Transition Penwith

A summary of a 3-day conference held at the University of Exeter on 22nd-24th September 2008 about the Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation: Dangerous Rates of Change. 

Background

Whether climate change is happening or not is no longer in question and the focus now needs to shift to what needs to be done and how to do it. The UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) has recommended 60% reduction of carbon emissions by 2050 (just recently increased to 80%), a proposal that could become policy in November 2008. Considerations still have to be finalised on a number of issues particularly on whether to include carbon emissions from international aviation and shipping;

A 50% reduction of global emissions by 2050 would reach pre 1990 levels, considered by many as a more realistic target, but this will not be enough to avoid major global impacts. At this level of emissions there is an even chance that by 2050 1 billion extra people will be short of water and 2 billion by 2100. To limit the impact to within acceptable levels would mean reducing global emissions by 80% by 2050, a level predicted to lead to stabilisation of greenhouse gasses at 400-470ppm CO₂ and reducing the population numbers at risk of water shortages and flooding by 50%.

A 2°C increase in global temperature has been defined by the UK and EU as reaching dangerous levels - however, this scenario will be more dangerous for the already poor in the Southern Hemisphere rather than the comparatively wealthy in the Northern Hemisphere. The number of poor and deprived populations will increase as a result and there will be a significant impact on their agriculture, food and water supply and human health. The incidence and severity of floods, droughts and extreme weather will increase. And secondary considerations include conflicts over resources such as land, food and water.

Climate change will have an impact on a broad range of diseases. During the heat wave of 2003 there was an increase of 2,000 deaths in the UK during 10 days of high temperatures. None of these deaths were directly attributed to heatstroke but in France heatstroke was blamed for up to an additional 10,000 deaths during the heat wave and a disaster was declared. Climate change will also contribute to an increased global burden of diseases such as diarrhoeal disease, vector borne disease, cardio vascular disease and malnutrition.

Thousands of acres of soil are already contaminated in the developed world posing a hazard to human health, water resources, the environment, property and infrastructure. Increasing global temperatures will lead to reduced water quality and increased global precipitation. Increased sea level rises will lead to increased storm surges and flooding and therefore saltwater intrusion; 2% of increased salt on the land will render the soil unusable.

Carbon emissions released today will add to emissions released yesterday producing an accumulative effect, a UK target of reducing carbon emissions by 60% by 2050, even if successful, will not deter climate change impacts. During the last 100 years CO₂ emissions have increased on average 2.7% pa and despite much recent rhetoric, emissions during the past 5 years have continued to rise by an average of 3.3% pa. Future adaptation planning must be more realistic than at present and plans should be made for the worst case scenario. There is an urgent need to reframe the present climate change debate, for mitigation purposes 2°C should remain the driver of policy, but adaptation policies should be made to accommodate a 4°C temperature increase.

People

Experts in the field of climate change with knowledge of the problems, causes and what has to be done must stop using the word uncertain, or else they are in danger of coming across as ignorant. Scientists need to be able to explain clearly why people need to change their behaviour and why sharing responsibility is necessary, and the media needs to represent the facts carefully to avoid scaring people away from the issues. 

Part of the problem in reaching climate change targets is that we are unwilling to change behavioural patterns. Our perception is to blame others, usually those in charge, and leave it up to them to solve the problems associated with climate change. Yet, realistically we should all take responsibility because we will all have to live with the consequences. From policymakers’ point of view, understanding public responses to climate change is important in order to create policy that might initiate behavioural change in a positive way without exacerbating the problem for future generations. Positive response to climate is more likely to occur if there is a secondary benefit involved such as energy savings. And in the absence of secondary benefits behavioural drivers are possible from peer pressure and moral obligation.

One of the major priorities of policymakers is how to promote sustainable behaviour against a backdrop of challenges including social, political, cultural, economic and structural factors. Research has been carried out recently to explore lifestyles in the UK with an emphasis on leisure and travel choices. The study population were categorised as: committed environmentalists, mainstream environmentalists, occasional environmentalists or non-environmentalists. Generally, most of those interviewed considered themselves to be doing their bit for the environment. Surprisingly, researchers concluded that many of the committed environmentalists are more likely to fly further and often than other groups, they would also prefer to see technological alternatives to reduce the carbon impact of flying rather than use an alternative mode to flying citing price and time factors as reasons to continue to fly. Many felt that it is OK to trade off carbon emissions and some felt that their holiday is just that and don’t want to think about the environment whilst away from home. Clearly the issues surrounding aviation will be difficult to overcome. 

The UK is guilty of a policy clash which is the commitment to reduce carbon emissions whilst at the same time committing to expanding the aviation industry. Aviation growth is currently greater than GDP growth for to two reasons – policy and the changing face of flying to destinations e.g. it is now more common for people to spend “a weekend in Barcelona” or other destination. It is easy to see why aviation is so important to the UK economy;  Heathrow Airport is the largest in the EU and therefore it’s deemed important to maintain this prestige and aviation manufacturing in the UK is currently secure with Rolls Royce and AirBus both having manufacturing bases in the UK.

However, UK targets to reduce CO₂ levels are credible only if all sectors are included and must, therefore, include international aviation and international shipping (the fastest growing sectors). The Tyndall Centre concluded that all sectors are reasonably able to reduce carbon emissions apart from aviation. Currently most of the people in the world don’t fly but if flying becomes more widespread, carbon emissions from aviation could escalate. Shipping is the most fuel efficient mode of transport but it uses the dirtiest fuel and its contribution to global warming may be even greater than aviation. Shipping is a high growth area and regulators have only just started to monitor carbon emissions. Continued emissions growth is not an option and we do not have the luxury of assuming technology will come to the rescue.

Although small, the market for carbon offsetting has significantly increased, with 3% of the population in the UK taking part in the scheme, but the scheme has attracted a lot of criticism. Carbon offsetting has been accused of providing people who have a high carbon inducing lifestyle a “get-out” clause and allowing individuals to assume that they don’t actually have to change their lifestyle if they pay for it.

Local economies are important in making the link from global to the local and delivering strategies to reduce carbon emissions at an individual, household and community level. A good way of raising awareness is by tapping into existing community groups and networks, two such examples are The Green Living Centre in London and the city of Vaxjo in Sweden. The Green Living Centre http://www.islington.gov.uk/environment/GettingGreener/Green_Living_Centre/ opened last year in the London borough of Islington and has been commended for successfully informing visitors how to adopt a greener lifestyle and how green living may benefit them e.g. energy efficiency. The Swedish city of Vaxjo has been awarded the title of greenest city in Europe 2007 http://www.vaxjo.se/default.aspx?id=1630 because, through a number of community led initiatives, they produce the lowest urban emissions in Europe.

Biodiversity and habitats

The impact of climate change on biodiversity in the UK will be too great and too rapid to expect natural adaptation and policies must be developed for adaptation and mitigation to safeguard not only the UK’s biodiversity but the environment and ecosystems – without which human existence will not be possible. The RSPB have proposed that policy must include strategies to maintain and build on the present biodiversity populations whilst improving resilience to climate change impacts and create environmental habitats to suit new conditions. Species based conservation has been shown to work and should be developed to help monitor biodiversity and create new habitats. Present actions are inadequate – we need to assess impacts, risks, potential futures and species changes; and we need to increase the size and number of protected areas. There is a large potential for synergy between protected areas and other landscapes including farmland with common aims to achieve healthy ecosystems for wildlife and for people. 60-70% of the UK is agricultural land and the future of biodiversity could be dependent on agricultural policies. An example of synergistic approach is the Sustainable Catchment Management Programme SCAMP http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/projects/scamp.asp  a project managed by the RSPB and United Utilities and working with farmers, land managers and policy makers on a number of environmental enhancing and conservation objectives to improve biodiversity.

Climate change impacts could potentially cause dangerous water supply failures in England and Wales if adaptive strategies are not adopted. Predictions of warmer, dryer summers and wetter winters will result in increased loss of runoff leading to significant loss of water by the 2020s. Current predictions estimate a loss of water supply by 2035 equivalent to the water supply presently in the South West. At present there is no planning for adaptation to take this into account.

The MarClim (Marine Biodiversity and Climate Change) http://www.mba.ac.uk/marclim/ Project was created to investigate the effects of climate change on marine biodiversity. The investigative team focussed on specific species known to fluctuate in numbers during climatic variation. Historic and contemporary data were gathered to monitor changes in abundance, geographic range and population structure and to predict future trends. The researchers concluded that recent rapid climate changes have significantly affected the species they investigated. The rate at which marine biodiversity is moving northwards towards the colder North Sea is up to 50km per decade - much faster than terrestrial systems which is recorded to be 6.1km per decade.

Current predictions suggest dramatic rainforest decline by 2050. Rainforests are species rich and play a key role in the global carbon cycle. Currently 18% of the Amazon has been deforested but although still lush continual deforestation due to cattle ranching and biofuel crops will see much of the Amazon disappear by 2050. The RAINFOR Project http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/projects/rainfor/  was set up to help monitor forest ecosystems and increase scientific understanding of their role in global carbon balance and promote their inclusion on climate change agendas to ensure their conservation. Brazil has played an important role in monitoring the Amazon and reducing deforestation but after a general declining trend during the past few years there is a worrying upward trend showing for this year.

Sea level rise is slower to mitigate for than temperature rises but rapid de-glaciation of Greenland and Antartica will lead to significant sea level rises due to thermal expansion and will result in the disappearance of coastal regions. Over the past 500 years urban populations have rapidly increased and many reside in coastal regions. It would be beneficial if those at risk were proactive but they are more likely to be reactive as was seen during hurricane Katrina. Rising sea levels are a challenge for long term coastal management and a commitment is required to adaptation.

The role of microbes has been largely ignored in climate change debates, yet they are effective geoengineers and biogeochemists. As biogeochemists, microbes can be modified to help balance carbon and oxygen availability, control methane production and consumption and control the nitrogen cycle. As geoengineers, microbes can increase ocean fertilisation and algal blooms to expand the carbon sink in the ocean floor and increase biodiversity in oceans. Unfortunately, increases in temperature will lead to increased soil respiration resulting in positive feedback which is bad news for the survival of microbes in soil and there will be similar results in the oceans. But there is some positive news from recent work involving the growing of algae from microbes that can be used as a source of biofuel with potential yields typically 30x greater than those of crops http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/27/green.fuel.algae  

Conclusions

Climate change is happening and we should stop arguing about it. Temperatures are rising and it is consistent with human activities primarily that of increasing carbon emissions. Yet anthropogenic fossil fuel use is growing faster than ever and therefore heading faster towards global warming. We know climate prediction is a necessity but mitigation and adaptation are vital. The impacts of climate change on humans and the environment will be great. No scientist or expert can predict by how much global temperatures will increase (1-6°C) – this is dependent on which pathway we choose and even then there is uncertainty as to the effects of each pathway. We don’t know when we will reach tipping points but we do know that we have to act quickly.

The above is a summary of 3-day conference: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation: Dangerous Rates of Change, held at the University of Exeter on 22^nd-24^th September 2008.

 Abstracts of each presentation and speaker details can be found on the University of Exeter website

http://www.exeter.ac.uk/climatechange/conference/events.php

The Conference discussed the evolving impacts of climate change and the issues of adaptation in a time of ongoing change, and was divided into 5 themes, which are:

- Improving predictions of climate change
- Climate change impacts on ecosystem services
- Technology for adaptation and mitigation
- Policy responses and behavioural change
- Coupled human-environment system

Full conference timetable with abstracts >>

Conference Programme and abstracts (1.45MB PDF) >>

Confirmed keynote speakers >>

Delegate list (alphabetical by organisation and name) >>

Conference Outputs

Invited Keynote presentations were recorded and will be made available as podcasts on this website. Presentations associated with contributed talks presented in parallel sessions will also be available (subject to the speaker's permission) together with a short note of each session’s proceedings.
The podcasts and presentations will be available from late October.

Other outputs from the Conference will be developed in the near future in consultation with keynote and other contributing speakers.

For further information and all non-academic queries, please contact Maggie Smith Maggie.Smith@exeter.ac.uk; 01392 725503. For academic queries only, please contact Dr. Catherine Bass c.j.bass@exeter.ac.uk or telephone 01392 262398.