3 November 2015, ITV, What you need to know about the Paris climate change summit. A meeting later this month will see 190 nations convene in Paris to try and work out a way to tackle climate change. Here is what you need to know about it: What is the Paris meeting? On November 30, 190 nations will gather for two weeks to try and work out a deal to tackle climate change. The aim will be to find a way to reduce the global emissions of greenhouse gases – such as carbon dioxide and methane – over the coming decades to avoid the world’s average temperature increasing by no more than 2C by the end of this century. That’s compared to the world’s temperature before the industrial revolution around 150 years ago, when parts of the world began the mass burning of fossil fuels. Go above that rise in temperature, say scientists, and we tip over into “dangerous climate change” where there will be drastic increases in floods, storms, heatwaves and other catastrophic and irreversible environmental changes around the world. These will disproportionately affect the poorest parts of the world, those least able to adapt. At the moment, if the world does nothing, it is on course for a 5C temperature rise by 2100. This might not seem like much, but bear in mind that the average difference between now and the Earth’s previous Ice Age was around 5C. Read More here
Yearly Archives: 2015
3 November 2015, Bloomberg View, What Economists Don’t Get About Climate Change. Economists tend to see climate change as a big optimization problem: Weigh the potential costs of future disasters against the benefits of fossil-fueled economic growth, and find a price of carbon that will balance the two. Unfortunately, it’s an illusory goal. The Cost of Carbon Consider, for example, a recent study by Yale University’s Kenneth Gillingham and colleagues. Using a collection of so-called “integrated” models of climate and the economy, they seek to get a better handle on how various uncertainties — in weather, population growth and technological development — might affect the price that policy makers should put on carbon. Their conclusion: No matter what happens, the optimal price in 2020 would probably be no more than about $50 per ton. The paper’s appearance may be timed to influence policy makers at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, which begins at the end of this month. It really shouldn’t, because it feigns certainty in areas where none is to be had. Granted, such integrated models include some realistic climate physics and economics. Yet their builders inevitably face crucial questions about which we know very little. For example, just how sensitive are global temperatures to the addition of further carbon dioxide? And how much economic damage can we expect from a temperature rise of, say, 2 degrees or 5 degrees? Read More here
3 November 2015, The Conversation, As drought looms, the Murray-Darling is in much healthier shape – just don’t get complacent. Melbourne Cup Day is a significant day in the history of water policy in Australia. The first Tuesday in November 2006 saw the then Prime Minister John Howard intervene decisively in the growing drought crisis in the southern Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). Nine years on, the spectre of drought is back. The Murray Darling Basin Authority’s weekly reports show inflows into the River Murray (which can be seen as a proxy for the southern MDB) during the year to end September 2015 were the among the lowest on record. And the Bureau of Meteorology’s National Climate and Water Briefing last week suggests a warm and dry summer in prospect in the southern MDB, amid a still strengthening El Niño. Yet there are reasons to believe that these past nine years of stronger Commonwealth involvement have left the MDB much better placed to withstand an escalating drought. That said, there is no room for complacency, and continuing Commonwealth commitment is still needed if those hard-won gains are to be retained. Read More here
2 November 2015, Climate News Network, Cash is key to Paris climate talks success. Former key figure in UN climate change policy-making says economists now see that development without destroying the environment is the only way forward. In a world entirely divorced from the politics and rhetoric surrounding the continuing climate change negotiations, countries are quietly getting on with rapid development combined with environmental protection. Yvo de Boer, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has found renewed hope and a different perspective as the Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute, which he is running from Seoul in South Korea. “People in Asia have moved away from the idea that development comes first and then we can then worry about the environment,” he says. “Here, there is terrible poverty, but they have realised that the development, social inclusion and protecting the environment must go hand in hand.” He said it was clear from talking to economists at the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris that they too realise that clean development is not just the best way forward but the only way. Read More here