Prioritising climate change?

This is a video that was recorded back in 2005. It features Professor Bjørn Lomborg and his views on problems faced by societies today. Given the limited time and limited financial resources that we have, Professor Lomborg feels that we have to prioritise our solutions to these problems and the process of prioritization (or making such decisions) is left to the economists (rather than the experts within the individual fields). This is because economists are believed to be proficient at cost-benefit analyses and making optimal decisions for everybody.

Although he does not refute the fact that climate change and global warming is a problem for society, he proposes that resources should first be channeled towards other more pressing issues such as improving the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS or preventing the spread of Malaria.

The situation might have changed since 2005 and Professor Lomborg has also given many talks with regards to managing global warming. Just today, Professor Lomborg gave a similar presentation in UCL! I managed to catch hold of him after the session and spoke to him at large about managing abrupt climate change (more details will be given in a separate post).

But what do you think of the (low) prioritisation of climate change?

I feel that the example given in the presentation of how future generations in a century will judge decisions made today is unfair to future generations and policy-makers today. If the worst case scenario predicted by the IPCC comes true, climate change will have massive impacts on the standards of living for future generation (if the Earth is still habitable!). Faced with this possibility, should we still prioritise climate change as less important than poverty eradication or improving health?

Let me know what you think!

Weeks, Months, Decades, Centuries or Millenniums?

Much care should be given to defining abrupt climate change before we move on to analyse its impacts and study how we should manage it. The climate is defined as 'a broad composite of the average condition of a region, measured by its temperature, amount of rainfall or snowfall, snow and ice cover, wind direction and strength as well as other factors' (Ruddiman 2008). It generally refers to long term fluctuations rather than short term changes.

Palaeoclimatologists generally define abrupt climate change by giving examples of climatic events such as the 8.2 KaBP event, the Younger Dryas or D-O cycles. These events generally last for a millennium. In light of this, as well as the definition of 'climate' offered by Ruddiman, how long is the 'long term'? and how short is the 'short term'? Today's post will set a definition for abrupt climate change that will be used for the rest of the blog. 

Defining the 'abruptness' of climate change is a tricky affair as presented by Professor Mark Hulme. He identifies two definitions that have been used in the past:

- 'abruptness' can be defined in relation to thresholds and nonlinear behaviour of the climate system rather than simply in terms of magnitude or rate of change;

- 'abrupt' climate change can also be viewed as a significant change in climate relative to the accustomed or background climate experienced by the economic or ecological system being subject to the change, having sufficient impacts to make adaptation difficult. 

However, Hulme puts forward the argument that these definitions are inappropriate for analysing the adaptive behaviour in society to abrupt climate change as they are either too broad (as in definition no. 2 which would encompass most scenarios of climate change) or too restrictive (definition no. 1) such that social and ecological impacts are neglected.

He thus proposes a framework to define abrupt climate change by categorising climatic changes by their rate, severity and direction of change. If climate change exceeds predetermined thresholds in rate or severity and if there is a prolonged reversal in the direction of climate change, such climatic changes can then be considered as 'abrupt'. This can be seen as a combination of both definitions mentioned above.

On another note, Hulme also realises that there are limitations to using fixed definitions of abrupt climate change to extend the concept beyond palaeoclimatology. Scientists studying climatic epochs would define abruptness as a matter of decades or centuries whereas abrupt changes in society are usually measured in terms of months or years. Hence, there is a confusion in the time-scales of physical and social processes that are in play when analysing the different impacts of abrupt climate change.

In light of the confusion that might result from cross-disciplinary analysis, this blog will define abrupt climate change using the three categories of rate, severity and direction proposed by Hulme. If the rate of sea level rise (or global warming) for particular regions rise above a certain threshold, or an unprecedented weather/climatic event occurs where there is a sustained change in the direction of climate change, this will be considered as abrupt climate change. Hence, when economic analysis is conducted for the impacts of abrupt climate change, this blog would engage the discussion with reference to the time-scale of such abrupt changes in climate.

One must note that this definition is in no way exhaustive or complete. The literature has revealed that it is very difficult to distinguish small changes in the climate from its natural variability. However, the purpose of this blog is not to strictly define the 'abruptness' of climate change and hence, we will be using the framework presented above while understanding its limitations.

With the definition for abrupt climate change established, I will next embark on looking at the role of economics in managing environmental change in the following post. See you next time!

For more information on the discussion on the definition of abrupt climate change, please refer to Hulme's paper:

Hulme, M (2003) Abrupt climate change: can society cope?, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A, 361, 2001-2021. 

For a brief introduction on abrupt climatic events in the past, a simple description is offered in the following book:

Archer, D (2009) The Long Thaw, Princeton, Princeton University Press, Chapter 4. 

What Line?

It is clear that the discourse on environmental change is increasingly prevalent in today's society. Conducting a search on Google's search engine about 'global environmental change' would return more than 130 million results. Not a day goes by without a mention of climate change in the news. Just today, BBC News reported that food prices are set to rise due to the second wettest British summer since records began (BBC, 10 Oct 2012). As such, environmental change is no longer an issue bound within academia but one that resonates closely with how we lead our lives.

Although it is argued that Earth is currently experiencing the longest warm 'stable' climate where we have not experienced many abrupt climatic changes on a global scale, it is still possible to identify smaller scale changes in regional climates (IPCC Third Assessment Report). It is interesting to discuss how these regional changes in climate have affected human development and how it might have led to the rise/ fall of civilisations (i.e. the Mayan Civilization). More importantly, a study of such abrupt changes will help us formulate policies to manage such changes in the future and minimise their impact on humanity.

Current studies in climate change predict that the Earth system will experience an increase of 5-6ºC in mean global temperatures by the end of the century. Although there are many uncertainties involved in making such climate change projections, two things are becoming increasingly clear to us; 1) such an increase in global temperatures will have significant impacts to humanity and 2) we can do something to avert such a future. In other words, deciding what to do about climate change today plays a large part in determining the state of the Earth for future generations. This is the line that we are treading.

Over the course of this blog, I would like to discuss environmental topics in relation to abrupt changes in regional climates. This blog will also seek to discuss the role of economic analysis in the management of environmental change and how environmental change affects economic development.

Feel free to leave a comment if you disagree with anything that is said on the blog or if you have a different perspective =)