How Does a 2⁰C Increase in Global Temperature Impact Food Security?

Posted on September 26, 2018 by elizabethm

821 million people.

Nearly 821 million people across the world are food insecure, according to the 2018 State of Food Insecurity (SOFI) report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This means that they do not have adequate access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy life. Evidence indicates that this number will likely increase if the global atmospheric temperature continues to rise.

The Guardian recently reported on a study by the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A on the impacts of allowable temperature rise of 1.5⁰C and 2⁰C. It found that vulnerability to food insecurity increases more at 2°C global warming than at 1.5°C, due to climate-induced drought and precipitation changes. Of all natural hazards, the SOFI report highlights that “floods, droughts and tropical storms affect food production the most. Drought causes more than 80 percent of the total damage and losses in agriculture.”

Maximum temperature, the percentage of days with extreme daily temperatures, the number of consecutive dry days, and the maximum rainfall in a 5-day period were measured to reach temperature impact conclusions. At a 2°C warmer world, the land areas mostly warm by more than 2°C. In some regions, like North America, China, and Europe, the daily high temperature increases could be double that of the globe on average. Southern Africa, the Mediterranean, Australia and northeast South America are projected to have increased dry spell lengths. Rainfall is projected to increase over many regions including parts of southeast Asia, northern Australia and the east coast of the USA.

The impacts on food security at an increase of 1.5°C global temperature are smaller than at 2°C. Drought and flooding are more extreme at an increase in global temperature of 2°C. The SOFI report noted the number of extreme climate-related disasters has doubled since the early 1990s. These disasters harm agricultural productivity contributing to shortfalls in food availability, hiked up food prices, and the loss of income reducing people’s access to food.

Why are these temperatures important? The Paris Agreement’s goal is to keep the global temperature rise this century “well below 2⁰C” above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5⁰C. This goal is outlined in Art 2 of the PA and aligns with the UNFCCC’s Art 2 objective to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

Current IPCC reports model proposed mitigation pathways on limiting warming to 2°C. In early October, the IPCC will publish a report that remodels needed mitigation outcomes based on a 1.5°C limit. FAO has sounded the alarm for why less warming is critical to our food security and underscored why this new IPCC report is needed. At COP24, Parties will be faced with this new evidence as they negotiate the rules for implementing the Paris Agreement.

We are working on it!

Posted on November 16, 2017 by yasin

Attending COP23 as an observer is a privilege because you are able to attend international multilateral negotiations. You witness established alliances use their power as a block and observe the dynamics of side negotiations. In these international multilateral negotiations, delegates agonize over words and paragraphs. They set their lines in the sand early and often. All of it done with diplomatic speak and collegiality but sometimes some get close to stepping over the line. Most of all, it is a privilege because you get to see the world trying to solve a problem collectively. With all this privilege, there is no denying that at times, these negotiations are frustrating. On rare occasions, the frustration causes one to think that the process is not working.

In a conversation with a delegate, I asked whether he is experiencing such frustration. Stalled talks are particularly challenging for him because he is from a Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which the United Nations considers as vulnerable nations because of climate change effect. SIDS are usually located in the paths of hurricanes, which are happening with more frequency and more force. In the summer of 2017, for the first time, this delegate’s country issued mandatory evacuations from one of the outlying islands because no available shelter was adequate against the wrath of the coming storm. In the aftermath, the island became uninhabitable.

Additionally, SIDS are very vulnerable to rising sea levels. If water levels continue to rise, the oceans will soon reclaim these islands. Their challenge is their reluctance to make these issues public. Because their economy is dependent on tourism, climate change effects will drive off tourists, which will hurt an already fragile economy.

To answer my question, the delegate simply smiled. Then he started looking around at the other delegates and asked how many countries are represented. I told him there are delegates from 170 countries. He asked what are they all doing here? I told him that they are working on climate change issues. He replied with an even bigger smile, “exactly!” and repeated shortly after– We are working on it.

It is true that the COP process is complicated. One is instantly overwhelmed by the structure. There are three processes contained within the COP (UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement). Furthermore, each convention, protocol, or agreement has its own framework, and they sometimes intersect with each other. Having said that, the complexity of the process really lies in the magnitude of participants. At last count, there are one hundred and seventy countries that have ratified the Paris Agreement. These countries represent different needs, levels of development, levels of ability, and a different sense of urgency. Even with the common shared goal of limiting the increase in the Planet’s average temperature, the complexity is how to arrive at the desired results. In other words, who does what and who pays for what is the main source of difficulty at the COP negotiations, but…..

We are working on it!

Climate Change “Refugees” in Hot Water

Posted on October 30, 2017 by simonne

Direct effects of climate change such as droughts, floods, rising sea levels, and hazardous weather events have immediate and lasting impacts upon displacement of communities. For example, five reef islands in the remote Solomon Islands have already been deemed uninhabitable due to sea level rise and erosion. Since 2008, approximate ly 22.5 million people have been displaced by climate or weather-related events. Charles Geisler, a sociologist at Cornell University, predicted a worst case scenario of up to 2 billion climate change migrants by 2100.

Traditionally, a sovereign state is responsible for the protection of its people, which includes relief from natural disasters. In situations where domestic states do not have the ability to provide adequate protection, relief, or relocation, international law offers possible avenues for addressing this issue. Unfortunately, there is no current international legal framework in place to respond to the impending climate change migrant crisis. There are a number of possible protective instruments available, but they all present different barriers to practical application.

First, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UNGPID) recognize internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have been forced or obligated to flee “to avoid the effect of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights, or natural or human-made disasters.” However, this only applies to people displaced within their own state, effectively requiring state legislation to enforce IDP rights. Thus, the UNPGID lacks the ability to effectively protect cross-border climate migration.

Second, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) requires an individual be persecuted against to qualify as a refugee under the Refugee Convention. As a result the “[e]nvironmental factors that cause movements across international borders are not grounds, in and of themselves, for the grant of refugee status.” Climate migrants might be recognized as refugees if the respective state government “persecuted” them by intentionally failing to give protection or aid. This claim would be extremely difficult to prove, however, as international law recognizes that “no individual government is primarily at fault” for the consequences of climate change.

Third, a climate change migrant could qualify as a “stateless” person under the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (CSSP). This status is also limited as it would only be available to migrants whose home state no longer exists. In addition, the CSSP offers only limited rights to stateless individuals and has only been signed by 66 of 165 states.

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre depiction of human movement in 2015.

While the UNHCR is unable to provide legal relief and refugee status for climate migrants, it is supporting the Platform on Disaster Displacement (a continuation of the Nansen Initiative on cross-border displacement). UNHCR has also developed planned relocation guidance that identifies vulnerable areas and gives instructions for disaster response migration mechanisms.

The UNFCCC establishes and recognizes the need for adaptation and mitigation, but fails to address migration strategies under adaptation. On May 19, 2016 the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn confirmed a clear link between environmental and climate changes, migration and vulnerability. As a result, the UN is taking steps to assess this connection and shape adaptation policy that protects the most vulnerable populations. While climate migrants do not have an identified legal status as climate change refugees, there is international movement towards addressing this issue under the UNFCCC.

London’s Tube prepares for climate change

Posted on April 18, 2016 by tbach

A new, unpublished report on flood risk to London’s Tube shows that 57 of its busiest subway stations are at high risk of flooding, including Waterloo, King’s Cross, and London Bridge. The report finds the risk of flooding is increasing due to climate change, which has resulted in more frequent heavy rainfall in the UK. The report, obtained by the Guardian, concludes that:

London has been fortunate to escape the worst of recent storm events in the UK, but it is only a matter of time before heavy rainfall seriously affects London and the underground network. The risk is generally expected to increase [as] climate change predictions are that storms will become more intense. There is some evidence to show that these have already increased in frequency.

This new report was commissioned after Hurricane Sandy shut down parts of New York City’s subway system in 2012.

Rainwater flooding already causes regular delays and even closed some lines several times in 2015. To prepare, the London Underground (LU) plans to start analyzing the most at risk stations during the next three years and to “begin to install protective measures.” But LU’s head drainage engineer, commenting on this preliminary effort’s budget, said that “£3m is not going to scratch the surface of it.” The Guardian points out that the Cameron government has decreased money spent on preparing the UK for climate change impacts by almost half and reduced the number of staff working on this issue from 38 to 6.

Unlucky number 13

Posted on March 15, 2016 by tbach

A new study reported yesterday in Nature Climate Change calculates that more than 13 million people in the U.S. will be threatened by sea level rise and related flooding during the next 80 years.

This number is three times the current estimates. Why? Because it factors in rapid population growth trends in coastal areas, where currently more than one-third of the U.S. population lives. The study’s lead author told Carbon Brief that “impact assessments have traditionally used current populations when looking at who is at risk of sea level rise, but populations are dynamic which renders most assessments obsolete rather quickly. Coastal areas are some of the most rapidly growing areas in the US.”

Of this 13 million, about half will reside in Florida and another 20% will come from the greater southeastern U.S. The estimated price tag for adapting to this new normal – by relocating people to higher ground – is $14 trillion.

For more specifics, read here.

What story will COP21 tell?

Posted on December 7, 2015 by achristian

Everywhere you turn at COP21 there are exciting stories – stories of unprecedented financing partnerships to ramp up renewable energy technologies; stories of global knowledge exchanges on successful strategies for adapting to climate impacts; stories of cities leading breakthrough initiatives in energy efficiency; and more.

Behind the scenes, though, in rooms open only to official country delegates, there are negotiations (now at the ministerial level) on a draft text of the Paris Outcome that still has many issues, even at this late date. The results will impact every single person on the planet, and it could be a very sad story. In fact, according to Stuart Scott, host of Climate Matters, a video series covering COP21, “[i]f you’re paying attention to what’s going on here, you can’t talk about the negotiations as an honest effort.”

Scott’s guests today offered a piece of that sad story already unfolding- the one of vulnerable individuals, communities and nations suffering heartbreaking impacts of climate change right now all around the world. His focus was the Pacific Islands.

To the backdrop of powerful images, Tinaai Teaua of Kiribati and Maina Talia of Tuvalu both spoke of the physical and emotional losses they’ve experienced and witnessed in the face of king tides, cyclones and water shortages. Teaua described how the king tides wipe out homes, how coastal erosion is destroying the tree fruit crops on which her people depend, and how people are scared. They don’t want to leave home. “Without our land, we are nothing. Our land is our identity.”

Talia’s home of Tuvalu is a group of 8 islands with no land at more than 2 meters above sea level. Climate change is forcing many to relocate; nearly 5,000 have already moved to New Zealand. He echoed Teaua’s words.

Another guest, Maria Tiimon Chi-Fang of the NGO Pacific Calling Partnership articulated the climate justice reality permeating the room: “It is not just about moving people to a safer place. It is very unjust for developed countries to keep doing what is so wrong, to keep jeopardizing the lives of our people.”

“The youth look into my eyes, saying ‘Why must we move?’ This is where we were born. Our ancestors are buried here.”

The message Kiribati’s Teaua has been taking to the delegates is clear: “You are not immune, no matter where you live. If you save me and my future, you save the world.”

Now that’s the story we need.

Is Climate Change a Threat to National Security?

Posted on December 2, 2015 by rstevens

COP21 began Monday with a moment of silence for victims of the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, and the tragedy served as a touchstone for world leaders urging unity and action. Nearly every speaker at the daylong Leaders Event expressed condolences for the Paris attacks, and some, including the Prince of Wales who opened the event, highlighted the connection between climate change and national security.

In his speech, President Obama declared “what greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshaling our best efforts to save it.” Later, in a press briefing room at COP21, President Obama doubled down on this sentiment stating that “in some ways, [climate change] is akin to the problem of terrorism and ISIL.” Both threats, President Obama said, require a long, sustained effort by the United States to assess and neutralize them.

French Foreign Minister and COP21 President Laurent Fabius has called climate change “a threat to peace,” describing a world where floods, desertification, and droughts will intensify conflicts over
ever-scarcer resources and spark a massive wave of environmental refugees. “Terrorism is significant, but naked hunger is as significant as terrorism,” he said. “And the relationship between terrorist activities and naked hunger are obvious. If you look at the vectors of recruitment into terrorist cells, most of the most vulnerable are hunger-prone areas.”

Also vocal on this issue is presidential hopeful Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who stated publicly during the First Democratic Presidential Debate that climate change is the single greatest threat to the U.S.’s national security. Understandably, debate moderators revisited this question just one day after the Paris attacks during the second debate on November 14, asking Senator Sanders if he stood by his previous statement in light of the growing security threat from ISIS. “Absolutely,” said Sanders. “In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism.” Like Fabius, he explained that climate change impacts will increase international conflicts as people struggle over limited amounts of water and land to grow their crops.

Criticizing this correlation to terrorism, an Op-Ed published in the New York Times soon after the Paris attacks called out climate change advocates, among others, and asked incredulously, “must we instantly bootstrap obliquely related agendas and utterly unconnected grievances to the carnage in Paris, responding to it with an unsavory opportunism instead of a respectful grief?”

However, recent reports suggest that this correlation is warranted. In July, a report by the U.S. Defense Department called climate change an “urgent and growing threat” to national security, and this October NATO’s parliament demanded stronger action by member states to tackle a warming planet. The repeated discussion of the nexus between climate change and national security Monday makes clear that this is no longer a political question – it’s a fact.

Saying Goodbye to Cultural Landmarks

Posted on November 14, 2015 by kelsey

Sea-level rise is an unavoidable threat facing our planet in the coming century. Even avoiding increasing global temperatures above 2°C likely wont save us from a twenty-foot rise in sea-level by 2020. This kind of devastating sea-level rise will have disastrous effects on worldwide economies, agricultural, and livelihoods. It will also irreparably change the face of some of the world’s most treasured landmarks.

Historical treasures the world over may be threatened, even if we stay within the 2°C target limit agreed on in Cancun. Further, a recently released study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that if we don’t hit this target limit, a global temperature warming of 4°C could cause anywhere from 22.6 to 35.4 feet of global sea-level rise.

So what does this mean for coastal communities, and the many global icons located there?

A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists last year outlined thirty national landmarks across the United States that could be lost or severely damaged from the effects of climate change. Among those monuments was Faneuil Hall in Boston, where the Sons of Liberty Planned the Boston Tea Party. Also included were the U.S. Naval Academy, the Kennedy Space Center, Jamestown, NASA’s Langley Research Center, and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument. Around the country 118 national parks are considered to be at risk. Additionally, the U.S Interior Department released a report in June that revealed sea-level rise from climate change will damage the national park infrastructure and historic and cultural resources totaling in over $40 billion. And that’s just in the United States.

Climate change has the potential to cause rises in sea-level that may submerge areas currently home to between 470 and 760 million people on six different continents. Climate Central recently compiled a series of photographs that depict what sea-level rise will look like in cities such as Mumbai, Sydney, Shanghai, Rio, New York, Durban, London, and D.C. These cities are all major cultural and economic hubs for their respective countries, and any damage to them will likely also damage their countries as a whole.

In the battle against climate change, sea-level rise represents more than just economic losses. It means significant losses to culture, history, and livelihoods- not to mention lives. A study published in Environmental Research Letters found that 136 UNESCO World Heritage Sites will disappear with a warming of 5.4°C, warming that falls within projected ranges from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Sea-level rise may force us to say goodbye to cultural treasures such as Japan’s Itsukushima Shrine, the Sydney Opera House, the Statue of Liberty, Venice, Chile’s Rapa Nui National Park, and countless others. Further,
for cities such as Miami and New Orleans, its not a question of if they will be underwater, but when.

For those cultural icons that are still salvageable, it is imperative that we reach an ambitious binding goal for limiting global temperature increases. After all, we can certainly survive without some of these historical landmarks, but why would we want to?

Images Courtesy of Climate Central.

Loss and Damage – Hot Topic for Climate Negotiations

Posted on September 25, 2015 by achristian

Through multiple meetings this year, the ADP (Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform) is seeking to craft a viable negotiating text for a new, legally binding and long-lasting international climate change accord for consideration at the 21^st meeting of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties meeting (COP21), being held in Paris in December. By all accounts, there was far less progress than hoped for at ADP2-10, held in Bonn, Germany from Aug. 31-Sept. 4. Climate Action Network (CAN) International characterized it as “incremental.” The Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) noted the unresolved “deep differences” on the Paris package elements, structure, and approaches to crosscutting issues. And, ActionAid, calling the progress “fragile,” concluded that the week’s work shortchanged poorer countries on key issues.

One of those key issues was Loss and Damage (L&D). (For a refresher on L&D within the UNFCCC, please see our coverage over the last two years.) L&D has become an exceedingly hot button issue for the poorest and most vulnerable countries, given what they are already facing, and even more so, what’s ahead.

The 3,253 hydrometeorological (weather, climate and water) hazards reported around the globe between 2005 and 2014 caused more than 283,000 deaths and more than $980 million in economic losses. According to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, nearly 3.4 million people were affected by drought between mid-2014 and mid-2015, with Haiti and Honduras topping the list; the heat waves in India and Pakistan led to 3,700 deaths in the first half of 2015; and, storms and floods in Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Malawi and Bangladesh impacted a reported 2 million citizens over that same period.

Support to address these losses has been and continues to be insufficient, and the need for far more help is widely predicted. This situation, combined with the glaringly inadequate global mitigation of GHGs to date, creates an urgency that developed countries are no longer able to ignore in the climate negotiations.

Discussions on L&D did deepen during ADP2-10, primarily focusing on institutional arrangements and technical support, crystallizing as the week went on around a nagging sticking point – will L&D be substantively addressed in the core agreement (developing countries’ position), or not (most developed countries’ position)? Specifically, the G77+China and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) called for “[p]lacing a loss and damage mechanism with a climate displacement coordination facility in the [core] agreement,” to replace the Warsaw International Mechanism for L&D (WIM) after 2020. Developed countries pushed back, not wanting to grant L&D such prominent status from which the spectre of compensation could more credibly arise. The Sept. 4 Working Document from the ADP2-10 break-outs on Adaptation and Loss and Damage gives a summary.

Our VLS delegation head, Tracy Bach, reported that continued brainstorming and strategizing yielded a discussion proposal from the U.S. and several other developed countries on the final day. It suggested making the WIM permanent through a COP decision and having it serve the new agreement after 2020. In this way, L&D would be kept from a place in the core agreement, even as it is recognized.

This proposal may pave the way for compromise on location of institutional arrangements. However, the issues of current and long-term sustainable funding for L&D and for any institutional arrangements will likely continue to haunt the road to Paris.

Photo credits:

1) <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/38709469@N08/8699594602″>Dais</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a>

2) <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/27825503@N04/10962769056″>Destroyed</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a>

3) <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/65162298@N07/6029132512″>Ethiopische nomadevrouw met haar dochter</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0.(license),/a>

4) Bing images

Cities tackle climate change adaptation

Posted on February 1, 2015 by tbach

Including subnational governments like cities in the UNFCCC discussions has been on the front burner since COP19 in Warsaw. While only sovereign countries may enter treaties, State Parties recognize that achieving Article 2’s goal of climate stabilization will take effort from other governmental jurisdictions, as well as civil society and private businesses.

And so this article about the first climate change-adapted neighorhood stood out. Not only is the engineering and landscape design feat recently unveiled in St.Kjeld intriguing, it is striking that this neighborhood is in Copenhagen, Denmark, site of the 2009 COP15, which launched the idea of nationally determined contributions that now forms the backbone of negotiation for the new Paris Agreement at COP21.

“Climate change is a reality and we have to be prepared for floods, storms and rising sea levels,” says René Sommer Lindsay, the city official in charge of St. Kjeld’s transformation. “The [2011] cloudburst was really a wake-up call. We said, ‘Instead of doing pinpoint projects, let’s develop a rainwater master plan.’ Rainwater is only a problem if it goes where you don’t want it to go.”

City planners tore up neighborhood squares and replaced the asphalt with a hilly, grassy carpet interspersed with walking paths. When the next big storm hits, these mini-parks will become water basins, able to collect run-off water from surrounding buildings’ roofs as well. Streets with raised sidewalks will become “cloudburst boulevards,” serving as canals that channel rainwater away from the city to the harbor. In the meantime, the new greenery cools the air as summer temperatures rise in northern Europe. “Climate change is a huge opportunity to build greener cities,” Flemming Rafn Thomsen of Tredje Natur, the Danish architecture firm chosen for the project, explains. “We should stop pushing nature away and stop pretending that we can push the weather away. It’s a whole new paradigm.”

Noting that a city like Mumbai, which the World Bank ranks as the world’s fifth most exposed to floods, may not be able to afford Copenhagen’s climate-change adaptation strategies, this article points out how many cities actually can. Seven of the 10 most exposed cities, including New York and Tampa, Florida, are located in developed countries. New York, which has committed $20 billion to climate-change adaptation, is opting for floodwalls, while the Dutch delta city of Rotterdam has gone even further, designing a plan for floating neighborhoods. Several others are experimenting with mini-parks, which Morten Kabell, Copenhagen’s deputy mayor in charge of environment and technology, credits to people liking “blue and green, not gray. Countries talk,” he adds, “but cities know they have to act.”

“Well, I’m not a scientist either, but . . .”

Posted on January 21, 2015 by tbach

In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama picked up climate change deniers’ well-used “I’m not a scientist, but” phrase, and turned it on its head.

“I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what — I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.”

The President’s nod to U.S. scientific bodies like NASA and NOAA is well timed. In addition to their recent announcements about 2014’s record setting heat, a trove of academic studies have appeared in Nature and Science in just the last two weeks. For example:

This paper in Nature reconciles gaps between models and observations of ocean levels since the 1990s and concludes that sea level rise is happening even more rapidly than thought.
This paper in Science chronicles how global warming, ocean acidification, aquaculture, and mining “pose extreme threats to ocean life,” and proposes creating ocean reserves and managing unprotected spaces akin to land conservation.
This paper in Science reports that climate change and species extinctions indicate the the planet is entering a “danger zone,” with human activity degrading the environment “at a rate unseen in the past 10,000 years.”
This briefing in the Proceedings of the Institute for Civil Engineering (ICE) warns that the West Antarctica ice sheet collapse will cause over 11 feet of sea level rise that will disproportionately affect North America.
The U.S. Global Change Research Program reports in this National Climate Assessment on the direct human health impacts of climate change, including increased disease and food insecurity.

In the non-academic realm,the World Economic Forum’s 2015 edition of its Global Risks Report ranks extreme weather, water crises, natural catastrophes, the failure to adapt to climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem collapse among the Top 10 risks to human security.

With this data in hand, our non-scientist-in-chief stated last night:

“That’s why, over the past six years, we’ve done more than ever before to combat climate change, from the way we produce energy, to the way we use it. That’s why we’ve set aside more public lands and waters than any administration in history. And that’s why I will not let this Congress endanger the health of our children by turning back the clock on our efforts. I am determined to make sure American leadership drives international action. In Beijing, we made an historic announcement — the United States will double the pace at which we cut carbon pollution, and China committed, for the first time, to limiting their emissions. And because the world’s two largest economies came together, other nations are now stepping up, and offering hope that, this year, the world will finally reach an agreement to protect the one planet we’ve got.”

UPDATE: On Wednesday, January 21, 2015, the U.S. Senate voted 98-1 on a Keystone XL bill amendment declaring that climate change is real and not a hoax. That’s the good news on congressional understanding of the climate change science. The bad news? The failure of a second amendment acknowledging the human causes of it – specifically, that “climate change is real and human activity significantly contributes to climate change” – because the causation language of “significantly” troubled many Republicans. Despite the good work of “a lot of really good scientists” at NOAA, NASA, and the IPCC (and despite the five Republicans, Lindsay Graham,Kelly Ayotte, Susan Collins, Mark Kirk, and Lamar Alexander, who voted for it). Oh, and one more tally in the two-steps-backward column: Sen. James Inhofe signed on as a co-sponsor to that first amendment, saying for the record that “climate has always changed” and that it’s “arrogant” to think humankind can change climate. Sigh. Nonetheless Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders called the climate change votes “a step forward” for Republicans: “I think what is exciting is that today we saw for the first time – a number, a minority – but some Republicans going onboard and saying that climate change is real and it’s caused by human activity.” For more, read here.

NPR on Climate Change and Health

Posted on January 1, 2015 by tbach

Although the UNFCCC negotiators express concerns about climate change’s impact on human health, there is little in the treaty’s governance structure to induce specific action on the issue. A 2014 round up on NPR this week singled out the contribution of Tony McMichael, an Australian doctor and epidemiologist who said of dealing with climate change impacts before his death this year that “it’s likely to be an extraordinary century and we’re going to have to have our wits about us to get through it.”

In 1993, McMichael led the health team on the IPCC’s second report, AR2. That same year, he published the first scholarly book devoted to the health effects of climate change, Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species. During his career, he published more than 300 scientific papers describing how increasingly erratic weather and climate (think heat waves, ice storms, droughts, floods, and disease-carrying insects expanding their habitat) can cause health problems. Recently McMichael’s work has inspired research on the mental health effects of climate change, for example on rates of anxiety and depression among people in both drought-stricken and flooded areas.

Mapping resilience

Posted on November 28, 2014 by tbach

As delegates begin arriving in Lima for the start of COP20/CMP10 on Monday, a new report from the Royal Society underscores the need for more urgency in climate change mitigation negotiations. The Royal Society, which was founded in 1660 and serves as the United Kingdom’s independent scientific academy, released today Resilience to Extreme Weather, which projects the human impacts of coastal and river flooding, droughts, and heat waves using data provided by the IPCC in its recently published AR5. The report also provides an on-line “chart of defensive options,” through which the user may explore different policy options for reducing the impacts of these four extreme weather events and determine each option’s effectiveness and cost. The Royal Society, along with BirdLife International, will host a side event at COP20 on Friday, December 12, 11:30am-1pm, to encourage policymakers to look beyond “traditional engineering options” to adaptation policies and practices based in ecosystems management.