Climate Change Science for Policy Making and Public Participation

1. Climate Change Science for Policy Making and Public Participation Yap Kok Seng Malaysian Meteorological Department Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation Association of Space Explorers XXIII Planetary Congress Technical Session: The Impact of Climate Change on Human Welfare 8 Oct 2010 MMU, Cyberjaya, Malaysia

2. OUTLINE • Climate Change Science • Climate Change Impacts in the tropics • UNFCCC Negotiations • Public Outreach and Participation

3. Climate Change Science

4. Projected climate change depends on: • Development pathway of the world • population growth and consumption patterns • energy sources & consumption (e.g. fossil fuel usage) • Land use change • technological change

5. Future Climate Change Projections: Based on IPCC’s SRES Marker Scenarios 5

7. Comparison between TAR (left) and AR4 (right) results SRES → Global sea level rise of 18 - 59 cm at the end of the 21st Century (2090 - 2100)

8. Projected future changes vary spatially (Comparisons are with 1980-1999) • Regional changes (+/-) of up to 20% in average rainfall • And also… • Increase in heavy rainfall (very likely) • Increase in drought (likely) in 2090-99 However rainfall details vary from model to model ! Projected Patterns of Temperature Changes • 2090-2099: • Global average warming: 2.8oC • Increase in hot extremes and heat waves (very likely) Source: IPCC AR4 WG1

9. Projected Rainfall Changes (%) for the Early 21st Century (2020 – 2029) Relative to the Period 1990-1999 (Last Decade of the 20th Century) Based on SRES A1B

10. Projected Rainfall Changes (mm) Relative to the Baseline (1961-1990) for Sarawak from Nine AOGCMs, Based on SRES A1B Nine GCM (10-year Running Mean)

11. AOGCMs to Regional Impacts/Adaptive Responses: Modelling Path AOGCM & AGCM simulates the response of the global circulation to large scale forcings (e.g. GHG radiative forcing) Nested RCM simulates The effect of sub-GCM scale regional forcings (e.g. topography, veg. ..) PRECIS (50km / 25 km) • It is important to stress that when used in one-way mode: • nested RCMs are not expected to correct large errors in the GCM forcing fields; but • mostly to add fine-scale regional information to the large scale climate signal

12. Climate Change Impacts in the tropics

14. Public Health Climate Change impacts on important sectors Water Resources Agriculture Forestry Settlements Coastal Resources

15. Other changes include … Ocean Acidification Glacial Melting Coral Bleaching Wx and Climate extremes

16. NORTH ATLANTIC THERMOHALINE CIRCULATION approximately 25% reduction by end of 21st century Shift towards “El Nino” like

17. The strongest El Nino was in 1997/1998 A strong El Nino is overdue • Under Warmer Future Climate: • Weak shift towards average background conditions which may be • described as “El Nino” like • Eastward shift in mean precipitation • Weakened tropical Circulation • Continued inter-annual variability of ENSO

18. UNFCCC Negotiations

19. CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and cement manufacturing – 2007(thousands of tons of CO2) • Malaysia’s emission 0.66 % of world emissions • Emissions per capita is about 7.2 tons • With forest sinks, the emission is near net zero

23. From Bali Action Plan, 2007 to Cancun 2010 Parties to reach agreement by the end of 2009 on effective, feasible, and fair actions beyond 2012 to address risks of climate change driven by human-related emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), focusing on four elements: • Mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions • Adaptation to impacts of climate change • Financial assistance to developing countries • Technology development and transfer to developing countries

24. The Relationship between Key Climate Bodies & Current Negotiations Global Environment Facility IPCC UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Kyoto Protocol AWG Long-term Cooperative Action Targets, Timetables, & Flexible Mechanisms Bali Plan of Action: (2007) - shared vision - mitigation - adaptation - tech transfer - financing AWG-KP Political Agreement ---------------------- Legal Agreement COP15: Copenhagen COP16 & Beyond

25. Copenhagen Accord : Mitigation • Agreement to limit temperature rise to not more than 2 degrees C from pre-industrial times • Agreement on a differentiated registry where developed countries would register targets and key developing countries would register actions by January 31st 2010. These actions would be reviewed. • Status of pledges : • 138 countries, including the 27-member EU, are likely to or have engaged with the accord, representing 86.76% of global emissions • 8 countries will not engage with the accord, representing 2.09% of global emissions • 47 countries have not responded • http://www.usclimatenetwork.org/policy/copenhagen-accord-commitments 25

26. Copenhagen Accord : Financing • •Developed countries would raise funds of $30 billion from 2010-2012 of new and additional resources • Agrees a "goal" for the world to raise $100 billion per year by 2020, from "a wide variety of sources", to help developing countries cut carbon emissions (mitigation). New multilateral funding for adaptation will be delivered, with a balanced governance structure • Establishes a Copenhagen Green Climate Fund, as an operating entity of the financial mechanism, "to support projects, programme, policies and other activities in developing countries”. To this end, creates a High Level Panel (Ban Ki Moon) 26

27. Public Outreach & Participation

28. Conserve and stop wasting All electrical appliance in room are switched off when room is vacant Solar panel for water heating Switch off unnecessary electrical appliance in house and office Water tanks for harvesting rain water Using energy-saving bulbs Conserve water

29. 3R Reduce Reuse Recycle

30. The NGV Powered Intra-City Bus & Taxi Use environmentally friendly public transport Efficient Feeder Bus Route Network Light Rail Transit (LRT) Commuter & ERL

31. Sustainable Living Environment: Keep the environment green and clean

32. Forest Conservation

33. It is our responsibility to keep Earth Safe ! Thank you!