The India Climate Observatory

Commentary, action and research on climate and development in India

No time left: the IPCC message

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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.”

IPCC_AR5_SPM_headlinesThe 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.]

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. [The longer synthesis report is available here.]

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.

What the middle class must unlearn

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RG_ICP_middle_class_201406The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are currently dominating debates on development policy worldwide. The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) has published a policy paper that recommends the inclusion of a comprehensive environmental goal entitled “safeguarding Earth system services” in the catalogue of new sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The aim of this goal is to bring development paths in line with ecological boundaries, so that human progress can be ensured. In order to operationalise this goal, the WBGU has recommended integrating six targets to protect the climate, the soils and biological diversity. The WGBU points out that compliance with ecological boundaries in the form of “planetary guard rails” is a prerequisite for poverty eradication and development. Taking them into account does not imply restrictions on the future development of the poorest 2 billion people. Rather, in the long term development will only be possible within these planetary guard rails.

“Consumption decisions and lifestyles of the middle and upper classes are causing the greatest threat to the natural life-support systems,” the policy paper has said, because of their high level of resource consumption or high per-capita CO2 emissions. Policy-makers therefore have a responsibility to create the necessary requirements for sustainable production and consumption patterns.

IPCC to world: stop and shrink, or perish

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

“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

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

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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

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.