InFocus: Health Care (and Climate Change)

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As has often been noted, the four themes for InFocus at Moravian are interconnected:  Poverty, Sustainability, Health Care, and War & Peace.  Climate change is related to all four areas.  On Thursday, one of the themes of the COP had to do with the health impacts of climate change, and on Friday afternoon, the US Center hosted a panel on the topic. 

The panel “Health Adaptation in the United States and Around the World” was led by Dr. John Balbus, the Senior Advisor for Public Health at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).  A 2010 report thoroughly lists the many different impacts on health from climate change, ranging from the direct impacts of weather events (heat waves, storms, etc.) to biological agents (microbes, vector-borne diseases, etc.).  An overview of health concerns around the world can be found here.

Of interest to researchers, the Obama administration has also made the online resource MATCH (Metadata Access Tool for Climate and Health) publicly available.  One of the goals of MATCH is to provide “relevant Federal metadata on climate and health that will increase efficiency in solving research problems.”  Remembering that Dr. John Snow (1813-1858) discovered that cholera was transmitted through water by using a dot map showing clusters of cholera cases and overlapping that with maps of the water supply system, it seems like there should be possibilities for student research as we focus on Health this year!

The U.S. Center at UNFCCC

Each year, the U.S. sponsors a U.S. Center site with extensive programming the COP meetings.

The most up-to-date data from satellites, computer modeling, and other cool technology are typically on display on a "Hyper-wall" . 

The images are striking; the scientific messages behind the images can be frightening.

Global Temperature Anomalies Over Time

 

Ice Flows in Antarctica

The interactive "Science on the Sphere" was used at COP15 in Copenhagen; you can see great programming on one of these spheres at the Nurture Nature Center in Easton.

I am struck by the ongoing denial of climate change that is widely reported on in the media (for instance see http://bit.ly/12RMAFO) vs. the strong data that exists in support of climate change and its impacts world-wide generated by international collaborations and analyzed by top scientists in the U.S. at NOAA, NASA, and within academe.

From the link above:

A new report by Cook et al. (2013) examined nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed papers in the climate science literature; the analysis found that 97% of the papers that stated a position on the reality of human-caused global warming said that global warming is happening and human-caused, at least in part.

The Working Group I section of the 5th Assessment Report (AR5) of the IPCC that was released in September states that it is extremely likely that climate change is being impacted by humans (over 95% confidence).

At each event at the U.S. Center, the facilitator introduces the programming as part of a "public outreach and diplomacy initiative" by the United States.  It is evident that they pride themselves on their extraordinary data and technological capabilities in climate research and clean energy technologies.

The U.S. State Department has an extensive set of reports related to climate change and our country's negotiating positions which have been submitted here at COP19 (see link below).  I wonder how many citizens know about the positions that we take? I encourage you to take a look.

http://www.state.gov/e/oes/climate/cop19/

Climate Refugees: “Crossing the Sahara on Foot”

Africa has seen some extremes in climate disasters – the flooding last year contrasted with the recent droughts.  In 2012, I visited Kenya and wrote about the impacts of climate change on the Maasai.  At a side event on Climate Migrants this week, one of the African delegates in the audience talked about the strong ties Africans have to the land. He noted that “no young person wants to leave their ancestral land, but they are having no choice.  Young people are trying to cross the Sahara on foot – to get to Europe. “ 

The IPCC report of 1990 acknowledged that migration might be the greatest single consequence of climate change, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that “by 2050, between 250 million and one billion people might be forced to move due to climate change.”  Ziaul Haque Mukta, Regional Policy Coordinator from Oxfam Asia, gave the keynote talk, starting by highlighting recent forced migration events: Philippines (Typhoon Haiyan: 600,000 evacuated, over 10 million people affected); Papua New Guinea (Carteret Islands: 1000 permanently relocated due to storm erosion and salt water intrusion); India (Lohachara Island: 10,000 evacuated due to island being entirely submerged); Bangladesh (Bhola Island, 500,000 homeless due to half of island being submerged).  In the United States, Hurricane Katrina temporarily displaced over a million people in 2005.

Currently, migration is part of the Loss and Damage discussion, but the panel urged that Climate Forced Migration should be treated as a stand alone issue with its own legal framework.  They called on the developed countries to “own up to their historic responsibility,” referring to historic greenhouse gas emissions.  They continued: “We can no longer wait. …  Justice demands that, and they have to be fair to all.“

Will Moral Arguments Suffice?

Not likely.

I sit in these meetings in Poland and listen to civil society cry out moral arguments – strong justifications for developing a multilateral agreement aimed both at reducing the risks of climate change and providing assistance for those either suffering the impacts of a destabilized climate or needing help to build resilience and adapt to the changes that are coming (or are already occurring).

Based on the lack of headway we see in negotiations which, incidentally, have been going on since the early 1990s, to civil society it seems as if policymakers focus not on moral arguments, but rather politics, economic considerations, and historic international tensions. Yet as I talked with some negotiators today who were incredibly bright and extremely informed about the issues, I found them to be passionate about finding a “way out of the stalled process” and more than a little frustrated about the lack of progress being made. I asked them why they keep at it, and they consistently indicated that they still believe in the importance of this process. Their reasons vary. Most believe that real transformation will actually come – and is happening -- at the local and regional levels, but they feel that these changes wouldn’t happen without the on-going international focus on the urgency and severity of the problem.

I saw examples of extremely complicated modelling today. These analyses are used to determine the percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are needed by 2030 from different country blocks in order to keep global surface temperatures from rising above 2 degrees Celsius. In addition, they try to factor in equity – a nebulous concept, but one that incorporates historical responsibility for emissions, capacity to change (financially, technologically, etc.) and sustainable development needs. Explaining all that would take a separate post. These models indicate that developed nations like the U.S. and western European countries (the OECD block), need to have a reduction of 40% of 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Impossible, I thought.

I heard examples of how some in Africa are trying to model the costs of adaptation depending on whether global temperatures increase by 1, or 2, or 3 degrees Celsius (the latter would put us into conditions previously not experienced by our species). Such information might be used to counter the arguments that we cannot afford to put regulations in place (loss of jobs, economic impact that will slow growth, etc.). The information could be used for a risk-benefit or cost-benefit analysis, if you will. In these models, the benefits lie in avoiding costs associated with extreme weather damage and destruction. Information on the costs of such events can be plugged into simulations since we have data on the economic impact of recent major storms, and IPCC reports and weather data can be used to estimate how many extreme events might occur in any given year. An interesting effort, but it falls short of truly understanding the cost of inaction.

The impacts of climate change will be much more complex and have greater costs than the estimated loss and damages associated with severe storms like the recent typhoon that hit the Philippines. They will affect water availability, food security, public health, etc. in ways we cannot precisely predict. Add to that all the unknown ways in which ecosystems will respond to climate change and, in turn, impact not only wildlife and habitat, but also ecosystem services that humans rely on every day, but rarely think about. Externalities, by definition, are not factored into economic equations. But for some of these climate change impacts, it is impossible to add a projected price tag, and thus, we cannot accurately determine the cost of business as usual. I am beginning to think that we do need to start putting dollar figures on nature – species, ecosystem services, and human lives. And we certainly need a lot more monitoring to learn how our ecosystems and agricultural systems are responding to climate change. But neither of those tasks will be easy.

And meanwhile, elsewhere in the COP, there are on-going discussions of market mechanisms (to offset carbon emissions by developed nations), distributive and procedural justice concerns about proposed initiatives in adaptation, land grabs, and enthusiasm about new financial opportunities opening up as the Arctic ice sheets melt and reveal potential new wells of resources – further exploitation of the poor and the planet.

Throughout the past two days, I have been doing some work related to our campus LINC (general education) curriculum as I sit in the climate meetings. We recently changed our requirements (lessening them) to allow more flexibility for students to take other, non-prescribed electives. The categories most impacted were what we refer to at Moravian College as U1 and U2 – the social impact of science and reflections on a moral life, the U referring to upper level. Students used to have to take one of each, but now can get by with only one. Yet as I ponder what is needed to solve complex global issues like climate change, I question this curricular change. Students with a solid grounding in ethical decision making and science (our U1 and U2 categories) are what we need more of.  And they need a good dose of global understanding, of world views that aren’t the same as ours.

Science and moral arguments are not sufficient, but without them, we don’t stand a chance.

"When I Was Ten"

Obviously, the Co-Chair of the contact group for Loss and Damage, Robert Van Lierop (representing St. Kitts and Nevis) was a bit older than ten when, in 1991, he recommended tabling the issue of Loss and Damage.  This astonishing admission came about when the G-77/China group mentioned that this topic wasn’t new to Doha last year, but had actually been in the works for three years.  The representative of Nauru has a longer memory, and she mentioned that the topic was first mentioned at Bali in 1991, and that the co-chair of this current meeting was responsible for tabling it.  In the interest of full disclosure, Van Lierop acknowledged the misstep, and, in a humbling moment, said he tabled the motion “when I was ten.” 

To be fair, in 1991, the severe impacts of climate change were being considered more as a theoretical possibility, and not as something absolutely certain. The first IPCC report had just been published in 1990, which served as the basis for the UNFCCC meetings. But for the past few COP meetings, climate change impacts are clearly a reality, and Loss and Damage is an important topic.

The first meeting of the contact group was open to observers, but will quickly change to closed meetings for the duration of COP 19.  Bolivia, speaking on behalf of China and the G77 has urged the group to quickly start working on the text itself, rather than spending time on speeches and rhetoric. In good faith, they submitted a text hours earlier and sent it ahead to the other parties.  The Co-Chair acknowledged the submitted text, along with two others: those submitted by the EU and Switzerland/Norway.  However, no texts were available at the time of the meeting for discussion, and opening statements were made as usual.

All of the representatives who spoke conveyed their thoughts and prayers to the people of the Philippines. The United States representative spoke of the $20 million of humanitarian assistance already committed to the Philippines, along with the pre-positioned team coordinating help efforts. She also recognized the existential threat to low-lying islands for a variety of reasons.  There is a broad range of issues that are part of Loss and Damage, including mitigation, assistance, and migration. A comprehensive report about the various aspects of this important issue can be found here.

At this point, only the text by China and the G77 is posted online at the UNFCCC site.  This is an issue that will be carefully watched by the developing countries and the NGOs.  The developing countries strongly believe that they need to have a system in place to address loss and damage, and they are looking beyond ad hoc humanitarian responses which are are “appreciated but not adequate.”

Workshops and Workstreams

Even after five years, there is much to be confused about at the COP meetings between all the acronyms, jargon, and complicated governance frameworks. There are contact groups, informal consultations, open-ended consultations, meetings, workstreams, work programmes (yes, the British spelling is correct), workshops, daily programmes (that change several times a day), briefings, official documents, informal papers, and even non-papers. (I am not kidding about that one!) Plus, some of these sessions are open to observers (civil society) one day, but not the next. Week one is an intense work week as different groups collect data and ideas to draft language and plans for moving forward. When the high-level segment commences on Tuesday of week #2, high ranking ministers and heads of states use these materials, but have also been known to scrap all the work and start from scratch at the negotiating table. Science seems so much easier (and more logical) than this multilateral policy stuff!

This year, there seems to be an unusual number of workshops. I have been to three already, and it is only day #3. I went to one last year, which was the first I ever recall seeing on the agenda, err, I mean daily programme. In subsequent posts, I will elaborate on the content of the three workshops I attended on

• “Issues related to agriculture” (as mandated in paragraph 83 of FCCC/SBSTA/2013/3);
• "Gender and climate change”; and
• “Lessons learned from relevant experience of other multilateral environmental agreements.”

When I was a graduate student in the 1980s, our lab worked on the impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide on photosynthesis in algae and plants. This information had implications for crop yields (agricultural productivity), and we knew that different types of plants (C3 vs C4; I won’t bother you with the biochemical details) respond differently to increasing carbon dioxide availability. During those graduate school years (1981 – 1986), carbon dioxide levels went from 338 to 346 ppm. This year the levels hover around 400 ppm. As the implications of rising greenhouse gases became more apparent, scientists realized that there would be many impacts on agriculture.

Yet despite the wealth of scientific publications around this issue, it wasn’t until COP17 in Durban, South Africa (2011) that text was adopted that enabled (mandated) a dialogue about agricultural impacts and adaptation. This was assigned to a working group within the SBSTA framework, and plans were made to hold this workshop – now two years later.

What is SBSTA (besides one of the many IPCCC acronyms)? Following the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, two bodies were set up to deal with the technical discussions. The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (or SBSTA) is one of these. And alas, agriculture is one of the issues that now falls under this group’s auspices.

At COP18 in Doha, issues of women and gender were front and center (oddly enough in a country where women’s rights are a bit different than what we are accustomed to in the United States). Concerns centered on the fact that, globally, women are disproportionately impacted by climate change for many reasons, yet the policy work related to the environmental problem is negotiated mainly by men. Two important decisions were adopted which “promote gender balance and improving the participation of women in Convention negotiations and in the representation of the Parties in bodies established under the Convention or the Kyoto Protocol.” The work to implement these decisions fell to the SBI, the Subsidiary Body for Implementation – the group that advises the COP (Conference of the Parties) on “improving the effective application of the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol”.

The third workshop was organized by yet another group – the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action or ADP. This new working group was established in 2011 in Durban (sometimes things make sense) and is charged with adopting an agreement by 2015 to be implemented in 2020, effectively replacing the Kyoto Protocol. Given the difficulties in achieving consensus on pretty much anything – details of mitigation (reducing the causes of climate change), adaptation (learning to live under a new climate regime and increasing resiliency), and financing things like technology transfer, a Green Climate Fund, or loss and damage resulting from historic, current, and future emissions – this new group is looking elsewhere for ideas. In this workshop, representatives from other successful multilateral agreements related to the environment shared their models of decision making and implementation. These included CITES (an agreement related to endangered species and international trade), an agreement under the Stockholm Convention related to Persistent Organic Pollutants (the “dirty dozen” and other toxic compounds), and the Montreal Protocol that addresses the phase out of ozone-depleting chemicals that degrade the stratospheric ozone layer.

If you are still following along, you should know that these items represent only a small percentage of the work that goes on at a COP meeting!

A panel discussion during the "Gender and Climate Change" workshop

Note:  I am grateful to the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie for their extremely value resources including the "Guide to the Negotiations for COP 19 and CMP 9 (#13), and "Background Analysis".  These resources are handy references and contain detailed analysis on the history and status of negotiations.



High tech ocean study

The US Center at COP 19 was the venue for a presentation by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, leaning on a lot of work carried out through NOAA and NASA.  The oceans are under severe stress, not only by overfishing and being used as a dumping ground for all of the worlds trash, but also by acidification.  Our atmosphere, stressed as it is, would have even more carbon dioxide were it not for the fact that this gas dissolves readily into water. Unfortunately, carbon dioxide is at least as harmful to the oceans as it is to the air.

Amazingly sophisticated scientific work is being done.  The two presentations, “Climate Change and the World’s Oceans” and “Ocean Deoxygenation in a Warming World,” were extraordinarily instructive.  It turns out that our country has a veritable army of satellites and measuring devices tracking such things as ocean currents, wind, surface temperature, water height, salinity and gravity.  These measurements can be coordinated to answer seemingly esoteric questions on the workings of the ocean.  

For a taste of what was discussed, explore the website oceanscientists.org.

Generation C (Climate)

#WeStandWithYou action of solidarity with Yeb Sano on Tuesday at COP19. Source: Adopt a Negotiator, 2013

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Christiana Figueres, the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, has nicknamed the youth activists “Generation C,” and in the past has been very supportive of their efforts. At the Global PowerShift meeting in June, she encouraged them to work towards a draft agreement in 2014.  In addition to urging them to really understand policy, technology, and finance, she also told them to make consumer choices taking into account carbon footprints and to raise their voices to build movement. She commented, “I still do not understand why we don’t have people on the streets every single day raising their voices for climate.”

While it may work for the youth to raise their voices on the streets, it doesn’t work in the conference halls.  After the speech by Yeb Sano, three youth were escorted out and lost their credentials for “causing trouble.”  After initiating the “We Stand With You” chanting, they unfurled a banner with the number of casualties from last year’s typhoon (1,200) and this year’s supertyphoon Haiyan (10,000+?) and asked “How Many More?”  Accounts and photos can be found at the blog and the press release.  It is hardly surprising that at the plenary session of the the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, Emilia Merlini, a representative of the YOUNGOs (Youth NGOs) called for urgent action before noting that “our generation is voiceless in these corridors” and then taping her mouth shut to drive home the point.

The YOUNGOs are also frustrated that Christiana Figueres has agreed to be a keynote speaker at the upcoming coal conference.  They challenged her to withdraw from the commitment in an open letter.  So far, Figueres has chosen to stick to her plans to be at the coal conference.

Fossil of the Day goes to ...

(If the video link doesn't work, you can find it here: You Tube Video: Fossil of the Day)

Check out this video of the "Fossil of the Day" award ceremony. The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, when the members of the Climate Action Network (CAN) voted for countries judged to have "done their 'best' to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of the talks."

Yesterday, the Fossil of the Day went to Australia, who, despite the "crushing losses suffered by the Philippines" revealed that they would not put forward "any new finance commitments."

Today, the award went to Poland for a long list of reasons, according to the CAN media release: 

1. Continuously opposing the European Union from taking more ambitious climate action
2. Co-hosting a Coal Summit coinciding with the COP but not organizing any debate on renewable energy opportunities
3. Inviting polluting companies that openly oppose an ambitious climate action to sponsor the COP
4. Allowing the dirty side of European industry, Business Europe, to represent the business voice at the pre-COP
5. Writing mad postings on theofficial COP 19 website about the economic opportunities the melting Arctic will bring as well as chasing the "pirates, ecologists and terrorists" on the sea
6. Presenting delegates with standard climate denialist rhetoric through their mobile device app, repeating the old chestnut that "climate changes are natural phenomena, which occured (sic) many times on Earth"

“What happens in this stadium is not a game”

"What happens in this stadium is not a game”

Those were the words of UNFCCC Executive Secretariat in her opening comments for COP19.  “There are not two sides.  All of humanity will either win or lose.”  Sobering words to start the day.

Despite the general sense that UNFCCC climate negotiations have more or less stalled over the past several years, COP meetings tend to open the two-week session with a sense of optimism, a renewed hope that maybe this time significant progress will be made.  In contrast, this year’s opening ceremony, my fifth, was the grimmest start that I have witnessed.  Perhaps it was the horrific news coming in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan and the emotional comments from the negotiator from the Philippines (see earlier post).  Maybe it is because Poland, the host country for the climate talks, is also hosting a coal-summit that coincides with the COP meeting.  UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres is speaking at that summit, and NGOs are questioning why.  The youth went so far as to un-invite her from speaking to their constituency.

Maybe it was the take-home messages from the latest report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – reiterated by Chairperson Rajendra Pachauri this morning:  the newest trends in rising global sea and land surface temperatures, the stats on the decrease in snow and ice cover, sea level rise occurring at rates greater than in the last two millennia, and the 40% increases in dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean, which, in turn, lowers the pH of the water even further.  Such sobering scientific details are not typically mentioned in this ceremony, despite calls by many in other sessions to remind negotiators to use science as they develop policy.  Christiana had us all take a deep breath of the air, reminding us as we did that, for the first time in human history, the air we inhale contains 400 ppm carbon dioxide.

In an afternoon session sponsored by the Third World Network (TWN) entitled What to expect from Warsaw anger and frustration with the lack of progress was clearly evident.  These countries are already suffering from the impact of climate change – caused by greenhouse gases emitted into the atmospheric commons largely from other (developed) countries.  The anger is fueled by concerns that developed countries are trying to profit off of their pollution (carbon markets and “clean development mechanisms”) and reneging on promises to fund technology transfer programs and pay for loss and damages – all while they continue to provide subsidies for fossil fuel companies.  The comment was made that reimbursements for climate-caused destruction is not simply “planes dropping blankets and medicine” when disasters strike.  Panelists questioned why wealthy nations find money "to bail out banks and to buy drones", but cry “economic recession when it comes to rescuing the planet.”  And I should note that the panelists included both civil society representatives and negotiators (official delegates from countries who are parties to the U.N. convention).

Outside of the COP19 venue, a crowd of violent Polish nationalist demonstrators disrupted the Independence Day march.  Inside, delegates were pondering the words spoken by the Polish COP19 president during the opening ceremony:

If it weren’t complex enough, we are all experiencing threatening climate change. Changing landscapes, forcing us from our normal ways. Killing.

Only two days ago, a powerful typhoon swept through the Philippines, claiming thousands of lives, leaving hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes. A great human tragedy. Unforgettable, painful, awakening.

I say awakening because it is yet another proof that we are losing this unequal struggle between man and nature. It got the better of us yet again, and will continue to do so in the future if we do not close ranks and act together to strike back.

Climate is a global issue, global problem and global opportunity at the same time.

An opportunity? For whom?

Maybe these words might not seem so peculiar if the host country website for COP19 didn’t include an introductory piece pondering whether humans are in fact are contributing to climate change.  Perhaps that is why Dr. Pachauri reminded those in attendance at the opening ceremony that in the IPCC’s latest Assessment Report (published at the end of September) that panel concluded there is greater than 95% certainty that humans cause the climate change that we are now experiencing.