IPCC Archives - The India Climate Observatory

The deviant race to put a price on nature

August 31, 2021 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

A village road that passes through wetlands, with high-tide waters flowing over it. Not automatically a sign of rising sea levels, but in this case very much more likely because adjacent wetlands have been filled in and built upon, and so the water displaced has travelled here.

On 6 August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formally approved and released its latest report, the ‘Summary for Policymakers’ of the ‘Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis’ and its underlying assessment.

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred,” is one of what are called the report’s headline statements. “Global surface temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2,000 years” is another. “Temperatures during the most recent decade (2011-2020) exceed those of the most recent multi-century warm period, around 6,500 years ago” is one more.

What we have seen, for more than a decade, is the insistence by multi-lateral agencies and organisations that we are beset by natural circumstances that with every passing year have become more threatening. This insistency speaks of a ‘climate emergency’, by which is generally meant the human-induced increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases like CO2 and CH4, which can be connected to rising global temperatures, and to the incidence of droughts, floods heatwaves, crop failures, rising sea levels.

What we have also seen is ‘climate emergency’ as declarations by politicians, by people who are known as ‘policy makers’, by various kinds of scientists and researchers in a number of scientific disciplines, and by international agencies and formal grupings that have long since become too many to count. What they have in common is the claim that they are taking the climate emergency seriously and that we can trust them to do something effective about it.

What do they want to do? The new IPCC report repeats all the old emergencies:

The land surface will continue to warm more than the ocean surface.
With every additional increment of global warming, changes in extremes continue to become larger.
There will be an increasing occurrence of extreme events.
The Arctic is projected to experience about three times the rate of global warming.
Heavy precipitation events will intensify and become more frequent in most regions.
Intense tropical cyclones are projected to increase.
Precipitation and surface water flows are projected to become more variable over most land regions.
A warmer climate will intensify very wet and very dry weather.
Monsoon precipitation is projected to increase in the mid- to long-term for regions that have monsoon rains.

For the year 2021, the latter half of the year is being prepared to see a number of large meetings, or negotiations, on a group of themes that are linked: climate, biodiversity, food, conservation of natural regions. We have begun with highlighting a very few messages from the August IPCC report and will do the same in teh weeks and months ahead for what remains to be rolled out from the well-stocked stables of the multi-lateral derby.

We have seen it become more obvious that the widely spread group of organisations and agencies active in these subjects are following a particular line. This line uses as its currency the addressing of the global climate and environmental crisis. The objectiv is to “save nature” but by turning it into a huge money spinner. That spinning of money is meant to inject new fuel into the world’s economic growth model. This sees nature’s cycles and processes being called instead “natural capital” which is to be priced and tradable on financial markets.

Of course, we strongly oppose such a deviant view of nature and oppose just as much the mendacious financial jugglery that these agencies and organisations are advancing, as fast as they can. Nature is not capital, is not to be and cannot be valued in the ways that they insist upon, and it is abhorrent that nature is being described as ‘tradeable’ in any way. We will continue to explain why between now and the end of 2021. (RG)

India becoming 1.4°C warmer until 2045

August 5, 2017 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Launched in 2009 with the support of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India, the Centre of Climate Change Research (CCCR) is part of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune, Maharashtra. The CCCR focuses on development of new climate modelling capabilities in India and South Asia to address issues concerning the science of climate change.

The Centre has now released an ‘Interim Report on Climate Change over India’ which is intended to provide a brief overview of: (a) updated assessment of observed climate change over India, (b) future climate projections over India, (c) development of the IITM Earth System Model to better understand and quantify climate change and its regional impacts. The three topics, which are among the core research activities of the CCCR at IITM, have been presented as three chapters in this Interim Report, and an updated report is planned to be submitted later next year.

Assessments of impacts of climate change and future projections over the Indian region, have so far relied on a single regional climate model (RCM) such as the PRECIS RCM of the Hadley Centre, UK. While these assessments have provided inputs to various reports (INCCA 2010; NATCOMM2 2012), it is important to have an ensemble of climate projections drawn from multiple RCMs due to large uncertainties in regional-scale climate projections. Ensembles of multi-RCM projections driven under different perceivable socio-economic scenarios are required to capture the probable path of growth, and provide the behavior of future climate and impacts on various biophysical systems and economic sectors dependent on such systems. [The full report is available here (pdf).]

The Centre for Climate Change Research, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (CCCR-IITM) has generated an ensemble of high resolution downscaled projections of regional climate and monsoon over South Asia until 2100 for the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) using a RCM (ICTP-RegCM4) at 50 km horizontal resolution, by driving the regional model with lateral and lower boundary conditions from multiple global atmosphere-ocean coupled models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The future projections are based on three Representation Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios (viz., RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP8.5) of the IPCC.

These high-resolution downscaled projections of regional climate over South Asia are generated as part of the International Programme called Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) sponsored by the World Climate Research Programme. This chapter provides a synthesis of results from the CORDEX South Asia multi-RCM outputs, that allows us to interpret the strengths and limitations of future regional climate projections over India. This information is useful to reduce uncertainty of impact assessment estimates to an extent and provide a pan-Indian regional assessment for informed policy-making.

Key points

⊗ The all India mean surface air temperature change for the near-term period 2016–2045 relative to 1976–2005 is projected to be in the range of 1.08°C to 1.44°C, and is larger than the natural internal variability. This assessment is based on a reliability ensemble average (REA) estimate incorporating each RCM performance and convergence, and is associated with less than 16% uncertainty range.

⊗ The all India mean surface air temperature is projected to increase in the far future (2066–2095) by 1.35 ± 0.23°C under RCP2.6, 2.41 ± 0.40°C under RCP4.5 and 4.19 ± 0.46°C under RCP8.5 scenario respectively. These changes are relative to the period 1976–2005. The semi-arid north-west and north India will likely warm more rapidly than the all India mean.

⊗ Monthly increase in all India mean surface air temperature based on REA estimate is relatively higher during winter months than in the summer monsoon months throughout the 21st century under the three RCP scenarios.

⊗ The REA changes for all India annual minimum temperature of 4.43 ± 0.34oC is more pronounced than that of 3.94 ± 0.45oC and 4.19 ± 0.46oC increases estimated for the respective annual maximum and mean temperatures respectively the end of the 21st century under RCP8.5 scenario. The models project substantial changes in temperature extremes over India by the end of the 21st century, with a likely overall decrease in the number of cold days and nights, and increase in the number of warm days and nights.

⊗ Although the all India annual precipitation is found to increase as temperature increases, the REA assessment indicates that precipitation changes throughout the 21st century remain highly uncertain.

⊗ The all India annual precipitation extremes are projected to increase with relatively higher uncertainty under RCP8.5 scenario by the end of the 21st century. The downscaled projections suggest that intensification of both dry and wet seasons is expected along the west coast of India and in the adjoining peninsular region.

The multi-RCM ensemble mean annual precipitation mid-term increase exceeds 10% over the west coast and the adjoining southern parts of the Indian peninsula for RCP4.5 scenario, while in the long-term the change for this mid-scenario exceeds 20% over the south-west coast and the adjoining Kerala state. The precipitation changes are not significant over the remaining parts of India for this mid-scenario up to the mid 21st century, however in long-term increase exceed 10% over north-west and adjoining parts of the country. The long-term projected annual precipitation increase exceeds 10% over most parts of India except in Jammu and Kashmir under RCP8.5 scenario, with relatively higher increase exceeding 30% projected along the west coast of India for this high-emission scenario by the end of 21st century.

Mr Modi’s carbon nationalism

April 14, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi were better advised he could avoid being contradictory in his discourses – including informal ones such as the one he delivered a few days ago in Germany – about development, about our traditions and about climate change. The NDA-BJP government is almost a year old, and Modi’s short conversation on these subjects only underlines that his government is still ill-advised on climate change.

There are aspects of his conversation, conducted with the Indian community in Berlin, the capital of Germany, with which we agree. And there are more aspects with which we do not. Here, provided in the order they were reported upon, is what Modi said, followed by our view.

a) “I am surprised that the world is scolding us even though our per capita gas emission is the lowest.”

We cannot calculate our way out of the position that, in April 2015, our population is about 1,275 million people and that each of these people – young and old, rich and poor, urban and rural – is responsible to some degree for emissions. What “the world” is more pertinently reminding us about is that the number of Indian citizens multiplied by an ‘average’ emission does amount to a very large volume of carbon (and of gases that add to global warming and climate change).

What this government ought to be paying very much more attention to are the relative inequalities – inside an apparently low per capita emission. In the first place, minors and seniors generally have a smaller (or even much smaller) individual footprint. That leaves about 688 million adults whose contributions to emissions need to be considered. From this number, it is the 241 million or so adult inhabitants of our urban areas whose contributions count for more, and amongst these it is those who have entered (or are entering) the middle strata of the middle class, and of course those who are wealthier than the middle class, whose individual and household contributions count for even more.

So the question to the Prime Minister is not about low per capita emissions but about the inequalities present in individual and household emissions responsibilities that are obscured by the large number of 1,275 million. We may be indifferent to the ‘scolding’ of the world, but we do think think there should be far more scolding within India, the states and the cities, for our continuing to use a per capita emissions basis that hides true responsibility.

b) “The whole world is posing questions to us. Those who have destroyed climate are asking questions to us. If anybody has served nature, it is Indians.”

We agree that our serving of nature has been exemplary in recorded and oral histories, but only until the present era and particularly until the immediate contemporary period from around 1990. Over the last generation and a half, we cannot make such a claim.

Our South Asian neighbours – Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – have by all three measures relatively small global impacts. The size of our population and the depth of our industry and economy however has made India the third largest emitter of CO2 (after China and the USA). But if India seeks some sort of ‘parity’ in electricity use – or if India sees the low per capita CO2 emissions as a ‘development’ gap – our total contribution to CO2 emissions will only rise faster, hurting the environment (and nature) that we share with our neighbours.

This is unlikely to result in any constructive recognition of all that is linked. A country’s total emissions is one part of the ‘development’ picture and others are at least as important. There are also tons of CO2 emitted per capita (India has often said that its per capita emissions are far below those of the West). And there is per capita consumption of electricity (which is still mainly generated by burning coal).

c) “India will set the agenda for the upcoming Conference of Parties (COP)” [meeting that is to be held in Paris, France, in September].

As for setting an agenda, what is to be set, with what section of citizens’ agreement and under whose terms, all these remain unknown. Modi’s assertion comes as a surprise then. For the citizens of India and the residents of 35 states and union territories are ignorant of such an agenda, if it exists. We would prefer to recall some of the good advice provided by the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report: “Climate change has the characteristics of a collective action problem at the global scale, because most greenhouse gases accumulate over time and mix globally, and emissions by any agent (individual, community, company, country) affect other agents.”

Thus the message to policy-makers is clear – what counts is what you do at home, in states and districts. The expectation that “international cooperation” should guide effective adaptation at all levels is no longer (and in our view has never been) tenable.

d) Modi said the solutions to the ‘crisis’ are in India’s traditions and customs, and that India wants solutions to the global problem of climate change.

What we see however is embarrassing proof of our very un-ecological and climate unfriendly new habits. In urban areas – where most of the buying of vehicles for households has taken place – the physical space available for the movement of people and goods has increased only marginally, but the number of vehicles (cars, two-wheelers, goods carriers) has increased quickly. Naturally this ‘growth’ has choked our city wards. More motorised conveyance per household also means more fuel demanded per household, and more fuel (and money) wasted because households are taught (by the auto industry) that they are entitled to wasteful personal mobility. Over 20 years, the number of cars per household has increased 4.1 times but the number of buses per household has increased only 2.8 times. This negligent wastefulness is at odds with the ‘traditions and customs’ referred to by Prime Minister Modi.

Finally, as we pointed out recently, there are no ‘terms of trade’ concerning climate change and its factors. There is no deal to jockey for in climate negotiations between a narrow and outdated idea of GDP-centred ‘development’ and monetary compensation. The government of India is not a broking agency to bet a carbon-intensive future for India against the willingness of Western countries to pay in order to halt such a future. This is not a carbon casino and the NDA-BJP government must immediately stop behaving as if it is.

Chop suey climate calculations

November 14, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

The China-USA ‘deal’ has shockingly ignored the central message of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, whose final synthesis has just been released. The evaluation made in this fifth report is not fundamentally different from the fourth (in 2007) but the confidence levels of the warnings issued is greater. Areas of uncertainty are becoming clearer and the concern of the contributing scientists is more obvious than ever before. They have used the phrase “virtually certain” (more than 99% probability) frighteningly often to describe likelihood of phenomena which affect our ecology and our habitats.

Special bulletin of the India Climate Watch on the China-USA climate ‘deal’. [pdf, 91kb]

The staged euphoria over this ‘deal’ does not obscure its non-binding nature. According to commentary from the People’s Republic, 2030 would be set as the peak year for its soaring greenhouse gas emissions, while the USA said it would cut emissions by more than a quarter from 2005 levels by 2025.

In China, total final oil products consumption in 2012 was 421 mtoe (in 2007 it was 308 mtoe) while the use of coal continued to rise – 558 mtoe in 2012 whereas it was 480 mtoe in 2007. In China the totals for all energy sources was 1,703 mtoe in 2012 which is 28% above what it was (1,326 mtoe) five years earlier.

This special bulletin of the India Climate Watch explains the trade and manufacturing, geo-strategic ambitions and power jockeying, these are the objectives behind the so-called ‘deal’ between China and USA on ‘cutting’ carbon emissions and pollution. This special bulletin urges the government of India to take moral leadership of the inter-governmental process towards lower emissions and the phasing out of fossil fuels.

No American chop suey, thank you

November 13, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama address a joint press conference following their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China. Photo: Xinhua / Liu Weibing

Trade and manufacturing, geo-strategic ambitions and power jockeying, these are the objectives behind the so-called ‘deal’ between China and USA on ‘cutting’ carbon emissions and pollution. The ‘deal’ was announced at the conclusion of the 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Summit, held in Beijing, China, and therefore partly reflected the agendas of Asian trade within the region and with the USA.

The ‘deal’ on climate between President of China Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama indicates in the first place the internal compulsions faced by the governing leaderships that they represent in both countries. This balancing however is commonplace at economic and trade summits, where new agreements and pacts are presented as being good for the international order, but whose details reveal the truth. [Read the special India Climate Watch bulletin here.]

So it is with the Xi-Obama ‘deal’ on climate change and emissions, but with added aspects that are disturbing for the shape that the post-Kyoto framework on climate action is taking. According to media reports (mainly from the USA), representatives of the two governments have been negotiating for several months so that this ‘deal’ could be announced now.

If true, this tells us that equality of representation at international climate negotiations, and that a multi-lateral approach itself, are being ignored by the world’s biggest polluting country (China) and the world’s biggest economy (the USA, measured in current US dollars only). In preparing for such a ‘deal’ therefore, the political leaderships of both countries have signalled that their international responsibilities towards climate justice matter less than bolstering a trading system which rests on globalised production, deployment of capital and homogenous consumption.

The IPCC’s advice on reaching resilience during an era of changing climate. Quite ignored by the leadership of the two biggest polluting countries. Image: IPCC

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, issued a statement welcoming this ‘deal’. In it Ban has welcomed “the joint announcement” by the two leaders “of their post-2020 action on climate change, as an important contribution to the new climate agreement to be reached in Paris next year”. The UN must perforce look for some positive element in any such ‘deal’, but calling it an important contribution to COP 21 (conference of parties) to be held in Paris in 2015 is misleading.

Ban’s own statement has mentioned the need for “a meaningful, universal agreement in 2015” however the Beijing announcement signals that the opposite will ensue – economic and trading blocs will continue to advance their separate agendas and so subordain the responses required to climate change.

Ban has also welcomed “the commitment expressed by both leaders to increase their level of ambition over time as well as the framing of their actions in recognition of the goal of keeping global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius”.

This too is not so. The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (maintained by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre) has said that the required reduction in the increase in global CO2 emissions can be achieved provided: (a) China achieves its own target of a maximum level of energy consumption by 2015 and its shift to gas with a natural gas share of 10% by 2020; (b) the USA continues a shift its energy mix towards more gas and renewable energy; and (c) European Union member states agree on restoring the effectiveness of the EU Emissions Trading System to further reduce actual emissions. The actions thus outlined for the USA and China will under the new ‘deal’ either not take place or be loosely and ineffectually interpreted.

The view of China’s political establishment is visible in the treatment of the climate ‘deal’ by its official media. In its commentary on the Xi-Obama meeting, Xinhua, the state news agency, explained that President Xi Jinping “outlined six priorities in building a new type of major-country relationship with the United States”. The language and manner indicate that what is being presented in the media as a ‘landmark deal’ between the two countries on climate change is in fact part of a continuing re-negotiation of the roles of both countries in today’s world.

Special bulletin of the India Climate Watch on the China-USA climate ‘deal’.

The six priorities (this label follows the typical political construction of policy China – for years the ‘three represents’ of the Chinese Communist Party had guided state thinking) are: communication between high-level officials, mutual respect, cooperation in all aspects, management of disputes, collaboration in the Asia-Pacific and joint actions on global challenges. The response to climate change is part of the sixth priority, joint actions on global challenges (which also includes counter-terrorism and epidemic control). In its official statement on the ‘deal’, China has pointed out that in 2013 bilateral trade between the USA and the People’s Republic soared to US$ 520 billion while two-way investment stood at US$ 100 billion. This volume and flow is what will be protected to the extents possible by both governments.

Data from the International Energy Agency show that for the USA, total final oil products consumption in 2012 was 717 million tons of oil equivalent (mtoe; in 2007 the quantity was 829 mtoe) while the totals for all energy sources were 1,432 mtoe in 2012 which was a reduction from 1,572 mtoe in 2007). In China, total final oil products consumption in 2012 was 421 mtoe (in 2007 it was 308 mtoe) while the use of coal continued to rise – 558 mtoe in 2012 whereas it was 480 mtoe in 2007. In China the totals for all energy sources was 1,703 mtoe in 2012 which is 28% above what it was (1,326 mtoe) five years earlier.

A rapid analysis carried out by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) indicates that: (1) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the USA in 2025 will be 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent; from 1990 levels, the USA will reduce its emissions by just 15-17% by 2025; to meet the 2C target, US emissions should be at least 50-60% per cent below 1990 levels considering its historical responsibility of causing climate change, and (2) China’s emissions will peak at 17-20 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030 and its per capita emissions in 2030 will be 12-13 tons; these are not in line with the 2C emissions pathways put forth by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC has, less than a fortnight ago, presented the need for what it bluntly calls “zero net emissions” by 2100 – and that means changing economies and trade and the trend of globalisation now – to avert the worst. But the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, has called the China-US climate ‘deal’ “a heartening development, a good beginning and I hope the global community follows this lead and maybe builds on it”. This is certainly not the lead to follow, for it ignores the IPCC’s stark warning, and instead signals that global and regional powers can bully their way to gaining sanction for furthering their short-term economic agendas even while climate science demands that they do otherwise.

– Rahul Goswami

The IPCC’s India voice?

November 4, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

The three working groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report have occupied, for months on end, 837 of what the IPCC method calls ‘authors’. Most are scientists, with considerable experience in the areas of atmospheric, cryospheric, oceanographic or bio-geochemical sciences, but they are also social scientists and economists, administrators and statisticians.

Insofar as the ‘inter-governmental’ aspect of the IPCC is concerned, they have been drawn from a number of countries, and have usually classified themselves by country of residence and work (though some are classified by institution too, especially when that institution is directly or indirectly a United Nations institute). All have contributed – as coordinating lead author, lead author, review editor, or for a technical summary – to the many voluminous chapters that have taken shape as the Fifth Assessment Report.

Amongst this corps is India’s contribution to the effort, with 33 authors. This is not a small group, for there are 43 from China and 31 from Japan (these groups exclude those of Indian or Asian origin who are authors but who have identified themselves under other countries and institutions). Compared with the contingents from western Europe, the USA and the OECD countries (as a bloc), Asia may be seen to be under-represented (and Africa very much more so) in the IPCC evidence examining and report writing process but that is a separate matter.

What is germane to us is: has the IPCC process and method an Indian outlook that will be of as much utility at home as it has been to the inter-governmental effort? A short answer will be ‘no’ to the first query (because it is about science, evidence and international consensus and not about national priorities) and ‘don’t know’ to the second. There is no reason why a ‘don’t know’ should persist, as the Fifth Assessment process comes to a close, for the size of India’s population and economy, and the likely effects climate change has and is forecast to have on our 35 states and union territories ought to have turned climate change into common currency wherever planning is carried out and implemented.

But that is not so, despite 33 Indian authors having contributed to the IPCC Fifth Assessment. They represent a far greater number who are, in one or more ways, concerned with the impacts of climate change in India and with our responses to those changes. What has seemed to have stood in the way of an Indian and a Bharatiya view of climate change is the predilection by academicians (particularly from those used to working in inter-governmental and UN circles) to propagate at home the language of international climate negotiation rather than direct statements and questions that have to do with conditions on the ground in Madhya Maharashtra or Assam or Jharkhand.

Consider one amongst the several quotes lent to our media following the release of the Fifth Assessment Synthesis Report: “The IPCC synthesis report suggests a way of thinking about climate change that is deeply relevant to India. There is a complex two way relationship between sustainable development and climate change: climate policies should support not undermine sustainable development; but limiting the effects of climate change is necessary to achieve sustainable development. The report clearly states there are limits to adaptation. For India the message is that while adaptation is critical, keeping the pressure on for global mitigation is also key.”

Unfortunately for any administrator (such as a district collector or a watershed mapper or the superintendent of a regional referral hospital) such a statement says very little. It neither draws out any interest in further understanding the effects of climate change in the districts and towns of Bharat, nor does it help provide a personal context to what is unquestionably a reporting process of vital importance to us all.

Part of the problem is the UN/inter-governmental language of negotiation that has become the norm when speaking about (or writing about, for several of these 33 contribute articles to the media regularly) climate change. As busy people, they may expect the media to interpret into popular idiom, simplify and amplify, and otherwise lend local colour to their prose. If so, they are plain wrong, for the responsibility to do so is theirs, not the media’s.

Is there a demand for explanation that is true to context? There is practically none, and that is why this group (the 33 Indian contributors to the Fifth Assessment report) must be called upon to translate the IPCC method for local administrations. This is important as there are several worlds which do not intersect. That of the IPCC and the sophisticated cohort of institutions which have contributed to the Fifth Assessment report on the one hand, whereas everyday workaday life in Bharat’s 7,935 towns, cities and metropolises proceeds for many tens of millions with or without the magisterial pronouncements of the IPCC’s working groups. There will always be a gulf between these worlds, but there must also be bridges, and currently there are far too few.

Who can be called upon? Here is the current roll call. There are: Krishna Mirle Achutarao, Indian Institute of Technology; Pramod Aggarwal, CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security; Govindasamy Bala, Indian Institute of Science; Suruchi Bhadwal, The Energy and Resources Institute; Abha Chhabra, Indian Space Research Organisation; Pradeep Kumar Dadhich, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt. Ltd.; Purnamita Dasgupta, Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi Enclave; Navroz Dubash, Centre for Policy Research; Varun Dutt, Indian Institute of Technology; Amit Garg, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; Prashant Goswami, CSIR Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation; Anil Kumar Gupta, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology; Shreekant Gupta, University of Delhi; Sujata Gupta, Asian Development Bank (ADB); and Krishna Kumar Kanikicharla, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

Furthermore, there are: Arun Kansal, TERI University; Surender Kumar, University of Delhi; Ritu Mathur, The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI); Harini Nagendra, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE); Kirit S Parikh, Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe); Jyoti Parikh, Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe); Himanshu Pathak, Indian Agricultural Research Institute; Anand Patwardhan, Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay; Rengaswamy Ramesh, Physical Research Laboratory; Nijavalli H. Ravindranath, Indian Institute of Science; Aromar Revi, Indian Institute for Human Settlements; Joyashree Roy, Jadavpur University; Ambuj Sagar, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi; S. K. Satheesh, Indian Institute of Science; Priyadarshi R. Shukla, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; Eswaran Somanathan, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi; Geetam Tiwari, Indian Institute of Technology; and Alakkat Unnikrishnan, National Institute of Oceanography. Who amongst these will stand up in the talukas and in the melee of our class II towns for Bharat?

– Rahul Goswami

No time left: the IPCC message

November 3, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

In the just released synthesis report of the Fifth Assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is one short section that must be read and understood quickly by India, our neighbours in South Asia and by the so-called ‘developing’ and ‘less developed’ countries.

This is a section – ‘3.1 Foundations of decision-making about climate change’ – in the ‘Approved Summary for Policymakers’ of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Synthesis Report.

The section has explained: “Climate change has the characteristics of a collective action problem at the global scale, because most greenhouse gases accumulate over time and mix globally, and emissions by any agent (individual, community, company, country) affect other agents.”

The section goes on to warn: “Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual agents advance their own interests independently. Cooperative responses, including international cooperation, are therefore required to effectively mitigate GHG emissions and address other climate change issues.”

These two groups of statements are extremely important for India and our neighbours in Asia. There has been far too much attention and action given to the negotiations about the shape and terms of agreements on climate change (the Kyoto Protocol and its successor) and far too little on what administrative regions must do regardless. Note that this section places “international cooperation” as a sub-set of cooperative responses, not as the starting point.

This view is restated in the same section: “The effectiveness of adaptation can be enhanced through complementary actions across levels, including international cooperation. The evidence suggests that outcomes seen as equitable can lead to more effective cooperation.” [See the headline statements of the summary for policymakers here or click on the image above for a pdf.]

The Synthesis Report distils and integrates the findings from the AR5, which is comprised of three working group reports on the ‘Physical Science Basis’ (WG1); ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’ (WG II); and ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’ (WG III). The summary for policymakers of the synthesis report was negotiated line by line among governments and the authors, while the synthesis report itself was adopted page by page.

We need more than summits and marches to deal with climate change

September 22, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Ban Ki-moon with marchers. "There is no 'Plan B' because we do not have 'Planet B'." Photo: UN Photo / Mark Garten

Who is the man in the blue cap and why is he on the street? Ban Ki-moon with marchers. “There is no ‘Plan B’ because we do not have ‘Planet B’.” Photo: UN Photo / Mark Garten

On September 20 and 21, the gathering of what has been called ‘climate marchers’, including many youth, expresses a growing popular concern over the impact of global warming on the world’s environment. During the march in New York, USA, the largest of the several marches held in several cities and countries, the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, joined the marchers. On 23 September, the Climate Summit he has called is expected to draw more than 120 heads of government to, as the UN puts it, “galvanise action on climate change”.

Ban said he hoped the peoples’ voices will be “truly reflected to the leaders” when they meet. “Climate change is a defining issue of our time,” he added. “There is no time to lose. If we do not take action now we will have to pay much more.” There is widespread expectation that government delegations to the summit will have “concrete initiatives and that it will provide significant momentum for a global agreement on tackling climate change”.

All this has likely been of interest to the youth, but the expectation of a new push towards a global agreement on dealing with climate change needs to be balanced by even the most cursory examination of the last 20 years of climate negotiations, under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the UNFCCC), and particularly the last four years of an ever larger number of meetings all of which have singly and together contributed nothing to any hoped-for global agreement.

Nonetheless, climate change continues, the science gathers experience and the evidence accumulates. Moreover, it has become clear that a climate treaty (if and when it is signed) will not be about a single issue. Climate change is one amongst an inter-connected web of subjects related to development, sustainability, habitats and settlements, equity and justice, trade, public and social institutions, technology, investments and finance, innovation and national priorities. In many ways, the responses to climate change are directly influenced by thinking and practice in all these areas.

In a short new collection of working ideas, ‘The Way Forward in International Climate Policy: Key Issues and New Ideas 2014’, published and distributed by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network, the thesis that is advanced is: “research suggests that economic and ecological aims can co-exist, and even reinforce each other”. This may be partly true but is also contestable. As the CDKN collection also has pointed out, political tensions persist between economic growth and development on the one hand (but these should more correctly be called business and industry interests), and environmental sustainability on the other.

The term ‘sustainable development’ has engaged policy-makers and academics for 40 years now, and remains central to a set of goals (and large numbers of ‘targets’ and indicators) which will be finalised by the UN this year. Much more swiftly, ‘green growth’ has come forward as a competing idea, because ‘growth’ sounds more powerful to industry and investors, whereas ‘sustainability’ seems to imply conservation and status quo.

Historical contributions to greenhouse gases and the socio-political Southern view.

The marchers in New York may harbour some ideas about fairness, equity and the ethical issues surrounding climate change and those it affects. These concepts have indeed been highlighted by the IPCC climate change mitigation and adaptation reports. Although necessary, these concepts may be interpreted and implemented within the framework of national priorities and goals, yet the connections – between the concepts around equity, between what happens on the ground, and between the thickets of negotiating text – must be made.

Fairness between countries also underlies the idea of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ which many of the so-called ‘developing’ and the so-called ‘less developed’ countries invoke during climate negotiations. It is a concept seen as being one of the key principles of the UNFCCC and a central element of fairness and equity discussions. But it has lead to intractable arguments that pit South versus North. Who should bear the burden of investments towards adaptation and mitigation and who should benefit? Without internationally agreed climate action costs continue to mount: how should these be dealt with? Unfortunately, these questions are debated in the UN and at international negotiations not by those affected but by the financial institutions and their technology providers.

The 23 September UN Climate Summit has already focused on public spectacle and visual stylistics in the days before the meeting, rather than outline the substantial and very delayed points of discussion. The UN headquarters has been lit up with what is described as “a spectacular 30-storey architectural projection show aimed to inspire global citizens to take climate action” which is to provide a “visual reminder of what is at stake”. This is wasteful and distracting – those who have been affected by climate change in its many forms have no need to be reminded by expensive spectacle half a world away.

That is why, 22 years after countries joined the UNFCCC, there remains a clear contrast between the urgency of the situation and the absence of any significant response from the political establishment. The urgency is:

(1) The hottest March-May period in the global record which has pushed numerous record spikes in the global measures this summer. By August, according to NASA, the global average had again climbed to new high levels. NASA showed that the Global Land-Ocean Surface Temperature Index had climbed to 0.70 degrees Celsius above the mid 20th century average and about 0.95 degrees Celsius above the 1880s average. The previous record high for the period was set in 2011 at 0.69 degrees C above the global 1951 to 1980 average.

(2) For the first time, monthly concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere topped 400 parts per million (ppm) in April 2014 throughout the northern hemisphere. “This threshold is of symbolic and scientific significance and reinforces evidence that the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities are responsible for the continuing increase in heat-trapping greenhouse gases warming our planet.” All the northern hemisphere monitoring stations forming the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Global Atmosphere Watch network reported record atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the seasonal maximum. This occurs early in the northern hemisphere spring before vegetation growth absorbs CO2.

The contrast between urgency and the response of the world’s political leaders has occurred, in large part, due to the contradiction which climate negotiations carefully steer around – it is not possible to resolve climate change and other major environmental problems within the framework of a macro-economic system based on GDP growth and monetary expansion. For this reason, the perspective on which the People’s Climate March was organised offers no way forward and will contribute little to a lasting and fair climate treaty.

Five months ago the secretary general of the World Meteorlogical Organisation warned that “time is running out” when the 400 ppm was crossed. “This should serve as yet another wakeup call about the constantly rising levels of greenhouse gases which are driving climate change. If we are to preserve our planet for future generations, we need urgent action to curb new emissions of these heat trapping gases.” he said. Growth and consumption – green or sustainable or otherwise – is not the answer. And a recognition of that essential condition must be the starting point at the UN Climate Summit on 23 September 2014.

– Rahul Goswami

IPCC to world: stop and shrink, or perish

April 2, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

“There is increasing recognition of the value of social, institutional, and ecosystem-based measures and of the extent of constraints to adaptation”: IPCC

The language is clear and blunt. The message continues to be, as it was in 2013 September, that our societies must change urgently and dramatically. The evidence marshalled is, when compared with the last assessment report of 2007, mountainous and all of it points directly at the continuing neglect of our societies to use less and use wisely.

This Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) comes seven years after the last. It has said that observed impacts of climate change have already affected agriculture, human health, ecosystems on land and in the oceans, water supplies, and livelihoods. These impacts are occurring from the tropics to the poles, from small islands to large continents, and from the wealthiest countries to the poorest.

“Climate change has negatively affected wheat and maize yields for many regions and in the global aggregate. Effects on rice and soybean yield have been smaller in major production regions and globally, with a median change of zero across all available data, which are fewer for soy compared to the other crops. Observed impacts relate mainly to production aspects of food security rather than access or other components of food security. Since AR4, several periods of rapid food and cereal price increases following climate extremes in key producing regions indicate a sensitivity of current markets to climate extremes among other factors.”

Widespread impacts in a changing world. Global patterns of impacts in recent decades attributed to climate change. Impacts are shown at a range of geographic scales. Symbols indicate categories of attributed impacts, the relative contribution of climate change (major or minor) to the observed impact, and confidence in attribution. Graphic: IPCC

The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) contains contributions from three Working Groups. Working Group I assesses the physical science basis of climate change. Working Group II assesses impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, while Working Group III assesses the mitigation of climate change. The Synthesis Report draws on the assessments made by all three Working Groups.

The Working Group II AR5 considers the vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems, the observed impacts and future risks of climate change, and the potential for and limits to adaptation. The chapters of the report assess risks and opportunities for societies, economies, and ecosystems around the world.

“Differences in vulnerability and exposure arise from non-climatic factors and from multidimensional inequalities often produced by uneven development processes. These differences shape differential risks from climate change. People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalised are especially vulnerable to climate change and also to some adaptation and mitigation responses. This heightened vulnerability is rarely due to a single cause. Rather, it is the product of intersecting social processes that result in inequalities in socioeconomic status and income, as well as in exposure. Such social processes include, for example, discrimination on the basis of gender, class, ethnicity, age, and (dis)ability.”

The Working Group 2 report has said that impacts from recent climate-related extremes (such as heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires) reveal significant vulnerability and exposure of some ecosystems and many human systems to current climate variability. The impacts of such climate-related extremes include alteration of ecosystems, disruption of food production and water supply, damage to infrastructure and settlements, morbidity and mortality, and consequences for mental health and human well-being. The WG2 has starkly said that for countries at all levels of development, these impacts are consistent with a significant lack of preparedness for current climate variability in some sectors.

On 25 March, IPCC Fifth Assessment Working Group 2 begins

March 22, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Maps of projected late 21st century annual mean surface temperature change, annual mean precipitation change, Northern Hemisphere September sea ice extent, and change in ocean surface pH. Image: IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will consider the Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report, covering impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, in Yokohama, Japan, on 25-29 March 2014. The Working Group session will approve the respective Summary for Policymakers and accept the full report. An IPCC Plenary session will follow the Working Group session to accept the action taken by the Working Group.

Late in February, on the 28th, the IPCC released two new Methodology Reports today that were prepared by its Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI). The Wetlands Supplement extends the content of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (2006 IPCC Guidelines) by filling gaps in coverage and providing updated information reflecting scientific advances, including updating emission factors. It covers inland organic soils and wetlands on mineral soils, coastal wetlands including mangrove forests, tidal marshes and seagrass meadows and constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment. The coverage of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines on wetlands was restricted to peatlands drained and managed for peat extraction, conversion to flooded lands, and limited guidance for drained organic soils.

The Kyoto Protocol (KP) Supplement provides supplementary methods and good practice guidance for estimating anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks resulting from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities under Article 3, paragraphs 3 and 4, of the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period. It revises and updates Chapter 4 of the Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (GPG-LULUCF) which provides supplementary methods and good practice guidance related to LULUCF activities based on the general greenhouse gas inventory guidance provided in its other chapters and the rules governing the treatment of LULUCF activities in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.