Malcolm Turnbull Must Address The Health Risks Of Climate Change

The Guardian - Michael Marmot

The public health impacts of climate change are playing out in Australia while politicians ignore the evidence. Two reports out this week should change that

‘Heatwaves have caused more deaths over the last century in Australia than any other natural event.’ Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP

Last week, the Paris climate agreement officially entered into force, with the landmark global climate deal ushering in a new era of international climate diplomacy and sustainable development. This week, delegates from over 190 nations are convening in Morocco, seeking to build on the spirit of cooperation born in Paris, and working to convert the broad aspirational commitments into action.
While building on the architecture of the Paris agreement, national governments should keep the public health implications in mind.
Climate change is now recognised in the medical field as a clear and present danger to public health. The World Health Organisation’s director general has called it “one of the greatest health risks of the 21st century,” and the 2015 Lancet Commission concluded that climate change poses “an unacceptably high and potentially catastrophic risk to human health.”
In Australia, where I studied medicine, these risks are already all too clear. This week, the Lancet, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, is launching a new research collaboration dedicated to tracking these risks in Australia and around the world. The Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change, will check in annually on countries’ progress on climate change and calculate the direct health impacts of the transition to a low carbon future.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), meanwhile, is also releasing three position statements on health and climate change. These statements are informed by some dire observations.
Over the past half-century, average temperatures across the continent have steadily increased, bringing more frequent heatwaves that are longer and hotter than any in recorded history. Exposure to high temperatures over a prolonged period brings heightened rates of ailments such as dehydration, heat exhaustion, and heatstroke, and worsens existing health conditions like heart and potentially even kidney disease. These heatwaves have caused more deaths over the last century in Australia than any other natural event. Tragically, children and the elderly are most vulnerable.
The public health impacts, however, go well beyond heat-related threats. Changes to precipitation patterns are causing both severe droughts and intense floods, which together have taken the lives of thousands. Over time, new rainfall norms and warmer temperatures are expected to alter the burden and distribution of infectious disease throughout Australia, as mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and the Ross River virus take hold.
Beyond these harms that warmer temperatures deliver, the combustion of climate warming fossil fuels creates other direct threats to public health. Air pollution from the burning of coal for electricity generation and from road transport presents a particularly worrying challenge, resulting in twice as many deaths as motor vehicle accidents (over 3,000 per year).
In urban areas, smog from tailpipes contains ground-level ozone, dangerous particulates, and other pollutants. Ozone irritates the lining of the lungs and exacerbates asthma, and is actually made more potent on hot, sunny days, which are anticipated to be more frequent as a result of climate change. By 2050, ozone-induced hospitalisations in Sydney are expected to double.
Despite all of these troubling statistics and predictions, Australia’s government shows little interest in setting strong climate goals and facilitating the transition away from coal. In fact, the Australian delegation arrived at the COP22 climate talks without having ratified the Paris agreement (although it has since been ratified), and with some of the weakest greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets among all the participating nations.
Australia’s stated goal is to reduce net GHG emissions 26% below 2005 levels by 2030, a calculation that includes land use change and reforestation on top of modest emissions reductions from the burning of fossil fuels. The Climate Institute, an Australian think tank, has reported that under these current targets, Australia’s per capita emissions in 2030 would be twice as high as the average for other developed countries.
Rather than explore ways to bring domestic policies in line with the international community, Australia’s politicians seem more concerned with protecting the coal industry and promising that the fossil fuel will be part of Australia’s energy mix for “many, many, many decades to come.”
By doing so, they are not only steering Australia to a hotter, more dangerous, and less healthy future, but also cheating Australians out of the positive co-benefits of transitioning away from coal and other fossil fuels.
If the Turnbull government needs hard evidence of the health benefits of climate action, they can consult the Lancet Countdown on Climate and Health, which will put real world economic costs on the policy choices. Between the Lancet Countdown and the RACP’s statements, it’s clear that physicians and public health professionals understand the climate-health nexus better than Australia’s politicians. Mr. Turnbull should act for the health and wellbeing of all Australians.

Links

• Fossil-fuel CO2 emissions nearly stable for third year in row
• Once the storm settles, the real picture emerges of government's energy goals
• Tony Abbott says 'moral panic' about climate change is 'over the top'
• Coal will be important 'for many, many decades to come', says Turnbull

Probing Worst-Case Environmental Outcomes Under Trump and the G.O.P.

New York Times - Andrew C. Revkin

Why are some Christian climate sceptics going green? Interview with Andrew Refkin

As the election results emerged last Wednesday (a “black elephant” more than a “black swan”), I focused on the prospect, however slim, of reasonableness on environmental and energy issues in a Trump White House.

Hidden behind the flow of fact-free tweets and edge-wooing stump statements, Trump’s campaign had posted reasonable ideas when the Science Debate organization asked questions on the role of science funding in fostering innovation (it’s great, unless it’s climate science, evidently) and the merits of a post-fossil energy system.

The “perhaps” qualifier made it clear that the campaign’s response on renewable energy didn’t come from the master of declarative superlatives himself:

“Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels.”

But it did imply that someone in Trump’s policy camp was thinking beyond pandering (onetime solar hawk James Woolsey, perhaps?). David Victor of the University of California, San Diego, has written on the prospect of limited damage.

But it’s important to be realistic and consider the darker possibilities (perhaps probabilities, if Trump’s early appointments are a barometer).

First read the “listicle from hell” of 11 steps Trump and a Republican Congress can pursue, assembled yesterday by David Roberts and Brad Plumer at Vox, with the points helpfully distilled in a tweeted image by Cris Robertson here:

IMAGE

Here’s the introduction:

Unified Republican control of the federal government over the next two years augurs a sea change in US environmental policy like nothing since the late 1960s and ’70s, when America’s landmark environmental laws were first passed.

If Donald Trump and the GOP actually follow through on what they’ve promised, this time around will be a lurch in the opposite direction. Federal climate policy will all but disappear; participation in international environmental or climate treaties will end; pollution regulations will be reversed, frozen in place, or not enforced; clean energy research, development, and deployment assistance will decline; protections for sensitive areas and ecosystems will be lifted; federal leasing of fossil fuels will expand and accelerate; new Supreme Court appointees will crack down on EPA discretion.

Some of these moves will be easy for Trump and Republicans in Congress to pull off. Others will be harder: Senate Democrats and environmental groups in court will fight them tooth and nail, as they did during the Reagan and Bush years. But there’s no escaping the fact that the GOP is in a strong position to demolish and reshape the regime of environmental protection that has been built up over the past 50 years.

Jerry Taylor, a libertarian who favors a carbon tax. Credit Niskanen Center

Read the rest at Vox.com, but please return to consider some more thoughts on a Trump presidency offered by Jerry Taylor. Taylor is one of the most interesting voices for me in Washington on climate policy given his path to supporting a carbon tax and other steps after spending years at the free-market-focused Cato Institute challenging the need for substantial steps to blunt human-driven global warming. Taylor, now heading his own organization, the Niskanen Center, still seeks a limited-government approach but has enthusiastically made the conservative case for a carbon tax.

He sent the following note around this morning. Please click the links and read:

While much of Washington is still in shock over the Trumpocolypse, the Niskanen Center has wasted no time reorienting itself to new political realities. Yesterday on our blog, my colleagues David Bailey and David Bookbinder offered a close look at how far Republicans could go in the course of unwinding federal climate action. While the Paris agreement and the Clean Power Plan are almost certainty dead and gone, significant legal and political obstacles confront Republicans wishing to go further. The climate fight that’s likely coming will be pitched and bloody.

Today, I offered my own thoughts on the impact the elections have had on those of us who support carbon taxation in the GOP. While it’s not impossible to imagine scenarios where carbon taxation still goes forward in the 115th Congress, it’s obviously less likely now under a Trump administration. There are lessons to be learned from last week, however, that should inform our efforts in the future, and I discuss them on our blog today.

Many of you have contacted me since the election to ask about Myron Ebell, the head of the Trump transition team at EPA. I shared my thoughts about Myron (who I’ve known professionally for about 20 years) with reporter Danny Vinik in Politico yesterday. Danny writes an excellent profile for those interested in where environmental policy may be heading in the next four years.

But do not despair! Washington energy attorney Brian Potts makes the case yesterday in Forbes that I would make a great choice to run the EPA in the upcoming Trump administration. Don’t hold your breath.

Related | The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which runs one of the critical hubs for climate analysis, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has just published “guidance for the next U.S. presidential administration and Congress on the importance of better understanding and predicting weather, water, climate, and other aspects of the Earth system.”

I hope it’s read by the Trump team, not because this’ll convince Trump that the warming impact of greenhouse gases is a serious threat. With or without global warming, there’s a solid argument that improved understanding of planetary dynamics, particularly the climate system, is essential to sustaining human progress given how risks rise as populations expand, build, farm and concentrate in zones that are  implicitly vulnerable to hard knocks like floods, droughts, heat and severe storms.

Here’s part of the news release:

“[The] UCAR white paper emphasizes that focused investment of federal resources in the atmospheric, Earth, and related sciences will make significant contributions addressing important societal needs. These include protection of lives and property, expansion of new economic opportunities, enhancement of national security, and strengthening U.S. leadership in research and development.

“More than ever, federal support of research and education into the Earth system is critical to the nation,” said UCAR President Antonio J. Busalacchi. “We are on the verge of a new era of prediction, based on understanding how the entire Earth system works. This will have a direct, positive impact on lives and livelihoods.”

…The white paper proposes federal support for advanced computer models, new observing systems, and more powerful computing resources, as well as a strong science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education system. Its proposals include a National Academies’ decadal survey, involving representatives of the public and private sectors, which would develop priorities for weather research and forecasting.

Links

• Climate Change and U.S. Leadership Under President Trump
• My ProPublica Move: From Blogging and Teaching Back to Deep Digging on Climate
• Prospects for the Climate, and Environmentalism, Under President Trump
• An Anthropocene Journey
• 2016 Likely to Top 2015 as Hottest Year on Record, Scientists Say

Forty Years Of Measuring The World’s Cleanest Air Reveals Human Fingerprints On The Atmosphere

The Conversation - Sam Cleland | Melita Keywood | Paul Fraser | Paul Krummel

Cape Grim, on the northwest tip of Tasmania, is exposed to some of the cleanest air in the world. CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology, Author provided

In  2016, an isolated scientific outpost in northwest Tasmania made a historic finding. The Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station measured carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere exceeding 400 parts per million.
This wasn’t the first time the world has breached the symbolic climate change threshold – that honour was reached by the northern hemisphere in 2013 – but it was a first for the south.
Behind these recent findings is a history of Australia’s role in global scientific advancement. The Cape Grim station has now been running for 40 years and the resulting data set chronicles the major changes in our global atmosphere.

A national response
In 1798, Matthew Flinders’ encounter with Cape Grim confirmed to Europeans that Tasmania (then Van Diemen’s Land) was separated from the mainland of Australia.
Fast forward to the early 1970s and a small group of innovative scientists were hatching a plan to take advantage of Cape Grim’s isolation and unique geographical position. The site soon became one of the world’s most significant atmospheric measurement sites, meticulously measuring and recording some of the cleanest air that can be accessed on the planet.
There were two threads to the beginnings of Cape Grim. One was the young scientists at CSIRO, keen to pioneer an emerging field of science. The second was a call from the United Nations for global governments to work together to set up a network of monitoring stations. The Australian response was championed by Bill Priestley and Bill Gibbs, the respective senior climate figureheads at CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.
The scientific community decided that Cape Grim was the most appropriate site for a permanent monitoring station, thereby establishing in 1976 the Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station.
The first set of instruments lived in an ex-NASA caravan. Today the station is managed by the Bureau of Meteorology and housed in a permanent building that features state-of-the-art infrastructure, including a tower fitted with important monitoring equipment. Many of the early pioneering scientists are still actively involved in this research.

The first set of air monitoring instruments lived in an ex-NASA caravan. CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology

The world’s cleanest air
The station, part of the World Meteorological Organisation’s Global Atmosphere Watch network, was sited at Cape Grim to take advantage of the “roaring forties” - the prevailing westerly winds that bring clean air from over the Southern Ocean to the station.
Air that arrives at the station from the southwest is classified as “baseline” air. Having had no recent contact with land, it represents the background atmosphere and is perhaps some of the cleanest in the world.
While we focus on this clean air, most of the instruments monitor continuously, regardless of wind direction, and can detect pollution from Melbourne and other parts of Tasmania in certain conditions.
The station measures all major and minor greenhouse gases; ozone-depleting chemicals; aerosols (including black carbon or soot); reactive gases including lower-atmosphere ozone, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds; radon (an indicator of changes to the land); solar radiation; the chemical composition of rainwater; mercury; persistent organic pollutants; and finally the weather.
The Cape Grim Air Archive, initiated by CSIRO in 1978 and soon adopted into the operations of the station, is now the world’s most important and unique collection of background atmospheric air samples, underpinning many research papers on global and Australian emissions of greenhouse and ozone depleting gases.

The Cape Grim station maintains an archive of air from the 1970s to today. CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology, Author provided

The human fingerprint
Cape Grim data are freely available and have been widely used in all five international climate change assessments (1990-2013), all ten international ozone depletion assessments (1985-2014), in four State of the Climate Reports 2010-2016 and in lower-atmosphere ozone assessments.
Measurements at Cape Grim have demonstrated the impact of human activity on the atmosphere. For example, CO₂ has increased from about 330 parts per million (ppm) in 1976 to more than 400 ppm today, an average increase of 1.9 ppm per year since 1976. Since 2010 the rate has been 2.3 ppm per year. The isotopic ratios of CO₂ measured at Cape Grim have changed in a way that is consistent with fossil fuels being the source of higher concentrations.

Cape Grim has documented the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology, Author provided

Cape Grim has also demonstrated the effectiveness of action to reduce human impacts. The decline in concentrations of ozone-depleting substances measured at Cape Grim demonstrates the progress of the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to phase out the use of these chemicals, and leading to the gradual recovery of the ozone hole.
Measurements at Cape Grim have contributed significantly to global understanding of marine aerosols, including some of the first evidence that microscopic marine plants (phytoplankton) are a source of gases that play a role in cloud formation. With 70% of the Earth’s surface covered by oceans, aerosols in the marine environment play an important role in the climate system.
Cape Grim data are also used by the Australian government to meet international obligations. For example, the station’s greenhouse gas data have independently verified parts of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which reports Australia’s annual emissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Persistent organic pollutants have been reported to the Stockholm Convention on these chemicals and Cape Grim mercury data will be reported to the Minimata Convention.
Data collected from the Cape Grim Station have been used in more than 700 research papers on climate change and atmospheric pollution. By working with universities Cape Grim is a training ground for the next generation of climate scientists.

CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology

Links

• How is atmospheric CO2 measured in the Southern Hemisphere?
• New CSIRO website shows steady rise of greenhouse gases
• February carbon dioxide levels average 400ppm for first time
• What are ozone depleting substances

Australia Ranked Among Worst Developed Countries For Climate Change Action

The Guardian - Michael Slezak

Two reports place the country near the bottom of the league for emissions level, use of renewables and action to combat global warming

A banner from a march in favour of tackling climate change in Melbourne. In the climate change performance index, released at the UN climate talks in Marrakech, Australia was ranked fifth-worst for emissions and policies among developed countries. Photograph: Ratnayake/REX Shutterstock

Australia has been singled out again as a climate laggard, being ranked fifth-worst for emissions and policies among developed countries and among the six worst countries in the G20 when it comes to climate action.
In the climate change performance index, released overnight at the UN climate talks in Marrakech, Australia comes ahead of only Kazakhstan, South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
The 58 countries assessed by Climate Action Network Europe and Germanwatch are responsible for 90% of global energy-related carbon pollution. They are then ranked according to their emissions level, the trend in emissions, the deployment of renewable energy, the energy intensity of the economy and climate policies.
Australia is near the bottom of the countries, labelled as having “very poor performance”.
Australia’s hostile relationship between federal and state climate policies was noted in the report, which said: “While the former were rather unambitious and uninspired, the latter managed to some extent to take independent action.”
The finding came following comments from the prime minister and federal ministers, criticising state-based renewable energy and emissions targets.
Since previous rankings, Australia improved slightly with its emissions trend but dropped in energy efficiency.
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s chief executive, Kelly O’Shanassy, said: “The government spruiks its climate credentials but Australia remains a laggard on cutting climate pollution.
“The world is watching as our pollution rises and governments support new mega-polluting coalmines.”
O’Shanassy said Australia must not proceed with Adani’s Carmichael coalmine.
Meanwhile, the federal minister for energy and the environment, Josh Frydenberg, used his time in Marrakech to lobby the US in favour of Adani’s Carmichael coalmine, complaining about US activists funding a campaign to stop the huge project from proceeding.
In a separate study from the London School of Economics, researchers examined the consistency of actions of G20 countries, compared with the goals of the Paris agreement.
It found Australia – as well as Argentina, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US – were “falling behind with their national climate mitigation action”.
“These countries lack overall framework legislation or regulation on climate change, need to move from sectoral to economy-wide targets and extend the timeframe of their targets to 2030,” the report said.

Links

• Australia dubbed 'fossil of the day' after lobbying for coal mine at climate talks
• Australia says it will reduce methane emissions despite coal seam gas and LNG expansion
• Marrakech climate talks: US accepts petition calling for fossil fuel lobbyists to be excluded
• Global climate change action 'unstoppable' despite Trump
• Marrakech climate talks an emotional ride as reports show need to end coal power
• ‘There’s no plan B’: climate change scientists fear consequence of Trump victory
• Marrakech climate talks: giving the fossil fuel lobby a seat at the table
• What's in store at the Marrakech climate talks – and will Australia still back coal?

Sydney Homeowners Face Properties Being Reduced In Value Because Of Climate Change, Climate Risk Group Says

Fairfax - Lucy Cormack

Sydney's coastal homeowners face their property values being reduced, as the future risk of increasingly extreme weather events grows, a climate risk consultant says.
Dr Karl Mallon, director of science and systems for Sydney-based consultants Climate Risk, said Australia's quintessential problem is that "you can build a house which is insurable tomorrow, but is wholly unsuitable 30 years down the track".

What are east coast lows?
They bring wild storms that lash the east coast of Australia, but despite their destructive force we need them more than you may realise. Produced in association with UNSWTV.

The message follows the release by the independent Climate Council of its latest report, Super-charged storms in Australia, which argues that the nation is highly vulnerable to "storm surges associated with tropical cyclones and extra-tropical cyclones, including [more intense] east coast lows."
"The evidence for the link between climate change and extreme weather is already very strong for heatwaves and bushfire weather, and it is getting stronger for intense cyclones and heavy rainfall events," the report said.

After months of little rain, storm cells lashed the east coast of Australia, with rising waters inundating Sydney's northern Beaches. Photo: james Alcock

"Seven storms since 2010 in Australia have resulted in insured losses of more than $500 million each, and five of them resulted in over $1 billion in insured losses."
Dr Mallon said that many Australians do not realise that a change in a property's value does not occur when an extreme weather event takes place, but "when the market realises the event will occur and revalues the house...it's the homeowner which is the sitting duck in all this."
He pointed to a "disconnect," between banks, government planning and the insurance industry, which is leaving Australian homeowners vulnerable to "climate change foreclosure".
"There are potentially millions and millions of dollars of revaluation that has to happen in the property sector and it's not going to be pretty. We could end up with suburbs where there is a wholesale collapse in value," he said, highlighting "erosion, actions of the sea, landslip and ground contraction," as some of the main impacts which are still largely uninsurable.

Catastrophic failure of transmission towers in the wake of the South Australian storm. 

"It's the banks who probably need to lead the charge…to sit down with insurers and planners and say, 'Will you start providing insurance on this?'."
Storm damage, hail and flooding caused 70 per cent of all insurance losses in NSW between 1970 and 2013, a report by insurance giant IAG and consultancy firm SGS Economics and Planning showed last week. That report identified Hawkesbury as the most disaster-prone region of greater Sydney, ranking among the city's highest risk council areas for flood, storm and bushfire. It was among 10 council areas identified as having a "high" or "very high" risk of major flooding, including Camden, Fairfield, Rockdale and Woollahra.

At the start of next year, Climate Risk will launch an online valuation tool, in which users can type in an address and run an analysis on how climate change could impact on the property's value in future.
The system recalculates the value of a property at the end of a mortgage,  by analysing climate and coastal data; such as tide, tectonic and wave gauges.
"We are not building with climate change in mind....we need someone to start talking about the risks going forward. So we've been building these products to be able to do that."
This week the Insurance Council of Australia launched a national campaign, urging Australian home and business owners to prepare for a potentially severe disaster season.

A sewerage pipe is exposed in storms at South Narrabeen. Photo: Peter Braig

"An above-average cyclone season has been forecast by the weather bureau, while the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre predicts heightened risk across much of southern Australia, especially in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia," said ICA chief executive officer Rob Whelan.
Campbell Fuller, the Insurance Council's general manager of communications, said around "95 per cent of household insurance policies purchased now include cover for flooding but consumers can also buy policies where flood cover is optional, or which exclude flood damage.
For coastal dwellers, he said there was a small number of available policies that covered damage caused by actions of the sea.
"Australian governments could do more to prepare the community and reduce the impacts through mitigation, a process sometimes held back by a lack of understanding of the risks [and] budgetary pressures," he said, adding that governments at every level needed to lift their level of mitigation spending.
"This process is accelerating, as government's understanding of the impact of natural disasters grows, although insurers continue to deal with the consequences of historical decisions."
In March, the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience & Safer Communities revealed that the total cost of natural disasters in Australia in 2015 exceeded $9 billion, or 0.6 per cent of GDP, a figure expected to double by 2030 and reach an average of $33 billion by 2050.

Links

• Did Climate Change Play A Part In The Sydney Storm?
• Climate change impacts in New South Wales
• Adapting for Climate Change - A Long Term Strategy for the City of Sydney
• Energy management & climate change

One Looming Consequence Of Climate Change: Small Island Nations Will Cease To Exist

Los Angeles Times - Ann M. Simmons

Moroccan and international demonstrators shout slogans and hold placards against pollution during a demonstration in Marrakech, Morocco, on the sidelines of the climate conference on Nov. 13, 2016. (Fadel Senna / AFP/Getty Images)

As  United Nations climate change talks get set to wrap up on Friday in Marrakech, Morocco, negotiators representing the Alliance of Small Island Nations underscored the need to speed up efforts to combat global warming and adapt to its effects.
“I’m happy about the progress that we are making, but we have a lot more work to do,” said Hugh Sealy, a climate change consultant for the United Nations who helped negotiate last year’s Paris agreement, which committed the world’s nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and is attending the Morocco conference as the lead negotiator for small island countries.
“We are still on a trajectory for at least 3 degrees of warming even if all the countries in the world did what they promised to do,” he said. “So it’s absolutely essential that we increase our efforts and that we reduce our emissions as quickly as possible.”
Speaking from Marrakech, Sealy, a professor at St. George’s University in Grenada, shared his thoughts on the urgency of tackling climate change and the key concerns for the 44 low-lying coastal countries that are among the most vulnerable.
His comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Hugh Sealy, a climate change consultant for the United Nations helped negotiate last year’s Paris Agreement, and is the lead negotiator for small island countries at the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Courtesy of Hugh Sealy)

What are small island nations hoping will come out of the conference?
Mitigation, adaptation and finance are the three key priorities for us.
The Paris agreement last year was historic because, for the first time, it locked in long-term temperature goals, like what we hope to achieve in terms of combating climate change. That’s what we call mitigation. In Paris, we agreed that we would limit global warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial times and pursue keeping it below 1.5 degrees of warming because the small islands have clearly indicated that even 2 degrees of warming will be too much. We see 1.5 degree of warming as essential to our survival.
So at this conference, we want to move toward keeping that 1.5 degrees of warming and raising our global ambition as far as mitigation goes, which is saying we have to reduce our emissions as quickly as possible.
A second priority for us is finance. Developed countries have promised that they would give us $100 billion a year. But right now the Green Climate Fund [established by the United Nations to help developing countries counter climate change] is only financed at $10 billion over a four-year period, which is $2.5 billion a year. So we’re very, very far away from that $100 billion a year that was promised to us.
So what’s terribly important to us at this conference is that the developed countries lay out a road map as to how we’re going to get to that $100 billion a year by 2020.
The third priority for us is adaptation. And adaptation to climate change is a realization that some of the effects of climate change are already occurring. For example, sea level rise. We know we are going to face at least 1 meter (3.3 feet) of sea level rise by the end of the century. Last year was the hottest year on record. This year is headed toward breaking that record. If it does, it will of course push 2015 to second place and 2014 into third place. So we’ve had the three hottest years in a row. We are in the middle of climate change now, so being able to adapt is a huge priority for small islands as well.

View of a palm field suffering from desertification near Morocco's eastern oasis town of Erfoud in the Sahara desert. (Fadel Senna / AFP/Getty Images)

What is the greatest climate change threat to small island states?
Rising sea levels, because we have the majority of our infrastructure on the coastlines — our seaports, our airports, our tourism resorts. A number of islands rely on tourism. But also, ocean acidification [is a threat]. As more carbon dioxide is absorbed into the ocean the water becomes more acidic. And as it becomes more acidic it will start to dissolve our coral reefs, and that’s disaster for us. If we lose our coral reefs, we lose our beaches. If we lose our beaches, we lose our tourism and therefore we lose our economy.
So I think most of our perils will come from the sea side of things and our coast being affected. That’s why small island nations are perhaps the most vulnerable to climate change. I would call ourselves the canaries in the coal mine. In other words, what happens to small islands will eventually occur to even larger countries. That is why for us climate change is not only an economic issue. For a lot of us, climate change is an existential issue. We will cease to exist as viable human settlements if climate change is allowed to continue in the way it is occurring now.

A man walks through knee-deep water to reach his home during a king tide event in 2015 on Kili in the Marshall Islands, where climate change poses an existential threat. (Bikini Atoll Local Government via Associated Press)

With the election of Donald Trump, is there concern that the U.S. might renege on its commitment to tackle climate change?
I think there are valid concerns because of what President-elect Trump said before the election. But we’re optimistic that he will realize that climate change is a global issue that America cannot divorce itself from. And we hope that the United States will continue to show the leadership that it has in the past.

What is a carbon market and how would creating a carbon market help small island nations?
It was the United States that originally used the force of markets to bring down pollution. It was President George H.W. Bush who used markets to combat acid rain. He invented a system called “cap and trade,” where he put a cap on sulfur dioxide emissions. Utility companies that were able to reduce their emissions by a significant amount got these credits and were able to sell these credits to other power companies that were not as efficient in reducing their emissions. And everyone stayed below this cap.

A heating factory spews smoke in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province. Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have decreased, but scientists say it’s not enough to stave off dangerous global warming. (AFP/Getty Images)

We are applying the same principle to carbon dioxide. You have states within the U.S., like California and some of the Eastern Seaboard states, that have created their own carbon market. Quebec in Canada has created one and it has linked itself to California. Australia is looking to join the market that the European Union has created. So we in the Caribbean … see there is a possibility under Article 6 of the Paris agreement to create our own carbon market within the Caribbean.

What are small island nations doing to combat the effect of climate change?
We are lobbying for the financing to do so. In a lot of cases our capacity to adapt is constrained. Even without this issue of climate change, we are poor developing countries that have not yet recovered from the Great Recession of 2008. We’re cash-strapped. We have sustainable development issues that we have to deal with over and above the threat of climate change.

So does the answer lie in financing?
Primarily yes. If we get enough finance then we can adapt. Of course, small islands reducing their emissions will do absolutely nothing in the global fight against climate change. You could add up all the emissions of small islands and we would probably still be less than half a percent of what the global emissions are.

Links

• Climate change is real: Just ask the Pentagon
• Will Paris climate accord and other environmental pacts survive a Trump presidency?
• Gov. Jerry Brown warns Trump that California won't back down on climate change
• Species may be listed as threatened based on climate change projections, court says
• With Trump’s election, science — and the global environment — will lose

Trumping Trump

MAHB - Julian Cribb

People’s Climate March at the Trump International Hotel and Tower, New York City. Beyond My Ken Wikimedia | CC BY-SA 4.0

Contrary to appearances, Donald Trump might just be the best thing that ever happened to climate action.
The presence of a climate denier in the White House and his obtuse, fossil-funded minions in key government posts is liable to ignite such fury among sensible people across America and around the world as to accelerate the demise of coal, oil and gas (’the fossils’) and the adoption of climate-saving policies at every level from home to city to industry, to nation, to the world itself.
Trump might be just the bitter medicine we needed to jerk us out of our complacency about what a +4 or +5-degree world will really be like: approaching uninhabitable.
Depending on the rate at which Arctic methane is released, the world has somewhere between 15-20 years to do away with fossil fuels completely. After that, a hot world of +4 or +5 degrees, with all the food, water, conflict and migration crises for billions that entails, becomes almost unavoidable.
The US election result has gifted the sedate pace of climate action from Paris COP22 with a fresh urgency as, round the world, people wake up to the brutal fact that if they wait for government action then Hell will, not freeze over exactly, rather, engulf the planet in a conflagration which may consume their children and grandchildren.
Waiting for governments to agree on the necessity of saving civilization is, in the Australian vernacular, a mug’s game. Their hearts aren’t in it, and there are far too many juicy bribes and sinecures for individual politicians not to mention political parties paid off by the coal lobby to posture and then sit on their hands. In Australia, for example, a recent survey tagged more than 40 retired Ministers, MPs, their staffers and former public servants as working for the dark side – that’s the side that doesn’t care if your grandkids fry.
If Trump and his ilk are to be stopped from their headlong, selfish pursuit of planetary devastation, it will be by the people of the planet – not the institutions or politicians. Here’s how:

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Go Green:
Not even Trump can defy world market reality. The one thing that can undermine the price and profitability of coal, oil and gas is low-cost renewable energy. As they well know –hence all the campaigns against wind turbines and solar farms. Put solar on your home, support your city or local government in taking your community off-grid. Invest in tidal, wave, geothermal and the new energies to balance the power supply. Resources companies have the option to go green themselves – they just don’t want to. They will end up with stranded assets and bankrupt, like many US coal majors already are.

Divest Now:
Don’t put your life savings into anything that might destroy your grandkids. It’s not a formula for human survival. Ethical and green investment services are mushrooming. Concerned citizens can compel their bank, super fund, university, local government, etc. to invest ethically by demanding accountability, including divestment in fossil fuels – and by shifting their accounts. In the Trump years, there will be massive global divestment by hundreds of millions in the source of the greatest hazard facing humanity.

Sue the Bastards:
Though they may look like pinpricks for now, there is a rolling wave of lawsuits around the world against their governments for failing in their duty of care, and against the fossils for risking human lives and destroying the environment. Every lawsuit adds to the sovereign risk of investing in fossil fuels – and unnerves other, less ethical, investors. Shrewd investment analysts are already advising their clients to bail out of fossils, and there’s not a darn thing Trump and his acolytes can do to stop it.

Protest:
Many people still underestimate the power, in a social media age, of peaceful citizens’ protests to change minds, values and perceptions within communities and countries. The way the world, especially its indigenous communities, has rallied behind the Sioux nation to oppose the Dakota Access tar sands pipeline is a case in point. As are the Australian citizens’ protests over the Liverpool Plains and Adani and similar protests in the UK and Europe. Local protests over just causes now reverberate worldwide. There is a global movement building that responds at lightspeed.

Trust the Youth:

Following the US election the following electoral map of how 18-24 year olds voted, gained currency. Young Americans, at any rate, are not willing to be pawned to the interests of the fossils. Globally, many of the lawsuits against government or the fossils are led by youngsters, even teenagers – and for similar reasons. This is a demographic that can only grow and, aided by social media, can do so rapidly and universally.

Electoral Map for Millennials (age 18-34) | Source: SurveyMonkey

Change Your Habits:
The food industry contributes roughly 30% of global climate change drivers, and wastes around 40% of all food. So stop wasting food, and buy it from farmers who care, not from supermarkets who don’t. Don’t buy your kids plastic toys – you are only funding the very petrochemical industry that threatens their future. Likewise look for organic food, clothing and household products, which are produced without petrochemicals (pesticides, dyes, preservatives, etc.). Again, there’s nothing the Trumpists can do to stop you eating and shopping more safely and sustainably – and contributing your dollar signals to a burgeoning global marketplace.

Electrify:
Electric cars are only a climate solution if the electricity they run on is renewable not fossil –but some stunning technologies are just around the corner, including using vehicles themselves as generators of green energy into the local grid. The worldwide spread of high voltage DC (HVDC) cables over thousands of kilometres is the genesis of an international grid for moving energy efficiently around the planet: one day your home may help run a factory in China. Sunlight in the Sahara will help power Europe, etc.

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In the face of universal threats like climate change, people often feel powerless to influence the future. This is no longer the case, as these seven examples show. You can have quite a big impact simply by choosing how and where you shop, bank, mortgage your home and save your money. Aligned with hundreds of millions of others, equally concerned, equally empowered, you can change the world.
If humanity itself forms a consensus to prevent and mitigate climate change it will be a political act like none other in history. No nation, corporate, religious order, political party or belief system can stop it, because they will have no power over it. It will unleash the next great phase of global economic growth and development, the new industries, jobs and opportunities that transition us into a sustainable, prosperous world.

So, thanks Donald, for supplying the wake-up call.

Links

• COP 22 | Marrakech, Morocco, 7-18 November
• Paris Climate Change Agreement to Enter into Force!
• Create a new narrative on economic reform and climate policy
• Economic Growth is a meme – a learned idea that we can change and mature