Climate Change: The Move to Action (AOSS 480 // NRE 501)

1. Climate Change: The Move to Action(AOSS 480 // NRE 501) Richard B. Rood 734-647-3530 2525 Space Research Building (North Campus) rbrood@umich.edu http://aoss.engin.umich.edu./people/rbrood Winter 2008 February 19, 2008

2. Class Basics • A ctools site for all • AOSS 480 001 W08 • This is the official repository for lectures • Email climateaction@ctools.umich.edu • Class Web Site and Wiki • Climate Change: The Move to Action • Winter 2008 Term • Wunderground Climate Page • Posted Introduction of the New Rough Guide • My recent series on models

3. Lectures coming up • http://www.snre.umich.edu/events

4. Readings on Local Servers • Assigned • Brooks: Framework for Understanding Vulnerability and Adaptive Ability Of Interest • Eakin: Building Adaptive Capacity • A basic reference • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Web Portal

5. QuikClimate AOSS 605 • Meet in Space Research Building, 4:30, February 19, 2008, Room TBD. • Lounge in front of auditorium.

6. Projects • Projects discussion • What topics are being discussed? • Are groups organizing? • Present a prospectus?

7. Outline of Lecture • Climate change and society • Impacts based approach • Knowledge based approach • Value systems and rationality • Relation of climate change to, say, energy and agriculture • Conflicting interests • Mitigation and Adaptation • Formalizing the approach to adaptation • Social justice

8. Coherent and Convergent? • There is evidence in both the physical climate system and ecosystems of systematic global warming. • This evidence shows correlated behavior through many systems. • Taken independently each piece could be challenged. • Taken together the evidence converges. • Consistent with human-related forcing

9. Greenhouse Effect (Observation and Theory) Observations of the past. / Large and small climate shifts. / Relation between CO2 and Temperature Rapid CO2 increase / Comparable to ice age – temperate difference Climate Change Motivates Concern? NO PREDICT consequential rise in global temperature / Rapid enough to disrupt society and commerce Should we be concerned ? YES

10. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS NO PREDICT consequential rise in global temperature / Rapid enough to disrupt society and commerce Should we be concerned ? YES SEA LEVEL RISE WATER WEATHER HEAT ECOSYSTEMS

11. IMPACTS ON KEY HUMAN ACTIVITIES NO Anticipate consequential rise in global temperature / Rapid enough to disrupt society and commerce Should we be concerned ? Even if you think “NO,” you will be impacted. YES SEA LEVEL RISE WATER WEATHER HEAT ECOSYSTEMS “BUSINESS” PUBLIC HEALTH ENERGY AGRICULTURE

12. INTERACTIONS WITH HUMAN BEHAVIOR SEA LEVEL RISE WATER WEATHER HEAT ECOSYSTEMS “BUSINESS” PUBLIC HEALTH ENERGY AGRICULTURE MORE MORE POLICY RELIGION LAW SOCIAL JUSTICE

13. WHAT WE JUST DID • Took the direction of climate change impacts and how it is likely to influence our societies. • Through impact on natural resources. • That impact health, food, economy. • That motivate and form policy and law. • That are directed by beliefs and ethics.

14. This impacts-based approach stands in contrast to the past knowledge based approach • Until the last year or so, climate change was broadly debated on the presumed knowledge of predictions.

15. Based on scientific investigation SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

16. Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate Societal Needs How we interpret the results of that investigation SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE National Religious Partnership for the Environment

17. Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate Societal Needs Which relies on how we get out information information flow: research, journals, press, opinion, … SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

18. Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate Societal Needs Which does influence scientific investigation information flow: research, journals, press, opinion, … SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

19. Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate Societal Needs It all gets stirred together information flow: research, journals, press, opinion, … SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

20. Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate Societal Needs And different communities have intrinsic interests POLICY ECONOMICS ENERGY RELIGION LAW SOCIAL JUSTICE “BUSINESS” PUBLIC HEALTH information flow: research, journals, press, opinion, … SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

21. Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate Societal Needs What are the pieces which we must consider?(what are the consequences) Security Food Environmental National ...???... Societal Success Standard of Living POLICY ECONOMICS ENERGY RELIGION ?????? SOCIAL JUSTICE “BUSINESS” PUBLIC HEALTH information flow: research, journals, press, opinion, … SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

22. Impacts versus knowledge-based approach • They get to the same place: • Impacts is more tangible. It directly impacts people, resources, and economies. It is more reactionary. • Knowledge based is less tangible, does not have the “proof” of impacts. It is more anticipatory. • These are conflicting subcultures • Valuation of knowledge • Valuation of commerce • Valuation of social justice

23. A little time for transition • Time to think and talk? • Hold these notions in mind as we seek to find the tensions in the projects that we define. • It is good to place some tension in the project teams. • It’s real. • It strengthens results. • It moves problems out of the realm of academia

24. Climate Change Relationships • Energy use and climate change have a special relationship. CLIMATE CHANGE ENERGY

25. Energy and Climate Change • Our primary source of energy, burning fossil fuels, is the primary cause of climate change. • Energy is a resource that is extremely stressed. • Use of energy is strongly correlated with societal success. • Societal success is in our best interests.

26. Energy and Climate Change • To address climate change requires us to approach energy in a fundamentally different way. • Fundamental • Stresses on energy, energy security, can be addressed in ways that do not address climate change. • The impact of climate change, environmental security, on society is perceived as being less urgent than energy security. • And energy security is crucial to societal success, which can be change in stunningly short amounts of time.

27. Short-term versus long-term • This is a classic short-term versus long-term problem. • Ethics • Economics • React versus anticipation • Knowledge base versus business base?

28. Climate Change Relationships • Consumption // Population // Energy ENERGY CLIMATE CHANGE POPULATION SOCIETAL SUCCESS CONSUMPTION

29. Climate Change Relationships • Consumption // Population // Energy ENERGY WATER RESOURCES POPULATION CLIMATE CHANGE AGRICULTURE SOCIETAL SUCCESS CONSUMPTION PUBLIC HEALTH

30. Climate change relations • All of these issues, and they are big issues, carry a relationship to each other. Set energy and climate change at the center. Then, say, agriculture carries both dependent and independent relationships with climate change and energy.

31. Predictions motivate action How should we respond to the predictions? Must remember that the climate problem is currently entwined with energy sources, energy use. Energy use touches every part of society. Societal success. Standard of living.

32. For example: At the individual level cheap energy might be the choice. Impact on agriculture Drought-flood Moisture stress More insects Longer growing season COST OF ENERGY DOUBLE CROP COST OF WATER / INSECTICIDE

33. For example: Or whole sector might change its focus because there is money to be made in energy Impact on agriculture ENERGY PRODUCTION FOOD PRODUCTION ENERGY SECURITY FOOD SECURITY NATIONAL SECURITY NATIONAL SECURITY GLOBAL TRADE

34. Predictions motivate action How should we respond to the predictions? How we respond depends very much on the current capabilities of the society or nation Rich, technologically advanced Resource rich, desiring richness Ethics // Equality // Liability Poor, low technologically

35. Return to the mitigation-adaptation framework

36. 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.

37. 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.

38. 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

39. 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?

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

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

42. 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 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?

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

44. 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?

45. 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?

46. 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. Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

47. 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” Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

48. 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

49. 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 Thanks to Maria Carmen Lemos

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