25/08/2017

'Urgent' Need For Rich World To Help Poor Prepare For Climate Extremes: WMO Head

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Weather agencies including Australia's must step up co-operation to close a "widening gap in capacity" with developing nations, with the urgency of action increasing as the planet heats up, David Grimes, president of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), says.
The increasing frequency of severe heatwaves, heavy rain events and droughts means it is even more important richer nations such as Australia shared their expertise in forecasting and early warning.
The sun is obscured by smoke from wildfires in the distance behind burnt trees in Williams Lake, British Columbia, last month.  Photo: Darryl Dyck, via AP
"It's becoming more urgent. The reality in the developing world is they lack a lot of tools," said Mr Grimes, ahead of a two-day Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society symposium in Melbourne starting on Tuesday. "You've got countries that can barely keep their monitoring systems functioning."
The potential benefits of early warning have been on show this month as heavy monsoonal rains hit many parts of South Asia, while a deluge near Freetown in Sierra Leone triggered a landslide that killed more than 500 people.
The WMO is hoping to develop a "cascading forecasting system" spanning 12 or more centres to "provide the best information we can to all parts of the world", Mr Grimes said.
Sharing such work would help "to get people out of harm's way or to inform decision making in those countries so they can build up their adaptation and resilience".
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology was one of the three original world centres – along with Moscow and Washington – given the nation's relative strength in southern hemisphere research. It is likely to continue to play a prominent role, he said.
Developing nations have typically contributed little to the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving temperatures higher, and yet are among the most exposed to the effects of severe weather.
A torrent of water flows through a flooded neighbourhood in Regent, east of Freetown, Sierra Leone, earlier this month. Photo: AP
Aside from the humanitarian issues, richer nations have an interest in ensuring fragile states are not pushed to breaking point. "If you think about global security and the stability of human settlements and civil society – it's an important strategic objective of most countries," Mr Grimes said. 2017 is on course to be the second hottest year on record globally, trailing only 2016. Even without the temperature boost that last year had from a big El Nino in the Pacific, last month was the hottest July on record for land temperatures. (See National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chart below.)

Volunteers handle coffins during a mass funeral for victims of heavy flooding and mudslides in Regent at a cemetery in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Churches across Sierra Leone held special services in memory of the hundreds killed. Photo: AP
Britain's European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts was recently named by WMO as one of its global centres along with a centre in Montreal, Canada, while France and Germany are among those vying to take on similar roles.
"I expect by next year or so, we'll probably have most of those centres established," Mr Grimes said.The Trump administration's pledge to roll back America's climate research is so far barely having an effect, he said.
That's despite reports in the US that the government was disbanding a federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, a group that applies climate analysis to public and corporate planning.
"I don't see the evidence [of a pullback] on the weather side," Mr Grimes said. "You can still accomplish quite a lot without getting into the whole conversation about climate change."
A summer heatwave across southern Europe earlier this month sent the mercury into the low 40s. Photo: AP
Understanding how the warming climate will affect different parts of the world requires more research, with the poles and mountain tops among the areas where data is most deficient.
Higher latitude nations, such as Canada, have seen regions warm four to five times the global average.
For Antarctica, with a similar warming rate, the stability of ice sheets particularly on West Antarctica is also "a cause for concern", Mr Grimes said. One threat is the potentially rapid global sea-level rise should the land-based sheets collapse.

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Why Is Climate Change’s 2 Degrees Celsius Of Warming Limit So Important?

The Conversation - 

Who set the guardrails on global temperature rise? Hydrosami, CC BY-SA
If you read or listen to almost any article about climate change, it’s likely the story refers in some way to the “2 degrees Celsius limit.”
The story often mentions greatly increased risks if the climate exceeds 2°C and even “catastrophic” impacts to our world if we warm more than the target.
Recently a series of scientific papers have come out and stated that we have a 5 percent chance of limiting warming to 2°C, and only one chance in a hundred of keeping man-made global warming to 1.5°C, the aspirational goal of the 2015 Paris United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference.
Additionally, recent research shows that we may have already locked in 1.5°C of warming even if we magically reduced our carbon footprint to zero today.
And there’s an additional wrinkle: What is the correct baseline we should use? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) frequently references temperature increases relative to the second half of the 19th century, but the Paris Agreement states the temperature increases should be measured from “preindustrial” levels, or before 1850. Scientists have shown such a baseline effectively pushes us another 0.2°C closer to the upper limits.
That’s a lot of numbers and data – so much that it could make even the most climate-literate head spin. How did the climate, and climate policy community, come to agree that 2°C is the safe limit? What does it mean? And if we can’t meet that target, should we even try and limit climate change?

Fear of ‘tipping points’
The academic literature, popular press and blog sites have all traced out the history of the 2°C limit. Its origin stems not from the climate science community, but from a Yale economist, William Nordhaus.
In his 1975 paper “Can We Control Carbon Dioxide?,” Nordhaus, “thinks out loud” as to what a reasonable limit on CO2 might be. He believed it would be reasonable to keep climatic variations within the “normal range of climatic variation.” He also asserted that science alone cannot set a limit; importantly, it must account for both society’s values and available technologies. He concluded that a reasonable upper limit would be the temperature increase one would observe from a doubling of preindustrial CO2 levels, which he believed equated to a temperature increase of about 2°C.
Nordaus himself stressed how “deeply unsatisfactory” this thought process was. It’s ironic that a back-of-the-envelope, rough guess ultimately became a cornerstone of international climate policy.
The climate science community subsequently attempted to quantify the impacts and recommend limits to climate change, as seen in the 1990 report issued by the Stockholm Environmental Institute. This report argued that limiting climate change to 1°C would be the safest option but recognized even then that 1°C was probably unrealistic, so 2°C would be the next best limit.
During the late 1990s and early 21st century, there was increasing concern that the climate system might encounter catastrophic and nonlinear changes, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Points” book. For example, continued carbon emissions could lead to a shutdown of the large ocean circulation systems or massive permafrost melting.
It’s all about risk: Chart from 2014 IPCC report shows how higher temperatures lead to higher risk of problems. UN IPCC, CC BY-NC
LARGE IMAGE

This fear of abrupt climate change also drove the political acceptance of a defined temperature limit. The 2°C limit moved into the policy and political world when it was adopted by the European Union’s Council of Ministers in 1996, the G8 in 2008 and the UN in 2010. In 2015 in Paris, negotiators adopted 2°C as the upper limit, with a desire to limit warming to 1.5°C.
This short history makes it clear that the goal evolved from the qualitative but reasonable desire to keep changes to the climate within certain bounds: namely, within what the world had experienced in the relatively recent geological past to avoid catastrophically disrupting both human civilization and natural ecosystems.
Climate scientists subsequently began supporting the idea of a limit of 1°C or 2°C starting over three decades ago. They showed the likely risks increase with temperatures over 1°C, and those risks grow substantially with additional warming.

And if we miss the target?
Perhaps the most powerful aspect about the 2°C threshold is not its scientific veracity, but its simplicity as an organizing principle.
The climate system is vast and has more dynamics, parameters and variations in space and time than is possible to quickly and simply convey. What the 2°C threshold lacks in nuance and depth, it more than makes up as a goal that is understandable, measurable and may still be achievable, although our actions will need to change quickly. Goals and goal-setting are very powerful instruments in effecting change.
While the 2°C threshold is a blunt instrument that has many faults, similar to attempting to judge a quarterback’s value to his team solely by his rating, its ability to rally 195 countries to sign an agreement should not be discounted.
The 2°C threshold is a lot like trying to stop a truck going downhill: The quicker you hit the brakes (on emissions), the easier it will to lower the risk of problems later. Bruno Vanbesien, CC BY-NC
Ultimately, what should we do if we cannot make the 1.5°C or 2°C limit? The most current IPCC report shows the risks, parsed by continent, of a 2°C world, and how they are part of a continuum of risk extending from today’s climate to a 4°C.
Most of these risks are assessed by the IPCC to increase in steady fashion. That is, for most aspects of climate impacts we do not “fall off a cliff” at 2°C, although considerable damage to coral reefs and even agriculture may increase significantly around this threshold.
Like any goal, the 2°C limit should be ambitious but achievable. However, if it is not met, we should do everything we can to meet a 2¼°C or 2.5°C goal.
These goals can be compared to the speed limits for trucks we see on a mountain descent. The speed limit (say 30 mph) will allow trucks of any type to descend with a safety margin to spare. We know that coming down the hill at 70 mph likely results in a crash at the bottom.
In between those two numbers? The risk increases – and that’s where we are with climate change. If we can’t come down the hill at 30 mph, let’s try for 35 or 40 mph. Because we know that at 70 mph – or business as usual – we will have a very bad outcome, and nobody wants that.

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Jay Weatherill Renews Warning Labor States Could Go It Alone On Energy Policy

The Guardian - 
South Australian premier signals possible collaboration on alternative to clean energy target, and urges Turnbull to face down rightwing pressure
Asked if he is wedded to Finkel’s central recommendation in the event the states decide to pursue their own policy, Jay Weatherill says: ‘No, not really.’ Photograph: David Mariuz/AAP
The South Australian premier, Jay Weatherill, has renewed his warning that Labor-led state governments could go it alone on energy policy if the Turnbull government can’t resolve its internal battle over the clean energy target.
If we are going to do it ourselves we might as well design the best system
Jay Weatherill
In an interview with Guardian Australia, Weatherill has also upped the ante by signalling the Labor states might look to collaborate on an alternative policy to the clean energy target recommended by the chief scientist if there is a better mechanism to provide certainty for investors and emissions reduction.
Asked whether he was wedded to the chief scientist’s central recommendation in the event the states decided to break away and pursue their own policy, Weatherill said: “No, not really. If we are going to do it ourselves we might as well design the best system.”
South Australia has long championed an emissions intensity trading scheme for the electricity sector – a form of carbon trading – but Weatherill fell into line behind Finkel’s clean energy target after the report was published in an effort to achieve national consensus.
“For the sake of argument we were prepared to compromise and move away from the emissions intensity scheme to get the clean energy target,” the premier said.

Elon Musk announces Tesla’s plan to build world’s biggest lithium ion battery in South Australia

 “We didn’t want to be bloody-minded about it just because it was something we had been promoting.”
But Weatherill said he was concerned the Turnbull government was now intent on watering down the Finkel mechanism to include “clean” coal in the mix, which made him less wedded to the clean energy target proposal.
The premier said it was important for the prime minister to stare down the current internal pressure to include coal in the clean energy target, because if Turnbull ceded ground on that point, it would be the first of many concessions.
“What the prime minister needs to understand is this: you can’t do business with these people,” the premier said.
“If you move away from an emissions intensity scheme to a clean energy target then they’ll want to change that to allow coal in. If you gave them that, the next question would be tear up Paris, and if [he] tore up Paris then they’d ask him to call a press conference and deny that he believes in climate change – they are insatiable.
“There is no benefit for the prime minister in trying to placate his right wing, because they are incapable of being placated.
“So what we need to do is just get on with the business of putting in the right energy policy.”
Weatherill’s comments, in an interview with Guardian Australia’s politics live podcast, follow a decision by the Labor states and the Australian Capital Territory in July to ask the Australian Energy Markets Commission to conduct work on how they could go it alone in the event the Turnbull government dumped the clean energy target, or pursued a suboptimal policy.
The Coalition has greenlit 49 of the 50 recommendations from the Finkel review but not the clean energy target because of internal divisions.
The fight over energy policy is expected to return to the federal Coalition party room in September, once the government gets advice it has sought from the Australian Energy Market Operator about how to ensure the dispatchable power requirements of the electricity grid can be met when ageing coal-fired power stations leave the system.
Weatherill said the best outcome remained a national approach to determining climate and energy policy, but the “national interest” also demanded a solution to the problem.
The premier, who has been in the top job in the state since October 2011, is also facing a state election next March, with network reliability and high power prices a significant local issue.
Labor has been office in SA since 2002.
Weatherill said the Turnbull government’s decision to have a public spat with South Australia over its high proportion of wind energy had transformed the looming state political contest into a referendum on renewables.
“On any view of it, this next state election is going to be seen as a referendum on renewable energy, because the prime minister has conditioned the South Australian experience as being idiocy and ideology and a dangerous experiment,” the premier said.
“If we were to fail in the election it would be seen as a referendum and a cross against renewable energy.”
Weatherill said Australia’s renewable energy industry was acutely conscious that the political contest in the SA state election was high-stakes.
Podcast: ‘They’re insatiable’ – Jay Weatherill on his clash with the Coalition
“I think a lot of people in the renewable energy sector, and people more generally who want to promote policies tackling climate change, understand that. We think that will be an important fulcrum in the state election.”
Weatherill was asked whether, given the acute political sensitivity about high power prices, he felt he could prevail if the election was a referendum on the future of low-emissions energy. “Yes, absolutely, because people believe renewable energy is the future.
“They also believe, in the long term, renewables put downward pressure on prices and I think they’ve seen the early evidence of that.”

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