Humans Are Adapting To Climate Change, But Not Quickly Enough, According To New Research

Phys.org - Patrick Lejtenyi, Concordia University

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The evidence is overwhelming: climate change is here, and with it come catastrophes, soaring costs, migration and now, in the face of reality, human adaptation.

Across the globe, people are learning to live with a climate that is unlike the one they and generations before them experienced.

And while human societies around the globe are feeling its effects, their individual responses to new climate-based threats have been largely piecemeal and inadequate, finds a new study by the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative (GAMI).

It's an international network of researchers focusing on gathering and synthesizing scientific literature on climate change adaptation.

In a recently published article in Nature Climate Change, the authors, including Concordia assistant professor of geography, planning and environment Alexandra Lesnikowski, offer an overview of the existing literature and find significant areas where global efforts need improvement.

The 126 researchers used machine learning to assess almost 50,000 scientific documents touching on adaptation, eventually synthesizing 1,682 articles that they determined have content related to implemented adaptation response.

They conclude that the literature shows people are responding to climate threats, but there remains a lack of data on whether these responses are reducing overall risks. And, they found, the responses have not yet resulted in significant transformative change.

Local acts, global facts

"It was no surprise to find that most of the adaptations being documented are at the very local level, including individuals, households and local governments," Lesnikowski says.

"But this suggests that there is an imbalance that has emerged, with a lot happening at the local level and much less on a larger scale, at the regional or national level. And we also did not find much research looking at adaptation done in the private sector."

Just as the divides between the global North and South, rich and poor, rural and urban remain, the researchers found that adaptation measures and techniques varied widely depending on the region.

Europe and North America, she notes, tended to focus their adaptation efforts around infrastructure and technology. In poorer areas of Africa and Asia, however, adaptation took on a more behavioral and cultural aspect.

The study further found that while many societies are engaging in some form of adaptation behavior as a result of climate change, the efficacy of those measures has not been effectively measured.

"Less than two per cent of the articles we analyzed actually have good empirical detail on whether or not the adaptation reduced key risks," Lesnikowski says.

The articles they examined did suggest a link between adaptation and mitigation, such as reduction in greenhouse gas production.

But there is limited research on overall risk reduction outcomes—for instance, whether changes in risk-management practices or infrastructure standards are reducing the negative impacts of extreme weather events.

"This is a huge gap in our empirical understanding of whether or not adaptation is actually doing what it's supposed to in different places around the world. And what works in one place will not necessarily work in another."

They also found little evidence of transformational adaptations, the kind of deep structural changes that significantly alter risk exposure or social vulnerability.

These are usually major initiatives, such as moving entire communities from high-risk areas or radically changing agricultural practices. The relatively small steps taken to date is a source of worry for Lesnikowski and her colleagues.

Continuing business as usual, she says, "raises the question of whether our current approaches to adaptation are going to be sufficient to deal with escalating risks and growing social vulnerability, particularly at higher levels of global warming."

Links

• Climate adaptation of households compared internationally
• A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change
• Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative (GAMI)
• Understanding social vulnerability is critical for climate change adaptation, says study
• New UN report: Step up climate change adaptation efforts, or face huge disruption
• Climate change: We're acting, but are we making a difference?
• Climate change adaptation in high income countries
• Satellites show 'mega-iceberg' released 152 billion tons of fresh water into ocean as it scraped past South Georgia

(AU The Guardian) Make No Mistake – Labor And The Coalition Have Starkly Different Climate Policies

The Guardian - Thom Woodroofe

Both sides have committed to net zero emissions but voters will hopefully reward the one that knows how to get there

‘If the government was serious about protecting coal workers, they’d have a plan to begin to transition rather than continuing to provide them false hope.’ Photograph: Reuters Staff/Reuters

Author Thom Woodroofe is the Chief of Staff to the President & CEO of the Asia Society, Kevin Rudd AC. Thom is a fellow of the Asia Society Policy Institute where he works on U.S.-China climate cooperation, China’s climate diplomacy, and Asia’s transition to net-zero emissions. Twitter @thomwoodroofe

Shortly before the 1996 election, Paul Keating warned the country that “when the government changes, the country changes”.

With both major parties entering this year with a commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, none of us should be fooled that this means there is barely a crack of daylight between them when it comes to tackling the climate crisis.

That is because the climate policies of each of the two parties put us on track for a vastly different country as soon as the end of this decade.

And while there is a tendency to only focus on international targets and timelines when it comes to the fight against climate change, the reality is that these fundamentally affect what kind of economy, society, and environment we want to live in.

There are five clear areas where the divergence between the two major parties is most stark and will shape what life in Australia will look like by 2030.

Up to 395,000 new clean energy export jobs could be created in the coming decades if we choose wisely

First, when it comes to the cost of electricity that will power our households and businesses.

Australia might lead the world when it comes to individual rooftop solar power systems, but we lag behind when it comes to the penetration of renewables into our electricity grid. Only a quarter or so of our grid is currently fuelled by renewables, with close to two-thirds of our electricity still coming from coal.

Tipping this balance isn’t just a quixotic ideal, it’s essential if we want lower electricity prices and enhanced productivity. It affects everyday life. If we get the balance right, the average electricity bill could be more than 25 % cheaper by the end of this decade. For most Australians, the choice should therefore be seen less as about renewables versus coal, and more about the cost of electricity.

Doubts over Coalition’s net zero target as report finds soil carbon emissions may increase as climate warms. Read more

But tipping the balance also takes time. In the last 15 years, renewables have increased around 20 % — largely as a result of a mandatory renewable energy target.

Thankfully, both sides of politics now believe we can increase the share of renewables by almost a further 50 % by the end of this decade if we start now.

The difference is the government would do so by relying on the policies of the states and territories to get there, whereas Labor would seek to go further through rewiring the electricity grid, and installing community batteries plus local solar banks.

Even more stark is the question of what kind of cars we will be driving by 2030.

Electric vehicles currently account for just 2% of new car sales in Australia. By 2030, Labor wants this to be close to 90%. That would take Australia from effectively last place on the podium of comparable nations to somewhere near the top.

By contrast, the government hopes electric vehicles will account for just under a third of new car sales by the end of this decade despite the fact some European countries have already reached more than double that.

The difference is between becoming the developed world’s dumping ground of immovable combustible engine vehicles, or benefiting from what will by then likely be the cheaper electric alternatives.

This brings us to the third point of divergence between the two parties. The path we choose at home will also play a part in determining how we are seen on the international stage.

Whatever your view of the Cop26 outcome last November, one thing is clear: Australia emerged as a diminished global power that seemed hell bent on continuing to bury its head in the sand when it comes to climate change.

We showed up with simply a pamphlet as opposed to policies. We allowed our national pavilion to be sponsored by the oil and gas industry. We blocked critical parts of the negotiating text. And then we trashed the outcome before the ink was even dry by flat out refusing to take another look at our lacklustre 2030 emissions reduction target over the next year.

This did real damage to brand Australia.

Reclaiming the mantle of international climate credibility requires us to not just show up, but to sign up to the climate fight. Actions speak louder than words when it comes to how the international community engages with this issue.

And with climate change becoming a critical foreign policy and national security priority for governments, it also means we face the real risk of the imposition of carbon tariffs by the end of this decade if we do not.

That would only mean a higher cost of living for most Australians.

But by far the biggest and most important difference between the two parties’ climate policies goes to what kind of economy we want at the end of this decade. And what kind of jobs that follow – especially in our regions.

The government’s insistence over the summer that somehow Cop26 did not ring the death knell for coal has been like watching the Black Knight in Monty Python insist he just has a flesh wound.

To be clear: for the first time, almost the entire world was prepared to sign up to a commitment to phase out coal, including Australia’s own negotiating team. China and India may have only been willing to go so far as committing to a phase down, but both countries’ net zero plans will require them to wean themselves off coal in the next two decades.

That includes Australian coal.

The hard truth is that coal may be Australia’s second largest export but it clearly won’t last forever. The government’s own “modelling” admits coal will at least halve in price by the middle of the century. So we either begin the hard work to find a replacement for our trade balance sheet or we do not. That’s not about killing an industry overnight, it’s about not cutting off our nose to spite our face.

If the government was serious about climate action and serious about protecting our coal workers, the regions and our national economy, they’d have a plan to begin to transition this workforce rather than continuing to provide its workers false hope.

Thankfully, we are blessed with a perfect storm when it comes to the alternative: the best climate for renewable technologies to thrive, a thirsty Asian market for green energy exports such as hydrogen, and a workforce that will need a just transition away from coal precisely where many of these massive renewable energy powerhouse projects would need to be constructed.

As the Business Council of Australia and the ACTU have said, up to 395,000 new clean energy export jobs could be created in the coming decades if we choose wisely.

Instead, the government is clearly banking in the short term on the fact that for many Australians seeing a future without coal is hard. And it’s true: fossil fuels still have a deep place in the Australian economic psyche long after the mining boom.

As the Climate of the Nation report demonstrates, most Australians think the coal industry accounts for close to 10% of the workforce when in fact it only makes up 0.4% with fewer than 10,000 workers nationwide. More Australians work at McDonald’s.

While it is true that Australia’s contribution to global emissions cuts will not in and of itself bend the curve of individual climate impacts, if every country did what Australia was doing, the Great Barrier Reef would disappear.

Either way, by 2030 these climate impacts will become more frequent and intense as a result of our collective inaction, and even worse if we squander the rest of this decade. While this is the hardest to measure, it is yet another cautionary tale for the path we choose to follow.

With both sides of politics now committed to net zero emissions, voters will hopefully reward those that can actually spell out how we can get there and how we can transition our workers and our economy in the process and deliver a lower cost of living. Not those that want to have their cake and eat it too. And this might mean that if anyone is now wedged politically on climate, it is the government.

Voters should choose carefully.

What kind of Australia we want to live in, and what kind of Australia we want our children and grandchildren to inherit is firmly on the ballot.

Links

• (AU SMH) Climate Wars To Die Down In Federal Election As Major Parties Dodge Risks
• (Pursuit: University of Melbourne) What We Now Know About Climate Change After 2021
• (AU Surviving C21) Julian Cribb: The Rise And Rise Of Petrofascism
• (AU The Guardian) As The Coalition And Labor Inch Closer On Emissions, Are Australia’s Climate Wars Ending?
• (AU Reuters) Aussie Climate Ambition Will Restart At Ballot Box
• (AU The Conversation) The End Of Coal Is Coming 3 Times Faster Than Expected. Governments Must Accept It And Urgently Support A ‘Just Transition’
• In Australia’s climate wars, delay and deception are the new denial
• Australia’s stances on climate crisis and asylum seekers ‘backwards’, Human Rights Watch says
• How are our cities going to look in a rapidly heating world? It won’t be long before 50C will be normal

(AU ABC) Gascoyne Bushfires Burn For Two Weeks, Killing Livestock, Destroying Land And Devastating Pastoralists

ABC Pilbara - Michelle Stanley

Four fires have been burning across the Gascoyne region for the past two weeks. (Supplied: Department of Fire and Emergency Services)

Key Points 340,000 hectares of land in WA's Gascoyne has been destroyed by fire Hundreds of livestock on Meedo Station died in the blaze Meedo's Chris Higham says pastoralists are thankful for no loss of human life

For the past two weeks, pastoralists, including Tim and Chris Higham, in Western Australia's Gascoyne region have been battling ferocious bushfires that have destroyed property and livestock.

Meedo Station, 800 kilometres north of Perth, has for more than 16 years been home to the Higham family, who run cattle, sheep and goats.

When lightning struck on January 6, three fires broke out in the area, plus another further north. 

Combined with strong winds and a significant fuel load, two of the fires joined together to form one mammoth blaze.

Chris Higham says she has never seen such a ferocious bushfire. (Supplied: Kaufmann Productions PL)

"We've had fires previously, but nothing quite as ferocious as this one," Mrs Higham said.

"The [fire] that came up from Woodleigh Station covered ground in 10 hours that they'd modelled it to do in 48.

"It was very fast, very hot."

In an early estimation, Mrs Higham believed at least 60 per cent of her station's productive land and kilometres of fencing had been destroyed in the blaze.

At least 300 sheep and an unknown number of goats were believed to have died.

Mrs Higham said she could not yet put a figure on the loss to the station.

"There are patches that look like a bit of a moonscape.

"It's just been razed." 

The Gascoyne region received unusually high rainfall in 2021, creating a significant fuel load. (Supplied: Department of Fire and Emergency Services)

Fires contained, but extreme temps, winds forecast

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) said the four fires had been brought under control and were contained, but authorities were cautious, with extreme temperatures and winds forecast over the weekend.

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More than 340,000 hectares have been burnt across the Gascoyne Complex fires, according to DFES incident controller Peter Norman.

"They were very fast [moving] but in this type of grassland and heat, that is understandable in these temperature and wind conditions," he said.

"They were moving [up to] 10 kilometres per hour at their peak.

"It's very undulating, very steep … very hard to get enough machines and resources there to stop that."

The Gascoyne Complex bushfires in January. (Supplied: Department of Fire and Emergency Services)

Mr Norman said pastoralists in the region were assisted by crews from DFES, the Parks and Wildlife Service, and local government, and volunteer bushfire brigades attended from across the state.

Ground crews were also aided by a Coulson 737 FireLiner, which had a retardant capability. 

"They travel at 850km/hr with 15,000 litres of water or retardant to quell any escalating incident, Mr Norman said.

According to DFES, 90,000 litres of retardant was dropped over the Gascoyne Complex fires. 

A second Coulson 737 FireLiner has been supplied by the NSW Rural Fire Service. (Supplied: Department of Fire and Emergency Services)

Best of years up in smoke

After decades of drought, 2021 had been a particularly good year for rainfall in the region.

The town of Carnarvon, 100km north of the station, recorded more than 400 millimetres for the year, compared to an average of 187.

According to Mrs Higham, it had been a "one-in-a-hundred-year" season, which added to the loss.

Three fires on pastoral stations in the Gascoyne converged to form one massive bushfire. (Supplied: Chris Higham, Meedo Station)

Despite the devastation, the Highams are trying to remain positive. 

"It's stock, it's dirt, it's significant, but it's not as significant as losing people," Mrs Higham said.

"At the end of the day, we've got to count our blessings." 

YouTube How to prepare for bushfires | Emergency Tips 3min 10sec

Links

• Record-breaking Western Australia heatwave has days to run before it moves east
• Concerns for life in Western Australia’s Pilbara after 50.7C heat record matched 
• First images emerge of trail of destruction left by bushfire east of Perth

• Australia matches its hottest day on record as Western Australia town hits 50.7C

• WA heatwave brings record late season temperatures above 40C to Pilbara
• Mother Nature brings Gascoyne farmers out of serious dry spell
• Remote town known for droughts now famous for its goat pies
• Stupidity or something more sinister? Questions linger over three large bushfires in WA

(Conservation International) Climate Change, Extreme Weather Among Top Risks Facing Humanity: 3 Stories You May Have Missed

Conservation International - Vanessa Bauza

Editor's note: News about conservation and the environment is made every day, but some of it can fly under the radar. In a recurring feature, Conservation News shares three stories from the past week that you should know about.

Alder Fire in Yellowstone National Park (© Mike Lewelling, National Park Service)

1.	1,000 experts & leaders say "climate action failure" is perceived as top global risk

Climate change and environmental degradation are among the gravest threats to humanity, says a new report.

The story: The World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risk Report this year finds that the top five long-term risks to our world are all environmental — with climate action failure, extreme weather and biodiversity loss ranking as the most severe. Risks were gathered from surveys with approximately 1,000 experts and leaders, Ashira Morris reports for World War Zero. Though climate change has already arrived “in the form of droughts, fires, floods, resource scarcity and species loss, among other impacts,” current climate commitments are not sufficient to meet the challenge, according to the report.

The big picture: “The World Economic Forum finds public and private-sector leaders in broad agreement … decisive climate action cannot wait,” Conservation International CEO M. Sanjayan told World War Zero. “To date, the industrialized world has consistently failed to make good on their climate promises. As we look ahead to COP27,” — the international climate negotiations set for later this year in Egypt — “governments, companies and financial institutions must not only increase their own decarbonization ambitions — they must make fairness a priority [for] communities on the frontlines of climate change.”

Read more here.

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2.	The great Siberian thaw

Russia’s frozen lands contain vast amounts of carbon, which is being released as the permafrost melts.

The story: In northeastern Russia’s boreal forests, where permafrost can be a kilometer deep, annual temperatures have risen by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution — twice the global average, Joshua Yaffa writes for The New Yorker. Climate change, exacerbated by deforestation and wildfires, is melting the permafrost. As it thaws, once-frozen organic matter — everything from woolly mammoth remains to tree stumps — is releasing “a constant belch of carbon dioxide and methane,” writes Yaffa. This fuels a dangerous feedback loop: Greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere lead to higher temperatures, which in turn contribute to further melting these frozen soils.

The big picture: “Irrecoverable carbon” refers to the vast stores of carbon in nature that are vulnerable to release from human activity and, if lost, could not be restored by 2050 — when the world must reach net-zero emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Due in part to its massive land area, Russia contains the most irrecoverable carbon of any country, with high concentrations in its boreal peatlands and forests, according a recent study by Conservation International, which mapped irrecoverable carbon around the world — providing policymakers with the clearest view yet on the areas that most need to be protected.

One mountainous region, the East Russian taiga in the southeast corner of the county, contains 2 percent of Earth’s irrecoverable carbon — and the last Siberian tiger range — making it a priority for protection, experts say.

Read more here

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3.	A third of commodity-hungry firms have no deforestation policy — report

Companies that supply the world’s commodities are also driving deforestation, according to a new report.

The story: Protecting forests is critical to limiting climate change, yet a third of the 350 companies most involved in commodities such as soy, beef and palm oil lack policies to ensure their products do not contribute to deforestation, reports Simon Jessop for Reuters. According to Global Canopy’s annual “Forest 500” report, 93 of the world's 150 leading financial institutions — providing US$ 5.5 trillion in finance — do not have a deforestation policy covering their lending to companies in key commodity supply chains.

The big picture: Each year, large swaths of tropical forests are destroyed to make room for palm oil, cattle, soy and other commodity-driven agriculture. But this destruction of nature comes at a climate cost; tropical deforestation accounts for 8 percent of annual emissions, equivalent to those released by the entire European Union.

In November, at the UN global climate summit known as COP26, more than 100 countries — accounting for about 86 percent of the world’s forests — committed to stop deforestation on their lands by the end of this decade. In addition, more than 30 financial institutions pledged to eliminate deforestation driven by agriculture from their portfolios and increase investments in nature-based solutions by 2025.

“The new political space created at COP26 can pave the way for stronger and more broadly applicable legal frameworks … but these proposals could be strengthened, and must be enforced, with clear accountability and penalties for breaches,” according to the “Forest 500” report.

Read more here.

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Links

• 2021 in review: In a critical year for climate, nature took center stage
• These ecosystems could determine our climate future: study
• UN climate talks: Protecting forests take priority
• World Economic Forum: Global Risks Report 2022
• Mapping the irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems
• These ecosystems could determine our climate future: study
• What on Earth are 'natural climate solutions'?
• Agricultural and forestry trade drives large share of tropical deforestation emissions
• COP26: World leaders promise to end deforestation by 2030
• Thirty financial institutions commit to tackle deforestation

(Australian Museum) Impacts of Climate Change

Australian Museum

Climate change brings social, environmental and economic impacts.

Impacts of climate change

Climate change affects everything. It’s already putting pressure on our planet—on people and other living things, on economies and on governments.

The gases released through burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) create a blanket around the Earth, trapping heat. This heat creates more extreme and unpredictable weather. Heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more intense. We experience longer droughts, longer and more severe fire seasons, more intense storms, less ice and snow cover, floods, rising sea levels and our oceans are becoming warmer and more acidic.

Human communities around the world are increasingly losing habitable land, houses, and sites of cultural significance. Our sources of reliable food and fresh water are dwindling. Also, our health suffers with hotter summers and as air quality gets worse during the bushfire seasons. But we’re not the only species being deeply impacted. The impacts of climate change affect all life on Earth.

As the oceans warm, coral reefs bleach and die, which means many fish and other marine creatures lose their habitats. Animals and plants are also having to shift where they live to stay within comfortable living limits. Mammals, reptiles, fish, insects, plants, fungi and other species are maturing, reproducing, flowering or fruiting at different times now, to keep up with temperature changes. This means the food sources that each one relies on to feed themselves and their offspring are often not available when needed.

Climate change is damaging the Earth’s capacity to act as a life support system, for us and for Earth’s many other species.

We can slow down the damage.

Impacts of climate change in Australia

Australia is experiencing higher temperatures, more extreme droughts, fire seasons, floods and more extreme weather due to climate change. Rising sea levels add to the intensity of high-sea-level events and threaten housing and infrastructure.

The number of days that break heat records has doubled in the past 50 years. Heatwaves are of particular concern: they are occurring more often and are more intense than in the past. In recent decades more people have died in Australia in heat waves than all other natural disasters combined. Some parts of Australia – inland areas particularly, are expected to warm faster than along the coasts.

Higher temperatures create a range of extreme weather and climate events: longer droughts in some areas of the continent, and in others, heavier rainstorms due to greater evaporation. Marine heatwaves are on the rise devastating Australia’s kelp forests, seagrass meadows, coral reefs and all the underwater creatures that depend on them.

These impacts also affect humans—the creatures and habitats are sources of food and income. Coral bleaching has increased in frequency and severity on the Great Barrier Reef. It is now occurring so frequently that large areas are unlikely to ever recover.

As the oceans absorb not just heat but also excess carbon from the atmosphere, oceans and seas have become more acidic. This acidity reduces the capacity of crustaceans, hard corals, and coralline algae to draw out calcium carbonate from the water, to grow and strengthen their skeletons.

In our communities, the impacts of climate change are broad. It damages our health, including mental health, the livelihoods of industries that are suffering (tourism and hospitality particularly) and it adds to the stresses on our medical and emergency services.

In the words of the Climate Council:

“Our new extremes of heat and other severe weather mean we now need to re-imagine how our towns and cities function, ensure we provide essential climate safety services, and rethink how we go about our daily lives and care for others.”

To predict how severe these impacts will be, teams of scientists who model climate change impacts have established ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ (RCPs) to track the concentrations of greenhouse gasses expected to be in the atmosphere by 2100, depending on how much effort is put into limiting emissions around the world. The impacts resulting from low to high effort have been estimated, making clear the extreme costs of inaction.

How are people responding to impacts of climate change in Australia?

There is a rising groundswell of people concerned about and taking action on climate change in Australia.

There is important work on climate change underway across Australia, in universities, academies and museums, in government research organisations such as CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, and commercial research and development groups. These researchers are working to document climate change impacts in Australia, to better model and predict future changes, safeguard biodiversity and communities, and to establish more – and more efficient – ways of reducing emissions and capturing carbon.

There are many groups bringing people together to support strong solutions to the human impacts on environment. Well-established groups – Greening Australia, 350.org Australia, 1Million Women, the Climate Council, Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Seed and more – are creating collective efforts to reduce carbon emissions and better care for our planet. Groups within the community are banding together to advance positive action: Doctors for the Environment Australia, Australian Parents for Climate Action, and Farmers for Climate Action are just three examples.

Many businesses, industries and organisations in Australia are seeking investment in clean energy and technology, clean operations, insuring economic benefits and environmental protection. Investment in solar and wind power and electric car infrastructure is increasing at an unprecedented rate. As engineers from the Australian National University reported at the end of 2019, Australia is the “runaway global leader” in building and installing renewable energy. “In Australia,” they report, “renewable energy is growing at a per capita rate ten times faster than the world average.”

Some of the research organisations developing important understanding and solutions to climate change in Australia, along with our own work here at the Australian Museum:

• Energy Change Institute, Australian National University
• Griffith Climate Change Response Program
• Climate Change in Australia – an Australian Government initiative - CSIRO, with Department of the Environment and Bureau of Meteorology
• Climate Change Cluster (C3), University of Technology Sydney
• Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC), University of New South Wales
• Sydney Environment Institute (SEI), University of Sydney
• Monash Climate Change Communications Hub
  

Climate change in the Pacific

Climate change has had a major impact on all countries and ecologies across the Pacific region for many decades. From the 1980s at least, Pacific Islanders have been sounding the alarm about the impacts of global warming on their islands. These are some of the lowest emitting nations in the world, yet they bear the full brunt of the impacts of climate change.

The rising temperatures caused primarily by heavy-emitting nations are causing sea level rise. This is because melting icesheets are adding water to the oceans—and water expands as it warms. This means in low-lying Pacific islands, coastlines, family lands, houses, and sacred sites are washed away by increasingly high tides and storm surges.

Cyclones are more intense as warm water evaporates more readily, creating super-charged storm systems. Hotter days and nights make everyday life harder and cause health problems for many people. Longer droughts, bigger floods, salt water intrusion into freshwater lenses, bleaching reefs and more storm damage: all these things make getting enough food, fresh water and shelter and maintaining health and wellbeing an increasingly hard challenge across the Pacific.

How are people responding to climate change in the Pacific?

Climate action groups have been outstandingly creative and powerfully outspoken for decades now, bringing voices from the Pacific to international climate policy forums. Social media has been providing increasing numbers of Pacific Islanders with wide-reaching channels for raising awareness and support for the push to switch to renewable energy and safeguard living systems. The slogan voiced by Islanders to powerful effect across social media platforms and at the UN Climate talks in Paris helped to set the optimal global target: “1.5 to Stay Alive”.

Links

• Pacific Climate Change Portal
• Pacific Climate Change Science
• Australian Government, Country brochures 
• Pacific Climate Warriors
• Matagi Mālohi: Strong Winds - film (350.org Pacific)
• Give Beach Ecosystems Their Day in the Sun
• Australian Museum statement on 2019/2020 bushfires
• What is cultural burning?
• Climate change impacts on the tree of life: changes in phylogenetic diversity illustrated for Acropora corals.
• Climate change - causes, impacts and solutions
• Climate change exhibitions
• AMplify: Australian innovations for tackling climate change
• Sustainability Action Plan
• Professor Tim Flannery re-joins Australian Museum in New Climate Change Role
• Statement from Australia's Natural History Museum Directors
• Australian Museum and climate change
• The Climate Cure: The inaugural Talbot Oration

(TIME) The Surprisingly Low Price Tag On Preventing Climate Disaster

TIME - Yuval Noah Harari

Illustration by Aldo Crusher for TIME

Author Yuval Noah Harari is the author of Sapiens, Homo Deus and Sapiens: A Graphic History. Data sources for this article can be found on bit.ly/2-percent-more

As the climate crisis worsens, too many people are swinging from denial straight to despair. A few years ago, it was common to hear people deny climate change, downplay the enormousness of the threat, or argue that it is far too soon to worry about it. Now many people say it’s too late. The apocalypse is coming, and there is nothing we can do to prevent it.

Despair is as dangerous as denial. And it is equally false. Humanity has enormous resources under its command, and by applying them wisely, we can still prevent ecological cataclysm. But exactly how much would it cost to stop the apocalypse? If humankind wanted to prevent catastrophic climate change, how big a check would we have to write?

Naturally enough, no one knows for sure. My team and I have spent weeks poring over various reports and academic papers, living in a cloud of numbers. But while the models behind the numbers are dizzyingly complex, the bottom line should cheer us up. According to the International Energy Agency, achieving a net-zero carbon economy would require us to spend just 2% of annual global GDP over what we already do on our energy system.

In a recent poll of climate economists conducted by Reuters, most agreed that getting to net zero would cost only 2% to 3% of annual global GDP. Other estimates put the cost of decarbonizing the economy a bit lower or a bit higher, but they are all in the low single digits of annual global GDP.

These numbers echo the assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in its landmark 2018 report stated that in order to limit climate change to 1.5°C, annual investments in clean energy needed to increase to around 3% of global GDP. Since humankind already spends about 1% of annual global GDP on clean energy, we just need an extra 2% slice of the pie!

Generation Now: The Fight For Climate Justice | TIME 14min 06sec

The above calculations focus on the cost of transforming the energy and transportation sectors, which are by far the most important. However, there are other sources of emissions as well, like land use, forestry and agriculture. You know, those infamous cow farts. The good news is that a lot of these emissions can be cut on the cheap through behavioral changes such as reducing meat and dairy consumption and relying more on a plant-based diet. It doesn’t cost anything to eat more veggies, and it can help you (and the rain forests) live longer. 

We can quibble endlessly about the numbers, tweaking the models this way and that. But we should look at the big picture beyond the math. The crucial news is that the price tag of preventing the apocalypse is in the low single digits of annual global GDP. It is certainly not 50% of annual global GDP, nor is it 15%. Rather, it is somewhere below 5%, perhaps as low as investing an additional 2% of global GDP in the right places.

And note the word investing. We aren’t talking about burning piles of banknotes in some huge sacrifice to the spirits of the earth. We are talking about making investments in new technologies and infrastructure, such as advanced batteries to store solar energy and updated power grids to distribute it.

These investments will create numerous new jobs and economic opportunities, and are likely to be economically profitable in the long run in part by reducing health care expenditures and saving millions of people from sickness caused by air pollution. We can protect the most vulnerable populations from climate disasters, become better ancestors to future generations, and create a more prosperous economy in the process.

This wonderful piece of news has somehow been sidelined in the heated debate about climate change. We should bring it into focus, not merely in order to give people hope, but even more so because it can be translated into a concrete political plan of action. We have learned in recent years to define our goal in terms of one number: 1.5°C. We can define the means to do this with another number: 2%. Increase investment in eco-friendly technologies and infrastructure by 2 percentage points above 2020 levels.

Of course, unlike the 1.5°C figure, which is a scientifically robust threshold, the 2% figure represents only a rough guesstimate. It should be understood as a ballpark figure, helpful to frame the kind of political project humanity requires. It tells us that preventing catastrophic climate change is a totally feasible project, even though it would obviously cost a lot of money.

Since global GDP is now about $85 trillion USD, 2% currently totals about $1.7 trillion. It means that to save the environment, we don’t need to completely derail the economy or abandon the achievements of modern civilization. We just need to get our priorities right.

Signing a check for 2% of annual global GDP is far from the whole story. It won’t solve all our ecological problems, such as oceans brimming with plastic or the continued loss of biodiversity. And even to prevent catastrophic climate change, we’ll need to make sure that the funds are invested in the right places and that the new investments don’t cause their own negative ecological or social fallout.

If we destroy ecosystems to mine for rare metals that are needed for the renewables industry, we might arguably lose as much as we gain. We will also need to change some of our behaviors and ways of thinking, from what we eat to how we travel. None of that will be easy. But that’s exactly why we have politicians—their job is to deal with the hard stuff.

Politicians are actually very skilled at shifting 2% of resources from here to there. It is what they do all the time. The difference between the policies of right-wing and left-wing parties often amount to a few percentage points of GDP. When faced by a major crisis, politicians swiftly shift far more resources to fight it. For example, in 1945, the U.S. spent about 36% of its GDP on winning the Second World War.

During the 2008–09 financial crisis, the U.S. government spent about 3.5% of GDP to save financial institutions deemed “too big to fail.” Maybe humankind should also treat the Amazon rain forest as “too big to fail”?

 Given the current price of rain-forest land in South America and the size of the Amazon rain forest, buying the whole of it in order to protect local forests, biodiversity and human communities from destructive business interests would cost about $800 billion, or a one-off payment of less than 1% of global GDP.

In just the first nine months of 2020, governments around the world announced stimulus measures worth nearly 14% of global GDP to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. If citizens press them hard enough, politicians can do the same to deal with the ecological crisis. So can investment banks and pension funds. Pension funds hold about $56 trillion USD. What’s the point of having a pension if you don’t have a future?

At present, neither businesses nor governments are willing to make the additional 2% investment necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change. Where does the money go instead?

In 2020, governments expended $2 trillion USD on their militaries—that’s 2.4% of global GDP. Every two years, another 2.4% of global GDP is spent on food that goes to waste. Governments also spend about $500 billion annually on—wait for it—direct subsidies for fossil fuels!

Which means that every 3½ years, governments write a nice fat check for an amount equivalent to 2% of annual global GDP, and gift it to the fossil-fuel industry. It gets worse. When you factor in the social and environmental costs that the fossil-fuel industry causes but isn’t asked to pay for, then the value of these subsidies actually reaches a staggering 7% of annual global GDP each year.

Now consider tax evasion. The E.U. estimates that money hidden by the wealthy in tax havens is worth around 10% of global GDP. Every year, another $1.4 trillion in profits is stashed offshore by corporations, which is equal to 1.6% of global GDP. To prevent the apocalypse, we’ll probably need to impose some new taxes. But why not start with collecting the old ones?

The money is there. Of course, collecting taxes, cutting military budgets, stopping food wastage and slashing subsidies is easier said than done, especially when faced by some of the most powerful lobbies in the world. But it doesn’t require a miracle. It just requires determined organization.

So we shouldn’t succumb to defeatism. Whenever someone says, “It’s too late! The apocalypse is upon us!,” reply, “Nah, we can stop it with just 2%.” And when COP27 convenes in November 2022 in Egypt, we should tell the assembled leaders that it is not enough to make vague future pledges about 1.5°C. We want them to take out their pens and sign a check for 2% of annual global GDP.

Links - TIME Climate Change Articles

• Why We Must Revolutionize Food Systems to Save Our Planet
• Climate Crises Dominated 2021. But These Innovations Offer Some Hope
• Transforming Capitalism for Sustainability
• To Address Climate Change, Here Are the Goals We Need To Meet In 2022
• Fossil Fuel Companies Say They Want to Help Fight Climate Change. Here’s What They Should Do
• Imagine If The Rich Countries That Caused Climate Change Actually Took Responsibility
• There’s a Way to End Energy Poverty—And It Has the Side Effect of Making Fossil Fuels Obsolete
• Did We Blow Our Last, Best Chance to Tackle Climate Change?
• Climate Change Is Threatening Your Morning Cup of Coffee
• How Fossil Fuel Companies Can Fight Climate Change in 2022
• How Climate Change Has Made the Australian Bushfires Worse
• What Climate Change Will Do to the Global Food Supply
• How to Save the Earth: Biggest Solutions for Climate Change

(WIRED) How To Prepare For Climate Change's Most Immediate Impacts

WIRED - Emma Pattee

The effects of the climate crisis are happening right now. From natural disasters to supply chain shortages, here's how to cope.

Climate change is making natural disasters more frequent, more severe, and more expensive. Photograph: KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/Getty Images

If you weren’t already convinced by the epic snowstorm, fatal heat dome, horrific flooding, apocalyptic fires, and terrifying IPCC report of 2021, let’s make one thing clear: Climate change is here, now, today.

Even if we all became carbon zero overnight—an impossibility—the climate would still keep changing.

And while it’s important to keep fighting, lobbying, and making lifestyle changes to reduce the impacts of climate change, it’s also important to admit that our planet has irrevocably changed and each of us needs to learn how to adapt.

The biggest challenge of learning to live in a new climate is that there’s so much uncertainty about what’s going to happen, to whom, and when. “Climate change will cause mass migrations and economic disruptions,” says John Ramey, the founder of The Prepared, a website focused on prepping.

“What will happen when millions of homes are lost, people move, food and water is scarce, and whole economic sectors fail?”

Nobody knows the answer to that question, much less whether it’s guaranteed that will all happen, but here’s a hint: Even a fraction of that is gonna be bad, and you’re gonna be glad that you read and took the advice in this article.

And if you’ve been eyeing cans of Spam at the grocery store, take heart that you’re not alone. According to a FEMA study, there’s been a recent growth in prepping—from 3.8 percent of American households in 2017 to 5.2 percent in 2019.

Ramey predicts that after the double whammy of a pandemic and nonstop climate disasters, that number could now be as high as 10 percent.

“The climate crisis is one of the single largest reasons behind the huge growth in the modern prepping community,” Ramey says, “especially among people under the age of 35 or so, since they're broadly well educated, believe the science, and have the fear or impression that the world will burn within their lifetime.”

When we hear the word prepping, most of us think immediately of a man with a long beard who lives in a hut in the woods, collects guns and “tactical” gear, and eats beans everyday for lunch. Or a Silicon Valley billionaire with a concrete fortress built to withstand nuclear war (with a bowling alley, because, you know, the apocalypse gets boring real fast).

“The media likes to highlight extreme characters and stories, such as a nutter wrapping his entire suburban house in foil or moving into the woods to teach combat shooting to their toddlers,” says Ramey. “Those people are no more representative of preppers than the Kardashians are of Californians.”

At its core, prepping simply means taking actions to prepare yourself for a worst-case scenario. Chances are, you already do some form of prepping, whether that’s buying life insurance or installing a smoke alarm in your home.

While there may not be an exact blueprint for what climate change is going to do to each of our lives, experts have some solid guesses that, combined with some good old common sense, can help each of us prepare for our new normal.

“I can’t tell you when you’re going to get hit by a climate disaster,” says David Pogue, tech journalist and author of How to Prepare for Climate Change. “But I can tell you that sooner or later, it’ll come.”

Climate-Induced Natural Disasters

The evidence is clear: Climate change is making natural disasters more frequent, more severe, and more expensive.

“We’re getting freak heat waves and freak snowstorms, devastating droughts and historic downpours, flooding and water shortages,” explains Pogue. “Everything is changing simultaneously: oceans, atmosphere, plants, animals, permafrost, weather, seasons, insects, people.”

Because your risk of natural disaster is completely dependent on where you live, what’s most important is that you understand what disasters you, personally, may face (and don’t just rely on what disasters you’ve faced in the past—that’s not an accurate assessment anymore).

You can do this by researching your city or county’s emergency preparedness tips and making sure you understand the basics of surviving an earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, or wildfire.

Pogue says that, no matter where you live, you should make sure your homeowner or renter insurance covers the disasters you’re at risk for. He also points out that you don’t need to live on a coast to be at risk for flooding, and homeowners insurance doesn’t cover flooding.

After your insurance is squared away, he suggests prepping for two weeks of having no water, food, or power, packing a “go bag” to sustain you for a couple of days outside of your home, and making a plan with your family about where to meet if cell towers aren’t working.

His last piece of advice is the simplest: download the Red Cross Emergency app. It’s free and will give you early warning about disasters. “The most tragic way to die in a fire, flood, or hurricane is in your home because you never got the word to evacuate.”

Supply Chain Breakdown and Food Shortages

Whether or not you agree with experts who say that climate change could bring about a Roman Empire–esque societal collapse, it’s clear that shortages and supply chain disruptions are on the increasingly warm horizon.

As Covid-19 showed us, those disruptions can impact anything from medical supplies to car parts to finding a winter coat.

But the most concerning shortages that we face are access to food and water.

A 2019 UN report warns of a looming food crisis, and drought already threatens 40 percent of the world’s population, according to the WHO, and over 80 million people in the United States, according to the US government’s Drought Information system.

A new paper published in Advances in Nutrition suggests that climate change will cause rising food prices, greater food insecurity, and may lead to micronutrient deficiencies in more people.

While there may be little you can do to impact the global food chain, you can start in your own backyard by planting a fruit tree or starting a garden, learning how to grow climate-appropriate vegetables, and making sure your pantry is fully stocked with two weeks of water and food, along with any necessary medical supplies.

It’s also important to assume you won’t have warning before a food and water shortage, according to Ramey, so don’t put off stocking up until it’s too late. 

Becoming Resilient Together

Resilience may be an overused term when we talk about climate change, but for most of us, it’s grossly lacking in how prepared we are to care for ourselves, our loved ones, and our property if emergency workers aren’t able to assist us.

Barely half of Americans can perform CPR, only 17 percent know how to build a fire, and just 14 percent feel confident in their ability to identify edible plants and berries.

Basic skills—like learning how to operate a two-way radio, knowing the smartest escape route out of your city or neighborhood, or being able to change a bike tire—may sound simple, but can be the difference between life and death in a disaster.

Perhaps the most effective way to take care of yourself is to get close to others.

According to FEMA, 46 percent of people expect to rely a great deal on people in their neighborhood for assistance within the first 72 hours after a disaster.

“Prepping is not a lone wolf activity,” says Ramey.

It’s important that your immediate neighbors know your name and who is in your family—including pets—so they can inform first responders in the case of an earthquake or a fire.

In the event of supply chain disruptions, your neighbors may be your only access to vital supplies like batteries or extra diapers.

Building connections in your local community is also a great way to build an informal service network, because who knows when you may need help with an injury or a home repair.

As Ramey puts it: “Community wins in 99 percent of situations.”

Links

• The WIRED Guide to Climate Change
• Emergency preparedness and prepping checklists for everyone
• How to Prepare for Climate Change - A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos (book)
• How to Prepare for a Disaster, Emotionally and Mentally
• The Best Emergency Gear to Keep at Home
• Op-Ed: Collapseologists are warning humanity that business-as-usual will make the Earth uninhabitable 
• IPCC - Climate Change and Land
• The Potential Impact of Climate Change on the Micronutrient-Rich Food Supply 
• The Best Emergency Gear Is Other People