Climate Change: Sustaining Environmental and Social Resilience

1. Climate Change: Sustaining Environmental and Social Resilience Susan Baker Professor, Environmental Policy, Cardiff School of Social Sciences & Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University Transition Chepstow Festival  Talk Forum Tuesday 10 July 2012 Chepstow Methodist Church Hall

2. Current Situation • Environmentally perverse energy system • Increased urbanisation and land take • Population rise [global population 8.1 billion by 2042] • Problem of consumption • Culture of consumption in West • Rising consumption in industrialising states • By 2052, China's per capita consumption will be at least 2/3 that of US • Average economic growth of 14 emerging nations [including Brazil, India and South Africa] will treble over next 40 years

3. Consequences • Anthropogenic climate change & biodiversity loss [GEC] • Possibility of critical tipping points in earth system leading to rapid & irreversible change • Irreversible melt of Greenland ice sheet • Dieback of Amazon rainforest • Shift of West African monsoon

4. Climate Change Projections • Rising CO2 emissions will cause global average temperature rise of 20 C by 2052; 2.80 C by 2080 at a minimum • 20 C is rise we can adapt to and is ‘safe’ target of EU & member states • Scientists say that crossing 20 C threshold risks unstable climate in which weather extremes are common • Efforts so far to cut GHG are notsufficient to stop a rise beyond 20 C this century Sources: IPCChttp://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html; Club of Rome http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/club-of-rome-climate-change_n_1499183.html

5. Failure to Act • Governments and markets unlikely to do enough adaptation to and mitigation of climate change • UN EP: gap between countries' emissions cut pledges and what needed to remain under 20 C has widened • Emissions in 2020 likely to rise to between 6b. and 11b. tonnes over what is needed to limit global warming to safe levels

8. Time to Think Differently

9. Planetary Boundaries

10. Safe Operating Space for Humanity The 9 Planetary Boundaries Safe biophysical boundaries outside which Earth System cannot function in stable state 9 Planetary Boundaries 3 boundaries [climate change, biological diversity and nitrogen input] already transgressed Boundaries are strongly connected – crossing one boundary may seriously threaten ability to stay within safe levels of others • Nature461, 472-475 (24 September 2009) Johan Rockström et al. climate change (CO2 concentration in atmosphere) ocean acidification (mean surface seawater saturation state) stratospheric ozone (% reduction in O3 concentration) biogeochemical nitrogen (N) cycle (industrial & agricultural fixation of N2); phosphorus (P) cycle (annual P inflow to oceans) global freshwater use (consumptive use of runoff resources) land system change (% of ice-free land surface under cropland) rate at which biological diversity is lost (annual rate extinctions) chemical pollution atmospheric aerosol loading

11. The New Politics of Limits • As planetary boundaries areput under stress so too are social bonds, relations & thresholds • Planetary boundaries concept can help society and policy makers adopt interconnected approach to climate change A new politics and economics of limits

12. Limits to Growth

13. Sustainable Future Past Future Growth Competitiveness Personal gain Planetary breaches Enhanced efficiency in resource use lost due to increased consumption [efficiency increases act as perverse incentives] Inclusive wealth Well-being Post-consumer, post-materialist society Personal happiness Ecological integrity Economic incentives for technological innovation Efficiency gains redirected to natural, social & human capital

14. Step 1: Replace Existing Approach • Replace traditional, trickle-down economic growth model & policy imperatives, including perverse incentives • Understand that approaching problems independently is inadequate: • e.g. incorporating technological change into existing global market system is not enough • or dealing with ‘low hanging fruits’ such as energy efficiency • More radical approach needed

15. Planetary Boundary Economy • Economic model maintains safe operating limits that do not breach planetary boundaries • Core aim of economic policies: maximise well-being in context of coupled social-ecological system • Core aim of human well-being policy: environmental & social sustainability

16. Well-Being

17. Key Elements of Well-Being • Health • Education • Physical security • Housing • Material wealth • Agency • Affiliation • Emotion • Ecological surety • Nusshaum, 2001;Doyal and Gough, 1991

18. Well-Being • Complex, multidimensional & context-specific • Includes physical well-being: ‘objective’[food, housing, clean water, education, personal security, ...] • Social and emotional attributes: ‘subjective’[self esteem, identity, equity, community, equality in social relations...]

19. Promoting Well-Being • Overcoming inequalities becomes key measure of progress • Devising new incentives for sustainability policy • Reducing absolute poverty & tacking inequalities • Addressing population increase • Allowing freer movement & better integration of people • Incorporating biodiversity & ecosystem services into policy, including land use planning • Urban planning takes on new urgency • Developing long-term vision for energy system • Ensuring technological transfer accompanied by social transformation policies • Promoting new intellectual & value paradigm

21. Measures of Well-Being Old Measure: GDP • Only measures monetary exchanges of good & services • An average measure that ignores asymmetrical distribution of wealth New Measure • Socialbenchmarksof well-being • ‘inclusive wealth’: new macroeconomic indicator of progress - measures productive base of country, while tracking changes in natural, social, human & produced capital • reflect well-being over spatial & temporal scales [e.g. present & future generations] • Ecologicalintegrity benchmarks • Integrated component reflecting interdependencies between social & environmental components

22. Step 2: Move towards Resilience • Ability of interdependent social and ecological system to cope with external stresses & disturbances arising from GEC • Defined as: • Amount of change thatsystem can undergo and still retain same control overfunction and structure • Degree to which system is capable of self-organization • Ability to build and increase capacity for learning & adaptation • Created through environmental and social sustainability

23. Environment & Social Sustainability • Environmental Sustainability: living within thelimits of natural world • Societal Sustainability: living in way that • provides everyone with capability to fulfil their material, social & emotional needs • maintaining social structures, cultural values & knowledge systems that underlie community Sustainability Policy: creating & maintaining conditions necessary for social wellbeing & ecological integrity

24. Time to Act Differently

25. Adaptive Capacity • Ecological systems: genetic diversity, biological diversity, and heterogeneity of landscape mosaics • Social systems: existence of institutions and networks that learn and store knowledge and experience; create flexibility in problem solving; and balance power among interest groups Consequence of loss of resilience, and therefore of adaptive capacity: loss of opportunity & constrained options

26. Sustaining Adaptive Capacity Four critical requirements: • Learning to live with change and uncertainty • Nurturing diversity for resilience • Combining different types of knowledge for learning • Creating opportunity for self-organization towards social-ecological sustainability Folkeet al. (2002)

27. Links in Resilience

28. Societal Responsibility Promote ‘social innovation’ for adaptive capacity • SI: ‘significant, creative and sustainable shift’ in the way a given society deals with a ‘profound and previously intractable problem’ • Significant: • Scale: such as number of people affected • Scope: deep & multidimensional societal improvement • Resonance: capturing people’s imagination • Has impact on broader social, political & economic context that created problem in first place • Balance tilted towards social value –rather than private value

29. Examples of Social Innovation • Transition Towns movement • Fairtrademovement • Micro Finance and Credit movement

30. Higher Level Responsibility Contributions from state & international organisations • Interventions through specific regulations, strategies, policies, plans and funding mechanisms • Act to avoid localism bias that can operate at lower levels & which can cause problems at higher scale • Address spatial or temporal displacement of negative externalities associated with social innovation at local level • Through traditional distributive responsibilities, ensure more equitable distribution of benefit across space & time

31. How to Go Forward • Create new & strengthen existing links between civil society organisations and various public actors operating on different spatial scales • Traditional,top down, hierarchical governance can facilitate social innovation while guarding against coordination or distribution failures • Social actions can lead to emergence of governance practices that strengthen participatory practices