Lethal Heating: 01/24/17

24/01/2017

Bangladesh Struggles To Turn The Tide On Climate Change As Sea Levels Rise

The Guardian - Karen McVeigh

From incessant rains to flooded rice fields, the economic impact of global warming has been keenly felt in the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar

Women work at a dry fish yard in the Bangladeshi coastal resort of Cox’s Bazar. Changing weather conditions have hit the business hard. Photograph: Noor Alam/Majority World for the Guardian

Bangladesh is already one of the most climate vulnerable nations in the world, and global warming will bring more floods, stronger cyclones. At the dry fish yards, close to the airport at the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar, women are busy sorting fish to dry in the sun. They say the process, which begins in October, can continue through to February or March if the weather is good.
But Aman Ullah Shawdagor, a dry fish businessman who employs 70 people, says high tides and seasonal changes have hit his business hard. Last year there were four cyclones, more than ever before. In 2015, there was only one.
“My business is not doing so well because of the changing weather conditions,” says Shawdagor. “This is a dry season business. But for the last couple of years, the rain has become more frequent. It rains not only in the rainy season but also in the winter. There have also been more signals [storm warnings] with the rise in high tides. When the high tide comes, it frequently covers the whole of the land here. It is very bad for the dry fish.”
Nurul Hashem, a schoolteacher from Kutubdia Para, a nearby shanty town where many of the dry fish workers live, has also noted the trend. “We believe the water level is getting higher here,” he says. “Last year, my home was under water three or four times.”
Scientists predict that, by 2050, as many as 25 million people in Bangladesh will be affected by the rising sea level. Hashem and Shawdagor believe that they are already seeing the effects of a changing climate, however.

Kutubdia
Along the coast lies Kutubdia, an island in the Bay of Bengal where lush green rice fields give way to acres and acres of flat fields. Consisting of small rectangles of varying hues of brown, they are salt fields. The encroachment of saline water from rising tides has made rice farming impossible.
Abdus Shukur, 50, a former agricultural farmer, says he learned to farm salt 10 years ago, when sea water flooded the land he rents. It took him six months to learn the craft and he finds it back-breaking work.
“I was an agricultural farmer before,” says Shukur. “But the embankment broke down and saline water came on to the land. We had no choice but to adapt.”
Salt farming, he says, brings in more money that crops. But it is harder.

Flooded salt fields on the island of Kutubdia. Photograph: Noor Alam/Majority World for the Guardian

“Farming crops, I worked two or four hours a day. I’m now earning double what I earned before. But in the salt fields I have to work from morning till evening, the whole day.”
The small island, which has halved in size over the past 20 years due to erosion and sea level rise, is surrounded by a three-metre high concrete embankment, built by the Bangladeshi government to protect it from disappearing into the sea. But it is broken in several places and the sea water enters the land.
“The coastal belt is facing many problems of salinity,” says Mokbul Ahmed, a project co-ordinator for Coast, an organisation that helps local communities affected by the changing climate. “Day by day, salt water enters the land. In Kutubdia, every year, the government builds the embankment and every year, it is destroyed.”

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WA's South West A 'Canary In The Coalmine' For Climate Change

ABC RN Science Show - Bill Bunbury

Land clearing may have had the unintended effect of lowering rainfall in South West WA. (Getty Images: Australian Scenics)

After 200 years of changing the landscape of the world's most distinctive continent we are only just beginning to understand how European settlers and their successors have vitally affected its ecology, its diversity and its climate.

And while those effects pervade much of our island continent, they are singularly visible in Western Australia's South West.
Recording social history for RN's Hindsight program in the 1980s, an interview with an observant old forester, Jack Thompson, offered me an early lesson.
Jack worked for most of his life in the jarrah and karri forests of the South West, initially as a tree feller and ultimately as a conservationist.

Audio: Listen to Bill Bunbury's report (Science Show)

One vivid recollection was his daily journey to work from the forest camp.
"I remember once, we were camped on the Balingup Brook and we couldn't find a place to cross this brook," he told me. "It was in flood, about 30 feet across and waist deep.
"Every man cut his own crib [lunch] and you hung it on the back of your belt. So to get across we'd lift the crib up and just wade through this icy water up to your waist. But after you'd walked for half a mile, you'd walked yourself warm again. You took that all in your stride."
It's a story that stayed with me. Not so much that the redoubtable Jack took it all in his stride, but because the Balingup Brook no longer floods the way it did in his day.
Rainfall has declined significantly in this part of Australia. Anecdotes are sometimes evocative reminders of change.

The climate of South West WA has changed appreciably in the last century. (Getty Images: Dazman)

More recently, writing a book for the WA Department of Water, Till the Stream Runs Dry, I talked to those now responsible for measuring the considerable decline in rainfall: men like hydrographer Bernie Hawkins, whose career began in the 1960s.
"The winters then were massively wetter," he said. "We were in waterproofs, wellington boots and sou'westers most of the winter."
But even 10 years later, things had changed: "We were quite aware that there had been a change in rainfall. The winters weren't the same. We kept on saying it all the time as the years went by."
Large areas of the South West had been cleared, most heavily in the last century. Forests fell to make way for wheat, which had a direct effect on rainfall. The old settler saying "rain follows the axe" could easily be re-stated as "rain heads for the woods".
It has recently been shown that where rain meets woodland, trees attract rainfall. As rainclouds cross a landscape and encounter higher ground and/or wooded areas they are much more likely to shed their contents. By contrast, where rain sweeps across a largely un-treed landscape, not much reaches the ground.

Map of rabbit proof fence near Lake King, WA

The most graphic illustration of this is aerial photography of the Rabbit Proof Fence, which runs parallel to farmland in the eastern WA Wheatbelt. East of the fence vegetation is thick and pervasive. West of it is largely treeless; the result of clearing to achieve maximum crop yield.
Woodland, farmland and scarce water sources are all vitally interconnected in ways we are only beginning to understand. But uncertainty and unpredictability also complicate our understanding of climate change. We are still learning surprising lessons.
For instance, frost is now more frequent on winter nights, especially in the far south of WA, and affects both farm and forest. But there is a logical explanation. Cloudless, non-rain-bearing skies are colder.
CO2 has the potential to encourage plant growth and perhaps increase forest cover, minimising the risk of further drying. But it doesn't. CO2 is best absorbed by the lighter hued deciduous trees that dominate much of the northern hemisphere. Much of our antipodean vegetation is too dark to permit effective CO2 absorption.

Despite the end of the mining boom, Perth and its suburbs continue to grow. (Getty Images: David Messent)

Water issues apply equally to city dwellers and rural communities. Perth residents are the highest water-users in Australia, and declining supply now demands a big rethink to meet the demands of a still-growing city.
Changing silviculture practices may well assist. Our forest clearing has often resulted in thirsty, younger, denser forest, which might benefit from thinning to allow more groundwater to sink into the water table.
Regardless of where we live, the South West has lessons it can share with the rest of us.
As environmental scientist Joe Fontaine points out, this corner of the continent, with its Mediterranean climate, offers "many sometimes cautionary tales to the rest of the world".
"Areas throughout the world with this type of climate are warming and drying. So south-west Australia is a case of a 'canary in a coalmine' for understanding what climate change impacts may mean in in the future."
It's not the only "canary" in the world, but it's ours.

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How Climate Change Will Shape Environmental Law

Murdoch University

Environmental Law Conference

Murdoch University

7th February 2017
8:30am – 5:30pm

A Climate Change Model Statute
Sustainable Development Law
How a Modern Environmental Appeals Jurisdiction would work

How can climate change be accommodated within environmental law?
This one day conference will consider:

how environmental laws can be reformed to accommodate climate change and sustainable development
concepts, internationally and in Western Australia.

A panel of eminent speakers has been assembled to address these important issues.
Environmental protection statutes around the world generally have limited capacity to deal with climate change and sustainable development.
Traditional models of causation and remoteness of damage, for example, do not relate easily to climate change related events, with the consequence that governments may look to innovative models to transfer climate risk to the private sector.
Recognising the international nature of these issues, the International Bar Association (IBA), as the global voice of the legal profession, established in 2014 an expert Working Group to draft a model climate law statute.
The model statute is designed to be a resource for legislatures, government departments and judiciaries, with potential statutory provisions to assist in addressing climate change, in particular to enhance mitigation and adaptation measures.

The Speakers

Professor Jürgen Bröhmer, Dean of Law, Murdoch University
Professor Bröhmer is an eminent international lawyer whose expertise includes climate change law.
Justice Brian Preston, Chief Judge, New South Wales Land and Environment Court
Justice Preston is an eminent international authority on climate law and is widely recognized as an innovative environmental Judge who has published many leading judgements and articles in that field. He Co-Chairs the International Bar Association panel responsible for developing a model statute on climate change law.
Judge David Parry, District Court and former Deputy President of the State Administrative Tribunal
Judge Parry's distinguished 11year tenure at the State Administrative Tribunal included substantive contributions to the jurisprudence on sustainable development in the town planning jurisdiction.
Glen McLeod, Principal, Glen McLeod Legal, Adjunct Professor Murdoch University Law School and a member of the Dean's Advisory Group at Murdoch School of Law
Professor McLeod is the Chair of IBA's Environment, Health and Safety Committee and the Law Society of WA's 2016 Lawyer of the Year. He has been an environmental and planning lawyer for 39 years and a partner in major Australian and international law firms.
Dr Tom Hatton, Chair of the WA Environmental Protection Authority
Dr Hatton is a former senior executive of the CSIRO who has since becoming Chair of the State Environmental Protection Authority in 2015, overseen important policy reform in the wake of significant litigation involving the EPA.
The Hon. Cheryl Edwardes AM
Mrs Edwardes is a former Liberal State Attorney General and Environment Minister who Chairs a mining company and practises in environmental and mining law. She is the Deputy Chair designate of the IBA's Environment Health and Safety Committee and is a member of the Dean's Advisory Group at the Murdoch School of Law.
The Hon. Alannah MacTiernan
Ms MacTiernan is a Labor member designate of the State's Legislative Council, having previously been a highly regarded State Planning and Infrastructure Minister and then the Federal Member for Perth, before stepping down in 2016. She was the Minister responsible for ending Ministerial Planning Appeals in favour of the former Town Planning Appeal Tribunal, a precursor to the creation of the State Administrative Tribunal in 2005. She has also served as Mayor of the City of Vincent and is a member of the Dean's Advisory Group at the Murdoch School of Law. She is a former partner of a WA law firm and has a strong interest in climate change issues.

The Programme

8:30-8:45	Registration
8:45-9:00	Introduction Professor Jürgen Bröhmer, Dean of Law, Murdoch University
9:00-10:00	The International Bar Association's Climate Change Model Statute Justice Brian Preston, Chief Judge, New South Wales Land and Environment Court
10-10:30	Panel Q&A on the Model Climate Change Law Statute
10:30-11:00	Morning Refreshments
11:00-11:45	Sustainable Development Principles recognized and applied in Western Australian Planning Cases Judge David Parry, District Court and former Deputy President of the State Administrative Tribunal
11:45-12:15	Sustainable Development Principles - Environmental Protection Act 1986 (WA) Glen McLeod, Principal, Glen McLeod Legal, Chair of IBA's Environmental, Health and Safety Committee
12:15-1:00	The WA Environmental Protection Authority's Climate Change Policy Dr Tom Hatton, Chair of the WA Environmental Protection Authority
1:00-2:15	Lunch
2:15-3:00	Climate Change and the Mining Industry in Western Australia The Hon. Cheryl Edwardes AM
3:00-3:30	Panel Q&A on Sustainable Development Law and Policy in Western Australia
3:30-4:00	Afternoon refreshments
4:00-4:45	Lessons from Ending Ministerial Planning Appeals and the Creation of a New Tribunal The Hon. Alannah MacTiernan
4:45-5:15	Panel Discussion on how an Environmental Jurisdiction for the State Administrative Tribunal would work in WA
5:15-5:30	Closing Remarks Professor Jürgen Bröhmer, Dean of Law, Murdoch University

Registration
The cost of the course includes attendance at the sessions, lunch, refreshments on arrival and morning and afternoon tea. 6 CPD points for lawyers (C2-1pt; C3-1pt; C4-4pt) will be available if requested for full day attendance.
Please register at: http://goto.murdoch.edu.au/CCERC

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