By Claudio Guler for ISN Security Watch, 9 Aug 2010

A choice topic to spoil dinner parties and a long-standing, legitimate source of concern among scientists and well-informed policymakers, abrupt climate change – climate events that unfold faster than the pace at which humans can adapt to them – was the focus of a December 2008 report released by the US Climate Change Science Program, a collaborative project of relevant US government agencies scrutinizing the four most pressing scenarios.

A relatively high degree of indeterminacy characterizes each scenario. Nevertheless, the potential downsides make for sober reading. Here then, an overview.

Scenario A: Ice melts and sea levels. Noting the historically inverse relationship between atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and sea levels, the report argues that “although no ice-sheet model is currently capable of capturing the glacier speedups [i.e. accelerated melting] in Antarctica or Greenland that have been observed over the last decade, including these processes in models will very likely show that IPCC Assessment Report 4 projected sea level rises [9 to 88 cm] for the end of the 21st century are too low.” The complexity of the climate refugee challenge looks set to grow.

Scenario B: Water supply and shortages. Hydrological scientists have long identified protracted droughts and water shortages in the subtropics as a likely outcome of climate change. The report agrees with this viewpoint and adds that the processes might already have begun. For example, the American Southwest, parts of East Africa and Australia have as of late witnessed exceptionally dry years.

Scenario C: Disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMOC transfers significant heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic and likely plays an important role in maintaining Europe’s temperate climate. The report concludes that a decrease in the strength of the AMOC due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, possibly by 25-30 percent, is very likely over the course of the 21st century, but a collapse or abrupt transition to a weaker state is very unlikely. Beyond the 21st century, the report argues that a collapse of the AMOC is also unlikely but cannot be entirely excluded.

Scenario D: Abrupt changes in the atmospheric concentration of methane. Methane in the atmosphere, the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and responsible for roughly 20 percent of all warming (methane exhibits 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 100 year period), has more than doubled since the pre-industrial age – 700 parts per billion to over 1,780 ppb. Flatulent livestock is interestingly enough the primary source of anthropogenic atmospheric methane, but the relevant concern here is that higher temperatures could lead to a sudden release of trapped methane, creating so-called positive feedback loops that accelerate climate change, possibly inexorably.

The primary sources of a potential rapid methane release are melting permafrost in Alaska and Siberia and methane clathrates in shallow waters, mainly in the Arctic. The report concludes rather ambiguously that “While the risk of catastrophic release of methane to the atmosphere in the next century appears very unlikely, it is very likely that climate change will accelerate the pace of persistent emissions from both hydrate sources and wetlands. Current models suggest that wetland emissions could double in the next century. However, since these models do not realistically represent all the processes thought to be relevant to future northern high-latitude CH4 emissions, much larger (or smaller) increases cannot be discounted. Acceleration of persistent release from hydrate reservoirs is likely, but its magnitude is difficult to estimate.”

These scenarios all imply significant global security risks and underscore the need for Washington to legislate a comprehensive energy and environment policy – a necessary step to ensure emerging emitters China and India that they are operating on a level playing field and a prerequisite for global climate policy to move forward.

On 22 July, US Congressional Democrats announced that in the face of mounting bipartisan opposition, the time had come to throw in the towel on cap and trade legislation. This is hardly all bad news. A cap and dividend solution, as proposed by the CLEAR Act now in the US Senate, makes for a far more sensible and politically attractive fix.

An end has made way for a new beginning. And with the disruptive potential of abrupt climate change scenarios in mind, members of the US Congress should seize it.

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By Claudio Guler for ISN Security Watch, 25 Jun 2010

Unconventional gas – pockets of underground natural gas found in hard-to-reach places – comes from several sources, coalbed methane (CBM) and tight gas sands among them. None, however, are raising expectations of energy independence, improved security and reduced emissions for consumer countries more so than shale gas. Can it deliver?

Global estimates of shale gas reserves remain highly tentative.

Notwithstanding, the US alone enjoys anywhere from roughly 17 trillion cubic meters (tcm) to an eye-popping 108 tcm, depending on what projections you look at and how convincing you find their production potentials to be. Americans consume approximately 650 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year.

One of the largest shale gas plays in the US is the Marcellus Formation, which stretches across southern New York state, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Ohio. In 2009, the US Department of Energy estimated that the formation could contain 7.4 tcm of recoverable natural gas.

Europe may also have shale gas reserves to tap. Estimates here are even flakier as exploration and drilling initiatives, unlike in the US, are just now starting to take off. But in countries as varied as Poland, Germany, Hungary and the UK, up to 15 tcm of trapped natural gas might be underground.

According to Statoil, the Norwegian energy group, prospectors are also likely to find large shale gas plays in China, Australia, the Middle East and North Africa region, and Latin America.

The US sweet on shale

When it comes to shale gas, the US has blazed the trail. US production took off in the mid to late 2000s. According to the independent US Energy Information Administration, US wells produced 34 bcm in 2007, a figure that jumped 70 percent to 57 bcm in 2008, comprising approximately 9 percent of US gas consumption.

The growth continues. In2009 the US surpassed Russia to become the number one gas producer in the world. The US, counting its conventional gas production, is now effectively self-sufficient in natural gas.

Advances in technology – horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in particular – and an elevated secular price for natural gas are the principal factors that have made complex shale gas drilling operations possible and economical.

Horizontal drilling improves gas recoverability by better intersecting the myriad fissures between shale slabs. To expedite the process and to increase the amount of gas captured, water mixed with sand and other drilling chemicals is pumped into the well at high pressures to prop open the shale slabs in a practice known as hydraulic fracturing or ‘hydro-fracking.’

The corporate leader in the shale gas bonanza is Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy, a company that has stakes in the Barnett (Texas), Fayetteville (Arkansas), Bossier and Haynesville (Northwest Louisiana and East Texas), and Marcellus natural gas shale plays. Other interested parties include familiar energy multinationals BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Statoil. Beijing and Washington are also cooperating in the development of shale gas resources in China.

A ‘shale’ game

During the past two or three years a conflagration of adverse developments has put traditional natural gas producers on the defensive. The Great Recession tangibly dampened global gas demand. And shale gas especially, but also liquefied natural gas (LNG), started coming online in significant quantities.

Speaking with ISN Security Watch, Matthew Hulbert, a senior researcher and energy expert at the Center for Security Studies in Zürich, Switzerland, explains, “The main countries to lose out,at least for now, are the major gas producers,or what we traditionally think of as gas producers, Russia, Algeria, Iran, Bolivia the most obvious ones, Qatar and some smaller Gulf producers the others. West Africa comes into the mix a bit, but LNG developments are relatively small at this stage.

“The main example you have is [shale gas] production in the US. This has totally scuppered any prospects that North America would be the LNG export market of choice. The result is that Europe and much of Asia finds itself swamped in gas. China stands to gain from this considerably as it now has a number of strong supply options to hand rather than being picked off in a sellers market. The real concern now for producers is if unconventional gas takes off in Asia and Europe.”

But Hulbert counsels prudence. “The world will need lots of gas, the market could well tighten, especially once economic growth returns, and consumers better hope they are either well prepared or shale gas is a real runner. Otherwise the world could look very different again, and pretty quickly.”

Hulbert argues that a hard-hitting international gas cartel along the lines of OPEC or a troika of powerful, price-fiddling producers (Russia, Iran, Qatar) is unlikely. That said, some sort of backlash could be in the offing should producers feel their margins are squeezed too far too fast and sanguine shale gas projections fail to materialize.

For Washington, shale gas is a much-welcomed stepping stone in the decades-long, seemingly elusive pursuit of energy independence. European capitals equally welcome any opportunity to chip away at their energy dependence on equivocal Russia.

But energy independence in natural gas will not alleviate the US’s national security predicament in the Middle East, whereby a US military presence in the Muslim world and US financial and diplomatic backing for local autocrats to guarantee oil supplies and the free flow of commerce creates domestic tensions that in part manifest themselves as Islamic terrorism.

“The sea lane issues from the Gulf of Aden, to the Indian Ocean and beyond is still about maritime power and oil supplies – hence the game is still on,” Hulbert notes.

An inconvenient catch

Natural gas combustion results in roughly sixty percent the greenhouse gas emissions from coal.

Using more natural gas could help copious emitters like the US achieve yet unstated reduction targets, but there’s a catch. Professor Robert Howarth from Cornell University cautions in a March 2010 preliminary assessment of the environmental impacts of shale gas production that methane leakage from drilling and distribution could negate any anticipated environmental benefits. Methane, over a 100-year period, has 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. The outcome could thus be a wash.

What is more, as reported by National Public Radio (NPR) and experienced by the residents of rural Dimock, Pennsylvania, shale gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing are anything but risk-free undertakings.

The top secret solutions used in hydro-fracking are highly toxic. The contamination of local water wells and underground aquifers, although much of the drilling occurs far below the water table, remains a concern. The US Environmental Protection Agency is considering updating the outdated and likely deficient regulatory framework.

In Europe, environmental concerns could delay shale gas drilling operations, as population densities tend to be higher and regulations more stringent.

In sum: An energy, environment and security panacea? Hardly. A boon for consumers? Probably, but only if the numbers hold.

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By Claudio Guler for ISN Security Watch, 19 April 2010

“With all the hysteria, all the fear, all the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe it is.” – US Senator James M Inhofe (Republican – Oklahoma), 28 July 2003.

Such is the rallying cry of the climate change denial movement. Since Senator Inhofe made this statement seven years ago, the drive to discredit climate change and the science that underpins it has enjoyed considerable success, even as awareness about climate change and the threat it poses to humanity has gone mainstream.

The US, widely seen as an indispensable participant in the fight against climate change, remains among the most skeptical internationally. A Gallup poll published last month found that concerns over climate change among Americans declined during the past two years.

The recent ‘Climategate’ scandal, the product of hacked e-mail correspondence from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in the UK suggesting collusion to manipulate data, and a row over the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) use of non peer-reviewed sources to claim that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 have cast further doubt.

The deluge of criticism culminated in the US with the publishing of In Denial by Steven F Hayward in the conservative Weekly Standard, a piece accompanied by an illustration of Al Gore standing somewhere near the North Pole, nude, shivering and clutching his groin to shield it from the biting cold while being ridiculed by polar bears.

What then keeps the climate change denial movement, a campaign shunned by all but a handful of scientists, alive and kicking? Examination suggests a confluence of factors.

Economics

Money talks. At the individual level, curbing emissions will result in higher energy costs, generating resistance at the polls. The businesses that provide energy to consumers equally do not want to see their profit margins squeezed and regard the status quo – and their position in it – as advantageous.

A lackluster economy, moreover, has likely shifted some of the political urgency elsewhere.

Corporate sector pushback comes in the form of congressional lobbying and public relations campaigns. James Hoggan from DesmogBlog, a website launched in 2006 to track and expose the interests and personalities behind climate change denial, explained to ISN Security Watch, “The oil, gas and coal industries are clearly the leaders in the climate denial campaign, although the big fossil fuel players have also made common cause with other energy intensive industries and even with industries like tobacco, which are also motivated to promote mistrust of science and government.

“Major energy industries like Exxon Mobil [Greenpeace critique] and Koch Industries [Greenpeace critique] (the largest privately owned fossil fuel company in America) have been revealed as big spenders in the campaign to deny climate science. And industry associations like the American Chambers of Commerce are also heavily implicated. But increasingly, industries have started hiding behind ‘non-profit’ think tanks, which can campaign aggressively – and expensively – while concealing the source of their funding.”

Koch Industries is co-owned by the $14 billion (each) brothers Charles and David Koch. David Koch quipped to Portofolio.com in October 2008, “My joke is that we’re the biggest company you’ve never heard of.”

The public space

The role of think tanks, as Hoggan maintains, is to provide a veneer of academic legitimacy to the campaign as well as to ensure maximum influence in the media to perpetuate doubt about the science of climate change. Poison the public discourse, establish a skeptical normative environment, kill legislation.

Some of the think tanks and lobbying groups in the vanguard include: the American Petroleum Institute (API), the Western Fuels Association (WFA), the CATO Institute, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the George C Marshall Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the now-defunct Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP) in Canada and The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) headed by famed lobbyist and FOX News contributor Steve Milloy.

The individual

The lack of a congenial atmosphere for discussion, moreover, helps taint already strained individual attitudes, argues Kari Norgaard, assistant professor of sociology and environmental studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, US.

In a background paper to the 2010 World Bank Development Report entitled Cognitive and Behavioral Challenges in Responding to Climate Change, researched in Norway, Norgaard concludes that the presence of negative emotions in conjunction with global warming (fear, guilt and helplessness), and the process of emotion management and cultural norms leads to the construction of a social reality in which climate change is held at arms length.

In other words, the complexity of climate change and the menace it implies overwhelms individuals and creates a cognitive dissonance. Rather than trying to internalize the concerns and marshal them for action, people cast them aside altogether.

Hoggan further complements Norgaard’s findings with the notion of burgeoning mistrust at the individual level: “Public opinion polls are increasingly revealing unprecedented levels of mistrust in the public mind. People don’t trust government. They don’t trust industry. Some polls show that they don’t even trust one another. And the denial industry has taken full advantage of this mistrust, even promoting it by questioning the motives, integrity and competence of some of the world’s greatest scientific bodies.”

Asked about the divergence in US and European responses to climate change by ISN Security Watch, Norgaard reckoned, “In Europe, where a limited emissions control regime with the EU Emissions Trading System is in place, concern for the environment is more institutionalized than in the states, generating more momentum. But again, even there, comprehensive steps are wanting.”

The climate change denial movement has tentacles the world over, but it is most influential and caustic in the US. Without America’s leadership, other countries, including China and India, have little incentive to act. Obama’s presidential directives, although welcome, only go so far.

For a bipartisan solution, legislators in Washington should look to the CLEAR Act currently being discussed in the US Senate.

Otherwise, it will be up to geoengineering to resolve the matter. That is an exceedingly risky fix.

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By Claudio Guler for ISN Security Watch, 23 February 2010

Two weeks ago, as snow blanketed Washington DC for the second time in a week, FOX News, the conservative news broadcaster, placed a copy of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” in the snow and chronicled its entombment. “Poor Al Gore,” the moderator stuttered as he attempted to make out the former vice president’s increasingly snow-covered name.

The act was sensationalist, maybe even juvenile, but it evidenced a broader truth: On climate policy, as in many other issue areas in Washington, and in the US Congress in particular, the divide runs deep. Two US senators, however, now reckon they have a prescription for unity – at least when it comes to climate change legislation.

All CLEAR

A sufficient number of Americans, historically the biggest emitters of climate-altering greenhouse gases (GHG), fret that efforts to reduce emissions will stymie economic growth at a particularly precarious hour. Conservative measures of US unemployment stand at 10 percent. Moreover, existing cap and trade legislation, known as the Waxman-Markey Bill, languishes at the doorstep of the US Senate and has failed to inspire much enthusiasm.

Enter US Senators Maria Cantwell (Democrat) and Susan Collins (Republican) from Washington state and Maine, respectively. Senators Cantwell and Collins have jointly tabled the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal or CLEAR Act, and argue that the cap and dividend system it proposes offers up a fresh approach to reducing America’s GHG emissions.

Cap and dividend is the brainchild of social entrepreneur Peter Barnes. The concept made its first appearance in the US Congress as the Cap and Dividend Act of 2009, introduced into the lower legislative chamber by Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat.

As the name suggests, cap and dividend sets a cap on GHG emissions nationally and then reduces them incrementally over time, in turn establishing a price for carbon emitted into the atmosphere. However, unlike cap and trade, cap and dividend does away with the trade component and focuses instead on cushioning the economic impact for consumers.

Rather than capping emissions downstream at the end user, focusing typically on large-scale emitters, the CLEAR Act proposes limiting emissions upstream, where fossil fuels first enter the US economy. Auctioning off permits upstream, argue proponents, simplifies monitoring and verification as fewer entities have to be tracked, and behaves much like a carbon tax on energy suppliers, except that it guarantees a limit on total GHG emissions, which a straight tax would not. First sellers then pass the increased costs on to consumers, who in turn experience higher prices at the pump.

In return, to help consumers compensate for higher energy costs, the CLEAR Act suggests returning three-fourths of the revenues from permit auctions to consumers directly, approximately $1,000 per year for a family of four. Because dividends are paid out on a universal basis, those individuals who use carbon-based energies most intensely would eat away at their dividend fastest.

The CLEAR Act proposes depositing the remaining fourth of the revenues into a government trust fund to finance other emissions reduction projects and adaptation measures, and to iron out regional disparities. One critique of cap and dividend is that because it targets emitters upstream, it may disproportionately hurt areas that rely heavily on fossil fuels production, such as the coal-mining region of West Virginia and eastern Pennsylvania.

The overarching appeal, nevertheless, is the scheme’s transparency and egalitarianism. Supporters also like to point out that politically, cap and dividend’s small government dividend structure practically sells itself.

Regarding the CLEAR Act, John Diamond, spokesman for Senator Maria Cantwell, told ISN Security Watch, “We’re off on a bipartisan footing with Senator Collins and we’re excited about that. We’re getting a good buzz in terms of the media, viewing it as a viable alternative idea.

“The fact that Senator Collins is on board is so critically important to the bigger picture, because the voices saying that climate legislation is doomed have been citing as Exhibit A the healthcare debate, which ended up being strictly partisan. We don’t necessarily see this as being in the same box at all. We feel like we’re off to a good start.”

Others are equally sanguine. James Hansen, an eminent climatologist, has testified before the US House Committee on Ways and Means in favor of a carbon tax and 100 percent dividend.

Research by Dr James K Boyce and Matthew Riddle from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst found that a cap and dividend policy would have a strongly progressive net effect.

A return to the drawing board?

What are the implications for EU mandarins in Brussels who put in place the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), a cap and trade design?

Laudable for its proactivity, the EU ETS is all the same a massive and at times perplexing instrument. Critics draw attention to its inability so far to set a carbon price that is stable and high enough to spur investment in green technologies. To ensure price stability, the CLEAR Act proposes a price collar.

Unlike the EU ETS, cap and dividend does not discriminate and would treat all carbon emissions equally, covering for example cars and homes too, not just large-scale, concentrated polluters.

Because the EU ETS incorporates a trading mechanism, emitters can sometimes earn credits that equal permits by funding emissions reduction projects abroad where it is cheaper, so-called offsets. The problem is that offsets often leave uncomfortable room for cheating. Removing the trading mechanism also keeps Wall Street at arms length.

Most importantly, however, advocates note that the CLEAR Act does not call for ‘giving away’ the majority of permits to special interests, a practice that plagues both the EU ETS and the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, and can lead to windfall profits for firms with excess permits to sell.

Speaking with ISN Security Watch, Boyce explained, “By putting a cap on emissions, you’re in effect creating a set of property rights where before there was open access and emitting was free. The reason you create property rights is to respond to the problem of scarcity, in this case the scarce carbon absorptive capacity of the biosphere. Creating property rights requires decisions about who gets those property rights: They have to be distributed to somebody in some way. What cap and dividend in effect does is it says that the rights to the United States’ share of the global carbon absorptive capacity are shared in common and equal measure amongst all the people of the country.”

The irony of the profligate Americans potentially moving into position to upstage the green Europeans goes without saying.

Where is Al Gore on all this?

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By Claudio Guler for ISN Security Watch, 8 October 2009

The irony is that in putting many of us out of work, the global economic recession has reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at an unprecedented scale. This portends well for the environment, particularly in the short run. But in considering the big picture, the recession has dented the menace of climate change only marginally.

Participants to the UN climate change summit on 22 September in New York (hailed by the UN as the largest so far in terms of heads of state and ministerial-level participation) underscored this assessment. President Hu Jintao of China won substantial plaudits for proclaiming his country’s commitment to curb GHG emissions, albeit offering up few specifics.

In his speech, Hu repeatedly framed coming efforts under the banner of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” acknowledging the need for developing countries to partake, and maybe, but unlikely, hinting at the developing world’s own fast-accruing record of atmospheric pollution.

Part of the solution will likely be REDD, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The process is riddled with pitfalls and burdened by a tree-hugging stigma, but deforestation accounts for roughly 20 percent of global GHG emissions, the second largest driver of anthropogenic climate change after the burning of fossil fuels.

Although big emitters China and India will likely have little to do with REDD – they host few tropical forests – other middle- and low-income equatorial countries will be primary targets. REDD will have to focus on tropical forests because of their elevated climate change mitigation potential. Tropical forests have a higher albedo and recycle carbon dioxide better than their northern counterparts. What is more, they exhibit the most alarming rates of deforestation.

The prime target regions for REDD include the Amazon in Brazil; Southeast Asia, from Myanmar/Burma to the Philippines and Indonesia; the Congo basin; Madagascar; and the southern tip of Central America.

Pros and cons

REDD presents several benefits. First, REDD may be rather inexpensive. Numbers floated by researchers so far range in the neighborhood of $50 billion per year. (Caveat: REDD costs are highly dependent on the development of an effective monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) regime that prices the carbon in trees.)

Second, as suggested above, the emissions reduction and consequently ecological impact of REDD could be considerable.

Finally, if carried out graft-free – and this remains a big if – REDD could have positive developmental effects by funneling money to some of the world’s poorest.

REDD, however, also entails numerous challenges that will likely try its implementation. Monitoring and verification of REDD projects could turn out to be onerous undertakings.

Protecting the tenurial rights of indigenous people living in forests, a constituency that already enjoys little voice in international circles, will also be difficult. They risk being neglected altogether.

David Brown and Neil Bird have pointed out in an Overseas Development Institute opinion that for REDD to be developmentally sound and socially just, policymakers have first to understand, “the social, institutional and political conditions that drive land use change and that often operate beyond the forest sector at local, national and international scales.”

Deforestation, moreover, is in large measure the result of illegal land use that for many governments is difficult to control. The countries that host the largest swaths of tropical forest often also happen to suffer from anemic and dysfunctional legal systems.

As such, the greatest obstacle to REDD is misaligned economic incentives. For some, land use that causes deforestation is a lone avenue to escape the misery of poverty. For others, and less nobly, illegal logging and land use yields handsome profit that is hard to forgo. To counter this, REDD will have to pay people to plant, and more crucially, to not cut down trees.

Creeping action

Under the existing Kyoto framework developing countries can apply for Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs) to help fund projects that mitigate GHG emissions, but REDD does not qualify, yet. The CDM Executive Board can only fund projects that demonstrate ‘additionality.’ In other words, planting a new tree counts, but saving one from being felled does not.

Critics of channeling REDD through CDMs moreover fear that if approved, developed countries may use the mechanism to outsource the business of emissions reduction by earning Certified Emission Reductions or carbon credits, which they can then turn around and use to meet their own emissions reduction targets. If a developed country concomitantly eschews improvements back home, this would in effect amount to cheating.

The private and non-for-profit sectors also carry out REDD projects. However, their impact is limited, and setting and maintaining standards for emissions reductions on an individual basis is highly problematic.

Seeking to tackle the problem from an alternative angle, environmentally conscious policymakers in net timber consuming countries have taken to defensive measures to limit deforestation outside their borders.

The EU’s FLEGT initiative – Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade – partners with producing countries on a voluntary basis to set up licensing schemes that discriminate against illegal timber entering the European marketplace. The US has also started to control the importation of illegal timber under the 1900 Lacey Act. It was amended in 2008 to include such protections.

Curiously, some researchers suspect import controls may ultimately yield more benefits than paying people for REDD.

As the deadline for action in Copenhagen nears, REDD may come to define equatorial developing countries’ “common but differentiated responsibilities.” Given the wholesale potential for REDD to attenuate the deleterious effects of global climate change, continuing its exclusion in a post-Kyoto agreement may be passing up an imperfect but potentially constructive opportunity.

Speaking with ISN Security Watch by telephone from London, Jade Saunders, an associate fellow of the Energy Environment and Development Programme at Chatham House, a UK think tank, is nevertheless cautious.

“Don’t assume that all of this comes down to money. There are complicated cultural and capacity challenges to reducing deforestation. If we raise $50 billion and spend it in ways that we already know don’t work, there is a good chance we won’t have any impact at all on global carbon emissions.

“My call would be for a more thoughtful approach to REDD, one which bears in mind and learns from the history of forest interventions over the past several decades.”

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By Claudio Guler for ISN Security Watch, 14 Apr 2009

The chief obstacle in marshalling resources to curb climate change lies in clarifying the abstract nature and inconsistent onset of the issue. When and where will climate change occur? How long does the world have to react? Will climate change necessarily be bad for everyone?

Obscurity fuels skepticism, which in turn delays action. Considering climate change from a security perspective allays this quandary. Climate change portends to generate millions of climate refugees, imperil human security and threaten regional and international stability.

Rising sea levels, coastal erosion, the increased incidence of severe weather events, encroaching desertification and water shortages, all pose a threat to livelihoods. The ramifications of climate change are manifold; they incorporate, nevertheless, an unmistakable north-south component. Those least equipped to cope will likely be those most affected.

Numbers expected to ‘double’

In 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reckoned it served some 31.7 million persons of concern under its mandate. This figure included 11.4 million political refugees, but did not take into account persons displaced by environmental change.

Projections on climate refugees vary widely. According to an UNHCR estimate, climate or environmental refugees totaled roughly 25 million in 1995. Professor Norman Myers of Green College, Oxford University, has put forth other often-cited estimates. By 2010, Professor Myers forecasts the 25 million figure to double to 50 million. He counsels, nevertheless, that “the 1995 estimate of 25 million environmental refugees is cautious and conservative.”

By 2050, most observers project climate refugees to swell into the range of 150 to 200 million. If accurate, these figures readily surpass those of conventional political refugees.

Not-so-trite semantics

Albeit popular in the press, the term “climate refugee” enjoys no legal authority. The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is the core treaty of international refugee law. Article 1 defines a refugee as any person who “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.” The definition does not afford binding legal protection to environmentally displaced persons, and focuses instead on political refugees and refugees of violent conflict.

A 1967 Protocol later amended the 1951 Convention and removed geographic and time constraints, rendering the convention a more universal document. Climate refugees, however, remained outside the legal framework. The UN world recognizes this dissimilarity and employs a verbose working definition instead – “environmentally induced migrant.”

The result puts humanitarians and environmentalists compassionately at odds. Humanitarians argue their limited resources are already overstretched. Environmentalists note that climate change and consequently environmental displacement are byproducts of human-led industrialization. Sheltering those victimized by climate change is a moral and security imperative.

Governments, academics and NGOs are exploring measures to close this loophole, particularly in the run-up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen from 7-18 December. The near-term prospects, however, remain unpropitious.

An adaptation fund focusing on least developed countries (LDC) and other developing states is to go on line soon. It was established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). All the same, Dr Koko Warner of the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) told ISN Security Watch: “[It is not] clear whether issues such as resettlement or migration will actually be eligible for adaptation funding. Right now, the conversation is a little too early.”

Professor Frank Biermann of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam explained to ISN Security Watch that “politically speaking, we are now in the process of agenda setting…an agenda around climate refugees is forming, but this needs maybe a decade until [it] is really institutionalized in the political process, in the form of legal agreements, funding structures and implementation programs.”

In a December 2008 article in Environment magazine, Professor Biermann and researcher Ingrid Boas made the case for a global protocol to deal with climate refugees. In his conversation with ISN Security Watch, Professor Biermann underscored, “We propose a fund that is specifically there for climate refugees.”

Resettlement easier said than done

Eventually, to avoid the most adverse of scenarios, resettlement and funding schemes will be needed. Civil society is leading the charge. Due to their proximity to the Pacific islands, the governments of Australia and New Zealand have become early targets of pressure.

The right to resettlement, however, begs a fundamental question: How does the international community distinguish between victims of climate change and casualties of unsustainable development? Professor Biermann explains that although this distinction may be useful in the developed world, elsewhere it is unfitting. “It is difficult to say for developing countries [...] you can’t tell the Egyptians its your problem that you settled in the Nile [Delta], because this what they have been doing for the last 5,000 years.

“[That] is why we make the distinction between climate refugees and other refugees – because of the moral link between causation and consequence. Rich industrialized countries, they have been responsible for the largest part of this problem.”

Any resettlement, nevertheless, will likely be onerous. Displaced populations may be forced to take up residence in foreign countries, straining cultural traditions and in certain cases the very existence of their national identities. Refugees, never mind their genesis, are rarely regarded as a blessing. They necessitate costly assistance and their presence – albeit through no fault of their own – frequently engenders political strife with local communities, all the more reason for drafting resettlement schemes early on.

Sea change for developing countries

Those living near low-lying coastal areas are most exposed. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expects sea levels to rise anywhere from 9 to 88 cm by 2100. (Note: Some regard this estimate as too conservative). Of a projected global population of 9 billion in 2050, just under one-third will live within 96 kilometers of the coasts.

Some idyllic small island states – many members to the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) – are at risk of disappearing entirely. The atolls of Tuvalu lie just 4.5 meters above sea level. A sea level rise of one meter threatens flooding, crop destruction and fresh water contamination. President Anote Tong of Kiribati told the UN he expected his country to become uninhabitable in 50 years, arguing: “Our very lives are at stake.” Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed has publicly expressed his interest in relocating the country.

Large river deltas are another imperiled area. In Bangladesh, one of the lowest-lying countries in the world, locals are contemplating ways to move their livelihoods onto boats. Bangladesh stands to generate 20 million climate refugees by 2030. Sections of the eastern coast of China, the Niger Delta region, The Netherlands and Venice, among others, face increasing prospects of flooding.

The US Gulf Coast, in addition to being a victim of coastal erosion and rising sea levels, has as of late demonstrated the dangers associated with the increased incidence of severe weather events.

Fresh water shortages, encroaching desertification and declining food production in equatorial regions represent other sources for concern. This has already manifested itself in East Africa. The conflict in Darfur, which has left an estimated 300,000 dead and 2.7 million displaced, arose in part because of encroaching desertification, scarce grazing opportunities for livestock and resource competition. Climate change has forced an estimated one million pastoralists in Kenya to renounce their livelihoods. Over the past 100 years, Kenya has fallen prey to 28 major droughts. Their frequency is increasing.

Central and Eastern Asia will likely experience significant fresh water shortages. India, Pakistan, China and the Central Asian countries all rely on river systems fed by glacial waters that originate in the Himalayas. Receding glaciers equal diminishing water supplies.

Setting priorities a priority

Climate refugees exemplify the human security challenges associated with climate change. Even though, as Professor Biermann points out, the discussion on climate refugees remains in its infancy, priorities lie ahead for the international community and developed countries in particular.

If 1.5 to 2 percent of the global population has the potential to find itself on the move by 2050, the international community must make headway in defining legally who does and does not constitutes a climate refugee. It is also incumbent on the international community to draft and approve comprehensive resettlement and funding schemes. If the unavoidable, yet predictable security perils of climate change are to be mitigated, orderly resettlement will be of paramount import.

Original Print: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?ots591=4888CAA0-B3DB-1461-98B9-E20E7B9C13D4&lng=en&id=98861

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By Claudio Guler for ISN Security Watch, 23 Feb 2009

When does junk science turn sound? Perhaps when it concerns climate change and geoengineering. It’s a risky proposition, yet the likelihood of missing the window to curb climate change is growing, and a geoengineering contingency plan may prove useful.

Geoengineering entails the large-scale manipulation of climate processes to curb or limit the effects of global climate change. Proposals focus on increasing the earth’s albedo, limiting the amount of sunlight that strikes the earth, and reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere – the chief greenhouse gas (GHG).

Industrialization, first attempted by the British in the 19th century and then proliferated throughout the world, can be thought of as a giant geoengineering experiment of sorts, just unintentional and in reverse. Humans have worked diligently to extract carbon from the ground and to burn it to produce energy. This excess carbon now needs to go back underground or into the oceans, lest global temperatures continue to increase.

The facts

The projections for climate change offer a sobering reality. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere during the pre-industrial age measured 280 ppm. That has increased dramatically to form the inverted and now familiar hockey stick graph. In 2008, according to measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere attained 386 ppm. It continues to increase at the rate of slightly more than 2 ppm per year.

The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report asserted that in order to stabilize the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere below 400 ppm, the world would have to reduce emissions by 85 percent to 50 percent by 2050. So doing, nevertheless, still commits the world to a 2 – 2.4 degree global increase in temperatures and a .4 to 1.4 meter rise in sea levels. By 2100, the report estimates, sea levels could swell anywhere from 9-88 cm depending on the scenario. These models, however, only consider sea level rises due to thermal expansion of the oceans, and do not take into account melting of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. The estimates therefore could be low.

Some concur. Dr James E Hansen from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York is among the most vocal. In a 2007 article, Hansen asserted that the global climate system might be approaching a tipping point. Tipping points occur when climate change achieves a new state or plateau that triggers positive feedback loops. The summer melting of the polar ice cap, which serves to reflect much of the sun’s energy back into space, and the thawing of the Siberian tundra, which stores large quantities of methane gas, another warming agent, could accelerate climate change and lead to more rapid sea level rises than forecast.

The Republic of Maldives is taking such concerns to heart. Member of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), Maldives has set aside funds in its budget to save up for a new home. Lying just a meter or two above sea level, most of the islands in the Maldives archipelago could disappear, forcing the population to resettle.

Dithering

This reality raises pressing security concerns. Roughly one-third of the world’s population, 2.75 billion people, will live within 96 kilometers of the coast by 2025. Rising sea levels could generate large numbers of climate refugees, endanger global stability and put pressure on inland settlements and water resources. (This map reveals the impact of rising sea levels and the capacity for dislocation.)

Politically, curbing global warming is nearly intractable. The profound lack of urgency is due in large part to the imperceptibility of long-term climate changes. Yet other factors also contribute. A collective action problem plagues the individual level of analysis. The low price of fossil fuels, at least for the moment and relative to alternatives, permits individuals to consume prodigally and hinders the emergence of political pressures for reform.

At the national level, established interests such as the utility and oil industries, as well as others, are notorious for lobbying vigorously to steer clear of costly regulations. And in the international arena, the clash between developed and developing countries and their respective responsibilities to reduce emissions stymie progress.

Moreover, the estimated costs of any emissions reduction scheme further suppress appetites for reform. The 2006 Stern Review, an often-cited study, estimated that 1 percent of GDP would have to be invested to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Two years later, Sir Nicholas Stern revised his estimates and announced 2 percent of GDP may be necessary to compensate for observed accelerations in climate change.

Yet more than almost any other issue, this global problem necessitates a global solution. The diplomatic record is inauspicious. From the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to Kyoto, on to Bali, and soon on to Copenhagen, reluctance has prevailed. The US delegation to Bali under the former Bush administration capitulated just minutes before the conference’s close and under significant pressure from other delegations, agreeing ultimately to continue talks to finalize a new multilateral treaty to replace Kyoto in Copenhagen in December 2009.

The new US administration appears more amenable. On the White House website, US President Barack Obama states that his environmental policy is to reduce GHG emissions by 80 percent by 2050. True to form, he mentions no details. Yet his disposition remains propitious.

The schemes

The prospective costs of geoengineering schemes, conversely, amount to a fraction of the costs of reducing emissions. David G Victor, a professor at Stanford University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted in a November 2008 article in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy that “early estimates suggest that the discounted present cost of a geoengineering program extended into perpetuity is of the order of $100 billion, which compares favorably with the $1 trillion order-of-magnitude costs for mitigation.”

Several geoengineering schemes have been suggested. One is to increase the earth’s reflectivity or albedo by spraying sulfur dioxide or synthetic aerosols into the stratosphere. Another idea, set forth by Professors Stephen Saltner and John Lantham, is to spray salt into the troposphere using a flotilla of Flettner vessels to cloud-seed, which would generate additional clouds and reflect more sunlight back into space.

As of yet, salt is not considered a pollutant. But sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, has already been the target of international regulation. The notion of “whitening” the surface of the earth, i.e. painting roofs white, has also been brainstormed. Its impact, however, remains dubitable.

To decrease the amount of sunlight striking the planet, some have considered deploying massive sunshields into space. The obstacles to overcome are multitudinous and the unintended consequences could be grave.

Finally, a number of proposals have focused on actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere, so-called “carbon sequestration.” Plans include fertilizing the oceans with iron to spur phytoplankton growth and planting more trees. Both would remove CO2 from the atmosphere automatically while undergoing life processes. The problem with fertilizing the oceans, however, is surging acidification, which dissolves the shells of marine animals and destroys coral reefs, a first line of defense against coastal erosion.

The experts

Experts remain divided on geoengineering’s final merits, but interests are piqued. Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK concluded the first comprehensive assessment of the climate cooling potential of different geoengineering schemes in late January 2009. They reckon that “enhancing carbon sinks could bring CO2 back to its pre-industrial level, but not before 2100 – and only when combined with strong mitigation of CO2 emissions.”

Moreover, “stratospheric aerosol injections and sunshades in space have by far the greatest potential to cool the climate by 2050 – but also carry the greatest risk.”

Not to be outdone, scientists at the Royal Society in the UK launched their own study into the potential for various geoengineering schemes. The chair of the Royal Society working group undertaking the study, Professor John Shepherd, noted, “Some of these proposals seem fantastical, and may prove to be so. Our study aims to separate the science from the science fiction and offer recommendations on which options deserve serious consideration.”

Dr Ken Caldeira from the Department of Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science stated in a testimony before the British House of Commons: “We need a climate engineering research and development plan. The widespread desire for the “good life” afforded by economic growth and development places us increasingly at risk of profound and widespread climate damage […] prudence demands that we consider what we might do if cuts in carbon dioxide emissions prove too little or too late to avoid unacceptable climate damage.”

Elsewhere, a May 2008 workshop on geoengineering at the Council on Foreign Relations highlighted the potential benefits of unilateral geoengineering. If the international political process to curb climate change stays bogged down, a small group of wealthy, like-minded nations could conceivably undertake geoengineering projects on their own and mitigate exposure to the most pernicious effects of climate change. However, the workshop cautions that without coordination, some states may decide to undertake dangerous geoengineering projects that could do more harm than good.

Fund the science

With US President Obama set on curbing anthropogenic warming of the earth’s atmosphere, geoengineering deserves further consideration. Studies in the UK are under way. The US – historically the world’s foremost emitter – should follow suit. Providing added funding for the science is the first step to ascertaining the true potential, both good and bad, of any geoengineering scheme.

There looms, at last, the risk of moral hazard – relying exclusively on geoengineering as a means to tackle climate change as technological solutions begin to crystallize. Obama should use his normative influence to caution emphatically against taking the easy way out.

Geology Professor Steve Wojtal, Oberlin College, told the ISN Security Watch: “I am afraid that the global society will need to draw upon the full range of options to address the issue of climate change effectively. I believe, however, that there are a wide range of unintended consequences that can arise when we attempt to use what I call a ‘technological fix’ to address a problem that has arisen as a result of rampant technology.”

Geoengineering may help, but it’s no Plan A.

Original Print: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?ots591=4888CAA0-B3DB-1461-98B9-E20E7B9C13D4&lng=en&id=96814

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