Resolved: Adaptation should be the most urgent response to Climate Change.

It is a demonstrable fact that efforts to reduce carbon emissions haven’t worked. Despite  the conferences, the treaties and the pledges; global carbon emissions continue to rise – up 6.7% from 2009 to 2010.[i] The world’s largest economies continue to be the worst offenders and, with the BRIC economies joining their ranks, that look set to continue.

If you’ve been trying something for over 20 years with no notable success, then it seems sensible to try something else.

Added to which, many scientists, such as James Hansen,[ii] believe that a tipping point in the climate and broader ecosystem is imminent – with some suggesting that it has already been passed[iii]. We need to accept that Climate Change is not something that may happen in the future but something that is happening now. Extreme weather events are happening now, glaciers are melting now; the climate is shifting now, as is shown for example by the sea ice levels which in 2012 were at their lowest extent since we started monitoring it, the previous lowest extent was only set in 2007.[iv] Managing that reality to mitigate its impact on humanity and the rest of the ecosystem is the most responsible thing to do[v].

[i] Rogers, Simon, and Harvey, Fiona, ‘Global carbon emissions rise is far bigger than previous estimates’, guardian.co.uk, 21 June 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/21/global-carbon-emissions-record

[ii] Hansen, James, ‘Tipping point: Perspective of a climatologist. In State of the Wild 2008-2009: A Global Portrait of Wildlife, Wildlands, and Oceans.’ E. Fearn, Ed. Wildlife Conservation Society/Island Press, pp. 6-15. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha04310w.html

[iii] Fred Guterl. “Searching for Clues to Calamity”, New York Times. 20 July 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/opinion/the-climate-change-tipping-point.html

[iv] Doyle, Alister, and Chestney, Nina ‘Arctic summer sea ice might thaw by 2015 – or linger for decades’, Reuters, 30 August 2012, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/08/30/us-climate-arctic-idUKBRE87T0LH20120830

[v] UNEP Progress Towards Meeting Internationally Agreed Goals. 2011. http://www.unep.org/pdf/RIO20/progress-internationally-agreed-goals.pdf

It’s been apparent from Rio onwards that ensuring action would require both patience and an acceptance that governments and industry would only genuinely get on board when Climate Change became an emergency rather than a distant theory. That is now starting to happen in a million ways, small and large. Changing the focus to another 30 years project now would just allow for another set of delays and missed targets.

Transforming entire sectors of the economy and the resulting shifts in patterns of migration, training, employment and resourcing will be both complex and complicated and require a massive logistical effort. Waiting until the world’s grain baskets are already dustbowls or Manhattan is underwater is simply unrealistic.

Instead, nations individually and collectively need to plan and begin to implement the necessary changes now. Even the process of achieving political agreement on some of the likely changes could take decades. 2050 has been widely seen as the date when the ravages of Climate Change will be all too obvious; 30 years is no time at all in diplomatic and industrial terms[i].

The financial costs of inaction on Climate Change have been estimated at $74tn, however that pails into insignificance with the broader human costs[ii]. Against that the World Bank has estimated that the costs of adaptation at a wildly varying but still relatively modest $4bn - $109bn a year[iii].

[i] BBC Website. Temperatures could rise by 3C by 2050, models suggest. 25 March 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17488450

[ii] Friends of the Earth. “Climate Change: The Cost of Inaction” 2006. http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/econ_costs_cc.pdf

[iii] The World Bank. “The Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change”. http://climatechange.worldbank.org/content/economics-adaptation-climate-change-study-homepage

Climate Change, by dint of the complexity of the model, is virtually impossible to plan for. Developing an adaptation regime would simply create an ever-changing model while removing necessary intellectual and economic resources from the prevention regime that is already in place. This would not only mean transferring research resources there is also government and regulatory activity as well as industrial compliance structures and other outlays. 

There are significant research challenges that need to be addressed in terms of envisaging what an adaptation regime would look like. For example how adaptation would tie into to other types of change – social, economic, demographic, etc. Answering these questions, alone, will take time but are a necessary precursor to building a realistic adaptation routine[i].

The urgency here comes from the fact that it will take time to establish new systems to work on this at an international level. One of the difficulties demonstrated by the experience of initial studies of climate change was that it needed to be conducted on a global scale, frequently involving complex and expensive modeling systems. There are several backstages to establishing this and the majority of relevant academics are currently working on prevention models rather than designing an entire new framework of prediction.

Developing such frameworks will require the focus of governments, in terms of research funding policies and agreeing enforcement and delivery models.

Given the choice between building a framework that can work and focussing on one that hasn’t, the choice seems to be fairly obvious[ii].

[i] National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility website. http://www.nccarf.edu.au/

[ii] See also the UN site here

This argument is predicated on the idea that it is possible to build a model that would allow for adaptation. In the light of some of the challenges currently posed by Climate Change that seems improbable. Without a clearer idea of what adaptation would look like or what it could even potentially achieve, making it a priority against something that can be shown to work seems reckless in the extreme.

It is a demonstrable fact that efforts to reduce carbon emissions haven’t worked. Despite  the conferences, the treaties and the pledges; global carbon emissions continue to rise – up 6.7% from 2009 to 2010.[i] The world’s largest economies continue to be the worst offenders and, with the BRIC economies joining their ranks, that look set to continue.

If you’ve been trying something for over 20 years with no notable success, then it seems sensible to try something else.

Added to which, many scientists, such as James Hansen,[ii] believe that a tipping point in the climate and broader ecosystem is imminent – with some suggesting that it has already been passed[iii]. We need to accept that Climate Change is not something that may happen in the future but something that is happening now. Extreme weather events are happening now, glaciers are melting now; the climate is shifting now, as is shown for example by the sea ice levels which in 2012 were at their lowest extent since we started monitoring it, the previous lowest extent was only set in 2007.[iv] Managing that reality to mitigate its impact on humanity and the rest of the ecosystem is the most responsible thing to do[v].

[i] Rogers, Simon, and Harvey, Fiona, ‘Global carbon emissions rise is far bigger than previous estimates’, guardian.co.uk, 21 June 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/21/global-carbon-emissions-record

[ii] Hansen, James, ‘Tipping point: Perspective of a climatologist. In State of the Wild 2008-2009: A Global Portrait of Wildlife, Wildlands, and Oceans.’ E. Fearn, Ed. Wildlife Conservation Society/Island Press, pp. 6-15. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha04310w.html

[iii] Fred Guterl. “Searching for Clues to Calamity”, New York Times. 20 July 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/opinion/the-climate-change-tipping-point.html

[iv] Doyle, Alister, and Chestney, Nina ‘Arctic summer sea ice might thaw by 2015 – or linger for decades’, Reuters, 30 August 2012, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/08/30/us-climate-arctic-idUKBRE87T0LH20120830

[v] UNEP Progress Towards Meeting Internationally Agreed Goals. 2011. http://www.unep.org/pdf/RIO20/progress-internationally-agreed-goals.pdf

It’s been apparent from Rio onwards that ensuring action would require both patience and an acceptance that governments and industry would only genuinely get on board when Climate Change became an emergency rather than a distant theory. That is now starting to happen in a million ways, small and large. Changing the focus to another 30 years project now would just allow for another set of delays and missed targets.

Transforming entire sectors of the economy and the resulting shifts in patterns of migration, training, employment and resourcing will be both complex and complicated and require a massive logistical effort. Waiting until the world’s grain baskets are already dustbowls or Manhattan is underwater is simply unrealistic.

Instead, nations individually and collectively need to plan and begin to implement the necessary changes now. Even the process of achieving political agreement on some of the likely changes could take decades. 2050 has been widely seen as the date when the ravages of Climate Change will be all too obvious; 30 years is no time at all in diplomatic and industrial terms[i].

The financial costs of inaction on Climate Change have been estimated at $74tn, however that pails into insignificance with the broader human costs[ii]. Against that the World Bank has estimated that the costs of adaptation at a wildly varying but still relatively modest $4bn - $109bn a year[iii].

[i] BBC Website. Temperatures could rise by 3C by 2050, models suggest. 25 March 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17488450

[ii] Friends of the Earth. “Climate Change: The Cost of Inaction” 2006. http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/econ_costs_cc.pdf

[iii] The World Bank. “The Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change”. http://climatechange.worldbank.org/content/economics-adaptation-climate-change-study-homepage

Climate Change, by dint of the complexity of the model, is virtually impossible to plan for. Developing an adaptation regime would simply create an ever-changing model while removing necessary intellectual and economic resources from the prevention regime that is already in place. This would not only mean transferring research resources there is also government and regulatory activity as well as industrial compliance structures and other outlays. 

There are significant research challenges that need to be addressed in terms of envisaging what an adaptation regime would look like. For example how adaptation would tie into to other types of change – social, economic, demographic, etc. Answering these questions, alone, will take time but are a necessary precursor to building a realistic adaptation routine[i].

The urgency here comes from the fact that it will take time to establish new systems to work on this at an international level. One of the difficulties demonstrated by the experience of initial studies of climate change was that it needed to be conducted on a global scale, frequently involving complex and expensive modeling systems. There are several backstages to establishing this and the majority of relevant academics are currently working on prevention models rather than designing an entire new framework of prediction.

Developing such frameworks will require the focus of governments, in terms of research funding policies and agreeing enforcement and delivery models.

Given the choice between building a framework that can work and focussing on one that hasn’t, the choice seems to be fairly obvious[ii].

[i] National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility website. http://www.nccarf.edu.au/

[ii] See also the UN site here

This argument is predicated on the idea that it is possible to build a model that would allow for adaptation. In the light of some of the challenges currently posed by Climate Change that seems improbable. Without a clearer idea of what adaptation would look like or what it could even potentially achieve, making it a priority against something that can be shown to work seems reckless in the extreme.

In some Climate Change scenarios – for example, a diminution of global oxygen output as a result of the effect of desalination resulting from melting polar caps or enforcing reduced consumption of resources through their more equitable distribution – are either impossible in biological or practical terms[i].

As a result, the only available option is reducing the carbon footprint of humanity as a species. Overwhelmingly, scientists agree that this is the only solution. Adaptation is, in reality, an attempt to hide from ‘an inconvenient truth’. Nobody likes being told that there is simply no way around the problem but that is the reality.

Some adaptations will, no doubt, happen naturally as people adjust but the focus of governments should remain on prevention.

[i] Stephen Leahy. “Climate Change Threatens Crucial Marine Algae”, Inter Press Service.  8 May 2012. http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/climate-change-threatens-crucial-marine-algae/

Opposition concedes that adaptations will happen as individuals respond to climate change, it is only fair and sensible that governments should make sure those changes happen in a managed fashion. To take one, small example; the increasing unwillingness of insurers to accept the risks of flooding for homes and businesses in some parts of the world requires a governmental response; many of those who bought homes that may be affected by flooding bought that property before they would have known about climate change.

It has taken three decades to drag most polluting business and many governments – and some are not yet there – to this stage of accepting that mitigation is necessary. Many remain unwilling to accept reality and are only making those grudging efforts they have undertaken because of the full force of global public opinion and the efforts of some governments and international bodies. Moving that focus simply allows those who weren’t happy about the challenges of carbon reduction to go back to the bad, old days.

Equally it allows industries such as coal off the hook at the very point when the pressure is really starting to count[i]. Some of the myths about clean coal or the supposedly environmental sensitivity of uranium mining are now sinking into the public consciousness – saying ‘let’s do this instead’ would run the risk of a return to business as usual.

[i]  Michael McCarthy. UK to push for global Green accounting system. The Independent. 10 February 2012. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/uk-to-press-for-global-green-accounting-system-6699781.html

The mono-focus on prevention has, effectively, blinded the world’s governments to the real issue – that climate change is happening and will continue to happen. That is a process that will require great adaptation on behalf of everyone. As with any significant change, it needs to be managed. Economies and societies have been dramatically altered in the face of significant changes such as warfare. It’s time to face up to that reality.

The pressure to invest in carbon-light forms of energies is starting to bear fruit as costs of oil make them financially viable. There are still enormous infrastructural costs but allowing carbon energy-based sectors to shift over to either shale gas or oil by taking the focus off prevention will mean that these incredibly polluting fuels are used – as the infrastructure is already in place and it is more financially palatable – rather than keeping up the pressure in favour of carbon reduction, energy efficiency and the growth of renewables. Germany and Denmark have proved that an effective renewables market can be the focus of a mature economy but that only happened with sustained political pressure. Scotland is moving in that direction as are some US states and other nations. Removing that pressure now would be a huge missed opportunity.

Renewables always looked like being ‘too little, too late’ and that now appears to be the case. Carbon based energy sources remain, massively, the major players of global energy production and that looks set to continue to be the case. It is time to take a mature response to that reality and manage the problem rather than pretending that a magical solution is going to be produced in the form of technological breakthroughs in nuclear or other energy technologies. 

Pollution is a global problem, with the greenhouse gas emissions of richer nations impacting on their poorer neighbours. Adaptation would most likely take place on a predominantly national basis, allowing those with the resources – built on their historical use of carbon energy – to find ways to adapt to some of the problems caused by Climate Change, while poorer nations are left without the capacity to do so.

Only a global focus on combating the basic causes of climate change will tackle the problem in a fair and equitable way, as richer nations cut back on their carbon-enriched lifestyles while developments in technologies offer benefits to the world as a whole rather than those who are already carbon rich as a result of geological or historical accident[i].

[i] See the Jamaica Declaration 1994.

Seeing the fight against Climate Change as some panacea for international inequality has always been a non-starter. The rich nations are simply not going to give up their competitive advantages in terms of production. However, a sensible global response to issues such as the migration likely to result from some of the outcomes of changing climates, might mitigate some of their worse excesses.