The Climate Change Crisis

Solutions and Adaption for a Planet in Peril

Ross Michael Pink

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783319710327
• eBook ISBN: 9783319710334
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book explores how the world community will respond to the unfolding humanitarian crisis caused by climate change. It recognises climate change as the greatest threat to human development in the 21 st century, bringing with it: flooding, drought, extreme temperatures, health crises, threats to human security and severe harm to economic development. The Climate Change Crisis addresses climate change and its impact as a major threat for countries around the world. Through a collection of interviews with leading environmentalists and exploration into new innovations that can offer hope and protection for billions of people, this book presents an interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the paramount health and development challenges of climate change.

This timely and informative book cuts across several disciplines, including human rights, public policy, international relations, national refugee policy, and migration studies.

© The Author(s) 2018

Ross Michael PinkThe Climate Change Crisishttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71033-4_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Ross Michael Pink¹

(1)

Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Surrey), Burnaby, BC, Canada

“Necessity … the mother of invention.”

Plato

End Abstract

Climate change is a worldwide phenomenon with profound impacts on human development and the global environment. These effects are decisively demonstrated by rising sea level, increased flooding, saltwater intrusion, drought, extreme weather patterns, increasing health emergencies particularly in developing countries, crop destruction, skyrocketing food prices and severe water scarcity projected to affect 2 billion people by 2050.

According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC) 4th Assessment Report, from 2020 to 2050 the global average temperature will rise by 2.6 °C, sea level rise will be at least 1 m (10% of global population live in coastal areas), and crop yields will decline significantly and by 50% in some African countries by 2020.¹ The report warned of sea level rise of 18–59 cm by 2100, which is regarded as a conservative estimate. Climate scientists also warn of no Arctic ice by 2070. Combined, these effects will be profound and have alarming consequences for the natural world, including human life.

Every year the deaths of more than 300,000 people can be attributed to climate change. It seriously affects a further 325 million people and causes annual economic losses of USD 125 billion.¹ Four billion people are vulnerable to the effects of climate change and 500–600 million people—around 10% of the planet’s human population—are at extreme risk. As such, climate change has been recognized as a fundamental threat to human rights.²

Another sobering reality is the emergence of climate change refugees numbering hundreds of millions. The respected IPCC has adopted the research findings of Prof. Norman Myers, which state a figure of at least 200 million climate change refugees by 2050. Although controversial, this figure and its daunting implications are by no means the final word. Other scholars and climate scientists have calculated numbers as high as 500 million, including Dr. Mehmood Ul Hassan, Director of Capacity Development at the World Agroforestry Center. Europe is struggling to accept and absorb fewer than 1 million Syrian refugees, in stark contrast to the humanitarian openness of Turkey and Jordan. One wonders how the world community will respond to the coming global climate change refugee crisis. Moreover, the Conference of Parties (COP21) that took place in Paris in December 2015, although notable for adopting a new and stringent global approach to carbon emissions, alarmingly omitted any reference to climate refugees in its final communiqué, thus completely ignoring an issue that demands urgent and substantive action. According to Marine Franck, coordinator of the Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility, “Climate-related displacement is not a future phenomenon. It is a reality; it is already a global concern.”³

Anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have increased dramatically since the Industrial Revolution. These gases include carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane and nitrous oxide, and are the main cause of global warming. “About 40% stays in the atmosphere, 60% goes into the oceans, soil, trees and plants. Scientists note that an alarming 50% of CO₂ emissions since 1750 occurred in the period 1975–2015.”⁴ After a decade of very high annual growth rates of global CO₂ emissions of 4% on average, the growth in emissions almost stalled in 2014 with an increase of only 0.5% to 35.7 billion tons (Gt) CO₂, with the largest emitting countries in that year being China—30%; the USA—15%; the European Union—9.6%; India—6.6%; Russia—5.0%; and Japan—3.6%.⁵ In 2013, 39.8 billion tons (36.1 billion metric tons) of CO₂ was emitted into the environment from the burning of oil, gas and coal. This figure represents a 778 million ton (706 metric tons) or 2.3% increase from 2012.

The fact that 90% of climate change is anthropogenic is a source of both despair and hope. Despair because human action and governmental indifference have escalated environmental destruction and intensified human suffering. Hope because human action at international, national, regional and local levels has the capacity to respond with innovative and responsible policies that promote, for example, rainwater harvesting, transition towns, electric vehicle adoption, wind turbines, solar energy, cloud seeding and desalinization to mitigate some of the destructive impacts of climate change. The World Bank (2010) estimated that annual investments of USD 70–100 billion will be needed for effective mitigation strategies and that the annual destructive cost of climate change to be between USD 700 billion and USD 1 trillion.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in Article 1, defines climate change as, “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”

There are several critical concerns related to climate change that have been noted by authoritative scientific climate studies.

Hazard: The potential occurrence of a natural or human-induced physical event or trend or physical impact that may cause loss of life, injury, or other health impacts, as well as damage and loss to property, infrastructure, livelihoods, service provision, ecosystems and environmental resources.

Exposure: The presence of people, livelihoods, species or ecosystems, environmental functions, services and resources, infrastructure, or economic, social, or cultural assets in places and settings that could be adversely affected.

Vulnerability: The propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt.

Impacts: Effects on natural and human systems. The impacts of climate change on geophysical systems, including floods, droughts and sea level rise, are a subset of impacts called physical impacts.

Risk: The potential for consequences where something of value is at stake and where the outcome is uncertain, recognizing the diversity of values. Risk is often represented as probability of occurrence of hazardous events or trends multiplied by the impacts if these events or trends occur.

Adaption: The process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaption seeks to moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities.

Resilience: The capacity of social, economic and environmental systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance, responding or reorganizing in ways that maintain their essential function, identity and structure, while also maintaining the capacity for adaption, learning, and transformation.⁶

Although climate change is recorded through the millennia, the incidence and speed of occurrence has climate scientists concerned and citizens from Africa to the Arctic experiencing its alarming effects. It is evident that the modern age of climate change began with the Industrial Revolution. “In the period 1750 to 2011, cumulative anthropogenic CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere were 2040 ± 310 GtCO₂ and each successive decade since 1850 has witnessed successively warmer weather. Moreover, the period from 1983 to 2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years in the Northern Hemisphere, where such assessment is possible.”⁷

There is also a noticeable trend toward ocean pollution, warming and acidification. As a result of elevated CO₂ in the atmosphere the world’s oceans are 30% more acidic today than before the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, the World Wildlife Fund has noted damage to fish stocks globally that may culminate in the complete depletion of fish stocks by 2070. In the past 250 years, the oceans worldwide have subsumed approximately 560 billion tons of CO₂, which accounts for the rapid rate of increase in ocean acidity. Another fascinating finding is the impact of climate change on solar irradiance. The prime source of energy to the Earth is radiant energy from the Sun. Radiant energy is measured as solar irradiance. Scientists calculate that the release of GHGs from fossil fuel burning is causing a growing percentage of outgoing thermal radiation coming from the Earth. An IPCC report noted that, “The resulting imbalance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing thermal radiation will likely cause the Earth to heat up over the next century, possibly melting polar ice caps, causing sea levels to rise, creating violent global weather patterns, and increasing vegetation density.”⁸

Since the beginning of the industrial era, oceanic uptake of CO₂ has resulted in acidification of the ocean; the pH of ocean surface water has decreased by 0.1 (high confidence), corresponding to a 26% increase in acidity, measured as hydrogen ion concentration.⁹

The depletion of Arctic ice levels and related global sea level rise are phenomena that will have consequential impacts upon human and marine life. Overall, coastal flooding threatens approximately 10% of global population who live in coastal communities. As sea level continues to rise, these communities will increasingly be threatened by flooding, saltwater intrusion, disease and the destruction of land and property. One dramatic example is the Marshall Islands, a peaceful island nation of 53,000 people. The long-term forecast for the Marshall Islands is daunting, with a projection of total water submersion by 2100. The US government has already settled more than 7000 Marshallese citizens in Arkansas and pledged to resettle the entire remaining population when the situation becomes urgent. Severe flooding projections are also indicated for the populous South Asian nation of Bangladesh whose 164 million population (2017) is expected to reach 202 million by 2050. Climate scientists warn of a high volume of climate change refugees from Bangladesh due to the extreme vulnerability of the country to coastal and internal flooding. Recent studies show that due to the effect of sea level rise the densely populated coastal zone of Bangladesh is becoming highly vulnerable to coastal floods; whereas glacier melts in the Himalayan region cause flash floods in the mountainous regions and the foothills of Nepal and this extends to the northern region of Bangladesh.¹⁰

“The annual mean Arctic sea-ice extent decreased over the period 1979 to 2012, with a rate that was very likely in the range 3.5 to 4.1% per decade. Arctic sea-ice extent has decreased in every season and in every successive decade since 1979, with the most rapid decrease in decadal mean extent in summer.”¹¹ Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 (0.17 to 0.21) m. The rate of sea level rise since the mid-nineteenth century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia.¹² While global sea level rose about 17 cm in the twentieth century, the rise from 2007 to 2017 alone has been nearly double that level.

A recent study projected three global climate change scenarios to 2050. The studies reported on projections that were (a) expected, (b) severe and (c) catastrophic.

Expected climate change outcomes include the following.

1. 1.
   By 2040, the average global temperature rises by 1.3 °C (2.3 °F) above 1990 levels.
2. 2.
   Global sea level rises by 0.23 m (0.75 ft) causing damage to the most vulnerable coastal wetlands and negative impacts on local fisheries.
3. 3.
   The most significant impact of climate change affects southwestern USA; Central America; sub-Saharan Africa; the Mediterranean region; the mega deltas of South and East Asia; the tropical ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. North America: Canada and the USA
• 3. South America: Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina
• 4. Southeast Asia: Thailand, Myanmar, Japan
• 5. China
• 6. Africa: Kenya, South Africa, Botswana
• 7. India
• 8. The Middle East: Egypt, Israel, Jordan
• 9. Europe: UK, Italy, Greece
• Back Matter