Durban – Conference of Parties – An Ethical Problem:
Durban – Conference of Parties – An Ethical Problem:
This week is the start of the Conference of the Parties in Durban, South Africa. The Conference of the Parties' (COP) are the annual meetings that are part of the governing body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Two years ago, November 2009, I was planning a trip to the Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen. Before Copenhagen there was great energy, with some notion that the Copenhagen meeting would lead to a breakthrough on international climate change agreements. Of course, that did not happen and while there was spin that the meeting was a success, most people that I know were not enthusiastic about the outcome. (The Copenhagen Accord) My take of the outcome was that there was symbolic political recognition that global warming needed to be addressed, but no substantive steps were taken to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Plus, the political, economic and technological realities are that we will not see international agreement on reducing emissions anytime soon. It will be much longer before there is any real reduction of emissions.
In 2010 the COP was in Cancun, Mexico. What were the results of that meeting? In my opinion, we continue to meet and that is good. There was continued recognition that we needed to curb our carbon dioxide emissions and there were voluntary commitments to do that. (Here is an All Things Considered interview with Todd Stern) The voluntary targets focused on keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius, which is both an ambiguous and impossible goal. My dedicated readers might recall that last year in my climate change class I decided it is disingenuous to continue to talk about limiting warming to 2 degrees, and I started my students reading the papers that look at the 4 degree warmer world (see this entry).
What do I expect at the start of the COP-17? There is no doubt that the chronic economic turmoil since 2008 has deflated interest in climate change. We want economic stability, and in a growing population economic stability means economic growth. And for the most part economic growth, still, means burning more fossil fuels. With this, the Durban meeting is welcomed with record high growth of carbon dioxide concentrations – we can say that we are ahead of the curve (in Washington Post, and World Meteorological Organization Greenhouse Gas Bulletin).
Ahead of the curve is where I expect we will stay for a while. It is interesting to think about where we would be without the Kyoto Protocol and the countries which made some effort. We would likely be way ahead of the historic emissions curve. We simply do not have the alternatives in place, yet, that allow us to wean ourselves from fossil fuels.
There are, in fact, substantial resources going in the installation of renewable energy resources. According the Bloomberg New Energy Finance there are now more initial investments in renewable energy than in fossil fuel energy (Press Release and Report). Europe is the leading market for money spent on these projects, and China will take over the lead in a couple of years. With this seeming shift in our energy infrastructure, in 20 years the amount of energy produced from renewable energy will be 15.7 % of the total.
One of the reasons for the rapid increase in renewable energy is because solar panels are becoming cheap. There is a large manufacturing base, much of it in China, and this is rapidly reducing the cost of solar energy. This has set off much consternation in U.S. solar industry (interesting story on Talk of the Nation). Also as people really start to think about solar energy and move away from the naïve arguments that have driven the discussion for a decade, it becomes clear that solar can fit into the existing energy infrastructure. Solar can be placed on houses, and it can scale to large solar fields that can address peak energy capacity in Texas.
Growth – this growth in renewable energy use is hopeful, ultimately, for the climate change problem. Alternative energy takes care of part of our required economic growth. But it does not take all of the growth, and it does not displace the existing capacity for decades. Again, for the present time we, at best, aim to not get too far ahead of the historical emissions curve.
For now long trains of coal lumber along the rails from Colorado and Wyoming to Texas and the Gulf ports. Growth – we require growth for economic stability. We require growth to have an economy for growing populations. Growth – we require growth to support our investment strategies and credit-based businesses.
But back to Durban and the Conference of the Parties: There is a big issue for Durban. Back in 2009 for the meeting in Copenhagen, the big ticket item was supposed to be what would follow the Kyoto Protocol? Effectively the Kyoto Protocol runs out in 2012, and for the countries that have made the attempt to reduce CO2, there would be interest in having some standards, some policy that follows. It would provide order, stability, continuity. It is unlikely that anything global will come from Durban. The way the U.N. works, I think that it is more likely that the Conference of Parties will cease to be in their current form than there will be any sort of global policy – even as a guideline.
More and more climate change moves to an issue of ethics and opportunity. In my course ethics is always a tough issue. In the climate change problem ethics often arise in the sense that the Island Nations which are being flooded are not the ones responsible for the rising seas. More generally, the rich CO2 emitting nations are not the ones that suffer the consequences most severely.
Ethical issues, however, are far broader that this simple rich-poor tension. One of the roles of environmental policy is to represent the ethical values of society. Ultimately, climate change, the control of emissions represents the importance that we give to consumption. This became even more clear to me in a recent article on the decline of the birthrate in Brazil in National Geographic. Brazil is an example of what is practically a truism, which is that economic development is associated with the reduction of birth rates. This is part of the mantra of those who advocate economic development as a precondition for addressing climate change (for example, The Skeptical Environmentalist by Lomborg). In that National Geographic article it is stated, however, that reduction of the growth of population is to allow more consumption, more use of energy, by a smaller number of people. (Note that Bjorn Lomborg is reportedly changing his evaluation of the climate change problem in a forthcoming book - article in Guardian.)
This consumption of much by a few is, of course, consistent with our history. While we point to growing population and growing CO2 emissions, the historical increase in CO2 emissions is only associated with a relatively small part of the population. And when we think about displaced consumption, meaning that much of the manufacturing in China and the developing world is to support consumption (cheap consumption) in the developed world, there is no reason to believe that economic development leads in any direct path to addressing the climate change problem. We can rest assured that we will pursue economic development more aggressively and directly than we will pursue mitigation to climate change.
In this framing, therefore, climate change is first and foremost a problem of ethics; that is, it is a problem of consumption, equitable consumption, excess consumption. If we have an imperative to consume, and I believe that as a whole we do, then we must have renewable energy; we must have resources whose use does not deplete and degrade the world.
This frames, strongly, both our history and our future. We will have to manage the climate. We are averse to geo-engineering, but we engineer a warmer and warmer climate every day. At the forefront we need to think about how to manage our waste, because there is little evidence that we are going to stop making our waste. Therefore, we must know how to remove carbon dioxide from the air and safely place it back into to the Earth. Likewise, at the forefront is the development of adaptation strategies that, globally, include less land, more extreme weather, and displaced people. All of these things are possible, and those with the foresight and the acumen to take advantage of opportunity will benefit. The benefactors will be those who look at the knowledge and are smart about using it – not the ones that look at the knowledge and deny its existence.
r
Prior to the Durban meeting the WMO issued its Provisional Statement of the Climate.
Here is the sub-title of the document
2011: World’s 10th warmest year, warmest year with La Niña on record, second-lowest Arctic sea ice extent. (and the link)
Figure 1: From WMO Provisional Statement. Temperature difference (anomaly) calculated for 1961-1990 average. La Niña years are marked. La Niña years should be cooler that average based on natural variability. 2010 was the warmest La Niña year on record, and the 10th warmest year on record.
Reader Comments
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This is very similar to what I was saying on your last blog, Professor Rood.
What are the ethical things we can all do now? Consume less, conserve what you consume and recycle what you discard. Those with the foresight and acumen are either already doing this or are already moving in this direction.
Thank you for staying up to post a new blog for us, Professor Rood!
Tunnels do this beautifully. No other method can compare.
BTY, here's yet another hockey stick for our perusal. Be sure you don't miss the rapid drop of the blade on the far right.
Globally, I think this is a seldon crisis of sorts. The technological singularity approaching our economic systems internally and an ecological disaster from outside.
I don't see any solution except for some sort of von neuman machine and some sort of the socialism that the head in the sand rightwing nutjobs fear. If the rightwing lunies were smart and/or had integrity, they would acknowledge the problem and work to find a structure that preserves as much of freedom as possible given the problem exists, instead of denying the problem exists and letting the problem dictate its own solution.
And then there's Oss: Not only responding friendlyly with a link to a video request (ok, no video but given my comments...) but the Bon Scott version to boot. Cheers for the video. Doesn't mean I agree with you or think your posts make any sense but respect where it's due.
This one is inverted. Sadly, in this case, inverted is not good.
Imagine for a moment that climate change skeptics actually submitted their anti-science arguments for publication in a credible peer-reviewed journal. Now imagine that, after thorough examination and debunking by their peers, these skeptics finally admitted their many false claims and assumptions, and perhaps some or all moved on to contribute meaningfully to the vast body of science confirming manmade climate change?
Ok, back to reality
The attached PDF analysis shows the chronologies and social networks of the pals, followed by summaries of the papers in the context of Michaels' and de Freitas' publications. The Excel spreadsheet lists the papers and their attributes.
Sadly, it's the reality you've come to hate, poking its inconvenient head up once again. So yes, the "climategate" conspiracy theorists were right, there really was an effort to distort the scientific record through manipulation of the publishing process, it's just that it was a slightly different group doing it.
BTW, the person who put this together is a successful Silicon Valley capitalist (recently retired), which is all you should need to know to trust it implicitly, right?
Link
Nice try, J. The cease and desist order is not on his Science. The order is stop public attacks on a journalist. A journalist? snicker ... I thought you did not like the media types?
Bah! LOL!
As I sit in my garage in FL typing this with a heater on, I support the Minnesotans for GW :)
And so ends another abnormally warm month in the United States; for November, record daily high and high minimum temperatures outnumbered record daily low and low maximum temps by 2,764 to 1,325, or about 2.09 to 1. For the year to date, that high/low ratio is 53,845 to 24,180, or 2.23 to 1.
Also for the year to date, 16,749 daily high temperature records were broken versus 6,152 daily low temperature records, or 2.72 to 1.
Ouch. It's getting harder and harder to cling to the Bastardian fantasy of imminent cooling with that sort of lopsidedness. Well, maybe next year, guys. Keep your fingers crossed.
How bizarre!
Pal review? Legitimated by a blog? C'mon, you gotta be kidding.
Every time I look around at the actual placed science that placed policy and see who did pal reviews ...
It's in my face!
You continue to post data that encompasses less than 15% of the planet. Does that data have a defined base, or is it like AR3 - 4? with no actual verifiable data used to identify those actual locations that made the doctrine as such ?
Mann and company could not tell us the sites they used, so I hope you can :)
BTW, did you actually make the graphs from Think Progress and Skeptical Science that you continue to post as factual??
Note the scramble to cut and paste time involved for any response, LOL
You get what you need folks!
OUCH! You are so wrong!
No, you are wrong.
And a few others:
So, here is what I see. The low point in ice extent 2011 versus the low point in 2007 appears to be a difference of about 350,000 square kilometers, or about 135,000 square miles, an area the size of New Mexico or Montana. That seems like quite a bit more ice this year than in 2007. I also see a rapidly increasing ice extent that will probably be within about one standard deviation in a matter of days or a few weeks.
I also note that the amount of data presented in all examples is probably not enough, by most statistical models, to really tell us that much.
I also know that the northwest passage has opened many times before.
I also see, in other charts, that Antarctic ice has been pretty much the average of the past 30 years or even above average.
Last of all, all you posted, Cyclone posted and I posted tell us nothing, statistically, about global warming, absolutely nothing.
Oh, denialism, thou art an ever-blooming flower!
2011 saw the lowest ice area on record.
2011 saw the lowest ice volume on record.
2011 saw the lowest amount of multi-year ice on record.
Using both records and historical reconstructions, Arctic Sea ice has not been as low as it has been over the past two decades in at least 10,000 years. That means 2011 saw the lowest amount of Arctic Sea ice in at least 100 centuries. Now, the latest forecasts call for Arctic Sea ice to vanish entirely for at least a single day no later than the summer of 2015. And given the increasingly-curved downward trend--and absent a supervolcano eruption or nuclear war--I've every reason to believe we'll get there.
So, denialists can try to claim that the sudden disappearance of north polar ice tells us nothing about global warming, but that's only a logical statement if a viable alternative explanation is proposed. So unless the Theory of Sudden Magic Invisible Ice-Eating Fairies is given credence, AGW is the only thing that can possibly account for the loss.
10,000 years? I am sure you can provide proof?
Carbon dioxide concentration (parts per million) for the last 800,000 years, measured from trapped bubbles of air in an Antarctic ice core. The 2008 observed value is from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii and projections are based upon future emission scenarios. More information on the data can be found in the Climate Change Impacts on the U.S. report.
Over the last 800,000 years, natural factors have caused the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration to vary within a range of about 170 to 300 parts per million (ppm). The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by roughly 35 percent since the start of the industrial revolution. Globally, over the past several decades, about 80 percent of human-induced CO2 emissions came from the burning of fossil fuels, while about 20 percent resulted from deforestation and associated agricultural practices. In the absence of strong control measures, emissions projected for this century would result in the CO2 concentration increasing to a level that is roughly 2 to 3 times the highest level occurring over the glacial-interglacial era that spans the last 800,000 or more years.
Global Climate Change Indicators
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Climatic Data Center
Its above the Din, always.
What do your last two posts have to do with the current discussion? Try not to give another flip answer please.
Oh, no "proof". Just scientific evidence. Note that the timelines given in these links vary in length; that's because different studies use different reconstructions and different types of proxy data. What's important to note, however, is that every credible study shows that over the last several decades, Arctic Sea ice has been lower in extent, area, and volume than at any time in many, many centuries (and probably beyond that).
-http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/minimum201 1-en.pdf
-http://www.livescience.com/10678-arctic-sea-ice-l owest-point-thousands-years.html
-http://www.skepticalscience.com/Arctic-sea-ice-ho ckey-stick-melt-unprecedented-in-last-1450-years.h tml
Simulated global temperature in experiments that include human influences (pink line), and model experiments that included only natural factors (blue line). The black line is observed temperature change.
www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators
The time for action is today as the discussion as to the warming casusation was moot 10 years ago.
There are now 383 Giorni Day's until the 2012 Winter Solstice.
Enjoy your weekend.
..Gone, gone, gone
Nobody's fault but mine.
What a delightful day.
Durban – Conference of Parties – An Ethical Problem:
Yes indeed, Agenda 21 does have it's ethical problems.
Filed under: Climate modelling Climate Science Paleoclimate
There is a new paper on Science Express that examines the constraints on climate sensitivity from looking at the last glacial maximum (LGM), around 21,000 years ago [Schmittner et al (2011)] (SEA). The headline number (2.3ºC) is a little lower than IPCC’s “best estimate” of 3ºC global warming for a doubling of CO2, but within the likely range (2-4.5ºC) of the last IPCC report. However, there are reasons to think that the result may well be biased low, and stated with rather more confidence than is warranted given the limitations of the study.
Ouch, a little harsh in the verbage runner.
Here be the science.
November Summary for Fairbanks...
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FAIRBANKS AK
1155 AM AKST THU DEC 1 2011
...MONTHLY WEATHER SUMMARY FOR FAIRBANKS ALASKA...
...OUTSTANDING COLD SNAP MID-MONTH...
NOVEMBER 2011 WILL LONG BE REMEMBERED FOR THE MID-WINTER-LIKE COLD
SNAP WHICH SETTLED IN THE WEEK BEFORE THANKSGIVING. THE WEEK OF
NOVEMBER 15TH TO 21ST...WITH AN AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF
30.1 BELOW...IS THE COLDEST WEEK EVER RECORDED IN FAIRBANKS BEFORE
THANKSGIVING DAY. SIX DAILY RECORD LOWS WERE SET DURING THIS
TIME...WHICH IS TRULY OUTSTANDING FOR A LOCATION WITH MORE THAN A
CENTURY OF UNBROKEN WEATHER OBSERVATIONS.
THE FIRST HALF OF NOVEMBER...WITH AN AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF 3.0
DEGREES ABOVE ZERO WAS ONLY A BIT COOLER THAN NORMAL.
HOWEVER...THE SECOND HALF OF THE MONTH...WITH AN AVERAGE
TEMPERATURE OF MINUS 19.2 DEGREES WAS THE COLDEST SECOND HALF OF
NOVEMBER SINCE 1963.
FOR THE MONTH AS A WHOLE...AT THE AIRPORT THE AVERAGE HIGH
TEMPERATURE WAS ZERO AND THE AVERAGE LOW 17 BELOW. THE AVERAGE
TEMPERATURE LAST MONTH OF 8.2 BELOW MADE THIS THE SIXTH COLDEST
NOVEMBER OF RECORD. DURING THE PAST 50 YEARS...THE ONLY COLDER
NOVEMBER WAS IN 2006...WHEN THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS 9.9 BELOW.
THE COLDEST NOVEMBER OF RECORD WAS IN 1927...WHEN THE AVERAGE
TEMPERATURE WAS MINUS 11.2 DEGREES.
THE HIGH FOR THE MONTH WAS 25 DEGREES ON THE 4TH. THE LOWEST
TEMPERATURE AT THE AIRPORT WAS 41 BELOW ON THE 17TH...AND IS THE
FIRST TIME THE TEMPERATURE HAS FALLEN PAST 40 BELOW IN NOVEMBER
SINCE 1994. SEVEN DAYS HAD LOW TEMPERATURES OF 30 BELOW OR
LOWER...THE MOST IN A NOVEMBER SINCE 1963. SOMEWHAT LOWER
TEMPERATURES WERE RECORDED IN THE NORMALLY COLDER SPOTS...INCLUDING
49 BELOW IN NORTH POLE ON THE 17TH.
SNOWFALL WAS GENERALLY A BIT BELOW NORMAL IN THE IMMEDIATE FAIRBANKS
AREA...AND NEARLY ALL OF IT FELL DURING THE FIRST TWO WEEKS OF THE
MONTH. THE TOTAL AT THE AIRPORT OF 9.2 INCHES WAS ABOUT 4 INCHES
BELOW NORMAL. THIS MELTED DOWN TO 0.46 INCHES OF WATER...WHICH IS
ABOUT TWO-THIRDS OF NORMAL. SNOW DEPTHS INCREASED FROM 3 INCHES ON
THE FIRST TO A STEADY 7 INCHES THE LAST TWO WEEKS OF THE MONTH.
HIGHER SNOWFALL AMOUNTS WERE OBSERVED NORTH OF TOWN. FOR NOVEMBER
12.0 INCHES OF SNOW WAS MEASURED AT MILE 42 STEESE HIGHWAY. THE
KEYSTONE RIDGE COOPERATIVE STATION...NEAR MURPHY DOME...REPORTED
20.7 INCHES OF SNOW FOR THE MONTH.
WINDS WERE CHARACTERISTICALLY LIGHT IN NOVEMBER...ESPECIALLY
DURING THE COLDEST WEATHER. AVERAGE DAILY WIND SPEEDS WERE LESS
THAN TWO MPH EVERY DAY AFTER THE 13TH. ICE FOG DURING THE COLDEST
WEATHER WAS NOT ESPECIALLY DENSE.
LOOKING AHEAD TO DECEMBER...NORMAL TEMPERATURES SLOWLY DECLINE...
FROM 2 BELOW ON THE FIRST TO 7 BELOW ON NEW YEARS EVE. OVER THE
PAST 106 YEARS...DECEMBER TEMPERATURES HAVE RANGED FROM A HIGH OF
58 DEGREES IN 1934 TO 62 BELOW IN 1961. ON AVERAGE A FOOT OF NEW
SNOW FALLS DURING THE MONTH...BUT HAS RANGED FROM 50.7 INCHES IN
1984 TO JUST A TRACE IN 1969. POSSIBLE SUNSHINE DECREASES FROM 4
HOUR 42 MINUTES ON THE FIRST TO 3 HOURS 42 MINUTES FOR A FEW DAYS
AROUND THE WINTER SOLSTICE...AND THEN INCREASES THEREAFTER.
$$
RT DEC
Returns with his handles galore.
Suggestion: to show him the door,
Just simply report and ignore.
Well, Fairbanks isn't the globe. But since you're interested in Alaska's weather, here are a few interesting nuggets:
--For the sixth straight year, Fairbanks in central Alaska had its first freeze more than two weeks later than the long-term average.
--Starting on June 30 of this year, Barrow, Alaska, had a record 86 consecutive days above freezing. The previous record was set in 2009, with 68 days. (And Barrow, as you'll note, is considerable farther north than Fairbanks.)
Unusual drought triggers alarm across Balkans
Calls for hose pipe ban after warmest November in 353 years
Swiss ski resorts hit by drought
"So, denialists can try to claim that the sudden disappearance of north polar ice tells us nothing about global warming, but that's only a logical statement if a viable alternative explanation is proposed. So unless the Theory of Sudden Magic Invisible Ice-Eating Fairies is given credence, AGW is the only thing that can possibly account for the loss."
Oh, really. No, it doesn't work that way. I say the Arctic has experienced low levels of ice extent may times before. There are historical accounts that attest to that statement. You say there is a sudden loss. Define sudden relative to other accounts of low ice as recently as the 1920s. You say it is man caused. Prove that this decline in ice extent is different than the 1920s which we know was not man caused or the many other times prior which we know were not man caused.
You are the theorist here, not me. The burden of proof is yours, not mine.
Nope in order for that to happen the Arctic Ice extent must be stable. That is not happening!
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