BACKGROUND TO CLIMATE CHANGE

- Understanding climatic change

The climate of our planet is a complex system resulting from the interaction of five factors: the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice and snow regions (criosphere), living organisms (biosphere) and soils, sediments and rocks (geosphere), while in turn, all are directly related to the sun.

It is only in these terms that we can understand atmospheric energy and matter fluxes and cycles, which is essential to investigate the causes and effects of climatic change. However, there is an additional factor to be taken into account: the anthropogenic factor, resulting from human activity.

From “Greenhouse” to “Oven”

The climate, as we have already stated, is directly related to solar energy, which reaches the Earth’s surface and returns to space in the form of infrared radiation. However, this outgoing energy passes through the atmosphere. The atmosphere contains, in addition to nitrogen, oxygen and argon, a mixture of other different gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, water vapour) surrounding the planet and forming an environmental system which is integrated with all the Earth’s components. These gases allow the passage of solar energy but at the same time, sequester and absorb part of it that hits the earth and is re-radiated back to space (approximately 30%; of the remaining amount, 45% is absorbed by the earth and the oceans, and 25% by the atmosphere). The Earth’s natural temperature control system is thus similar to that of a greenhouse and the relevant gases known as “greenhouse gases”. The greenhouse effect also largely enables the presence of water in a liquid state.

The “greenhouse effect” itself is not a problem. What is more, the delicate balance of this system is what has created the conditions for life on the planet. The problem arises because an artificial load of greenhouse gases has been added to the atmosphere. An additional layer of “warm clothing” is being taken on that we do not need and is increasing the heat. The greenhouse is becoming an oven.

Global warming

Although the Earth’s climate is unstable and rather unpredictable – and very sensitive to internal or external factors – the temperature has probably not changed all that much in the last 200,000 years: temperatures during the last ice-age were only 5ºC colder than at present. The Earth’s mean temperature is today approximately 14ºC (without the greenhouse effect it would be -18ºC).

However, over the past 200 years a dramatic rise in temperature has been recorded. The mean temperature of the earth’s surface has increased by between 0.3 and 0.6ºC with respect to the pre-industrial age, with the greatest increase taking place over the past 40 years. Warming of the planet has become evident both on the surface of the sea and of the land, supported by indirect indicators such as glacier retreat. On a world scale, 1998 was the hottest year and the 1990s the hottest decade in history. This trend is directly related with human activities causing an increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the most important of these gases, is involved in a complex global cycle. It is released by volcanic eruptions, by respiration, by soil processes, by combustion of carbon components and by oceanic evaporation. In turn, it is dissolved in the oceans and is consumed during plant photosynthesis. Following the industrial revolution and particularly after the Second World War, industrial activities have released enormous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, mainly coal, oil and gas, from underground deposits.

Most carbon dioxide release is caused by the use of fossil fuels to generate energy, industrial processes and transport, but it is also caused by deforestation processes and logging of forests. Agricultural activities and changes in land use produce methane and nitrous oxide release, while industrial processes also release artificial chemicals known as halocarbons (CFCs, HFCs, PFCs).

Chlorofluorocarbons (formed by molecules of carbon, chlorine and fluorides) are totally humanmade and are caused by aerosol sprays, refrigerants and air conditioners. These gases are considered a major contributor to global warming.

Rather than following a linear evolution, the climate follows a non-linear path, with unexpected and drastic “surprises” when the levels of greenhouse effect gases reach a critical point, triggering off other, and hitherto unknown processes. Everything indicates that greenhouse gases generated by human activities will cause dramatic climatic changes in the twenty-first century and beyond, with wide-ranging effects on the environment and on human societies and economies.

The reason of the non-sense

The increase of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases responsible for climatic change is a consequence of present production and consumption models, which promote an excessive use of non-renewable fuels as well as inappropriate land-use models.

In general, the release of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and the model of consumption typical of modern industrialized society go hand in hand: the richer the country, the greater are the releases. Thus, the United States heads the list, recording 24% of such releases.

The industrialized countries have exploited and consumed more fossil fuels, forests and other resources than the South, enabling them to reach their present degree of wealth and power. Along the way, they have placed humanity at such risk that it is in danger of succumbing. It is only right that the major responsibility for avoiding the social, environmental and planetary crisis should fall on them.

When the future catches up with us

Very few people seriously doubt that the Earth’s climate is changing and, that if measures are not adopted the whole of humanity will enter a period of intensified climatic imbalance. Climatic models predict that if the present trends of releases continue unchanged, in the year 2100 the temperature will have increased by between 1.4ºC and 5.8ºC. These are changes unprecedented in recorded history. Within a century – almost no time in the history of the Earth – our descendants and those of other living beings may have to face temperatures much higher than those prevailing during much of their process of evolution. The consequences for many species, including humans, could be catastrophic.

One of the central forecasts made by climate experts is that extreme phenomena, such as storms, hurricanes, floods, droughts and severe winters will become increasingly frequent, with serious consequences on human living conditions. However, the impacts will not be the same all over the planet. Some regions (particularly the dry areas in the Third World) will become drier, causing land degradation, while others will suffer from considerable cooling, due to changes in the Gulf Stream. In general, there will be an increase in sea level (with forecasts ranging from 9 to 88 cm for the year 2100) as warming of the water reaches ocean depths.

One possible ecological impact is the destruction of most of the Amazon forest by the end of the twenty-first century, resulting from drought. The loss of forests on a world scale would release even more carbon dioxide, exacerbating climatic change.

Those most vulnerable to the impacts of climatic change are likely to be those in adverse social and economic conditions: lower-income people in Southern countries, poor urban sectors in general, the residents of coastal areas and islands and the inhabitants of semi-arid lands. Increasing exposure to natural disasters such as floods, droughts, landslides, storms and hurricanes will be more serious in sectors that are in a situation of greater risk.

To illustrate more clearly the seriousness of the impacts foreseen, let us examine case by case what the experts are forecasting:

* An increase in sea level: although it is hard to measure changes in sea level, it is calculated that over the past 100 years, sea level has increased between 10 and 25cm. Indications are that this change is largely due to the increase in temperature that has taken place over the past 100 years. On this timescale, ocean volume expansion due to heat could be part of the cause, with the rest due to contraction of glaciers and loss of ice caps. The thickness of sea ice in the Artic dropped in the 1990s by more than a metre from twenty or thirty years before. The generalized loss of the earth’s ice caps would trigger erosion in arctic regions, changing hydrological processes and releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

* Coastal zones: with an increase in sea level, coastal regions will suffer serious flooding. Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, is also the most vulnerable to an increase in sea level. Its population is seriously affected by storms. Natural catastrophes have already caused damage up to 100 km in-land and it is terrifying to image how far they could reach with an accelerated increase in sea level.

* Rainfall: an increase has been observed in high latitude regions in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly during the winter, while after the 1960s, rainfall has decreased in the sub-tropics and tropics from Africa to Indonesia. Forecasts are for an increase in rainfall on a worldwide scale, but trends at local scales are much less certain. More rain and snow would imply more humid soil conditions in the winters of high latitudes, but the increase in temperature could imply drier soils in the summer.

* Health: the transmission of many infectious diseases is directly related to climatic factors, as the agents of infection and their transmitting organisms are sensitive to factors such as temperature, water, general humidity and in particular soil humidity, and wind. This is particularly applicable to diseases transmitted by living organisms such as malaria which is transmitted by a mosquito. Although not unanimously accepted, some forecasts are that climatic change and changes in meteorological patterns will affect the scope (both altitude and latitude), the intensity and seasonality of many infectious diseases.

* Agriculture: the increase in the rate of evaporation will contribute to salinization of irrigated agricultural land. Soil degradation caused by climate, added to the increase of plagues, droughts and floods could cause a loss of between 10% and 15% of the grain production of Africa, Latin America and Asia over the next fifty years. If this forecast is right, and if the present model of unequal distribution of the appropriation of resources remains unchanged, the risk of increased hunger in impoverished countries is very high.

* Forests: climatic change may affect the health and composition of the planet’s forests. Some forecasts indicate that in a period of one hundred years there could be a displacement of between 150 and 550 km in climatic zones for some forests. In mountainous regions, some plant species and communities, particularly of trees, could completely disappear because of displacement towards higher latitudes of species living near high-mountain borders. Migration, which takes place by adaptation of disseminated seeds to more appropriate zones would be limited due to the lack of space for seeds to establish themselves. Deciduous forests (which lose their leaves every year) would move towards higher latitudes, replacing, in many regions, coniferous forests. Studies carried out in Switzerland suggest that an increase of 3ºC in temperature would cause an invasion of deciduous trees in the sub-Alpine belts and the invasion of coniferous trees in the Alpine zone.

Furthermore, there are species of trees that have developed a comparative advantage that enables them to survive in very specific soil and climate conditions. A change, however minimal, in their conditions would affect them severely, and could even lead to their disappearance.

Many changes can take place in forests because of subtle alterations in the competitive balance between the species. For example, an increase in temperature would certainly change the interval between the flowering season and the season when leaves are shed; however, the effects could be different for different species.

Finally, all this implies that biological diversity is in danger, as the probable pace of climatic change forests will be subject to will be greater than the pace at which they can adapt.

* Water resources: changes in river currents may affect the underground water table. The increase in sea level may cause entry of salt water into coastal aquifers. Water sources may be degraded or disappear, increasing competition.

* Increase in droughts and floods: it is estimated that the changes in hydrological cycles will cause an extension and intensification of desertification processes in various parts of Africa, while in South-East Asia a decrease in monsoons in some regions is already being felt. In other regions such as Nepal, Burma and India, these changes have caused large-scale floods.

* Soil and water pollution: flooding will contribute to spreading toxic chemicals used in industrial agricultural models.

All these factors added together will imply the collapse of numerous fragile ecosystems (forests and coral reefs, for example), that cannot respond sufficiently quickly to sudden changes in temperature, causing a drastic increase in the rate of loss of species. The loss of biodiversity could even trigger a series of catastrophes bringing about extinction of life on the planet as we know it.

Article based on information from: “Cause & Effect - What is Climate Change?”, Risingtide, Climate Justice Network, http://www.risingtide.nl/greenpepper/climate/causeandeffect.html ; “Climate Change Information Kit”, UNFCCC, http://unfccc.int/resource/iuckit/fact01.html ; Global Climate Change Student Guide, ARIC, http://www.doc.mmu.ac.uk/aric/gccsg/introduction.html ; “Climate Change”, AAAS Atlas of Population and Environment 2000, http://www.ourplanet.com/aaas/pages/atmos02.html

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- The Climate Change Convention: From hope to betrayal

The Earth Summit, a melting pot for awareness and hope

The first United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), or Earth Summit, was a milestone in arousing world environmental awareness. Despite a lot of disagreement about the links between environment and development, many national leaders did express concern about the way the prevailing development model damaged the environment and generated and increased poverty. At long last, 20 years after the First Earth Summit in 1972, environment had come to the fore, creating great expectations for the changes governments promised to make.

Among other commitments, it was agreed to establish a legally binding convention aimed at preventing global climate change: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The text of the Convention was adopted on 9 May 1992 and entered into force on 21 March 1994, with 166 signatory states. Those states that have not signed the Convention may accede to it at any time.

The Convention recognizes the accelerated change in the planet’s climate over the past 200 years and the serious adverse effects this implies. It also admits that the origin of this change is the increase in concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, causing a warming of the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere. It also points out that most of these emissions come from industrialized countries.

The ultimate objective of the Convention is that the concentrations in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases resulting from human activities should become stable at a level not involving any risk to the climatic system.

The Kyoto Protocol, when betrayal was born

The Third Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention held in Kyoto, Japan adopted on 11 December 1997 the text of the Convention’s Protocol. So far, it has been ratified by 62 countries and States may continue accessing it at any time. It will enter into force when it fulfils the dual condition of having been ratified by 55 countries and that among these, there is a sufficient number of industrialized countries responsible for 55% of the 1990 total emission of CO2, as a minimum.

Although the minimum number of signatory countries has already been exceeded, the second prerequisite has not been met, insofar as some countries that are great emitters of CO2, such as the United States, have not ratified the Protocol.

In addition, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the official body responsible for advising the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) – has stated that in order to avoid dangerous changes to the climate systems, it will be necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by the end of the century from 1990 levels. The Kyoto Protocol only foresees a reduction of 5.2% by the most polluting countries, but is not on course to achieve even that.

Article 12 of the Protocol includes what is called a “Clean Development Mechanism.” Allegedly, this is to try to help achieve sustainable development, but in fact – and it is even declared as such– it is an “aid” to enable industrialized countries to fulfil their commitments to reduce emissions as established in the Protocol. This Article allows afforestation, reforestation and avoided deforestation from 1990, to be swapped for emissions. The mechanism also accepts large hydropower projects as “clean development” despite their notorious adverse impacts on forests (and the associated releases of CO2) and traditional communities, who have often been displaced from their original forestlands.

The lengthy process of successive Conferences of the Parties (COPs) in which influential countries such as the United States, which is responsible for 25% of the world total of greenhouse gas emissions, have refused to comply with the commitments agreed on in Kyoto in 1997, has led observers to think that the Protocol may well be wrecked. In this context, Japan – another of the major contaminators – put pressure on COP 8 (2002), to reach an agreement that would “save” the Protocol (but not the planet), by allowing plantations to be described as “carbon sinks”. With this final coup, the expectation of reaching real solutions was betrayed. For its part, the United States continues to refuse to ratify the Protocol. President Bush has clearly stated that it would damage the country’s economy and its energy policy, which come first– that is to say, above the interests of all humanity and the long term interests of his country-people.

Licensed to contaminate

Carbon emissions, which at the start were considered as an imminent danger, became a commodity. Commercial approaches started predominating and climate action began to be considered mainly in accounting and speculative terms. A carbon market was promoted by fossil-fuel producing and consuming industries, many officials in the US and some other Northern governments, and a wide range of vested interests. The assumption was that any carbon-dioxide emissions are acceptable as long as they can be “offset” by some other activity that absorbs the CO2 --like planting trees, which, through photosynthesis, convert CO2 into wood carbon-- or has a reduced level of emissions.

Fossil-fuel users buy permission to go on dumping by investing in activities which, while contributing still more fossil carbon flows into the dumps, are claimed to produce smaller flows than would “otherwise” be the case. Alternative futures which would use even less carbon are dismissed as impossible. Industrialized countries can thus continue with their emissions, greenwashing their image through payments to poor countries that end up “selling” their environment. Though harassed by poverty, many are under pressure to set up plantations to act as carbon sinks. The same commercial standpoint prevails: forests are no longer vital ecosystems but timber for industry, cellulose, chips and now, sinks with a market value.

For accounting purposes the conservation of a forest cannot be considered as a measure to mitigate global warming. But the idea that forests should be treated as a measure to avoid the problem becoming worse, continues to be ignored. Including forest conservation into a market mechanism surely wouldn’t have been a good choice but ignoring the need for funding and political will to maintain and restore forests – not least as a measure to avoid dangerous climate change – is a missed opportunity we may pay for dearly. In the convoluted logic of climate negotiators, it is better to log a primary forest and replace it with a plantation of fast growing trees, which allegedly absorb more carbon (they often don’t)! The notion that when vegetation is growing, sequestration of carbon is greater than carbon released, was allowed to eclipse the fact that native forests maintain large stores of carbon, in normal circumstances keeping a rough balance over time between carbon released and absorbed.

The idea was to continue with the same rate of consumption, without reducing emissions, and to allow and promote plantations on the argument that temporary or uncertain sequestration, even for a few years, has a positive effect. A profitable deal for a few, but what follows? If plantations are logged, they again release CO2 and we are back almost at the start. The alternative would be to continue planting indefinitely until the trees – perhaps of a single convenient species, such as eucalyptus?– cover the face of the Earth. In that case millions of hectares of carbon dumps would cover areas needed to provide local populations with food and livelihood. Does this sound ecological?

Carbon sinks under the Kyoto Protocol, in other words, are bad news for the planet and for its inhabitants. They do not reverse or halt climate change and it is highly questionable whether they can be considered palliative measures in a transitional stage towards other, non-contaminating energies. Thirteen years have gone by since the first announcements and signs of structural change toward alternative energy sources are few and far between. On the contrary, unsustainable extraction of fossil fuels continues.

From culprits to saviours

In all the official proceedings on climate, a fundamental and hidden actor – recently not so hidden – is the corporate business community related to energy, and in particular, the oil companies.

With their highly contaminating activities and expansion policy within a development model sustained on fossil fuels, these companies are among those most responsible for CO2 emissions, and therefore for climate change. In spite of this, they are not yet bound by any international agreement to reduce their emissions, are accountable to few and are very hard to regulate, precisely due to their leverage.

Some of the most powerful companies involved are: Exxon/Mobil (United States), Shell (Netherlands/United Kingdom), BP/Amoco (United Kingdom), Totalfinaelf (France- Belgium), Chevron/Texaco (United States), Repsol/YPF (Spain/Argentina), ENI/AGIP (Italy), OXY (United States). Yet today, these same companies are submitting technological proposals – mainly based on the extensive use of space and resources – to save the world from a catastrophe, thus provoking new impacts and environmental imbalance. Some examples are plantations of major transnational companies that are transforming ecosystems and displacing traditional peoples, or schemes for gigantic solar panels or wind parks on agricultural lands, for dams flooding large areas with the associated reservoirs generating carbon and methane emissions, or immense pipelines crossing protected areas or populated zones, placing at risk local populations.

Is there a way out?

“Carbon-offsets” such as large-scale tree monocultures are not solutions. Among many other wrongs, they worsen the loss of biodiversity, which, as a group of scientists from the Imperial College Population Biology Centre at Silwood Park, United Kingdom, in an article published in Nature, has recognized “may reduce the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to absorb anthropogenic CO2.”

The real solution is the conservation of energy, the reduction of consumption, a more equitable use of resources and equitable development and distribution of clean and renewable low impact energy sources. Yet, while it is almost a platitude to say so, the political will of governments will be necessary. This is scarce, and when it does exist, it must face very powerful and implacable interests.

In fact, the only tool left to achieve the urgent and critical changes and avoid the catastrophes that have been announced, is the participation of civil society demanding that the commitments already taken on be fulfilled, and questioning the commercial criteria predominating at corporate and governmental level. The prevailing approaches are criminal and, in the long run, suicidal.

Article based on information from: “The Carbon Shop: Planting New Problems”, Larry Lohmann, http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/material/carbon.html ; “Climate and Equity: After Kyoto”, Compiled by Aubrey Meyer and Nicholas Hildyard, http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/briefing/03climate.html ; “Climate Change Overview - Vital Climate Graphics”, http://www.climateark.org/vital/01.htm

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