Climate Change : The Nature of the Problem

1. ClimateChange: The Nature of the Problem SustainableDevelopment

3. Joseph Fourier discovered that the atmosphere traps heat (1820s)

4. John Tyndallidentified the gases that trap heat (1861)

5. Svante ArrheniusNobel Prize 1903 Calculated that a doubling of CO2 would produce 1.5 -4.5 o C warming

6. G.S. CALLENDAR claimed that anthropogenic global warming was underway (1930s)

7. Gilbert Plassaverage global temperature will increase "at the rate of 1.1 degree C per century.” (1956)

8. Roger Revelle1909-1991

9. Roger Revelle, 1957 “Human beings are now carrying out a large-scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be repeated in the future…Within a few centuries we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years.”

10. The rise of the German Greens • 1983 enter the German Parliament winning 27 seats • 1984 enter the European Parliament 1983-1984

11. 1987 BrundtlandCommission Our Common Future Places climate change in the larger frame of the interlinking crises of: North/South division Environment/Development Popularizes the phrase “sustainable development”

12. The world was no longer fractured on East/West lines into two ideological blocks • The new division was North/South • The solution was to join hands and solve the twin challenges of environment and development The Age of Climate Diplomacy1988-2009

13. The IPCC is established The UN General Assembly passes a resolution, proposed by Malta on the “conservation of climate as part of the common heritage of mankind,” creating the mandate for the negotiation of a convention 1988UN System

14. 1990First IPCC Report “We are certain of the following: there is a natural greenhouse effect…; emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of …greenhouse gases;…These increases will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface.”

15. 1995IPCC Second Report “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”

16. Over the next two years the parties to the FCCC would negotiate a protocol, which for the developed countries, would “set quantified limitation and reduction objectives within specified time-frames, such as 2005, 2010 and 2020,” while developing countries would be under no additional obligations during the same period. 1995Berlin Mandate

17. “The United States should not be a signatory to any protocol…regarding the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change…which would…mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I countries, unless the protocol…also mandates specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period.” 1997Byrd-Hagel Resolution

18. 1997 Kyoto ProtocolEstablished first binding emissions limits for Annex I countriesSigned by the US, renounced in 2001Effective 2005

19. 2001IPCC Third Report The global average surface temperature has increased over the 20th century by about 0.6°C There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities Human influences will continue to change atmospheric composition throughout the 21st century

20. IPCC 2007 Report Atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750, and CO2 levels are now higher than at anytime in the past 650,000 years Earth’s mean surface temperature has increased .8 C from the pre-industrial baseline Anthropogenic warming of the climate system is “unequivocal”

21. IPCC 2007 Report (Cont.) World temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 °C (2.0 and 11.5 °F) during the 21st century Sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59 cm (7.08 to 23.22 in) There will be more frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall. There will be an increase in droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high tides. Warming and sea level rise will continue for more than a millennium.

23. Decline of EU leadership • Inability of American leadership • BRICS • Fracturing of Alliances • The East Anglia Scandal 2009Copenhagen

24. The Dream is Over ClimateDiplomacy

27. 2010 will be either hottest or second hottest year on record Data from Climatic Research UnitUniversity of East Anglia, UK Black line is a smoothed curve with an approximately decadal time scale Anomaly scale is arbitrary: difference from1961-1990 average

28. Positive Proofs

29. What Are We Doing? The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing at about 2ppm per year 280 to 390 ppm from 1750-2011 Annual global emissions were increasing about 4% per year, until the global recession The Earth has already warmed .8 C and would warm to at least 1.5 C if all emissions stopped now

30. Population Growth 1.2% per year Land Use Change 4% per year Increasing meat consumption 2% per year Increasing energy use 44% increase from 2007-2030 (EIA) The trends that drive increases in greenhouse gas emissions are also continuing

31. Why Have We Failed to Act?

32. “The picture’s pretty bleak, gentlemen … the world’s climates are changing, the mammals are taking over,
and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut.”

33. Nordhaus (2006) • Optimal policy is a carbon tax of about $17 in 2005, ramping up to $270 in 2100 • Nordhaus (2010) • Optimal mode is carbon tax of of $38 per ton, beginning in 2015, then ramping upward, resulting in 600 ppm/3 C increase • 2 C requires a carbon tax of $80 per ton in 2015 Climate Economics

34. Mendelson • The models neglect • Adaptation • Dynamism of capital • Benefits of warming • Changing mix of economy through time Others Say Spend More • Weitzman • Economic models understate the probability and costs of catastrophic climate change Some Say Spend Less

35. Future economic damages could be 20% of global GDP • Optimal carbon tax now is $311 Stern (2006)

36. Different damage estimates because • Different assumptions about technological change • Different damage models • Different discount rates Nordhaus discounts 3% for pure time preference while Stern discounts .1% Nordhaus thinks the choice of a discount rate is an empirical question while Stern thinks its an ethical question How do they get different numbers?

37. 1] ) Cowan and Parfit (1992)

38. How do we empirically identify discount rates? • Interests of the present inevitably outweighed by the combined weight of the future • The paradox of each generation sacrificing for a future that never arrives • What about aversion to inequality? • The present poor sacrificing for the future rich • The Non-Identity Problem • The Intuition of Neutrality • Are there right answers, or only wrong answers? Issues about the future

39. Nordhaus • is working towards a global benefit-cost analysis • which he takes as an empirical exercise • about which he thinks we can be confident • Stern • views climate change as a risk management problem involving great uncertainties and diverse values that cannot all be quantified • whichhas ethical dimensions that are central to its very articulation • about which we should not be very confident The Deep Differences

40. Treats all preferences as commensurable, typically by monetarizing them. • But such diverse values as biodiversity protection, social solidarity, increments of income cannot always be put on the same scale, much less monetarized. Benefit-Cost Analysis

41. Discounts future benefits and costs since most of us prefer “jam today” to “jam tomorrow” • But present people are getting the jam and leaving environmental destruction for future people • Future costs and benefits disappear on high discount rates Benefit-Cost Analysis

42. It assimilates public choice to what would be in the interests of a single, rational individual, whose preferences were complete, coherent, and consistent. • But communities are diverse, involving individuals with different interests, and are not (in the economists’ sense) perfectly rational or even, in many cases, aspire to be. Benefit-Cost Analysis Distorts Public Decision-Making

43. Climate Economics Poses Ethical Questions Not Economic Solutions Conclusion

44. Reframing, through: • Politics • Morality Alternatives/Complements

45. * Technical • Complex • Probabilistic • Long-term • Temporally and spatially unbound • Multiple causes and effects • Indirect causes and effects • Invisible effects Cognitive and Affective Failures

46. Status Quo bias • Short time horizons • Issue competition • Corporate dominance • Hyperpartisanship • Weak Multilateralism • Poor Theory: Global Justice, Equality, Human Rights Political Problems

47. Scientific Ignorance • Problems with the Science/Policy Interface • Framing Cultural and Institutional Problems