About Module 9

Climate refers to long-lived, broad-scale trends in meteorological phenomena such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Natural and human systems are heavily influenced by climatic conditions. However, mainly since the Industrial Revolution two or three hundred years ago, human activity has been changing the global climate. This climate change is causing major disruptions to natural and human systems alike. The large scale of the disruptions and the large scale of the effort required to do something about it make climate change among the most important environmental issues that humanity faces today.

In this module, we are going to learn some key fundamentals of climate change, in particular on the human side. The module opens with some context for why climate change is important and some basics of our understanding about climate change. It then covers how climate change will impact human systems and what we can do about it.

What will we learn in Module 9?

By the end of Module 9, you should be able to:

• explain what a planetary boundary is in terms of scale and resilience;
• explain some fundamentals of the physical basis of climate change;
• describe some major impacts of climate change;
• discuss individual and collective actions that are being and could be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

What is due for Module 9?

The chart below provides an overview of the required activities for Module 9. For assignment details, refer to the location noted. Due dates are noted in Canvas. 

Questions?

If you have any questions, please post them to our Course Q & A discussion forum in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum often to respond. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate. If you have a more specific concern, please send me a message through Inbox in Canvas.

Planetary Boundaries

We begin our discussion of climate change by considering the concept of planetary boundaries. The planetary boundary concept is a new one, originating in research released in 2009, but it is based on some classic concepts, in particular resilience at the global scale. In short, a planetary boundary is a limit to how much the Earth system can be disturbed without sending Earth into a new, unsafe state.

Video Assignment: Planetary Boundaries

The planetary boundary concept was introduced in 2009 by a group of international researchers led by Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Click for a transcript of Johan Rockstrom: Let the environment guide our development" video.

JOHAN ROCKSTROM: We live on a human dominated planet, putting unprecedented pressure on the systems on earth. This is bad news, but perhaps surprising to you, it's also part of the good news. We're the first generation, thanks to science, to be informed that we may be undermining the stability and the ability of planet Earth to support human development as we know it. It's also good news because the planetary risks we're facing are so large that business as usual is not an option.

In fact, we're in a phase where transformative change is necessary, which opened the window for innovation, for new ideas, and new paradigms. This is a scientific journey on the challenges facing humanity in the global phase of sustainability. On this journey, I'd like to bring, apart from yourselves, a good friend. A stakeholder who's always absent when we deal with the negotiations on environmental issues. A stakeholder who refuses to compromise.

Planet Earth. So I thought I'd bring her with me here today on stage to have her as a witness of a remarkable journey, which humbly reminds us of the period of grace we've had over the past 10,000 years. This is the living conditions on the planet over the last 100,000 years. It's a very important period. It's roughly half the period when we've been fully modern humans on the planet. We've had the same roughly abilities of developed civilizations as we know it. This is the environmental conditions on the planet here used as a proxy temperature variability.

It was a jumpy ride. 80,000 years back in a crisis we leave Africa. We colonized Australia in another crisis 60,000 years back. Leave Asia for Europe and another crisis 40,000 years back and then we enter the remarkably stable Holocene phase, the only period in the whole history of the planet that we know of that could support human development. 1,000 years into this period, we abandon our hunting and gather patterns. We go from a couple of million people to the 7 billion people we are today. The Mesopotamian culture. We invent agriculture. We domesticate animals and plants. You have the Roman the Greek and the story as you know it. The only phase as we know it that can support humanity.

The trouble is, we're putting a quadruple squeeze on this poor planet, a quadruple squeeze which, as its first squeeze, has population growth, of course. Now, this is not only about numbers. This is not only about the fact that we're 7 billion people committed to 9 billion people. It's an equity issue as well. The majority of environmental impacts on the planet have been caused by the rich minority, the 20% that jumped onto the industrial bandwagon in the mid-18th century. The majority of the planet, aspiring for development, having the right for development, are largely aspiring for an unsustainable lifestyle, a momentous pressure.

The second pressure on the planet is, of course, the climate agenda, the big issue where the policy interpretation of science is that it would be enough to stabilize greenhouse gases at 450 ppm to avoid average temperatures exceeding two degrees. To avoid the risk that we may be destabilizing the west Antarctic ice shelf holding six meters level rise. The risk of destabilizing Greenland ice sheet holding another seven meter sea level rise.

Now, you would have wished the climate pressure to hit a strong planet, a resilient planet. But unfortunately, the third pressure is the ecosystem decline. Never have we seen over the past 50 years such a sharp decline of ecosystem functions and services on the planet, one of them being the ability to regulate climate on the long-term in our forest, land, and biodiversity.

The fourth pressure is surprise. The notion and the evidence that we need to abandon our old paradigm that ecosystems behave linearly, predictably, controllably in our, to say, linear systems. And that, in fact, surprise is universal, that systems tip over very rapidly, abruptly, and often irreversibly. This, dear friends, poses a human pressure on the planet of momentous scale. We may, in fact, have entered a new geological era, the Anthropocene, where humans are the predominant driver of change at a planetary level.

Now as a scientist, what's the evidence for this? Well, the evidence is unfortunately ample. It's not only carbon dioxide that has this hockey stick pattern of accelerated change. You can take virtually any parameter that matters for human well-being-- nitrous oxide, methane, deforestation, overfishing, land degradation, loss of species. They all show the same pattern over the past 200 years. Simultaneously, they branch off in the mid-50s, 10 years after Second World War, showing very clearly that the great acceleration of the human enterprise starts in the mid-50s. We see for the first time an imprint on the global level. And, I can tell you, you enter the disciplinary research in each of these, you find something remarkably important.

The conclusion that we may have come to a point where we have to bend the curves. That we may have entered the most challenging and most exciting decade in the history of humanity on the planet, the decade when we have to bend the curves. Now, as if this was not enough to just bend the curves and understanding the accelerated depression on the planet, we also have to recognize the fact that systems do have multiple stable states, separated by thresholds illustrated here by this ball-and-cup diagram where the depth of the cup is the resilience of the system.

Now, the system may gradually on the pressure of climate change erosion by the rest of loss lose the depth of the cup the resilience but appear to be healthy and appear to suddenly under a threshold be tipping over. Sorry. Changing state and literally ending up in an undesired situation, where a new biophysical logic takes over, new species take over, and the system gets locked.

Do we have evidence of this? Yes. Coral reef systems. Biodiverse low nutrient, hard coral systems under multiple pressures of overfishing, unstable tourism, climate change. A trigger, and the system tips over, loses its resilience. Soft coral take over, and we get undesired systems that cannot support economic and social development.

The Arctic. A beautiful system, a regulating biome at the planetary level, taking the knock after knock on climate change, appearing to be in a good state. No scientist could predict that in 2007, suddenly what could be crossing a threshold, the system suddenly very surprisingly loses 30% to 40% of its summer ice cover. And the drama is, of course, that when the system does this, the logic may change.

It may get locked in an undesired state because it changes color, absorbs more energy, and the system may get stuck, in my mind, the largest red flag warning for humanity that we are in a precarious situation. As a sideline, you know that the only red flag that popped up here was a submarine from an unnamed country that planted a red flag at the bottom of the Arctic to be able to control the oil resources.

Now if we have evidence, which we now have, that wetlands, forest, parts of the monsoon system, the rainforest behave in this non-linear way. 30 or so scientists around the world gathered and asked the question for the first time-- do we have to put the planet into the pot? Do we have to ask ourselves, are we threatening this extraordinarily stable Holocene state? Are we in fact, putting ourselves in a situation where we're coming too close to thresholds that could lead to deleterious and very undesired, if not catastrophic change for human development?

You know, you don't want to stand there. In fact, you're not even allowed to stand where this gentleman is standing at the foaming, slippery waters at the threshold. In fact, there is a fence quite upstream of this threshold, beyond which you are in a danger zone. And this is the new paradigm, which we gather two or three years back, recognizing that our old paradigm of just analyzing and pushing and predicting parameters into the future, aiming at the environment, minimizing environmental impacts is of the past.

Now we have to ask ourselves, which are the large environmental processes that we have to be stewards of to keep ourselves safe in the Holocene? And could we even, thanks to major advancements in earth system science, identify the thresholds, the points where we may expect non-linear change? And could we even define a planetary boundary, a fence, within which we then have a safe operating space for humanity?

This work, which was published in Nature late 2009, after a number of years of analysis led to the final proposition that we can only find nine planetary boundaries with which, under active stewardship, would allow ourselves to have a safe operating space. These include, of course, climate. It may surprise you that it's not only climate.

But it shows that we are interconnected among many systems on the planet with the three big systems, climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and ocean acidification, being the three big systems where there's scientific evidence of large-scale thresholds in the paleo-record Of the history on the planet. But we also include what we call the slow variables, the system that under the hood, regulate and buffer the capacity of the resilience of the planet.

The interference of the big nitrogen and phosphorus cycles on the planet, land use change, rate of biodiversity loss, freshwater use, functions which regulate biomass on the planet, carbon sequestration, diversity. And then we have two parameters, which we are not able to quantify, air pollution, including both warming gases and air polluting sulfates and nitrates, but also chemical pollution.

Together, these form an integrated whole for guiding human development in Anthropocene, understanding that the planet is a complex self-regulating system. In fact, most evidence indicates that these nine, may behave as three musketeers, one for all, all for one. You degrade forests, you go beyond the boundary on land, you undermine the ability of the climate system to stay stable.

The drama here is, in fact, that it may show that the climate challenge is the easy one, if you consider the whole challenge of sustainable development. Now this is the big bang equivalent, then, of human development within the safe operating space of the planetary boundaries. What you see here in black line is the safe operating space, the quantified boundaries, as suggested by this analysis.

The yellow dot in the middle here is our starting point, the preindustrial point, where we're very safely in the safe operating space. In the '50s, we start branching out. In the '60s already through the green revolution, and the Haber-Bosch process of fixing nitrogen for the atmosphere, you know, humans today take out more nitrogen from the atmosphere than the whole biosphere does naturally, as a whole.

We don't transgress the climate bound until the early '90s, actually, right after Rio. And today, we are in a situation where we estimate that we've transgressed three boundaries, the rate of biodiversity loss, which is the sixth extinction period in the history of humanity-- one of them being the extinctions of the dinosaurs, nitrogen, and climate change.

But we still have some degrees of freedom on the others, but we are approaching fast on land, water, phosphorous, and oceans. But this gives a new paradigm to guide humanity to put on the light on our, so far, overpowered industrial vehicle, which operates as if we're only on a dark straight highway.

Now the question then is how gloomy is this? Is then, sustainable development utopia? Well, there's no science to suggest-- in fact, there is ample science to indicate that we can do this transformative change, that we have the ability to now move into a new innovative, a transformative gear across scales. The drama is, of course, that 200 countries on this planet have to simultaneously start moving in the same direction.

But it changes fundamentally, our governance and management paradigm, from the current linear command and control thinking, looking at efficiencies and optimization towards a much more flexible, a much more adaptive approach where we recognize that redundancy, both in social and environmental systems is key to be able to deal with a turbulent era of global change. We have to invest in persistence, in the ability of social systems and ecological systems to withstand shocks, and still remain in that desired cup.

We have to invest in transformations capability, moving from crisis into innovation, and the ability to rise after a crisis, and of course, also to adapt to unavoidable change. This is a new paradigm. We're not doing that at any scale on governance. But is it happening anywhere? Do we have any examples of success on this mind-shift being applied at the local level? Well, yes, in fact, we do. And the list can start becoming longer and longer. There is good news here.

For example, from Latin America where plow-based farming systems of the '50s and '60s led farming, basically, to a dead end with lower and lower yields, degrading of organic matter and fundamental problems at the livelihood levels in Paraguay, Uruguay, a number of countries, Brazil-- leading to innovation and entrepreneurship among farmers in partnership with scientists into an agricultural revolution of zero-tillage systems combined with mulch farming with locally adapted technologies, which today, for example, in some countries have led to a tremendous increase in area under mulch zero-till farming, which not only produces more food, but also sequesters carbon.

The Australian Great Barrier Reef is another success story. Under the realization from tourist operators, fishermen, the Australian Great Barrier Reef Authority, and scientists that the Great Barrier Reef is doomed under the current governance regime, global change, eutrophication of agriculture, overfishing, and unsustainable tourism, altogether placing the system in the realization of crisis.

But the window of opportunity was innovation new mindset, which today has led to a completely new governance strategy to build resilience, acknowledge redundancy and invest in the whole system as an integrated whole, and then allow for much more redundancy in the system.

Sweden, the country I come from, has other examples where wetlands in southern Sweden were seen as, as in many countries, as flood-prone polluted nuisance in the peri-urban regions. But again, a crisis, new partnerships, actors locally, transforming these into a key component of sustainable urban planning. So crisis leading into opportunities.

Now what about the future? Well, the future, of course, has one massive challenge, which is feeding a world of 9 billion people. We need nothing less than a new green revolution. And the planetary boundaries analysis shows that our culture has to go from a source of greenhouse gases to a sink. It has to basically do this on current land. We cannot expand anymore because it erodes the planetary boundaries. We cannot continue consuming water as we do today with 25% of world rivers not even reaching the ocean, and we need a transformation.

Well, interestingly, and based on my work and others in Africa, for example, we've shown that even the most vulnerable small-scale rainfed farming systems with innovations and supplementary irrigation to bridge dry spells and droughts, sustainable sanitation systems to close the loop on nutrients from toilets back to farmers fields, and innovations and tillage systems, we can triple, quadruple yield levels on current land.

Elinor Ostrum, the latest Nobel Laureates of economics clearly shows, empirically, across the world that we can govern the commons if we invest in trust, local, action-based partnerships and cross-scale institutional innovations where local actors together can deal with the global commons at a large scale. But even on the hard policy area we have innovations. We know we have to move from our fossil dependence very quickly into a low-carbon economy in a record time.

And what shall we do? Everybody talks about carbon taxes, it won't work, emission trading schemes. But for example, one policy measure feed-in tariffs on the energy system, which is applied from China doing it on offshore wind systems all the way to the US, where you give a guaranteed price for investment in renewable energy, but you can subsidize electricity to poor people.

You get people out of poverty, you solve the climate issue with regard to the energy sector, while at the same time stimulating innovation-- examples of things that can be out-scaled quickly at the planetary level. So there is no doubt opportunity here, and we can list many, many examples of transformative opportunities around the planet. The key though, in all of these, the red thread is the shift in mindset.

Moving away from a situation where we simply are pushing ourselves into a dark future, where we instead backcast our future, and we say, what is the playing field on the planet? What are the planetary boundaries within which we can safely operate, and then backtrack innovations within that.

But of course the drama is it clearly shows that incremental change is not an option. So there is scientific evidence, the so to say, the harsh news that we are facing the largest transformative development since the industrialization. In fact, what we have to do over the next 40 years is much more dramatic and more exciting than what we did when we moved into the situation we're in today.

Now science indicates that yes, we can achieve a prosperous future within the safe operating space if we move simultaneously, collaborating on a global level, from local to global scale, in transformative options which build resilience on a finite planet. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

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Credit: Let the environment guide our development [2] by Johan Rockstrom is licensed under CC BY–NC–ND 4.0 [3]

As you watch the video please think about the following questions:

• What is the Holocene, and why does it matter to development/civilization?
• Note that the Holocene began about 12,000 years ago. Why is this time significant?
• What is the boundary for climate change?
• So, humanity is pulling nitrogen from the atmosphere and converting it to other forms. How are we doing this? With what process? Why are we doing this?
• Are the boundaries isolated issues or are they interrelated?

Details of the research project can be found at the Stockholm Resilience Centre website [4]. Pay particular attention to recent updates [5] to the Planetary Boundaries model.

As discussed in the video, the Holocene is the most recent epoch of Earth’s history. For the last 12,000 years or so, conditions on Earth have been relatively stable. This can be seen in data from ice cores in Antarctica and Greenland:

Figure 9.1 Isotope Data for Antarctica and Greenland Ice Cores

Credit: Ice Core Isotope by Leland McInnes from Wikimedia Commons [6] is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 [7]

Note that in this graph, time proceeds to the left, meaning that today is at the left edge of the graph and points further to the right are further into the past. The graph shows concentrations of isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen at different times. Ice sheets build gradually over time; the chemical composition of a layer of the ice depends on the chemical composition of Earth’s atmosphere at the time. An ice core is a long cylinder that we remove from the ice sheet, giving us a sample of information about Earth’s atmosphere over long times. Ice cores are valuable sources of information about Earth’s history, which helps us understand how the Earth system works and, in turn, what Earth may be like in the future.

The important point to understand from the ice core graph is that the last 12,000 years or so have been relatively stable on Earth. It is during this period of stability that human civilization emerged. No one knows for sure whether civilization would have emerged without this period of stability, but we have strong reason to believe that the stability played an important role. Stable conditions made developing agriculture much easier since our ancestors could breed plants customized for stable local growing conditions. This may explain why – as we saw in Module 5 – agriculture emerged in several parts of the world within the last 12,000 years, but had not emerged anywhere else prior to then. For those of you interested in religion and its history, you might even ask whether it is a coincidence that in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the world (and everything else) was created about 6,000 years ago… and that this tradition originated in the Fertile Crescent.

So, what does this all have to do with climate change? Simply put, climate change threatens to cross a planetary boundary, to put the Earth system into a new state, a state different from that in which civilization emerged. Our civilization remains highly customized to Holocene Earth. Climate change may force us to make major adaptations. At this time, it is uncertain whether civilization can survive climate change intact.

Intellectually, we’re going to need a lot of resources to understand climate change and what to do about it. That’s what the rest of this module is about.

Climate Change Background

In Module 5, we watched a video by Hans Rosling about global development. Let’s begin our discussion of climate change by watching another Hans Rosling video (4:47) that covers similar ground.

Notice that incomes and life expectancies around the world started increasing about 200 years ago. The United States and Great Britain were among the first countries to experience increases. Other countries took more time, but, by now, there have been increases almost everywhere. Why is that? What happened 200 years ago that caused health and wealth to start improving?

The answer is the Industrial Revolution. As societies learned how to develop industrial processes to produce more for us, our health and wealth began improving. By now, industry is so deeply embedded in so many facets of our lives that it’s often difficult to imagine life without it. There are still plenty of people today who produce much of what they use – including food, clothing, and shelter – by hand, but these people are increasingly few. Suffice to say, they are also not the people who tend to find themselves taking online university courses.

Central to the Industrial Revolution and to contemporary industry is the use of fossil fuels: oil, coal, and natural gas. They are called “fossil” fuels because they are sources of energy that derive from living organisms that were alive a long time ago. Originally, the energy from fossil fuels came from the sun. Ancient plants and other organisms trapped the sun’s energy via photosynthesis. Some of that energy found its way into today’s fossil fuels and is released when we burn the fuels for our industry.

The use of fossil fuels is unsustainable because we are using fossil fuels much faster than they are regenerating. Fossil fuels regenerate on timescales of hundreds of millions of years, but we are burning them up in just a few centuries. We can’t keep using fossil fuels forever as we use them today. Eventually, something must change. Given how central fossil fuels are to our industry, and how deeply embedded industry is within our lives, the depletion of fossil fuel resources represents a major challenge for humanity.

But there is another challenge associated with our use of fossil fuels. These fuels contain more than just energy. They also contain certain matter that, when we burn the fuels, ends up in the atmosphere. Some of this matter is in the form of molecules known as greenhouse gases, for reasons we’ll explain shortly. Greenhouse gases are also released into the atmosphere when we chop down and burn trees and other living matter.

Humanity has burned so much fossil fuel since the Industrial Revolution that we have significantly changed the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The most important change is of carbon dioxide (CO₂). 400 years ago, before the Industrial Revolution, there were 280 parts per million (ppm) of CO₂ in the atmosphere, meaning that 280 out of every one million molecules in the atmosphere was a CO₂ molecule. That might not seem like a lot, but it’s enough to make a big impact on the planet. Today, mainly because of burning fossil fuels (and also because of deforestation and a few other activities), there are about 400 ppm of CO₂ in the atmosphere. That’s already a fairly large change, and we’re burning more fossil fuels now than ever before. If we burn all of the fossil fuels available on Earth, there could be about 1700 ppm of CO₂ in the atmosphere, though we don’t yet know exactly how much fossil fuel exists across the planet. This is a very major change from the pre-industrial atmosphere, and a frightening thought, given that researchers believe that just 350 ppm may be a planetary boundary.

The change in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is causing changes to the global climate system. These changes are already impacting natural and human systems worldwide. Much larger and more disruptive changes are projected as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the consequences of these climate changes are the sorts of things that are generally considered to be bad, whether one adopts an anthropocentric ethical view or an ecocentric ethical view.

Climate change is a difficult issue for several reasons. First, avoiding climate change involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which is difficult because fossil fuels are so central to our industry and our lives. Second, the global climate system and its interconnections with human and ecological systems are very complicated. We know a lot about these systems, but some important uncertainty remains. Third, the massive scale of climate change makes it a very difficult collective action problem. It involves everyone across the entire planet, from now until many thousands of years into the future. Finally, the severity of climate change is so great that human civilization may not survive it. For these and other reasons, climate change is perhaps the single most important issue for our civilization today.

The physical basis of climate change refers to our understanding of the physical properties of the climate and how it is changing. In other words, it is the physical (or natural) science behind climate change. Despite being a physical science, it asks some questions of major political and societal importance. Is the climate changing? In what ways is it changing? Are these changes caused by human activity? Because there is so much at stake with the answers to these questions, the physical science of climate change has been the center of extensive attention and a fair amount of controversy. In order to understand the human aspects of climate change, including the political issues, it is very helpful to have some understanding of the physical basis.

Climate vs. Weather

As a starting point for understanding climate change, we should recognize the difference between climate and weather. The difference is essentially a difference in scale. Climate refers to broad-scale trends in meteorological phenomena such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Weather refers to local-scale instances of these same phenomena. Mark Twain once famously said: “Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.” Climate patterns are identified by averaging the meteorological conditions over a long span of time (generally 30 years or more), allowing us to generalize what the weather conditions tend to look like for a given location and time of year. For instance, looking at the chart below from the Pennsylvania State Climatologist’s Office [8], we know that average high temperatures in July for Harrisburg, PA tend to be in the mid-80s (F). However, depending on the weather conditions during a particular year, actual values of meteorological data can end up above or below a climatological average. During July 2020, for example, anomalously warm weather conditions led to an average high temperature of 92 degrees F – several degrees higher than the average conditions.

Figure 9.2: An example of climatological data for Harrisburg, PA

Credit: The Pennsylvania State Climatologist’s Office [9] (Public Domain)

Understanding the distinction between climate and weather is crucial to developing a sound understanding of climate change. An isolated warm summer, by itself, is not necessarily evidence of climate change; rather, the departures from expected climate conditions for a particular year indicate climate variability, which do not necessarily demonstrate shifting trends in long-term climate. In contrast to climate variability, which corresponds to the standard “highs and lows” of the weather conditions for a given year, climate change refers to a shift in climate conditions over time. Although sporadic colder than average conditions have occurred recently, the observed shifts in overall climate conditions with time demonstrate a warming trend at the global scale, which is evidence of climate change.

Climate Change

Although changes in climate regimes have occurred numerous times throughout Earth’s history, a key distinction of modern (21st century) climate change is the impact of human activity on climate. In particular, emissions from industrial sectors are leading to an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere. The chemical composition of these greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane) leads to absorption of surface radiation, ultimately increasing the amount of heat stored in the lower atmosphere. Over time, this net increase in global heat storage has led to rapid (climatologically-speaking) rates of warming. These human impacts on climate change are referred to as anthropogenic climate change. Although natural drivers of climate change do exist (e.g., the cycle of Earth’s axis position), these natural impacts by themselves would suggest little changes to Earth’s climate regime at the present, except perhaps for a minor cooling trend. Thus, given the current strong warming rate, anthropogenic sources are the clear main drivers of modern climate change.

Figure 9.3: A schematic of the greenhouse effect.

Credit: Will Elder, National Park Service  [10](Public Domain)

Common Misconceptions Surrounding Climate Change

To further develop a strong understanding of climate change, it is crucial to identify and clarify common misconceptions surrounding the physical basis of climate change. First and foremost, there is strong consensus within the climate science community on 1) the reality of modern climate change and 2) the significant impact of human activity on modern climate change. There is little debate among climate scientists about the reality of anthropogenic climate change; rather, most of the “debate” within the atmospheric science community corresponds to other issues, such as how to best predict future climate regimes or which potential governmental responses would be most effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. With that said, let’s clarify a few common misconceptions about modern climate change.

1. Climate change is a natural phenomenon. As mentioned previously, it is true that natural drivers exist which influence climate change. For instance, the three factors of Earth’s axial tilt, precession, and orbital eccentricity – known collectively as Milankovitch cycles – play major roles in determining ice age and interglacial periods. However, these natural drivers of climate change alone would not be expected to produce the climate change presently occurring. Thus, modern climate change is largely anthropogenically-driven.
2. The effects of modern climate change are good for humanity. Key tenets of this argument include that increasing carbon dioxide concentration levels will allow for greater agricultural production, as plants feed off of carbon. However, although plant life has flourished in prehistoric times of high carbon dioxide concentrations, these concentrations are rising at a much faster rate today than in prehistoric times. Thus, plant life today does not have the ability to adapt to shifting climate regimes and gas concentrations in the same way that prehistoric plant life could adapt to much more gradual climate change. In fact, many scientists anticipate adverse effects of rapid climate change on agricultural outputs. Another argument for the positive impacts of climate change is that increasing global temperatures will benefit human populations in colder locations. However, the effects of climate change are neither steady over time or uniform globally; a rapid shift to a warmer climate regime over a period of decades can result in unprecedented seasonal temperature swings within a given year, which can be very detrimental to food production. Additionally, climate change has major implications on precipitation patterns, leading to more unpredictable flood and drought patterns.
3. Not all parts of the world are experiencing climate change. It is true that the temperature and precipitation shifts associated with climate change are non-uniform globally, with areas such as the Arctic more likely to experience dramatic increases in average temperatures than the Southeast U.S., for example. Further, much more subdued warming trends – or even cooling trends – have been observed over some parts of the world, such as the North Atlantic Ocean. However, these trends do not refute the existence and seriousness of modern climate change; rather, these patterns are occurring because of the impacts of climate change at other locations. For instance, increasing meltwater from warming over Arctic ice caps may be changing ocean circulation patterns, leading to an isolated area of cooling over the North Atlantic (Rahmstorf et al. 2015).
4. Why are major snowstorms still occurring in the Northeast if the climate is changing? In short, air is able to retain more moisture as temperatures increase. This phenomenon is displayed mathematically by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, which meteorology students may be (or will soon become) familiar with. Thus, so long as the ambient temperature at a given location during a winter storm is still cold enough to support snowfall, a snowstorm might produce more snowfall than would be normally expected, as more moisture is being retained by the atmosphere in our warming climate.

The bottom line: the physical basis for climate science is complicated and an area of extensive research, but the existence of anthropogenic climate change is scientifically-proven fact. Further, the rate at which the climate is changing is unprecedented, creating substantial concern for what climate conditions could be even within the next few decades.

The Human Dimensions of Climate Change

The remainder of this module focuses on the human dimensions of climate change, in particular how humans are impacted by climate change and how humans are responding to climate change. There are two main ways in which humanity is responding to climate change: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation refers to efforts to reduce the amount of climate change that will occur via reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Adaptation refers to efforts to improve the impacts of whatever climatic changes end up occurring. Exactly what is meant by an “improvement” in terms of impacts is an ethics question. Similarly, there are ethics questions in what mitigation efforts humanity should make.

The relationship between climate change, mitigation, and adaptation can be seen in a simple systems diagram:

Figure 9.4 Climate Change Diagram.

Credit: © Penn State Unicersity Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 [11]

As this diagram shows, mitigation causes less greenhouse gas emissions, while greenhouse gas emissions cause more climate change. Thus mitigation causes less climate change. Meanwhile, climate change causes more impacts. Climate change can also cause adaptation, which leads to better impacts.

Reference

Rahmstorf, S., J. E. Box, G. Feulner, M. E. Mann, A. Robinson, S. Rutherford, and E. J. Schaffernicht, 2015: Exceptional twentieth-century slowdown in Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation. Nat. Climate Change, 5, 475–480, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2554 [12].

Impacts and Adaptation

As the previous page indicates, it is clear that the climate is changing, and that these changes are caused mainly by human emissions of greenhouse gases. But this does not explain why we care so much about climate change, and, in particular, why we think climate change is bad. Why climate change is bad depends on our ethical view of what is “bad.” Here we’ll look at both anthropocentric and ecocentric views. In the case of climate change, disruption of ecosystems often also involves disruption to human systems, so the reasons for believing that climate change is bad are largely the same from both anthropocentric and ecocentric ethical views.

Temperature shifts

The simplest impacts of climate change are shifts in temperatures around the world. Overall, temperatures are increasing. Zones within a certain temperature range are shifting towards the north and south poles and towards higher elevations. Some species, in particular, plant species, are adapted to certain temperature ranges. These species are often shifting to different locations along with the temperature zones. But this shifting is imperfect. First, species may also be adapted to certain elevations or to certain latitudes. Latitude is important for plants because latitude defines how long days and nights are at a given time of year. Second, there may be obstacles impeding the species’ shift. For example, if a species lives on a mountain, it may not be able to cross a valley to get to the next mountain over. Thus some species will not successfully adapt to the temperature shifts caused by climate change. This includes both species in natural ecosystems and species used in human agriculture. (As we will have seen in previous modules, agriculture is always part of an ecosystem, so natural ecosystems and human agriculture are not completely separate from each other.)

Shifts in water

Water patterns are closely connected to temperature patterns. When temperatures are warmer, more ice melts or water evaporates. This affects precipitation patterns. Shifts in precipitation patterns complicate the process of species adapting to temperature shifts since species are generally also adapted to certain precipitation. For example, a plant might shift towards the north pole to stay within the same temperature zone, but if the precipitation zone does not also shift north, then the plant will have to struggle with different precipitation.

One of the most important shifts in water from climate change is the melting of ice at several places around the world.

In the Arctic Ocean, ice melting is leading to the opening of the Northwest Passage, a sea route between the north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans. The Passage is becoming increasingly navigable, making shipping (especially freight shipping) much less expensive between the wealthy and populous northern nations of Europe, North America, and East Asia. Other countries will be hurt by this, in particular, Panama, whose Canal will diminish in importance.

In central Asia, ice melting in the Himalayas is disrupting water supplies of crucial importance to very large human populations in India, China, and surrounding areas. There is concern about whether these populations will have access to enough fresh water in the future.

In Antarctica and Greenland, large amounts of ice are melting, increasing the amount of water in the oceans. This, in turn, raises sea level. Sea level rise is further increased by thermal expansion: as ocean temperatures increase, the water expands, pushing sea level higher. Ice melt and thermal expansion are causing enough sea-level rise that some low-lying coastal areas could become uninhabitable. This is a particularly serious concern because a large portion of the human population lives in such areas. Many major world cities are threatened, including New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and even London, which is near sea level despite being inland along the River Thames. Already, London has moveable barriers to protect against high tide storm surges. Sea level rise threatens to make the surges more severe.

Figure 9.5: River Thames Barrier in London

Credit: Thames Barrier, London, England by David Iliff from Wikimedia Commons [13] is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 [7]

Extreme weather events

As we saw in Module 8, extreme weather events can cause major disruptions. Climate change is affecting extreme weather events, often by making them more extreme and disruptive. One example of this is hurricanes. Hurricanes get their energy from the warm waters they pass over. This is why the strongest hurricanes occur in warmer regions. As waters warm, they gain more energy, thereby making hurricanes more powerful. For this reason, climate change is expected to increase the intensity of hurricanes and, unfortunately, more intense hurricanes often cause much more damage.

Adaptation

Human and non-human systems alike are adapting and will continue to adapt to climate change. These adaptations are not always successful; the impacts of climate change will inevitably cause harm. But adaptation can reduce the amount of harm caused.

Adaptation raises some large ethical questions. Who should pay for the costs of adaptation: the people who are adapting or the people who emit the greenhouse gases that made the adaptations necessary? It might seem unfair for some people to force other people to adapt, but it is difficult to get emitters to pay when the emitters are everyone across the planet! Another question is: How should we prioritize among adaptation projects? Should we support the projects that a few wealthy people are able to pay for or the projects that many poor people really need? There are distributive justice issues here. Also, how should we prioritize adaptations for humans vs. adaptations for ecosystems? Finally, what process should be used to make adaptation decisions? These questions and others are heavily debated among those involved in adaptation across all scales from local to global.

One final point to remember about impacts and adaptation is that they are occurring in the context of other changes to natural and social systems. In other words, climate change is not the only aspect of our world that is changing. There are also political, economic, technological, ecological, and other changes going on. As we prepare for the future impacts of climate change, it is important to remember that it will be the future world doing the adapting, not the present world. When we treat climate change as only one aspect of our world, we are more likely to be successful at adapting to future conditions in general, including conditions affected by climate change.

Why Focus on Women?

In Module 8, we learned about the relationship between identities and vulnerability regarding disasters. Marginalized populations are more vulnerable to change not by nature of who they are, but as a result of the hegemonic social conditions that produce and maintain their subordination. For example, women are not more vulnerable because they are women, but because they are marginalized in relation to men given society’s patriarchal norms. Additionally, similar to the escalation of disasters, humans play a role in the detrimental effects of climate change through local and international policies and practices (e.g. irrigation methods). Given that women are both more vulnerable to the effects of climate change and, as roughly half of the human population, play a significant role in the progression of climate change, it is critical that they have agency regarding climate change protection and mitigation efforts.

In this sub-module, we will 1) explore different approaches to incorporating gender into climate change policies, projects, and programs, 2) address some of the ways in which women from around the world are impacted by climate change, and 3) examine some of the steps that women are taking towards achieving environmental sustainability and climate change resilience.

Many of the points below are derived from the following two readings from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Global Gender and Climate Alliance’s Roots for the Future: The Landscape and Way Forward on Gender and Climate Change:

• Oliva, Manuel J. and Owren, Cate. “Roots for a More Equal and Sustainable Future.” Roots for the Future. Ed. Aguilar, Lorena, Granat, Margaux, and Owren, Cate. Washington, DC: IUCN and GGCA, (2015): 14-45. [14]
• Oliva, Manuel J. and Owren, Cate. “Leading the Way: Case Studies of Gender-Responsive Initiatives.” Roots for the Future. Ed. Aguilar, Lorena, Granat, Margaux, and Owren, Cate. Washington, DC: IUCN and GGCA, (2015): 383-466. [15]

Please review for more background on this topic!

Gender Sensitive vs. Gender Responsive vs. Gender Transformative Policies

There are three key approaches to incorporating gender into policies and projects: a gender sensitive approach, a gender responsive approach, and a gender transformative approach. A gender sensitive approach, otherwise known as a “do no harm” approach, entails “Understanding and taking into consideration socio-cultural factors underlying sex-based discrimination” (Oliva and Owren, 2015). A gender responsive approach, otherwise known as a “do-better” approach, is a more thorough integration of gender that entails “[i]dentifying, understanding, and implementing interventions to address gender gaps and overcome historical gender biases in policies and interventions” (Oliva and Owren, 2015). Taking a gender responsive approach one step further, a gender transformative approach entails focusing on gender as “central to a policy, programme or project, promoting gender equality as a priority and aiming to transform unequal relations, power structures, access to and control of resources, and decision-making spheres” (Oliva and Owren, 2015).

Consider a few of the case studies within Roots for the Future. Why are these case studies labeled as gender responsive rather than gender inclusive or gender transformative?

Gender Equity vs. Equality

Equity and equality are often conflated, but actually have two different meanings. The differences between equity and equality affect the intent of policies that incorporate these terms. Gender equality means that men and women are equivalently able to achieve their goals without hindrance caused by oppressive social structures and norms. For instance, a gender equality approach to hiring would require that men and women have the same opportunities to apply for and be considered for a job. However, this approach ignores the historical and lasting effects of gender-based oppression. While gender equality is a valuable aim, gender equity must occur first. Gender equity means that men and women have the same opportunities to achieve their goals, while taking into account the historical and lasting effects of gender-based oppression that gender equality ignores. For example, a gender equitable approach to hiring would require that men and women have the same opportunities to be considered for a job, while taking into account gendered reasons for employment gaps, e.g. to care for a family member, and different educational and employment pathways, e.g. the prioritization of men’s education and employment over women’s, that are often influenced by gendered policies and practices. While gender equity is essential to achieving gender equality, it is an ongoing process. Thus, when considering gender equality in relation to climate change related policies, measures towards achieving gender equity must constantly be integrated, re-worked, and assessed (Oliva and Owren, 2015).

Environmental Impacts on Women

Due to social and political norms, women tend to have less policy influence, greater care-giving roles, fewer opportunities to access educational, financial, and health resources, and an increased risk of experiencing sexual assault. As a result, climate change exacerbates already existing vulnerabilities for women and girls.

These issues are well demonstrated through the gender transformative UN Women Bangladesh climate change initiative. As program specialist Dilruba Haider explains, the increase in climate-change related disasters in Bangladesh has resulted in detrimental effects for women and girls in the country including “further violations of women’s rights and dignity, such as human trafficking, child marriage, sexual exploitation and forced labour” (Haider, 2017). As Haider asserts, “Even simple things like lack of access to toilets impact women and girls disproportionately—during floods, men will often defecate in the open, while women wait until darkness falls, increasing their risk of Urinary Tract Infections and other health hazards, as well as sexual abuse” (Haider, 2017).

See pages 33-35 of “Roots for a More Equal and Sustainable Future” for more examples of how men and women are differentially impacted by climate change (Oliva and Owren, 2015).

Women’s Climate Change Resilience and Mitigation Efforts

Because women’s perspectives and experiences are often overlooked, women offer unique expertise regarding climate change mitigation efforts. Furthermore, women’s involvement in climate change initiatives results in improved outcomes. In Bangladesh, as part of UN Women’s 2017-2020 National Resilience Programme, women are pursuing disaster-resilient, non-traditional livelihoods, including “mele (a type of climate resilient reed) cultivation, growing floating vegetable gardens and pickle making” (Haider, 2017). While this initiative is most focused on mitigating the effects of cyclones and floods, other initiatives, such as the World Bank Group’s Water Global Practice, focus on mitigating the effects of droughts. The Water Global Practice has been taking a gender responsive approach to nutrition-sensitive water management. Within their initiatives, women’s feedback is essential for success. For instance, given differences between the physical height and strength and the home and child-rearing responsibilities that often differentiate men and women, women’s feedback regarding the types of water irrigation systems implemented and their locations is essential for these systems to have optimal effects. Additionally, when considering which crops to prioritize, given the norms that place unequal responsibility on women to cook and care for children, women tend to prioritize nutrient dense crops for the home rather than to sell in the market. Without including women’s input in water management, women and children are disproportionately at risk for experiencing nutrient deficiencies (Bryan, Chase, Shulte, 2019).

Works Cited

Haider, Dilruba. September 5, 2017. “Expert’s Take: When Building Climate Resilience, Women’s Needs Cannot Be an Afterthought.” UN Women. Accessed on November 20, 2020. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2017/9/experts-take-dilruba-haider [16].

Oliva, Manuel J. and Owren, Cate. Roots for the Future. Ed. Aguilar, Lorena, Granat, Margaux, and Owren, Cate. Washington, DC: IUCN and GGCA, (2015): 14-45. https://portals.iucn.org/union/sites/union/files/doc/rftf_2015_chapter_1... [14].

Bryan, Elizabeth, Chase, Claire, and Shulte, Mik. “Nutrition-Sensitive Irrigation and Water Management.” Washington, DC: Water Global Practice, (2019). https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/103404/Bryanetal_nutrit... [17].

Individual Action on Mitigation

Suppose you want to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions. What can you do? Here are some major suggestions.

Plan where you live

Where you choose to live is probably the single biggest factor in how much greenhouse gases you emit. This includes what city you live in, what neighborhood you live in within the city, and even what building you live in within the neighborhood. Where you live is important for several reasons.

First, as we saw in Module 7, the type of urban area you live in has a large influence on your transportation. This includes what modes of transportation you use (cars, transit, walking, etc.). In general, cars cause the most greenhouse gas emissions, followed by transit. Walking and bicycling cause almost no greenhouse gas emissions. This also includes how much transportation you’ll be using. In general, the farther you travel to go from place to place, the more greenhouse gas emissions you’ll cause.

Second, as we also saw in Module 7, buildings vary tremendously in how much energy they require per person. Much of this energy is in heating and air conditioning. Buildings in more moderate climates (such as the west coast of the United States) need less energy for heating and air conditioning than buildings in more extreme climates (such as the east coast of the United States). Apartment buildings need less energy per person than stand-alone houses because apartments share walls with each other and don’t lose heating and cooling to the outside as much. Finally, buildings can vary in the efficiency of their design. Buildings with better insulation and other ‘green’ design features require less energy for heating and air conditioning. Buildings with energy efficient technologies also require less energy.

Where you live also influences what social interactions you’ll have. This includes who you’ll meet and be friends with and what opportunities you’ll have to get involved in a democracy. These factors are also important to greenhouse gas emissions, though this relates to social norms and collective action as much as it does to individual action. Wherever you choose to live, it’s also important to maintain your residence effectively. This includes using insulation and choosing efficient appliances. It also includes using less heating and air conditioning by setting the temperature lower in the winter and higher in the summer. Finally, it means turning off lights and other devices when they’re not needed. In general, the biggest electricity savings come from the biggest devices: washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, and other big appliances that get used frequently. Light bulbs are also important because they are used so often and there’s such a big efficiency difference between incandescent (less efficient) and fluorescent (more efficient) lights.

Choose low-impact foods

In Module 6, we saw that livestock has a large shadow, i.e., a large environmental impact, including a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions. This is because we need to grow a lot of plants to feed livestock animals and because the animals produce pollution, including greenhouse gases, on their own. Eating less of an animal-based diet and more of a plant-based diet will, in general, have much lower greenhouse gas emissions. This is among the biggest actions that individuals can take to reduce emissions.

There are other actions we can take with food as we also saw in Module 6. We can eat locally-grown foods that do not use as much energy for shipping. Eating fresh foods instead of refrigerated or frozen foods also helps, because the refrigeration and freezing processes use a lot of energy. Food processing, in general, requires energy, so processed foods will usually require more energy. This includes processing we do in our homes: cooking, refrigerating leftovers, etc. But there can be tradeoffs. For example, some processed foods last longer than fresh foods and are thus less likely to go to waste. It can often be difficult to identify exactly which foods cause the least emissions.

Buy carbon offsets

A carbon offset is a way to pay other people to reduce their emissions. It’s called an offset because you can use it to ‘offset’ the emissions that you cause. It’s an appealing scheme because you get to do what you wanted that causes emissions and the climate won’t be affected. This depends on the offset working as it's supposed to. This scheme follows from ends ethics and not means ethics: the means of causing emissions are OK as long as the ends of climate change are unaffected.

Collective Action on Mitigation

Climate change mitigation can often be treated as a collective action problem. This happens when individuals don’t want to reduce their own emissions. Sometimes we do want to reduce emissions. For example, low-emission food, transportation, and buildings are often healthier, more convenient, and less expensive. But, often, we don’t want to reduce emissions. Instead, we would rather continue doing whatever we had been doing before. In the language of Unit 2, we don’t want to transition to sustainability. When this happens, we face a collective action problem. It is in our individual interest to keep emitting, but it is in our group interest to reduce emissions.

This has its challenges. With climate change, we are trying to foster collective action among all of humanity, now more than 8 billion people. This has many more challenges. There are language barriers. There are differences in values. There are differences in awareness about climate change. And there is the monumental logistical challenge of reaching some sort of agreement across so many people.

Since 1992, global collective action on climate change has been promoted via the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Note that it is the United Nations. This means that the world’s population is grouped by nationality, instead of by religion, wealth, ethnicity, ethics views, or anything else. Each nation sends representatives to treaty negotiations that occur once or twice per year. The biggest meeting happens each December in a different city. In 1997, the meeting was in Kyoto. This meeting resulted in the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty signed by most countries (but not the United States) that was aimed at reducing emissions between 2008 and 2012 but was largely unsuccessful. In 2009, the meeting was in Copenhagen. Hopes were high that a more successful Kyoto Protocol replacement would be achieved at Copenhagen. Instead, the much weaker Copenhagen Accord was reached, a non-binding document negotiated by the US and other countries. In 2012, at the meeting in Doha, Qatar, the Doha Amendment was adopted, which extended the Kyoto Protocol until 2020. A key shift in climate diplomacy occurred at the 2015 Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting in Paris, France. Specifically, signatories to the Paris Agreement agreed to set country specific greenhouse gas reduction targets, which are referred to as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). You can read more about the Paris Agreement on the UNFCCC website [18].

There are several reasons why it is so difficult to reach a strong international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. First, reaching any international treaty is difficult, given the large number of nations around the world. The UNFCCC has 197 member nations. Even North Korea participates, despite being absent from many other international processes. Second, reducing emissions is very difficult. Emissions are closely tied to fossil fuel use, which is, in turn, closely tied to industrial activity. For a nation to reduce its emissions, it might have to reduce its standard of living or even its geopolitical strength. Third, there are major differences between the positions and views of different countries. Poor countries often feel that it is unfair for rich countries to ask them to reduce emissions when the rich countries cause most of the emissions and when the poor are just trying to develop a decent standard of living. Countries that own a lot of fossil fuels often want the opportunity to extract and use the fossil fuels, either for their own activities or to sell to other countries. Countries that are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (e.g., small island developing states in the Caribbean and Pacific) are especially eager for emissions to be reduced. All of these factors (and others) combine to make it very difficult to achieve international collective action on mitigation.

The political process to tackle climate change began one year after the United Nations (UN) succeeded in forging the Montreal Protocol that imposed a gradual phase-out of CFCs responsible for the ozone hole.

• 1988: The UN asked for a high-level scientific assessment and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was established; the UN General Assembly takes up climate change
• 1990: The IPCC First Assessment Report is published, which acknowledges human influence on climatic changes; negotiations were opened on the framework convention
• 1992: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is adopted in New York; the UNFCCC is opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro
• 1994: The UNFCCC comes into force (50 ratifications)
• 1995: Start of Conferences of the Parties (annual COP); the IPCC Second Assessment Report is published
• 1997: The Kyoto Protocol is created
• 2001: The IPCC Third Assessment Report is published
• 2005: The Kyoto Protocol becomes binding as Russia ratified the protocol
• 2007: The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report is published; the IPCC and Al Gore receive the Nobel Peace Prize
• 2014: The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report is published
• 2015: The Paris Agreement is adopted

If you are interested, check out the IPCC website [19] and browse the full reports of the three different working groups. Also, check out how the process works to participate in the 6^th Assessment Report.

Figure 9.6: Screen Shot of Different Working Group Reports 

Self-check

The map below shows the size of individual countries proportional to their carbon emissions in 2000.

Figure 9.7: Carbon Dioxide Emissions in 2000

Credit: Carbon Dioxide Emissions 2000 [20] by World Mapper is Licensed by CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 [11]

Research total carbon emissions and per capita carbon emissions for the following 10 countries: United States, Australia, China, India, Qatar, Russia, Canada, Ghana, Bangladesh, and Peru. Then, write a paragraph discussing the implications of these differential contributions and your point of view on what a fair global climate treaty should look like.

Note that the map above was from 2000. Check out a more recent map of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 [21] to see what has changed.

The UNFCCC

“The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.”
Source: What is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? [22]

All countries that have signed and ratified the convention agree to general commitments. Specific levels of greenhouse gas concentrations or reductions are not quantified.

The convention distinguished between two types of parties (countries that have ratified the FCCC): Annex I Parties (industrialized countries comprising the OECD countries and ‘economies in transition’) and Non-Annex I Parties (most developing countries). This distinction has been exceedingly important for obligations later identified under the Kyoto protocol.

The above distinction is reflected in the figure below, illustrating annual fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions, in million metric tons of carbon, by region:

Figure 9.9: Annual Carbon Emissions by Region

Credit:  Carbon Emissions by Region by Robert A. Rohde from Wikimedia [23] is licensed by CC BY-SA 3.0 [24]

The Kyoto Protocol

(Adapted from United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Kyoto Protocol [25])

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets legally binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five percent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.

The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouraged industrialized countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so.

Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.”

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001, and are called the “Marrakesh Accords.”

191 states have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The United States is the only major emitter country that has signed but not ratified the protocol. 

Flexibility in meeting targets

Emission targets for industrialized country Parties to the Kyoto Protocol are expressed as levels of allowed emissions, or “assigned amounts”, over the 2008-2012 commitment period. Such assigned amounts are denominated in tonnes (of CO2 equivalent emissions). Industrialized countries must first and foremost take domestic action against climate change, but the Protocol allows them a certain degree of flexibility in meeting their emission reduction commitments through three innovative market-based mechanisms.

The Kyoto Mechanisms

The three Kyoto mechanisms are: Emissions Trading, known as “the carbon market”; the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM); and Joint Implementation (JI). The carbon market spawned by these mechanisms is a key tool in reducing emissions worldwide. It was worth 30 billion USD in 2006 and is set to increase.

JI and CDM are the two project-based mechanisms that feed the carbon market. JI enables industrialized countries to carry out joint implementation projects with other developed countries (usually countries with economies in transition), while the CDM involves investment in sustainable development projects that reduce emissions in developing countries.

Since the beginning of 2006, the estimated potential of emission reductions to be delivered by the CDM pipeline has grown dramatically to 2.9 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent – approximately the combined emissions of Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom. As of 2021, more than 7000 CDM projects have been registered.

What happened in Copenhagen?

The 15th Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen, Denmark (December 2009) was supposed to bring clarity on how countries would agree to pursue emission reductions after 2012. Instead, COP 15 produced a non-binding document, known as The Copenhagen Accord. It recognizes "the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius" although it calls for "an assessment of the implementation of this Accord to be completed by 2015. This would include consideration of strengthening the long-term goal," for example, to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees. No quantified emission reduction goals are included.

Check out this image regarding the Copenhagen conference: Brokenhagen [26].

Dr. Michael Mann.

Credit: M. Mann © Penn State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 [11]

Penn State University houses one of the most prominent climate scientists: Dr. Michael Mann. He is most famous (and contested) for the “hockey stick [27],” a reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures that shows a sharp increase in the last 100 years, resembling the blade of a hockey stick.

Summary

Human activity is causing the global climate system to change. The main activity causing climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, which releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Climate changes are already having significant impacts to both environmental systems and human systems, and even larger impacts are expected in the future. Unfortunately, the impacts are predominantly negative. For this reason, people are responding to climate change by adapting to the changes (adaptation) and by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation). Mitigation is important but difficult given how many human activities emit greenhouse gases. Indeed, greenhouse gas emissions are closely tied to a large portion of human development, in particular industrial activity and much of agriculture. Mitigation is also difficult given that it is a collective action problem at the global scale. Global collective action on climate change is attempted, mainly via treaty negotiations organized by the United Nations. However, these attempts have been largely unsuccessful thus far. Much work remains on mitigation as well as adaptation at all scales from the individual to the global.