Lethal Heating: 11/14/16

14/11/2016

'Everyone Is Vulnerable': Trump Presidency A Risk To Australia's Climate Science

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

A Trump presidency in the US could have serious impacts on Australia's climate science and other research, with fears the cuts could be "CSIRO times 50".
Donald Trump's pledge to end US participation in the Paris climate agreement and expectations he will appoint climate change denier Myron Ebell to a key environment role has scientists bracing for fallout.

The state of our climate in 2016
Australia is already experiencing an increase in extreme conditions from climate change - and it's projected to get worse.

Australia's climate research relies on many US programs, some of which have been targeted by the Republican-controlled Congress. President Barack Obama resisted cuts to agencies such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration but he will leave office on January 20.
At the extreme end, a Trump administration could jeopardise global climate efforts by withholding access to data that underpins climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said David Karoly, an atmospheric scientist at Melbourne University.
"All the [Coupled Model Intercomparison Project] data is stored on US data servers," Professor Karoly said, adding the US is the only place storing all that information.
Any interruption could mean the next IPCC assessment potentially doesn't proceed, which "would be an enormous setback for climate science", he said.
Others, though, noted that while earlier model data were housed on servers belonging to the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Lab, an international Earth System Grid Federation now shares the load. The network is led by the US but has nodes elsewhere, including in Australia.
Christian Jakob, a Monash University professor who attended a recent CMIP gathering in the US, is less pessimistic about an interruption to data access. Still, future phases of the modellin could be affected if other nations didn't step up to fill any US void.

Australia relies on US science programs for key weather and climate inforamation. Photo: NASA

Of more pressing concern is whether expensive satellite programs run by NOAA and NASA get axed, a move that would damage not only climate modelling but "close cousins" the short-term weather forecasts, he said.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO and universities rely on NOAA to supply their key ocean model. Cuts "would have implications for us very directly", Professor Jakob said. "Everyone is vulnerable."

Republican president-elect is a widely seen as a climate change denier. Photo: Gerry Broome

Several scientists noted US counterparts had rallied to the defence of CSIRO research when management earlier this year proposed slashing as many as two-thirds of its climate scientists. Protests helped prompt a reversal of almost all the cuts.
"Everything's connected - if you remove a piece in one corner, you'd better do a careful analysis of what the consequences are," Professor Jakob said, adding the CSIRO cuts were "an actual intent, but with the US we're speculating".

Tropical cyclones Lam and Marcia over Australia in February 2015 in imagery supplied from the US. Photo: NOAA

Andy Pitman, director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at UNSW, said the US accounts for about 40 per cent of global climate research, on a par with Europe.
"Any risk to [the US share] is just hugely worrying," Professor Pitman said, adding China is one nation rapidly expanding research although not fast enough to fill a major US retreat.
Ironically, it was China that Mr Trump earlier singled out to blame for the "hoax" of climate change.

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Axel Timmermann, from the University of Hawaii, said US researchers feared "a brute force against climate science" that would have consequences ranging from the ability to predict El Ninos and bushfires to heatwave.
"It's like driving in a tunnel and switching off your headlights - not a wise thing to do," Professor Timmermann said. "It has some elements of going back to a very anti-science, medieval mindset that is not only detrimental to the scientists but also the general public."
And as Professor Pitman noted, "the laws of physics don't change just because Trump has become president."

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Environmentalists Launch 'Emergency' Campaign To Persuade Trump Climate Change Is Real Amid Fears Of 'Planetary Disaster'

The Independent - Ian Johnston | Joe Watts | Ashley Cowburn

US President-elect is 'not only mad and bad but he's also dangerous', UK politician says

Mr Trump was described as 'dangerous' by Lib Dem leader Tim Farron. AP

One of the biggest ever environmental campaigns has been launched by a group of the world's most eminent scientists and environmentalists in an 'emergency' effort to convince the President-elect, Donald Trump, that global warming is real before he becomes US President in January.
Mr Trump, who described climate science as a "hoax" perpetrated by China, has already appointed a prominent climate change denier, Myron Ebell, to a key environmental post and promised that he will rip up the landmark Paris Agreement climate deal when he enters the White House. Climate sceptics in Australia crowed that the Paris Agreement was "cactus" – meaning finished – following his election this week.
Among those now preparing for arguably the most important campaign ever designed to change the mind of a single individual in modern history is the Sierra Club – an environmental group founded by legendary conservationist John Muir in 1892, which now has more than two million members and supporters globally.
Visitors to the club's website are now being urging to "make an emergency donation". "We are not licking our wounds, we are preparing for the fights to come. Fight Back Against Trump," it explains.
Meanwhile the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is bringing together leading scientists from across the US to urge Mr Trump to listen to the evidence, rather than accept the testimonies of conspiracy theorists and fossil fuel lobbyists. Dr Rush Holt, the chief executive of the AAAS, told The Independent: "During the campaign, Trump was all over the place, saying different things about different issues at different times, and so it is hard to know really what he will do.
"There are troubling signs in that he has appointed as a key member of his transition team a person who is, I guess I'd say, antagonistic to restricting carbon emissions [Ebell]. That's not a good sign. AAAS, for more than half a century, has been outspoken to policymakers and the public about the risks of human-induced climate change and the need to take action to mitigate it.
"I think we will be urging him to look at the evidence even before his first day because climate change is a major, historic, global problem and he should be looking at that even now."
Dr Holt, who described climate change as a "looming emergency", said Mr Trump might be swayed by the financial implications of removing the US from the signatories of the Paris Agreement or otherwise abandoning efforts to cut emissions.
"We would condemn such moves and say that such action would put our country and our friends and competitors around the world in dangerous situations and that climate change is already costly in lives and dollars. If strong action isn't taken, it will be only more so by all estimates, more costly than the cost of addressing it," he said.
"Maybe he [Trump] would respond to arguments of dollars and cents."
Climate scientists have already warned of the dangers of having a climate denier in the White House.
Professor Michael Mann told The Independent that President Trump's term of office – coupled with new research suggesting the Earth is more sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously thought – could mean "game over" for hopes of preventing global warming from entering dangerous territory.
And Dr Kevin Trenberth, of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, described the coming Trump presidency as "an unmitigated disaster for the planet".
John Coequyt, the Sierra Club's director of federal and international climate campaigns, predicted environmentalists would take to the streets. "I at least know there will be lots and lots of protests on this with the goal to change his position on it," he told The Independent.
"I think we'll put together the largest defensive legislative campaign the progressive community has ever put together in Washington DC. It will span all the issues the progressive community cares about form healthcare to climate change to gay rights to immigration."
But Mr Coequyt said Mr Trump was surrounding himself with advisers with links to the fossil fuel industry and so politicians from other countries might actually be able to exert greater influence. "Right now, all of the people who have been identified as senior advisers, potentially take roles in cabinet, they are all fossil fuel lobbyists and people who run these companies. That's going to be the big challenge," he added.
"The only people who have a word in his ear are fossil fuel industry insiders. It's international pressure that's going to be the most effective. Domestically he's got advisers who will insulate him from the reality of the world."
He said that the US military would be another "voice of reason" in close contact with the new President.
"They have for some time believed climate change is a 'force multiplier', it's very clear they believe it is driving instability around the world," Mr Coequyt said. "I don't think they are going to give up that position easily. It's now a 15-year-old position."
Deborah Barker-Manase is representing the Republic of the Marshall Islands – a Pacific island state already experiencing the effects of climate change – at the ongoing United Nations climate summit in Morocco.
She spelled out the kind of problems that that are also beginning to hit many parts of the world.
"We're experiencing frequent storm surges … anything just above the normal average high-water tide has a very big impact because we are no more than two metres above sea level," Ms Barker-Manase said.
"And we are experiencing prolonged drought events, which for an atoll nation is pretty serious even if it is a month long because there are no freshwater sources other than rain.
"I think it's not a matter of convincing someone … you just have to look around."
British politicians were scathing of Mr Trump.

'Dangerous' climate change could arrive as early as 2050

Barry Gardiner, Labour's shadow minister for international climate change, said "even though a Trump administration will present a significant threat to continued action at the federal level in the USA, it cannot hold back the global tide that is sweeping us to a low-carbon future".
"I will be calling on Theresa May to make clear to Mr Trump that the world expects the USA to stay solidly behind the Paris Agreement," he added.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said Mr Trump was "frankly is a disaster for our future", particularly as Congress is controlled by the Republicans.
"He has talked about ripping our climate change agreements, rolling back green energy schemes and downsizing the Environment Protection Agency," Mr Farron said. "He is not only mad and bad but he's also dangerous and this is exhibit A."
And Green Party co-leader described Mr Trump's election as "a potential hammer blow to the climate movement".
Even the World Coal Association (WCA) issued a plea to the soon-to-be 45th US President to try to reduce greenhouse gases. Benjamin Sporton, the WCA's chief executive, said: "We will encourage the Trump administration to collaborate with international development partners to work together to increase funding for low emission coal technologies."

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Trump Win Clears Way For China to Lead on Climate

Climate Central - Reuters

The election of climate change skeptic Donald Trump as president is likely to end the U.S. leadership role in the international fight against global warming and may lead to the emergence of a new and unlikely champion: China.
China worked closely with the administration of outgoing President Barack Obama to build momentum ahead of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The partnership of the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters helped get nearly 200 countries to support the pact at the historic meet in France's capital.
By contrast, Trump has called global warming a hoax created by China to give it an economic advantage and said he plans to remove the United States from the historic climate agreement, as well as reverse many of Obama's measures to combat climate change.
He has appointed noted climate change skeptic Myron Ebell to help lead transition planning for the Environmental Protection Agency, which has crafted the administration’s major environmental regulations such as the Clean Power Plan and efficiency standards for cars and trucks.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gestures as he speaks at election night rally in Manhattan, New York, U.S., November 9, 2016. Credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar

Beijing is poised to cash in on the goodwill it could earn by taking on leadership in dealing with what for many other governments is one of the most urgent issues on their agenda.
"Proactively taking action against climate change will improve China's international image and allow it to occupy the moral high ground," Zou Ji, deputy director of the National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and a senior Chinese climate talks negotiator, told Reuters.
Zou said that if Trump abandons efforts to implement the Paris agreement, "China's influence and voice are likely to increase in global climate governance, which will then spill over into other areas of global governance and increase China's global standing, power and leadership."
Chen Zhihua, a representative of the Chinese delegation and official in the climate change division of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's economic planning agency, said Chinese and other countries' efforts will not change if the United States withdraws from the agreement.
“Action by the international community will not stop because of the new government of the United States. We still have confidence the international community will join hands and continue our efforts on climate change,” he told reporters at the 200-nation U.N. meeting being held in Marrakesh to start fleshing out the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement seeks to phase out net greenhouse gas emissions by the second half of the century and limit global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Each country has put forward national plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Some have raised concerns that without involvement and financial support from the United States, emerging economies like India may feel inclined to back out.
One of the key advisors to Obama's team on climate change said he hoped China would take on the mantle and keep the global climate deal alive.
Beijing should "continue to work in the spirit that we worked together in and before Paris," said Andrew Light, former senior adviser to previous U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern.

Changing Role
It is an ironic twist for the government of the world's second-largest economy. For years, Beijing fought attempts by foreign governments to limit carbon emissions, claiming it should be allowed the same space to develop and pollute that industrialized nations had.
But with its capital often choked by smog and its people angry about the environmental devastation that rapid development has wrought across the country, Beijing has become a proponent of efforts to halt global warming rather than a hindrance.
"China is acting on climate for the benefit of its own people," said Erik Solheim, executive director of the UN Environment Programme.
"I am confident China will take a lead role."
China has powerful domestic and global imperatives to play a high-profile role in continued global climate change talks, meant to avert more heat waves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels that could cause trillions of dollars of damage by 2100.
China sees a perceived role as global climate leader as way to bolster its aspiration to become a "clean energy superpower" by leading in renewable energy technology such as wind and solar power and asserting itself as a key geopolitical power.
Dealing with the pressures of continued urbanization in some of the world's largest cities has already put China ahead, said Andrew Steer, the president of environmental think tank the World Resources Institute.
Beijing is innovating to build low-carbon cities, he said.
"It sees carbon as an indicator of economic inefficiency," Steer said.
Trump's victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton darkened the mood of delegates attending the current round of climate talks in Marrakesh.
Some delegates at the talks say that China is already setting an example.
"China is surprising us daily. Whatever they've promised they're delivering," said Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, of Democratic Republic of Congo, who heads the 48-nation group of least developed countries at the talks.

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