The media's gaze has had a notable blind spot when it comes to reporting on climate change; though we continually hear talk of global mean temperature rises we are less often alerted to the non-uniform manner in which these rises take place. The public should have been made well aware by now that business as usual unregulated emissions will result in a differential distribution of temperature increases and the greatest increases will occur precisely in those areas that have the potential to produce the largest positive feedbacks; the Antarctic ice sheets, the Amazonian rainforest and the methane held in ice clathrates in the Western Siberian permafrost.
Positive feedback, sometimes referred to as "cumulative causation", is a feedback loop in which the system responds to a given perturbation in an exponential manner. In other words it positively reinforces the changes wrought by the initial effect, a process which, it need hardly be said, is far from desirable within some of the world's delicately balanced ecological systems. Currently, complex positive feedbacks in large ecosystems cannot be accurately mapped by the computerised models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To the minds of many, this lack of predictive certainty along with the uneven distribution of temperature rises invites an even greater scrutiny.
Just to give one example, according to Sergei Kirpotin, a botanist at Tomsk State University, the western Siberian sub-arctic region has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, with an increase in average temperatures of some three degrees centigrade in the last 40 years. The permafrost concerned covers a peat bog the size of France and Germany combined and contains some 70 billion tonnes of methane. To put this figure into perspective we may note that in the decade and a half of consciousness raising since the Earth Summit at Rio in 1992 total global emissions have risen from 20 billion tonnes CO2 equivalent to over 27 billion tonnes CO2 e today. As is known, methane has a strong Global Warming Potential (GWP) over a 100 yr period; its molecule is roughly 22 times more effective than carbon dioxide at absorbing solar radiation. However, over a shorter time period, such as twenty years, its GWP is around 64 times that of CO2. So, if only 1% of this total were emitted over the next decade and assuming a loss of half that figure again due to what's called an air fraction ratio (ie. blowing away), estimated to be about 55-60%, we would still have an atmosphere engorged with an extra 21.4 billion tonnes of CO2e!
http://www.terranature.org/methaneSiberia.htm
Moreover, there is an additional subsystem of positive feedbacks to be considered as the melting of shiny reflective surfaces reduces the natural albedo effect and the newly exposed dark under surface instead becomes a net absorber of energy thereby increasing overall ambient temperature. Kirpotin noted that melting in this region had only begun in the last 3 or 4 years so some kind of threshold may have already been reached. The question for him is how rapidly will this gas be released and in what form because under certain conditions the methane may oxidise to form carbon dioxide thereby diminishing its GWP. Additionally, it is pertinent to note that the sudden release of trapped methane hydrates have been implicated in at least two of the five great extinction level events; the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and the Permian-Triassic extinction event, or, as geologists refer to it; "The Great Dying".
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Metha...wo?topic=60588
Obviously, this is only one major ecosystem among thousands in the natural world that function as complex open systems. Relations in these systems are always non-linear meaning the resultant effect is not necessarily proportional to the cause. In chaos theory, which to my mind is a far more realistic, if less reassuring frame of reference, a small perturbation, the butterfly, in the initial conditions of a dynamic system may produce large scale variations over the long term behaviour of that system. Peter Cox of the Hadley Centre estimates that a temperature rise of only two degrees centigrade is all that is required to turn rainfall patterns upside down, leaving the Amazon dry, and prone to all-consuming fires that will sweep across thousands of kilometres.
http://www.amazonia.org.br/english/n....cfm?id=279292
The Amazon forest, the "lungs of the earth" currently absorbs one tenth of the total carbon we emit each year. Could this be the butterfly that consumes Gaia? The truth is we cannot know for certain, but what we do know is that the further temperature deviates from its current levels today's improbabilities are more likely to morph spectacularly into next week's certainties.
Now, as an unabashed orgy of Comtean positivism the reports issued by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) certainly intend to transcend all ideological and factional debates chiefly by attempting to capture nature under a withering and all-encompassing scientific gaze. This is not a criticism per se since we may well ask how else other than through a comprehensive collation of rigorously tested data can we begin to draw informed conclusions as to what has been occurring in this staggeringly complex biosphere of ours - but rather an appeal to those who favour an intuitive understanding, to be reminded, as they attempt to wade through the thousand reams of data that none of the myriad calculations have taken into account, nor can they if they wish to retain their scientific inscrutability; of the cumulative effects of runaway positive feedbacks.
Written to inform the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and predating Kyoto ratification IPCC reports have always been viewed as the principle contribution towards debates on policy formation. Interestingly as well,
though they must not be seen to 'dictate' policy they do nevertheless presuppose a steady increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission rates.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_...and_data.shtml
Thus, the narrative of the IPCC's The Regional Impacts of Climate Change is most often embedded in an imagined hothouse future-world of 750 parts per million volume (ppmv) CO2. (We are currently at 384 ppmv and 450 ppmv has been deemed by the IPCC as "not safe"). So, in the section dealing with the effects of this new steaming environment on Africa for instance, we are intriguingly provided with several examples of "positive" transformations. For instance, in a doubly concentrated CO2 atmosphere crop species such as wheat, rice, barley, cassava and potato will increase their water-use efficiency whereas plants such as maize, sugercane and sorghum will remain relatively unaffected. Also, grasslands will become more resilient to drought and highlands will become more suitable for cropping due to increased temperatures and the lack of frost. Under optimum conditions of nutrient availability in fact overall biomass can actually increase by an estimated 300%. However, this little exercise is carried out only to demonstrate that we are being led assuringly by the bold unflustered gaze of scientific objectivity and so we need hardly be told what the overall message is; temperature rises will significantly increase the hardships already encountered by the average African.
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/
Case studies of the Nile and Zambezi basins showed that runoff decreases in these basins even when precipitation increases, due to 'the large hydrological role played by evaporation'. Rising temperatures will thus increase the rate of evapotranspiration and reduce the runoff that supplies an already diminishing water-table. The report admits that its Global Climate Model's (GCM's) have no model memory of groundwater depletion in the preceding year and so they dramatically underestimate the effects that back to back droughts can have on reservoir levels, food security, agriculture and water quality itself. More worryingly the report adds that the temperature-precipitation-CO2 forcing of seasonal drought is less significant than the prospect of large-scale circulation changes that drive continental droughts that occur over several years; "A change in the frequency and duration of atmosphere-ocean anomalies, such as the ENSO (El-Nino southern oscillation) phenomenon, could force such large-scale changes in Africa's rainfall climatology."
Perhaps then, the major criticism of the Atmosphere-Ocean Global Climate Model's (AOGCM's) being used since they were first introduced in the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) such as the Hadley CM3 is that they did not include these positive biosphere feedbacks. Likewise the 35 Special Reports on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) that provided the raw data for these models were based upon demographic, technological and economic driving forces that excluded consideration of alterations in ecosystem dynamics once the temperature rises resulting from these changes actually begin to occur. Also, it seems extraordinary that we can readily quantify data relating to a presumed shrinking of the per capita income gap ratio between developed and developing countries and somehow extrapolate from this imponderable an emissions value that can be used as a variable in climate modelling, yet we cannot, for example, choose to focus on tracking the path of non-sentient methane molecules escaping uniformly from a melting permafrost.
In addition, it has to be of concern that the worst case scenario figure provided with respect to the per capita income gap between North and South is a ratio of 9:1. Given that the gap has in reality widened from 16:1 in 1990 to today's 25:1 I think we may conclude that though positivist deductions themselves may remain methodologically flawless it is their ingredients that are often left wanting - not to mention any objections that may be had that we are in fact scrutinising the right menu.
Elsewhere, we may look to the industry now surrounding the question of carbon sequestration. Notwithstanding its obvious benefits we have already begun to see that there are many grey areas beginning to arise around the question of determining the value of corporation compensation for initiating sequestration projects; and these obviously need to be dealt with quickly by the international community. For example, because of the nature of the carbon market in the EU and the high fines imposed for overshooting carbon quotas, corporations there have been recently falling over one another attempting to garner carbon credits from the World Bank for what they claim are avoidable "fuel-switches"' to a more greenhouse gas friendly technology. If the fuel switch were "unavoidable" then they would not be entitled to receive credits as altered environmentally beneficial action would have been deemed part of their normal business strategy.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11883
However, many critics both of Kyoto and subsequent international energy "pacts" rightly focus on the World Bank's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the questionable allocation of carbon credits to companies who have initiated carbon sequestration projects (such as tree plantations) whose precise value in terms of alleviating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is notoriously difficult to define. Graham Erion argues for instance that; "75% of all carbon credits certified to date are for projects capturing landfill gas (methane) or hydro fluorocarbons neither of which contribute to sustainable development but generate enormous carbon credits as their gasses are much more potent than carbon dioxide".
http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/ar...clenumber=9897
CDM's, it seems, by their nature, will inevitably produce a flurry of applications from somewhat questionable projects. In fact, one supplier of anti-flatulence supplements for cattle in Uganda has claimed thousands of dollars for his novel methane reduction measures. More serious is the saga of the Brazilian Plantar project's attempt to secure millions of carbon credits for 21,000 hectares of eucalyptus trees which will eventually be felled to provide charcoal for pig-iron processing. Despite the fact that Plantar have been using eucalyptus for this very purpose for the past 20yrs they are claiming that this "new" plantation is an avoidable fuel-switch, a transfer to a more GHG friendly technology and threatens in the absence of being granted credits, to resort to using fossil fuels. The corporations in the state of Minas Gerais acquired the land during the military dictatorship of the 60's and 70's and in the process of expelling the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples burned millions of hectares of cerrado (native vegetation) and atlantic forest. Researchers for the World Rainforest Movement assessing Plantar's claim for certification discovered that the cerrado itself made up at least 20% of the fuel for the pig-iron processing!
http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/70/Brazil.html
Sinkwatch rightly points to the hypocrisy of the World Bank's disproportionate funding of fossil fuel projects whilst vaunting its Kyoto credentials through the support of carbon projects. It may also be added that the entire thrust of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment, (be it called SAP, ESAF or PRSP), by switching subsidies from subsistence production to export cash-cropping and facilitating a trade liberalisation that undercuts domestic suppliers has transformed formerly food-sovereign rural homesteads into areas for nitrate-intensive monoculturing. The surplus labour force is then readily absorbed by the now ubiquitous Export Processing Zones and their wage integrated into the unsustainable consumption patterns of urban life.
It is worth bearing in mind that carbon projects under the CDM, Joint Implementation (JI) and the World Bank's Prototype Carbon Fund as yet constitute a relatively small proportion of the overall carbon market but their potential for unravelling the spirit of Kyoto cannot be underestimated. For example, in the village of Chapaldi, India, women who make biofuel from pongamia seeds and use it to power a small electricity grid and irrigation pumps, sold, in 2003, 900 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions to Germany for $4,164; "the equivalent of a year's income" our State of the World (2006) reporters jubilantly observe. While this was good news for the village it also means that Germany has received 900 tonnes of carbon eight times cheaper than it would have found it on the European market. Has the surplus value swelled the coffers of the Global Environment Facility only to spawn similar projects that provide virtually free carbon or has it merely being pocketed by business astounded by the naivete of the entire system? It really is absurd. I mean at this stage, should it always be left to progressive NGO's to point out the inevitable corporate loop-holing or shouldn't the UN system itself have a dedicated body to monitor abuses.
http://www.worldwatch.org/research
So what, in short, has been the international policy response to over three decades of environmental lobbying culminating in the contributions of thousands of scientific specialists worldwide who are unanimous in the view that the question is not whether climate will change in response to human activities, but rather how much (magnitude), how fast (the rate of change) and where (regional patterns).
Is the Kyoto Protocol, a legally binding international treaty which finally came into force on February 16th 2005 and which commits developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 5.2% by the year 2012 compared to 1990 levels capable of being the panacea its drafters hope for? First of all, its ratifiers account for only 61% of global emissions; Australia and the US, most notably, had refused to sign. The latter alone (with Europe not far behind) produces a quarter of the world's emissions and in June 08 under the Bush administration sensationally quashed Lieberman-Warner, the energy bill that would have provided direly needed federal regulation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieberman-Warner
International pressure has since been applied, particularly post-Bali, to China and India who as developing countries are relieved of any obligations under Kyoto to cut emissions. While still a low per capita emitter China's GDP is growing at over 9% per annum, has recently overtaken France as the world's fifth largest economy and is second only to the US in total emissions.
http://english.cas.cn/ACAS/
Much recent research published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences indicates that the government is certainly conscious of the need to curtail emissions, however, the reality is that the Chinese developmental path is firmly committed to a fossil fuel based economy. Of serious concern to the future prospects of Kyoto is the decision of the US, Australia, India, China and South Korea to form the non-legally binding Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean development and Climate; quickly dubbed the 'coal pact' critical observers.
http://www.grist.org/article/little-pact
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7744
But often lost amid all the focus on rising demand in the East is the fact that China with a population of 1.2 billion still only consumes 7.5 million barrels of oil per day compared to the United States monstrously extravagant 21 million barrels - aided by by far the cheapest pump prices in the developed world. Likewise, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, the US per capita consumption of oil is a staggering 18 times greater than India - and 'we' are pressuring these countries to cut their fuel subsidies - we really are a bit rich, don't you think?
http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?...tentId=7044622
For those at least sympathetic to Kyoto, national politics can have a decisive influence over the efficacy of future compliance. Canada, whose emissions are currently some 60% above 1990 levels and who, if the Protocol were to be strictly enforced would in my estimates be liable for a fine of between 4 and 6 billion dollars returned the Conservatives in their 2005 general election. Stephen Harper, the Conservative leader, said during the campaign that he would abandon Canada's Kyoto target and that the Liberals plan would force Ottawa and polluting industries to buy billions of dollars worth of emissions credits from other countries. The centrepiece of the Liberal Party's programme for the environment was a $5 billion Climate Fund, which would have paid $15 to farmers, businesses, government agencies and others for every tonne of greenhouse gas reductions achieved by small and medium-sized projects. At the time, Bill Hare of Greenpeace International described the election result as 'not a positive development'.
The UNFCCC's Richard Kinley reports that as a whole, developed countries emissions in 2003 were down 5.9% compared to 1990 levels. This figure, however, is achieved almost entirely on the back of the massive drop in emissions that followed post-1990 economic stagnation for the 'transitional' economies of Eastern Europe. All Annex 1 countries (or 'developed countries') were to negotiate their own quota for the first period of implementation (2005-08). If they succeed in limiting emissions below this margin they are given the option to sell quotas to those countries who exceed their limits. Japan has set theirs at 6%, the EU at 8% and Russia, because of its massive drop in emissions from 3 billion tonnes of CO2e to 1.8 billion tonnes of CO2e have been presented with special arrangements to ensure that their not in the absurd position of making billions of dollars of profit from trading unused and, in fact, unusable quotas.
Within the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EETS) a ton of carbon has stabilised at around 25 euro while the penalty for a company overshooting its quota is 45 euro per ton. For the EU, the scheme at present only covers six key sectors; steel, energy, cement, glass, brick making, and paper/cardboard; industries that compose some 65% of emissions. A monitoring and evaluation system is currently in place to assess the difficulties posed by further extensions that will have to include other key areas such as transport.
According to Nick Robins of Henderson Global Investors the EETS has created an estimated 35 billion euro market and Chris Rowland, a City analyst, in typically upbeat mode calls it "possibly the biggest change the European utilities industry has seen since the industrial revolution". Many find the logic of emissions trading irresistible and argue that as along as the fines remain sufficiently high and are strictly enforceable (which they appear to be otherwise the market for cheaper quotas would have collapsed) that in ideal circumstances the system is capable of forcing businesses into seeing that the adoption of renewable energy alternatives is their only cost-effective way to stay in the marketplace. What the green lobby must obviously do and I haven't seen too much evidence of it as yet is to continually press for ever greater fines thereby driving up the price of carbon credits.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globali...ebate/2570.jsp
Also, a caveat to this implied market incentivisation to transfer ecologically sound technologies is the arguments put forward by Gregory C. Unruh with respect to "carbon lock-in". He argues that a Techno-Institutional Complex has developed through a path dependent, co-evolutionary process and points especially to the many inter-related components of many carbon fuelled technologies and their relationships to networks of supply and demand that have succeeded in entrenching fossil fuel dependency. (This argument also undermines the claims of a supposed environmental Kuznet's curve insofar as technological retrenchment is assumed to be structurally limited).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27338654/U...Carbon-Lock-In
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Envir..._kuznets_curve
In the meantime, one way of overcoming this difficulty is to set a universally applicable absolute value per quantity of carbon based upon a predetermined finite amount that can be emitted in the future and this is the notion that underlies the so-called 'Contraction and Convergence' scheme of the Global Commons Institute.
http://carbonshare.org/newsintl.html
Based upon the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, a figure of 450 ppmv has been determined by the GCI as "not safe". A 'contraction budget' derived from an internationally negotiated rate of linear convergence is then to be distributed equally per person globally. The resultant 'currency' has already been boldly christened as International Energy Backed Currency Units or EBCU's. Richard Douthwaite of Feasta, an Irish environmental think tank, even envisions this new monetary unit becoming the world's reserve currency thereby reversing seignorage or unearned royalties currently obtained in their trillions by the dollar, yen and euro into the hands of the commons.
http://www.gaianeconomics.org/ebcu.htm
http://www.feasta.org/
Good idea, but it's not going to happen is it.
This reviewer then is sorry to conclude that this, like so many other initiatives with implacable good sense and unquestionably democratic credentials, is unlikely to impress the 'powers that be' whom I suspect are unlikely to yield their positions (of privilege) quite so dramatically, even, and perhaps especially, in the face of an environmental meltdown where increasingly scarce resources will, no doubt, be commodified, as always, to their nth degree.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0iSRQ3-v6M
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