECURITY – ENERGY POLICY. CARBON REDUCTION DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY FOLLOW FROM SOLVING THE ENERGY PROBLEM. CARBON REDUCTION ALSO NEEDS TO BE A REQUIREMENT  NEED CARBON POLICY CARBON REDUCTION

27. Carbon Policy • Or perhaps we need “climate policy” and “climate management.” • We need to consciously take responsibility for our energy waste.

28. A Management Idea The first and largest improvements come from a plan, an approach to the problem, and identifying mistakes early This axis is ability to target cost, quality, time

29. Policy: Global and Local GLOBAL CONSEQUENCES LOCAL POLICY (ADAPTATION) SURFACE WARMING GLOBAL POLICY (MITIGATION) GREEN HOUSE GAS INCREASE

30. Some basics of policy response • An important part of the policy response is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

31. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(The assessment process: A formal interface) How is this information evaluated, integrated and transmitted to policymakers? Scientist-authors are nominated by governments to assess the state of the science Published in refereed literature IPCC CLIMATE REPORTS 2001 2007 What we know + uncertainty Draft documents are reviewed by experts who did NOT write the draft. // Open review as well U.S. Climate Change Study Program U.S. National Assessment Review by government officials // Final language // All agree National Academy of Sciences Draft revised

32. The Official Policy is: • United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change • Framework Convention on Climate Change

33. What is COP? • COP is the Conference of Parties • Parties are those countries who have signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There are 192 signatories. • Essential Background UNFCCC

34. Michigan Observer Status • Framework Convention Parties and Observers • Parties are signatories of Framework Convention • Observers are invited to the meeting for participation, transparency, and accountability • United Nations Representatives • Intergovernmental Organizations • Non-governmental Organizations • Virtual Participation

35. Framework Convention on Climate Change(US in part of this.) • UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992, non-binding, voluntary, 192 signers) • Reduce CO2 Emissions in 2000 to 1990 levels • Inventories of greenhouse gas emissions • Mitigate Climate Change • Mid-1990’s • No reduction in emissions • Evidence of warming and impacts

36. Framework Convention on ClimateChange

37. Development of International Approach to Climate Change 1988 1992 1995 1997 2001 2007 IPCC established Framework Convention(UNFCCC) Kyoto Protocol ????? Scientific assessment Non-binding aim Binding emissions target

38. Dangerous climate change? • What is dangerous?

39. Stern Report • Draws on recent science which points to ‘significant risks of temperature increases above 5°C under business-as-usual by the early part of the next century’ — other studies typically have focused on increases of 2–3°C. • Treats aversion to risk explicitly. • Adopts low pure time discount rates to give future generations equal weight. • Takes account of the disproportionate impacts on poor regions.

40. Dangerous climate change? Stern, 2006

41. Stern Report • Considered a radical revision of climate change economics. • If we don’t act now it will cost between 5% and 20% of gross domestic product (an aggregate measure of economy.) • Stands in contrast to many studies that usually come to numbers of closer to 1% • The idea that initiation of a policy with a slow growth rate will have little impact on the economy or environment in the beginning, but will ultimately become important when the nature of expenditures is more clear.

42. Dangerous climate change? Stern, 2006

43. Some carry away messages • Determine what is a tolerable ceiling for carbon dioxide. • Gives cap for a cap and trade system. • Tolerable ceilings have been posed as between 450 and 550 ppm. • Ice sheet melting and sea level? • Oceanic circulation / The Gulf Stream? • Ocean acidification? • Determine a tolerable measure of increased temperature • Copenhagen Accord (2009)  2o C

44. Dangerous climate change? Stern, 2006

45. Back to Stabilization

46. Basic constraint on carbon policy 350.org

47. Stabilizing concentrations Means Action Now … Ceiling (ppmv) 350 450 550 650 750 Start Date Too late 2007 2013 2018 2023 Max Emission 6.0 8.0 9.7 11.4 12.5 Max Year 2005 2011 2033 2049 2062 Basic constraint on carbon policy 1950 – 1.8 tons // 1990 – 5.8 tons // 2000 – 6.5 tons Thanks to Rosina Bierbaum

48. All Parties agree to: 4.1.b. Mitigate emissions and enhance sinks 4.1.c. Promote technology development and transfer 4.1.e. Cooperate on research and observation Developed Countries’ aim to return emissions to 1990 levels by the end of the century 1992 Convention Commitments

49. Assessment • Mid-1990’s • No reduction in emissions • Evidence of warming and impacts • 2001 • No reduction in emissions • Evidence of warming and impacts • 2007 • No reduction in emissions • Evidence of warming and impacts

50. Increase of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through…a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.” --Lyndon Johnson Special Message to Congress, 1965 Data and more information