Lessons From South Australia’s Blackout: We Need To Make Infrastructure More Resilient To Climate Change

The Conversation - Mark Gibbs

South Australia's blackout was a reminder of the importance of our infrastructure. AAP Image/David Mariuz

Last week's storm and subsequent state-wide blackout in South Australia reminds us how important the electricity grid – and other infrastructure – is for our communities.
Immediate analysis suggests the blackout was caused by the collapse of transmission infrastructure in South Australia. Australian electricity networks, like most transmission networks worldwide, rely on above-ground conducting wires held aloft by large towers. Some of these towers were blown over in the South Australian event.
While the storm hasn't yet been specifically linked to climate change, it also serves as a reminder of the increasing challenges of delivering essential services in a more variable climate and slowing economy.
Power, water, transport, health, defence and communications infrastructure can be exposed to climate variability and change simply because of their long lifetimes. Therefore, many if not most owners and operators of essential infrastructure have commissioned climate vulnerability and adaptation studies.
There are many good examples of adaptation. For instance, Queensland Urban Utilities, the major water distributor and retailer in south-east Queensland, is implementing a large program to make the water and wastewater delivery network more resilient to flooding.
But there is increasing recognition among climate adaptation researchers that many of the recommendations from climate adaptation studies aren't being adopted. This is sometimes referred to as the "plan and forget" approach to climate adaptation and it leaves critical infrastructure vulnerable to weather extremes.

Speaking different languages
One of the less obvious reasons for lack of uptake is the difference in language used in the climate science and adaptation community and in the infrastructure community.
All technical disciplines develop their own specialised language and climate science is no exception. But planning for climate change means that infrastructure professionals have to apply climate science to engineering planning and design.
Both disciplines use risk management as a common framework for assessing and managing risks. But the "bible" of climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) process, has invented new definitions of risk.
These differ from the long-standing definitions of risk enshrined by the International Organisation for Standardization and widely used by the engineering and infrastructure community.
Many engineers find they cannot use the IPCC reports and projections because this information cannot be directly integrated into planning and design processes that are often heavily regulated and prescribed.
By necessity, climate projections are based on probabilities that specified environmental conditions may occur.
By contrast, engineering design is often based on a specified extreme number, whether it be a maximum wind strength or flood height, rather than a set of probabilities.
Over time it is expected that engineering design methodologies will be able to assimilate climate projections, but updating these highly prescriptive standards can be a drawn-out process.

Harder, better, faster, stronger
Often the most common recommendations in infrastructure climate adaption studies are to make infrastructure stronger, higher and, by implication, heavier and more expensive. A common example is a recommendation that bridges be elevated and made stronger to account for expected higher flood levels and water flows.
While this is understandable, it is in stark contrast with the way almost all other products are being developed – lighter, faster, cheaper, smarter.
Australia is also consistently either at the top, or near the top, of the infrastructure cost league table. It's one of the most expensive places to design and construct infrastructure worldwide.
Therefore, climate adaptation recommendations to make infrastructure more resilient through brute strength can be difficult to fund – although, in some cases, this may be the only viable option.

Getting creative
We need to think a little more creatively. A good starting point is to take the approach advocated in the relatively new international asset management standard called the ISO 55000 standard.
A key part of this standard is not to think about infrastructure assets in isolation, but to consider how each asset contributes to an essential service, such as providing electricity to our homes. After all, infrastructure assets are only constructed to deliver a service. It is the service that is key, not just the individual asset.
Importantly, the demand for services, levels of service and the way essential services will be delivered in future decades is all largely unknown. Technology will change how essential services are defined and delivered.
Distributed energy – such as rooftop solar – may reduce the need for extensive transmission networks. Smarter combinations of light rail and autonomous vehicles may change demand for major road infrastructure.
New water-treatment technology, such as within-pipe treatment, may do away with the need for large treatment plants that are often located in low-lying regions exposed to sea-level rise.
Climate adaptation needs to stop recommending that existing infrastructure just be built stronger and higher, and take a broader and smarter perspective of what infrastructure may be required as climate change increasingly makes its presence felt.

Links

• South Australia: Failing To Learn The Correct Lessons Will Mean A Failure To Deliver Secure, Affordable Energy In Our Future
• The Lights Go Out In SA And Turnbull Flicks The Switch To Peak Stupid
• SA blackout: climate change readiness will be lost if we fall for blame game
• Support for action on climate change and renewables strongest since 2008
• What the CCA's own modelling shows an emission intensity scheme will need to do
• New research shows climate extremes of today will be the normal of tomorrow: new long-term, national agenda for climate action in Australia now urgent

Australia On The Outer Again As Paris Climate Treaty Comes Into Force

Renew Economy - Giles Parkinson

Australia will find itself again on the outer in global climate change efforts, excluded from key decision-making processes because it is one of a minority of major polluters that has yet to ratify the Paris climate accord.

The European Union on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to ratify the Paris treaty, a day after India announced it would also do the same thing. The ratification is expected to be formally voted by ministers later this week, taking the total well past the trigger point of 55 countries and 55 per cent of total global emissions.
The speed of the ratification – less than a year after the Paris treaty was voted to general acclimation last year – compares with the eight years it took to get its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, into force after it was adopted in 1997.
The move will impact Australia in two ways. Firstly, only those countries who have ratified the treaty can vote in negotiations for the next step in the treaty's implementation. That means Australia will be excluded from these processes, although it may have observer status.
It also means that Australia will reinforce its status as a climate outlier, a reputation it earned when former prime minister Tony Abbott and former Canadian prime minister Steven Harper were branded "climate villains" because of their opposition to action on climate change.
Malcolm Turnbull was expected to change this. but has instead entrenched the policies of his predecessor. New Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, however, has signalled a major change in direction.
This week he mandated a national carbon trading scheme, that will set a carbon price of $C50/tonne by 2022.
"After decades of inaction, after years of missed opportunities, we will finally take real and concrete measures to build a clean economy, create more opportunities for Canadians, and make out world better for our children and grandchildren," Trudeau told parliament.
"Mr Speaker, we will not walk away from science, and we will not deny the unavoidable." Canada is expected to formally ratify the Paris deal this week.
The second impact of the Paris treaty ratification is that Australia will face inevitable pressure to increase its emission reduction targets. Already criticised by most analysts as inadequate and below Australia's "fair share", the unexpectedly quick ratification of the Paris treaty indicates the world is serious about upping its efforts to combat climate change.
"In our view, climate diplomacy will shift its focus to raising the ambition levels of country pledges as record temperatures and climate impacts highlight the magnitude of the work to be done to limit temperature rises to within 2°C, or even 1.5°C," HSBC researchers said in a research note this week.
The combined efforts of the pledges that countries brought to Paris are only expected to cap global warming at around 3°C at best, so there is massive work to be done to lower that likely growth in warming to well below 2°C and possibly below 1.5°C.
"Average temperatures for the first half of 2016 were already 1.3°C higher than pre-industrial levels, which is close to the aspirational 1.5°C target," the HSBC analysts said. "We think ambition levels would need to be raised considerably higher in order for the 1.5°C target not to be missed."
Australian officials admitted last week that no modelling has been done on whether its current policy suite – based around Direct Action and the Emissions Reduction Fund – will meet even its 26-28 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030.
Independent analyst suggests it won't. Australia says it has already beaten its first Kyoto target, but that allowed it to increase emissions by 8 per cent, and its 2020 target required virtually no emission reductions at all.
Current estimates suggest that Australia's emissions are rising again and could be 9 per cent ahead of current levels by 2030.
Leading economist Professor Lord Stern said the treaty progress would provide an enormous boost in confidence for investors, particularly at a time when the world needed to ramp up its efforts to meet the targets.
"A key reason why countries have moved so fast after Paris is that they now recognise the great attractiveness of the growth and development paths for both rich and poor countries that will result from the transition to a low-carbon economy," he said.
Australia, however, is showing no such ambition. The Coalition is rejecting any talk of increasing its targets in next year's policy review, and is looking at trying to force states that have higher renewable energy targets to bring them back to the less ambitious national target.
On green finance, Australia is also moving in the opposite direction, voting to cut $500 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and slashing $800 million from the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, the only new initiative announced by the Turnbull government, although it involved only recycled money.
On the international stage, the story is different.
"The race has begun: September has been an extraordinary month for green finance globally," the HSBC researchers noted, citing new initiatives in China, which is establishing a "green financial system", and in France and other countries.
"We believe governments are increasingly thinking about how the transition to a low-carbon economy will be funded, and are laying the financial infrastructure to encourage more green capital (especially private) and to develop and scale up new products.
"In the run-up to COP 22 (Marrakech, Morocco from 7-18 November 2016), we expect these initiatives to gain momentum as investors and businesses seek to be a part of, and contribute to, the low-carbon transition."
But, not in Australia.

Links

• Paris climate deal passes final hurdle
• EU ratifies Paris agreement on climate change
• NZ ratifies Paris climate change agreement
• German lawmakers ratify landmark Paris climate accord

Electric Cars Need 15% Market Penetration To Go Mainstream

Gas 2 - Steve Hanley

In 1962, professor of communications Everett Rogers published his theory on the adoption of innovation. He said before a new idea goes mainstream, it needs significant support from participants in a social network. Since there was no internet back then, social networks meant friends, family, co-workers, and other people webinteract with on a regular basis. Rogers' theories can provide insight into when we can expect electric cars to go mainstream.
"What the people around you do influences you in two ways," says Reuven Sussman, who works for the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. "One way, you get information is from what other people do. The other is you get some social pressure. There's a desire to sort of fit in with your social group and do what others are doing for that reason."
Sussman goes on to say that social pressure engulfs more people after the second wave of adopters take up a technology and spread the word. "People who are the most passionate about these topics are not always the ones that are the best influencers." But when opinion leaders adopt, they can readily become…champions. "People that you know within your social network are generally more credible and trustworthy and likable. They're in your network for some reason."
Professor Rogers theorized that 15% of the potential market must have accepted a new idea or technology before it can go mainstream. But after that milestone is reached, the idea or technology catches on rapidly. Often acceptance by 60% of the market happens within a short time afterwards.
It's not hard to test the Rogers' theories. Think of recent innovations like HDTV or smartphones. HDTV was not even a thing until 1993. For about a decade afterwards, prices dropped and it slowly gained ground. Then all of a sudden — or so it seems — HDTVs were everywhere. Today, you can't give an old television away. Nobody wants one.
The smartphone has had a similar trajectory. In the 80's, a few early adopters had bag phones. They were large, cumbersome devices with a battery that weighed about 10 pounds. Then came the iPhone and everything changed. Today, almost everyone in the world has one. You can probably think of other examples of ideas that seemed far out at one time that suddenly took off. From microwave ovens to Facebook, the theories advanced by professor Rogers are being validated every day.
Which brings us to electric automobiles. If you visit Gas2 on a regular basis, chances are you are already believe that electric cars are a better way to get from Point A to Point B. Even if you don't own an electric car, you are having an impact on the people you know. You are a champion of innovation. What you say influences others.
Right now in the United States, electric cars account for about 1% of all new car sales. In other words, there is a long way to go yet before electric cars go mainstream — maybe as much as a decade or more. But don't despair. Attitudes are beginning to change. At the Paris auto show this week, the buzz is all about electric cars. In Norway, more than 25% of all new cars are electric. China is pushing hard to get more electric cars on its roads.
Within 10 years, the world will reach that 15% mark professor Rogers says is so critical. After that happens, watch out. The change will be rapid. Soon, internal combustion cars will be just a curiosity, something for museums and historians to ponder. Does 10 years seem like a long time? It's not, in the general scheme of things. The transition from mainframes to personal computers took 30 years. Why should the changeover to electric cars take any less?

Links

• Porsche Working On High Power Charger Network For Mission E
• Mercedes EQ Concept Breaks Cover In Paris
• BMW Sheds Light On Electric Car Plans At Paris Show
• Tesla Model S Goes More Than 200,000 Miles In One Year

Planet At Its Hottest In 115,000 Years Thanks To Climate Change, Experts Say

The Guardian - Oliver Milman

Global warming is said to be bringing temperatures last seen during an interglacial era, when sea level was 6-9 meters (20-30ft) higher than today

A coal-fired power station. 'Massive CO2 extraction' costing trillions is needed in order to avoid runaway temperature rises, says a new paper. Photograph: Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images

The global temperature has increased to a level not seen for 115,000 years, requiring daunting technological advances that will cost the coming generations hundreds of trillions of dollars, according to the scientist widely credited with bringing climate change to the public's attention.
A new paper submitted by James Hansen, a former senior Nasa climate scientist, and 11 other experts states that the 2016 temperature is likely to be 1.25C above pre-industrial times, following a warming trend where the world has heated up at a rate of 0.18C per decade over the past 45 years.
This rate of warming is bringing Earth in line with temperatures last seen in the Eemian period, an interglacial era ending 115,000 years ago when there was much less ice and the sea level was 6-9 meters (20-30ft) higher than today.
In order to meet targets set at last year's Paris climate accord to avoid runaway climate change, "massive CO2 extraction" costing an eye-watering $104tn to $570tn will be required over the coming century with "large risks and uncertain feasibility" as to its success, the paper states.
"There's a misconception that we've begun to address the climate problem," said Hansen, who brought climate change into the public arena through his testimony to the US congress in the 1980s. "This misapprehension is based on the Paris climate deal where governments clapped themselves on the back but when you look at the science it doesn't compute, it's not true.
"Even with optimistic assumptions (future emissions reduction) will cost hundreds of trillions of dollars. It's potentially putting young people in charge of a situation that is beyond their control. It's not clear they will be able to take such actions."
The paper, submitted as a discussion paper to the Earth System Dynamics journal, is a departure from the usual scientific process as it has yet to be peer reviewed and has been launched to support a legal case waged by a group of young people against the US government.
Last year, 21 youths aged between 8 and 19 years old filed a constitutional lawsuit against the Obama administration for failing to do enough to slow climate change. Hansen and his granddaughter are parties to legal challenge, which was filed in Oregon and asserts that the government has violated young people's rights to life, liberty and property.

Recent studies have cast doubt over whether the world will stay with an aspirational temperature target set in Paris

Hansen, who has become increasingly outspoken on climate change since retiring from Nasa in 2013, said he recognized some scientists might object to publicizing the paper so soon but that "we are running out of time on this climate issue."
The courts need to step in to force governments to act on climate change because they are largely free of the corrupting influence of special interests, Hansen said. He repeated his call for a global tax to be placed upon carbon emissions and said that fossil fuel companies should be forced to pay for emissions extraction in the same way the tobacco industry has been sued over the health impact of cigarettes.
"The science is crystal clear, we have to phase out emissions over the next few decades," Hansen said. "That won't happen without substantial actions by Congress and the executive branch and that's not happening so we need the courts to apply pressure, as they did with civil rights."
Several recent studies have cast doubt over whether the world will stay with an aspirational target set in Paris of a 1.5C limit on the average global temperature rise. This guardrail, and even the 2C limit agreed by 195 nations, appears dependent on as-yet undeveloped technology that would remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Under this scenario, huge emissions cuts would be supplemented by a widespread conversion to biofuels that would be burned for energy. The emissions from this energy would then be buried underground. Some sort of futuristic technology that sucks CO2 directly from the atmosphere may also be required.
Hansen said this is a "dubious" proposition because it requires a vast change in land use at a time where a growing global population will require more food. There are also major doubts whether technology to capture CO2 and lock it underground, often touted as a panacea by the fossil fuel industry, will be developed in time to help avoid the dangerous sea level rise, drought, heatwaves and disease spurred by warming temperatures.
Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that carbon dioxide levels will not drop below the symbolic 400 parts per million (ppm) mark in our lifetimes – the highest concentration of CO2 since the Pliocene era 3m years ago.
The environment of this time, where sea levels were around 65ft higher than today and trees were able to grow near the north pole due to a lack of ice, is a "bellwether for what future climate might be like," according to Bruce Bauer, a scientist with NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.
Michael Mann, a prominent climatologist at Penn State University, agreed that CO2 removal will be required if the world was to avoid 1.5C warming although the 2C limit "could likely be achieved without negative emissions, but it would require urgent action, as I have argued myself is necessary.".
Mann added that Hansen's paper is "interesting" but tackles a huge range of topics and is unconventional in its use as a tool to support a legal case.
"Along with the paper being publicized prior to peer review, this will certainly raise eyebrows about whether or not this breaches the firewall many feel should exist wherein policy agenda should not influence the way that science is done," Mann told the Guardian via email.

Links

• No fracking, drilling or digging: it's the only way to save life on Earth
• US emissions set to miss 2025 target in Paris climate change deal, research finds
• Climate change made Louisiana's catastrophic floods much more likely
• The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
• Climate scientists urge Obama to rule out more Arctic oil and gas exploration
• Trump's climate claims: experts analyze Republican's energy policy remarks
• Pizzly or grolar bear: grizzly-polar hybrid is a new result of climate change
• Climate change may be a burning issue – but election campaign tells another story
• Climate change has left US exposed in Arctic, say military experts

South Australia: Failing To Learn The Correct Lessons Will Mean A Failure To Deliver Secure, Affordable Energy In Our Future

Climate Institute

If governments are serious about energy security, they have to face up to the twin challenges of increasingly extreme weather resulting from climate change, and the need to decarbonise the electricity supply.
This requires a thorough, effective national energy strategy, The Climate Institute said today.
“The rapid convention of another COAG Energy Council meeting suggests that governments have at least started to grasp the urgency of the situation,” Climate Institute Head of Policy, Olivia Kember said.
“But the less they face up to the fundamental pressures of climate change and emissions reduction, the less secure our energy system will be, and the higher the costs accruing to energy users.”
Kember said the electricity system has been in a continual process of coping with shocks in recent years.
Australia has now experienced an unexpected decline in demand, uncoordinated expansion of the gas market, the unravelling of bipartisan renewable policies, unjustified retail price hikes, unsustainable wholesale price lows, unprepared-for closures of coal stations, and now an almost unprecedented state-wide blackout.
Firstly, Kember said, we must get beyond the arguments about whether or not a single event is “caused by climate change”. It is a fact that we are adding more energy to an already very dynamic climate system, causing extreme events to become more frequent, and the extremes to become more intense. This means climate change is already affecting the electricity system’s operating conditions and will do so with increasing force over coming decades.
“Back in 2012, we noted the sector was underprepared for stronger winds, more intense rainfall, and more extreme heat,” she said. “But nowhere in the government’s recent national adaptation strategy is there a plan to improve the resilience of the national electricity grid.”
Secondly, she said the reality is, worldwide, electricity systems are undergoing an unstoppable and inevitable transition to cleaner energy. State renewable targets are at best only part of the solution and risk creating more complications within the market if implemented poorly. But the state targets are consistent with both global technology trends and Australia’s international climate commitments. Meanwhile federal policies have allowed emissions to rise, depressed investor confidence and created ongoing uncertainty that affects fundamental operations and maintenance decisions.
“Falsely scapegoating renewables is a dangerous distraction,” Kember said. “To maintain a secure and affordable energy supply we need to integrate planning for climate impacts and net zero emissions electricity into our energy market framework.”
“The solution isn’t to bin state renewable policies, but to make them part of a stronger, better national plan,” she said “This needs to include:

1. policies to drive an orderly withdrawal of our ageing, high-carbon coal stations and support affected communities through this process;
2. appropriate incentives for the full range of energy services we require: such as frequency control, dispatchability, and demand management; and
3. policies that optimise energy productivity, to keep the overall costs of transition as low as possible, maximise the efficiency of energy use and keep users’ bills down.”

She said that dealing with all of these approaches simultaneously, while keeping the lights on and the power bills under control, is not an easy job.
However, Australia will fail in both these regards if it doesn’t take the opportunity to develop a very carefully crafted energy strategy that takes into account all the moving parts of the power sector.

Links

• SA blackout: climate change readiness will be lost if we fall for blame game
• Support for action on climate change and renewables strongest since 2008
• What the CCA’s own modelling shows an emission intensity scheme will need to do
• New research shows climate extremes of today will be the normal of tomorrow: new long-term, national agenda for climate action in Australia now urgent

Will Climate Change Sink The Mekong Delta?

Mongabay - David Brown

• Scientists say the 1-meter sea level rise expected by century's end will displace 3.5-5 million Mekong Delta residents. A 2-meter sea level rise could force three times that to higher ground.
• Shifting rainfall and flooding patterns are also threatening one of the most highly productive agricultural environments in the world.
• The onus is now on Vietnam's government in Hanoi to approve a comprehensive adaptation and mitigation plan.

A boat plies a waterway in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. No delta region in the world is more threatened by climate change. Will Vietnam act in time to save it?  Photo by LisArt/Flickr

It's a sad fact that several decades of talk about climate change have hardly anywhere yet led to serious efforts to adapt to phenomena that are virtually unavoidable. Neuroscientists say that's because we're humans. We aren't wired to respond to large, complex, slow-moving threats. Our instinctive response is apathy, not action.
That paradox was much on my mind during a recent visit back to Vietnam's fabulously fertile Mekong Delta, a soggy plain the size of Switzerland. Here the livelihood of 20 percent of Vietnam's 92 million people is gravely threatened by climate change and by a manmade catastrophe, the seemingly unstoppable damming of the upper reaches of the Mekong River.
Samuel Johnson famously said that "nothing concentrates the mind so well as the prospect of imminent hanging." It's been nine years since a World Bank study singled out the Mekong Delta as one of the places on our planet that is most gravely threatened by sea level rise. There if anywhere, I imagined, I'd find a sense of urgency. I'd find adaptive measures well advanced.
I was wrong. Vietnamese government ministries, provincial administrations, experts from Vietnamese universities and thinktanks, experts deployed by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and foreign governments: all have been pushing plans and policies. The problem has been to sort out the best ideas, make appropriate decisions and find the resources needed to implement them in a timely, coherent way.
Things may be coming together at last, I concluded after talking with dozens of local officials, professors, journalists and farmers in mid-June. None denied the reality of the problem. Many connected the question of what to do about climate change to older arguments over the best ways to grow more and better crops.
Some of my interlocutors expected that Vietnam's new government will reveal its strategy toward the end of 2016. They hope Hanoi will get it right. Vietnam's a single-party state. Once a policy is adopted and handed down from the top, it isn't easy to change direction. However, if the prescriptions just don't make sense in the 13 Delta provinces, the party/state's local representatives can just fail to follow through. In Vietnam it's common to find unmotivated officials carrying out Hanoi's prescriptions in a formal way, without conviction and, at the end of the day, without much result.
Because the stakes are so high, let's assume that there's only one correct answer: that in the next several  months, Hanoi will approve a comprehensive mitigation and adaptation plan for the 13 Delta provinces, and the provinces will like it enough to carry it out. Anything less would be a terrible result.

Left: The Mekong River and its watershed. The river originates in the Tibetan Plateau of China, where it is known as the Lancang River; it then proceeds through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Right: The lower Mekong basin. Images courtesy of Wikipedia and Penprapa Wut/Wikimedia Commons

A precarious prosperity
The Mekong Delta's average elevation is less than 2 meters above sea level. Much of it is perfectly suited to growing rice. Farmers in the Delta also produce fruit, coconuts, river fish and shrimp. Their abundant harvests are made possible by annual flooding and by an intricate network of canals, dams and sluices.
It's a highly engineered environment, a modern hydraulic society based on intensive farming and infrastructure that deflects floods, limits saline intrusion, facilitates river transport and aquaculture, and furnishes the right amount of fresh water for irrigation.
It wasn't always like this, of course. When Vietnamese settlers first moved into the Delta some 300 years ago, they found a wild landscape shaped by a monsoon climate, typhoons and tides and the Mekong's annual flood. Imperial officials, and later French colonial engineers, mobilized tens of thousands of pioneers to dig canals and drainage ditches. As time passed, much of the infrastructural work was mechanized. Decades of insurgency slowed the taming of the Delta but even the years of the "American War" were marked by land reform and the introduction of so-called "miracle rice" — strains that could double harvests provided that irrigation water levels, pesticides and nutrients were carefully managed.

A heli door gunner over the Mekong Delta in 1967. Photo by manhhai/Flickr

The officials who came south after the collapse of the Saigon government in 1975 were intent on reforming agriculture Soviet style, as they'd done in the Red River Delta far to the north. Collectivization didn't work very well, however. Farmers refused to tend collective plots with the same care they'd put into growing crops on their own land. Ten years later, Hanoi conceded the failure of central planning, redistributed agricultural land in family-sized plots and allowed small private businesses to operate alongside state-owned enterprises.
These so-called "doi moi" reforms ushered in a quarter century of astonishing growth in Vietnam's economy. For the Mekong Delta, loans and grants from Western countries funded repair and extension of the water management infrastructure. The introduction of high-yielding rice varieties, expansion of rice lands and emphasis on double and, in some places, triple cropping permitted a rapid increase in rice production, from 7 million to 24 million tons of paddy annually. Vietnam's integration into the global trading system opened up markets for its rice and for new crops — in particular pond-raised shrimp and catfish.
There were skeptics, of course, who spoke up to doubt the sustainability of unprecedented prosperity. Some academics questioned the wisdom of an unremitting focus on rice monoculture. They noted that in districts no longer subject to annual flooding, ever-increasing quantities of pesticides and chemical fertilizer are needed to sustain good harvests. Some farmers complained that the state-owned Vietnam Southern Food Corporation was getting an unfair share of profits from marketing the rice they grew. As the country's food economy shifted from scarcity to surplus, Hanoi's continued emphasis on "food security" — meaning, in the Delta, reserving more than half of its arable land exclusively for rice — seemed increasingly anachronistic.
Still, as food production and exports climbed year after year, it was possible to imagine that prosperity would be permanent in the Mekong Delta. It was only necessary to wish away the warnings of climate change researchers, the huge dams under construction upstream, and the persistently low incomes of the farmers who grew the rice.

Alarm gongs: the future is already happening
For years, Duong Van Ni and his colleagues at Can Tho University have been educating anyone who'll listen about the changes in store for the Mekong Delta. The data's there and it's persuasive.
On an afternoon in mid-June, as monsoon rain pounded the tin roof of a cafe near campus, Professor Ni walked me through the scenario that staff of the University's DRAGON (Delta Research and Global Observation Network) Institute have built and presented to countless audiences. It integrates over 100 years of hydrological and climate data with geographic information system and remote-sensing data contributed by the U.S. Geological Survey.

A NASA satellite image of the Mekong Delta.

No delta area, not the mouths of the Ganges, the Nile or the Mississippi, is more vulnerable than the Mekong estuary to the predictable impacts of climate change. The 1-meter sea level rise expected by the end of the 21st century, all else being equal, will displace 3.5-5 million people. If the sea instead rose by 2 meters, lacking effective countermeasures, some 75 percent of the Delta's 18 million inhabitants would be forced to move to higher ground.
Already, said Professor Ni, there's been a significant decrease in rainfall in the first part of the annual rainy season, and more rain toward the end. The Mekong's annual flood peak has fallen by a third since 2000. The waters from upstream carry less silt to replenish the Delta floodplain. Also, the volume of fresh water is falling while the sea level rises. This allows salt-laden tidal water to penetrate further and further into Delta estuaries and swampy coastal areas during the dry season.
Modeling of current trends suggest that average temperatures in the Mekong Delta will rise by more than 3 degrees Celsius toward the end of the century. Annual rainfall will decrease during the first half of the century, and then rise well above the 20th century average. The area that's flooded each autumn won't change substantially, but the floods won't last as long.
All things being equal, rice yields will plummet as temperatures rise. Lighter rains in the early months of the wet season will challenge farmers' ingenuity. Rising seas and reduced river flows will severely test the system of sea dikes. Riverbanks and the Delta coast are already crumbling; this will accelerate. Farmers who are unable to cope will head north to seek industrial and construction jobs.
That's not all. At slide 70 (of 86) of the DRAGON presentation, attention shifts to upstream dam construction on Delta water regimes. For China, Laos and Thailand, the hydroelectric potential of the upper Mekong is a seemingly irresistable development opportunity. It may be that not all the dams they plan will be built across the Mekong mainstream. Whether a few or many, their impact on agriculture in Vietnam and Cambodia will be profoundly negative, Professor Ni, his colleagues at Can Tho University, and experts at other institutes in southern Vietnam have pounded the alarm gongs for years. The dam cascade is a nearer and more present danger, and apparently just as unstoppable as climate change.
DRAGON Institute's slideshow concludes with a call to action. The future is bleak but not hopelessly so if appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies are launched. What the Delta needs is revealed: sustainable development based on a triply effective foundation of water source security, food security and social security.

Links

• Ocean warming is "greatest hidden challenge of our generation," according to IUCN
• Going green with the aviation industry (commentary)
• Rising sea levels could actually help coral reefs survive global warming: Study
• July was hottest month ever recorded and 15th consecutive record-breaking month
• Climate change pledges not nearly enough to save tropical ecosystems
• Could kelp forests keep ocean acidification at bay?
• "Carbon farming" good for the climate, farmers, and biodiversity

Inequalities Exacerbate Climate Impacts On Poor And Vulnerable People – New UN Report

UN News Centre

The impact of climate change is affecting Lesotho’s progress towards development in a number of areas, including agriculture, food security, water resources, public health and disaster risk management. Photo: FAO

Evidence is increasing that climate change is taking the largest toll on poor and vulnerable people, and these impacts are largely caused by inequalities that increase the risks from climate hazards, according to a new report launched by the United Nations today.
“Sadly, the people at greater risk from climate hazards are the poor, the vulnerable and the marginalized who, in many cases, have been excluded from socioeconomic progress,” noted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the World Economic and Social Survey 2016: Climate Change Resilience – an Opportunity for Reducing Inequalities, produced by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
“We have no time to waste – and a great deal to gain – when it comes to addressing the socioeconomic inequalities that deepen poverty and leave people behind,” he added.
Speaking to reporters at UN Headquarters in New York on the launch of the report, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development Lenni Montiel said: “Persistent inequalities in access to assets, opportunities, political voice and participation, and in some cases, outright discriminations leave large group of people and community disproportionally exposed and vulnerable to climate hazards.”
He added that through transformative policies, the government can “address the root causes of inequalities, to reduce the vulnerabilities of people to climate hazards, building their longer term resilience.”
On transformative policies, the Chief of Development Strategy and Policy at UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Diana Alarcon, said such policies could help build climate change resilience, close inequality gaps, provide access to financial services, to diversification of the livelihoods, to quality education and health and social security. She added: “it is that kind of transformation that leads to development.”
While there is considerable anecdotal evidence that the poor and the vulnerable suffer greater harm from climate-related disasters, the report determined that much of the harm is not by accident, but that it is due to the failure of governments to close the development gaps that leave large population groups at risk.

In Nepal, mountain infrastructure such as hydropower plants, roads, bridges and communication systems are at risk with climate change and more variability in water runoff. Photo: UNEP GRID Arendal/Lawrence Hislop

 In the past 20 years, 4.2 billion people have been affected by weather-related disasters, including a significant loss of lives. Developing countries are the most affected by climate change impacts. Low-income countries suffered the greatest losses, including economic costs estimated at 5 per cent of gross domestic product.
The report argues that while climate adaptation and resilience are overshadowed by mitigation in climate discussions, they are vital for addressing climate change and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Specifically, the report found that families living in poverty systematically occupy the least desirable land to damage from climate hazards, such as mud slides, periods of abnormally hot water, water contamination and flooding. Climate change has the potential to worsen their situation and thereby worsen pre-existent inequalities. The report shows that structural inequalities increase the exposure of vulnerable groups to climate hazards.
According to the latest data, 11 per cent of the world’s population lived in a low-elevation coastal zone in 2000. Many of them were poor and compelled to live in floodplains because they lacked the resources to live in safer areas. The data also underscore that in many countries in South and East Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, many people have no other option than to erect their dwellings on precarious hill slopes.
The report also found a larger concentration of poor and marginalized groups in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid aridity zones which cover about 40 per cent of the Earth’s land surface. About 29 per cent of the world’s population live in those areas and are facing additional challenges owing to climate change.

Transformative policies for addressing root causes
According to the report, building resilience to climate change provides an opportunity to focus resources on reducing long entrenched inequalities that make people disproportionately vulnerable to climate hazards. The best climate adaptation policies, the report states, are good development policies that strengthen people’s capacity to cope with and adapt to climate hazards in the present and in the medium term.
Looking ahead, the report recommends the use of improved access to climate projections, modern information and communications technologies, and geographical information systems to strengthen national capacity to assess impacts of climate hazards and policy options statistically.
The report voices a concern that international resources to support climate change resilience are insufficient. At last year’s Paris climate conference, informally known as COP21, countries committed to setting a goal of at least $100 billion per year for climate change mitigation and adaptation activities in developing countries. However, adaptation costs alone range from $70 billion to $100 billion per year by 2050 in the developing countries, and these figures are likely to underestimate real costs, according to the report.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls for transformative policies to deliver on our collective promise to build a life of dignity for all on a cleaner, greener planet.
“The challenges are enormous, but the world possesses the know-how, tools and wealth needed to build a climate-resilient future – a future free from poverty, hunger, discrimination and injustice,” the Secretary-General stressed in the report, noting the importance of the enabling policy environment as well as the support of the international community.

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