state of the world 2009: into a warming world (state of the world)

T H E WO R L DWAT C H I N S T I T U T ET H E WO R L DWAT C H I N S T I T U T E

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Contents

State of the World: A Year in Review by Lisa Mastny

A timeline of significant environmental news events

from October 2007 to September 2008.

Chapter 1. The Perfect Storm, by Christopher Flavin

and Robert Engelman

The climate dilemma, in a nutshell.

Chapter 2. A Safe Landing for the Climate, by W. L.

Hare

Current climate science and the emissions path

needed to glide toward a safe landing.

Chapter 3. Farming and Land Use to Cool the Planet,

Sara J. Scherr and Sajal Sthapit

The needed transition to carbon-absorbing forestry

and food production.

Chapter 4. An Enduring Energy Future, by Janet L.

Sawin and William R. Moomaw

The opportunity and the imperative for building a

low-carbon energy future.

Chapter 5. Building Resilience, by David Dodman,

Jessica Ayers, and Saleemul Huq

The importance of building resilience to climate

change.

Chapter 6. Sealing the Deal to Save the Climate, by

Robert Engelman

The agreement that nations must reach to begin

stabilizing the climate while adapting to a warming

world.

Climate Connections

22 essays by experts around the world on wide-

ranging topics relevant to climate change

Climate Change Reference Guide and Glossary, by

Alice McKeown and Gary Gardner

A primer for following the developments on climate

change that will unfold in 2009.

State of the World

2009 Climate Connections

Forty-seven authors, many from developing countries

such as India and Sudan, contributed the shorter essays

in State of the World 2009, titled “Climate

Connections.” The result is the most diverse array of

insights and perspectives ever in a single edition of State

of the World.

The Risks of Other Greenhouse Gases

Janos Maté, Kert Davies, and David Kanter

Reducing Black Carbon Dennis Clare

Women and Climate Change: Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacities Lorena Aguilar

The Security Dimensions of Climate Change Jennifer Wallace

Climate Change’s Pressures on Biodiversity Thomas Lovejoy

Small Island Developing States at the Forefront of Global Climate Change Edward Cameron

The Role of Cities in Climate Change David Satterthwaite and David Dodman

Climate Change and Health Vulnerabilities Juan Almendares and Paul R. Epstein

India Starts to Take on Climate Change

Malini Mehra

A Chinese Perspective on Climate and Energy Yingling Liu

Trade, Climate Change, and Sustainability Tao Wang and Jim Watson

Adaptation in Locally Managed Marine Areas in Fiji Alifereti Tawake and Juan Hoffmaister

Building Resilience to Drought and Climate Change in Sudan Balgis Osman-Elasha

Geoengineering to Shade Earth

Ken Caldeira

Carbon Capture and Storage Peter Viebahn, Manfred Fischedick, and Daniel Vallentin

Using the Market to Address Climate Change Robert K. Kaufmann

Technology Transfer for Climate Change K. Madhava Sarma and Durwood Zaelke

Electric Vehicles and Renewable Energy Potential Jeffrey Harti

Employment in a Low-Carbon World

Michael Renner, Sean Sweeney, and Jill Kubit

Climate Justice Movements Gather Strength Ambika Chawla

Shifting Values in Response to Climate Change Tim Kasser

Not Too Late to Act Betsy Taylor

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STATE OF THE WORLDInto a Warming World

To purchase the complete State of the World 2009 reportwith endnotes and resources, please visitwww.worldwatch.org/stateoftheworld.

To purchase bulk copies, contact Patricia Shyne at 202-452-1992,ext. 520, or [email protected].

www.worldwatch.org

WWW.WORLDWATCH.ORG xix

Timeline events were selected to increaseawareness of the connections between peo-ple and the environment. An online versionof the timeline with links to Internetresources is available at www.worldwatch.org/features/timeline.

State of theWorld:AYear in Review

Compiled by Lisa Mastny

This timeline covers some significantannouncements and reports from October2007 through September 2008. It is a mix ofprogress, setbacks, and missed steps aroundthe world that are affecting environmentalquality and social welfare.

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STATE OF THE WORLD 2009

State of theWorld: A Year in Review

O C T O B E R

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28

N O V E M B E R

CLIMATEFormer USVice President

Al Gore and theIntergovernmental Panel onClimate Change win theNobel Peace Prize forgalvanizing international

action against climate change.

HEALTHChina reports that birthdefects in the nation’s

infants have soared nearly40 percent since 2001 dueto pollution and worseningenvironmental degradation.

WILDLIFEConservation groups andthe government of the

Democratic Republic of theCongo create a vast newreserve to protect the

endangered bonobo ape,the closest human relative.

CLIMATEScientists say Arctic sea icehas declined to its lowest

level since satelliteassessments began inthe 1970s, opening the

Northwest Passage fully forthe first time in memory.

NATURAL DISASTERSCyclone Sidr lashes

Bangladesh, killing some3,000 people and

destroying an estimated458,000 houses, 350,000head of livestock, and

60,700 hectares of crops.

HEALTHIn a one-day snapshot ofobesity, doctors report that24 percent of men and27 percent of womenworldwide are obese—nearing the obesity levelsfound in the United States.

FISHERIESExperts say Southeast Asia’soceans are rapidly runningout of fish, threatening thelivelihoods of some 100

million people and increasingthe need for governmentprotection of fish stocks.

WATERADB says developing

countries in Asia could facean “unprecedented”watercrisis in a decade due toclimate change, populationgrowth, and mismanagement

of water resources.

2007 S T A T E O F T H E W O R L D : A Y E A R I N R E V I E W

POLLUTIONRussian tanker spills 2,000tons of heavy fuel oil nearthe Black Sea, affecting localfishing and bird populationsand coating beaches witha thick black sludge.

NATURAL DISASTERSWildfires across drought-stricken southern Californiachar some 2,000 squarekilometers, destroying atleast 1,500 homes andforcing more than half a

million people to evacuate.

NASA

©1986 Andrea Fisch/courtesy Photoshare

Ice Extent9/16/07


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D E C E M B E R

CLIMATEReport warns that asmany as 150 million

people in the world’s bigcoastal cities are likely atrisk from flooding by the2070s, more than threetimes as many as now.

CLIMATEScientists demonstratethat recent warm

summers have caused themost extreme Greenlandice melting in 50 years,

providing further evidenceof global warming.

BIODIVERSITYWWF reports thatfour Antarctic penguinpopulations are underpressure from climatechange as habitat lossand overfishing disruptbreeding and feeding.

NATURAL DISASTERSOfficials say China is

suffering from its worstdrought in a decade, leavingmillions of people short ofdrinking water and shrinking

reservoirs and rivers.

ECONOMYUN says climate changeis creating millions of“green jobs” in sectorsfrom solar power tobiofuels that will slightlyexceed layoffs elsewhere

in the economy.

CLIMATEAt UN climate talks inBali, nearly 200 nationsagree to launch negotia-tions on a new climatechange treaty followinga groundbreaking

reversal of US position.

TRANSPORTATIONIndian auto manufacturerTataunveils its $2,500 “people’s

car,” the Nano, raising concernsabout crowded roads and

rising pollution.

CLIMATEGroup reports thattrade in global carboncredits rose 80 percentin 2007, to $60 billion,up from $33 billionthe previous year.

J A N U A R Y

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30

2008

© Jenny Rollo

Tata Motors

FORESTSBrazilian scientist says

Amazon deforestation islikely to increase in 2008for the first time in fouryears, raising concernsabout the effectivenessof national forestprotection policies.

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F E B R U A R YM A R C H

F E B R U A R Y

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M A R C H


CLIMATEStudy reports that

the USWest is warmingat nearly twice the rateof the rest of the worldand is likely to facemore drought

conditions in many ofits fast-growing cities.

ECONOMYReport says global

investments in renewableenergy topped $100 billionfor the first time in 2007,led by wind power and

driven by supportive policies.

ENERGYPrice of oil passes the

all-time inflation-adjustedpeak of $103.76 set inApril 1980 and is nowthree times what it was

four years ago.

AGRICULTUREGlobal seed vault in

Svalbard, Norway, openswith 100 million foodcrop seeds from more

than 100 countries, the mostcomprehensive and diversecollection in the world.

PUBLIC EDUCATIONSome 50 million peopleworldwide participate inEarth Hour, switching offlights in some 370 citiesin more than 35 countriesto raise awareness ofclimate change.

ENERGYStudies report that moregreenhouse gases are

released when clearing landto grow current biofuel crops

than would be reducedwhen the biofuels displaced

fossil fuels.

CLIMATEUN reports that the world’sglaciers are continuing to

melt away, with record lossesreported between 2004–05

and 2005–06 and theaverage rate of melting andthinning more than doubling.

© Lyle Rosbotham

Photodisc

Adzuki beans, Wikimedia

Switchgrass, NREL

WILDLIFEThe eight South Asian

nations agree to cooperatemore in addressing wildlifetrade problems in theregion, one of the primetargets of organized wildlife

crime networks.

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A P R I L M A Y

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30

CLIMATEReport says capping

carbon emissions wouldcost US households lessthan a penny on thedollar over 20 years,refuting claims that

mandatory limits woulddamage the economy.

CLIMATEStudy says financialincentives for cuttingcarbon emissions fromdeforestation could earndeveloping countries upto $13 billion in carbon

credits per year.

CONSUMPTIONSan Francisco reports a

70 percent recycling rate—the highest in the UnitedStates—through measures

such as recycling,composting, and reuse.

NATURALDISASTERS

A 7.9 magnitudeearthquake hits China’sSichuan province, killingsome 70,000 people,injuring 374,000 more,and leaving 4.8 million

homeless.

ENERGYTexas oilmanT. BoonePickens places the

largest-ever order forwind turbines, spending$2 billion for 667 turbinesto develop the world’slargest wind farm.

Vicky S© Lyle Rosbotham

Agência Brasil

FORESTSBrazilian environment

minister andrainforest activistMarina Silva resignsafter facing ongoingstruggles with theLula administrationover Amazonianforest policies.

NATURAL DISASTERSCyclone Nargis kills some78,000 people and leaves

millions homeless in Myanmar,while critics blame mangrove

destruction and a slowgovernment response forthe high fatality rate.

Sgt. Andres, USMC

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J U N E

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30

J U L Y


CONSUMPTIONChina bans the productionand use of plastic bags insupermarkets and retail

shops as part of a campaignto fight “white pollution”

in the country.

FORESTSReports say boomingdemand for food, fuel,and wood as worldpopulation surges willput unprecedented andunsustainable demandson remaining forests.

ENERGYUS average price fora gallon of regulargasoline tops $4 forthe first time ever.

FOODFAO says rising land

degradation reduces cropyields and may threatenthe food security of

1.5 billion people, abouta quarter of theworld’s population.

CLIMATEStudy reports thatChina’s CO2 releases

accounted for two thirdsof increased global emis-sions in 2007 and are 14percent higher than thosefrom the United States.

GOVERNANCEInternal reviewsaysWorld Bank

investments fail to giveenough attention tolong-term sustainabilityand place unevenemphasis on

economic benefitsof environmentalpreservation.

FOODWorld Food

Programme announcesit will provide $1.2billion in additionalfood aid for the 62countries hit hardestby the food and

fuel crisis.

ENERGYThe price of oil hitsa new all-timeinflation-adjustedhigh of $147.27.

WILDLIFEChina wins the rightto make a one-off

purchase of registeredelephant ivory stocksfrom four Africancountries understrict conditions.

Photodisc

Photodisc

Ove Tøpfer

Photodisc

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A U G U S T S E P T E M B E R

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28

See page 205 for sources.

CLIMATETen northeastern stateshold the first US cap andtrade auction of carbon

dioxide emissionsallowances, raising nearly$40 million for renewableenergy technologies andenergy efficiency programs.

ENERGYUN says abolishingsome $300 billion inglobal subsidies forfossil fuels could cutworld greenhousegas emissions by upto 6 percent whilealso boosting

economic growth.

Joowwww

Ewout Bos

CONSUMPTIONChina celebrates theopening of what it callsthe first “green”Olympics,after spending some $20billion on mass transitand the addition of

new renewable energysystems in Beijing.

ENERGYPacific Gas and Electricagrees to purchase

800 megawatts of solarcells, the largest suchsale ever, to be installedin two solar farms thatcan supply electricity to

239,000 homes.

ENERGYReport says US installedwind capacity exceeds

20,000 megawatts, enoughelectricity to serve 5.3million American homesand making the US theworld leader in windpower capacity.

MARINE SYSTEMSResearchers say the

number of “dead zones”in the world’s oceansand coastal areas hasnearly doubled everydecade since the 1960s,to some 400, due mainly

to fertilizer runoff.

DOE

NREL

CONSUMPTIONStudy says exportsnow account for

one third of China’sCO2 emissions asmanufacturers therefeed a growing

global appetite forcheap goods.

ENERGYU.S government lifts alongstanding ban on

offshore drilling, openingmost of the country’scoastline to oil and gasleasing and exploration.

Something extraordinary happened at the topof our planet in the past three summers. Fora few weeks each year—in the final days of thenorthern summer—a large stretch of openwater appeared around the Arctic, making itbriefly possible to pilot a ship from the Atlanticto the Pacific without going through thePanama Canal or around the Cape of GoodHope. Never before in recorded human his-tory has it been possible to make that journey.1

As a barometer of global environmentalchange, the loss of the permanent ice cap atthe North Pole is like a seismograph thatsuddenly jumps off the charts. For severaldecades now, Earth’s heat balance has beenseverely out of equilibrium. Earth is absorb-ing more heat than it is emitting, and acrossthe planet ecological systems are respond-ing. The changes so far have been almostimperceptible, and even now they appearfrom the human viewpoint gradual.

But don’t be fooled: the changes repre-sented by melting glaciers, acidifying oceans,and migrating species are—on a planetarytimescale—breaking all known speed limits.

The planet that humans have known for150,000 years (encompassing the Pleistoceneand Holocene epochs, as geologists describethem) is changing irrevocably thanks tohuman actions. In 2000 the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen and his col-league Eugene F. Stoermer concluded thatthese changes are so profound that the worldhas entered a new geological epoch—whichthey aptly named the Anthropocene.2

Changing Earth’s climate is like sailing amassive cargo ship. Tremendous energy isrequired to get such a ship moving—and itsforward progress is at first almost impercep-tible—but once it is traveling at full speed, itis very hard to stop. It is now virtually certainthat children born today will find their livespreoccupied with a host of hardships createdby an inexorably warming world. Food sup-plies will be diminished, and many of theworld’s forests will be destroyed. Not justthe coral reefs that nurture many fisheriesbut the chemistry of the oceans will face dis-ruption. Indeed, the world’s oceans arealready acidifying rapidly. Coastlines will be

C H A P T E R 1

Christopher Flavin and Robert Engelman

The Perfect Storm

WWW.WORLDWATCH.ORG 5

rearranged, and so will the world’s wetlands.Whether you are a farmer or an office worker,whether you live in the northern or southernhemisphere, whether you are rich or poor, youwill be affected.3

FiddlingWhile theWorld Burns

Like a distant tsunami that is only a fewmeters high in the deep ocean but rises dra-matically as it reaches shallow coastal waters,the great wave of climate change has snuckup on people—and is now beginning tobreak. Climate change was first identified asa potential danger by a Swedish chemist inthe late nineteenth century, but it was notuntil the late 1980s that scientists had enoughevidence to conclude that this transformationwas under way and presented a clear threatto humanity.

An American scientist, James Hansen ofthe National Aeronautics and Space Admin-istration, put climate change squarely onthe agenda of policymakers on 23 June1988. On that hot summer day, Hansentold a U.S. Senate Committee he was 99 per-cent certain that the year’s record tempera-tures were not the result of natural variation.Based on his research, Hansen had con-cluded that the rising heat was due to thegrowing concentration of carbon dioxide(CO2) and other atmospheric pollutants.“It’s time to stop waffling so much and saythat the evidence is pretty strong that thegreenhouse effect is here.”4

Hansen’s words, joined with those of otherscientists, echoed around the world. Withinmonths government officials were beginningto consider steps to reduce greenhouse gasemissions, with much of the focus on thekind of international agreement that would beneeded to tackle this most global of problems.In 1992 the United Nations Framework Con-

vention on Climate Change was adopted byheads of state in Rio de Janeiro, and in 1997the Kyoto Protocol, with its legally bindingemissions limits for industrial countries, wasnegotiated.5

As the 1990s came to an end the worldappeared to be moving to tackle the largestand most complex problem humanity hasever faced. But fossil fuel interests mobilizeda counterattack—pressuring governmentsand creating confusion about the science ofclimate change. Taking advantage of theinevitable uncertainties and caveats containedin leading climate assessments, a handful ofclimate skeptics—many of them PhDs with oilindustry funding—managed to position cli-mate change as a scientific debate rather thana grim reality.

The climate change skeptics had theirgreatest influence in the United States,putting it at loggerheads with the EuropeanUnion, which since the early 1990s has beenthe strongest advocate of action on climatechange. In November 2000, in the waningdays of the Clinton administration, climatenegotiators met in The Hague with the inten-tion of finalizing details of the Kyoto Proto-col—which in principle had been agreed tothree years earlier. Two weeks of intense dis-cussions concluded with an agonizing all-night session that ended in failure. Distrustand miscommunication between Americanand European negotiators were at the heartof this historic diplomatic failure—a failurethat became more significant a short timelater when the U.S. Supreme Court decidedthat Al Gore would not be the next Presidentof the United States.6

In the months that followed, manyremained optimistic: before his election, Pres-ident George W. Bush had indicated his sup-port for addressing the climate problem andworking cooperatively with other countries.Two months later—under heavy pressure

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The Perfect Storm

from Vice President Cheney and the oil indus-try—he executed an abrupt U-Turn, reject-ing the Kyoto Protocol outright and throwingnegotiations into a tailspin. Europe, Canada,Japan, and Russia were shocked into com-pleting and ultimately ratifying the KyotoProtocol in the following years, but time andpolitical momentum had been lost. Moresignificantly, the unilateral actions of the U.S.government deepened North-South fissureson climate change—a divide that has nowbecome the largest obstacle to progress.7

Storm Clouds GatherThe tragedy of these two wasted decades isthat during this period the world has movedfrom a situation in which roughly a billionpeople in industrial countries were drivingthe problem—the United States, for exam-ple, has 4.6 percent of the world’s popula-tion but accounts for 20 percent of fossil-fuelCO2 emissions—to today’s reality in whichthe far larger populations of developingcountries are on the verge of driving an evenbigger problem.8

Global emissions of carbon dioxide fromfossil fuel combustion and cement productionrose from 22.6 billion tons in 1990 to an esti-mated 31 billion tons in 2007—a staggering37-percent increase. This is 85 million tonsof carbon dioxide spilled into the atmosphereeach day—or 13 kilograms on average perperson. The annual increase in emissions shotfrom 1 percent a year in the 1990s to 3.5 per-cent a year from 2000 to 2007—with Chinaaccounting for most of that remarkable leap.9

Between 1990 and 2008 U.S. emissions ofcarbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustiongrew by 27 percent—but emissions in Chinarose 150 percent, from 2.3 billion to 5.9 bil-lion tons. More suddenly and dramaticallythan experts had expected, China and otherdeveloping countries are entering the energy-



The Perfect Storm

intensive stages of economic development,and their factories, buildings, power plants,and cars are consuming vast amounts of fos-sil fuels. As recently as 2004, the Interna-tional Energy Agency projected that it wouldbe 2030 before China passed the UnitedStates in emissions. It now appears that thelines crossed in 2006.10

Accelerating emissions are not the onlyfactor driving increased concern. Tropicaldeforestation—estimated at 13 millionhectares per year—is adding 6.5 billion tonsof carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually.The world’s largest tropical forest, the Ama-zon, is disappearing at a faster pace as highagricultural prices encourage land clearing.More alarmingly, Earth’s natural sinks—itsoceans and biological systems—appear to belosing their ability to absorb a sizable fractionof those emissions. As a result, the increase inatmospheric CO2 concentrations has accel-erated to the fastest rate ever recorded.11

Scientists are reticent by nature, and theoverwhelming complexity and inevitableuncertainty of the climate problem have ledthem to produce equivocal and hard-to-inter-pret studies that have given considerable com-fort to those who argue it is too early to acton climate change. In the past year, how-ever, a few brave scientists have cast reticenceaside. Speaking in Washington on the twen-tieth anniversary of his historic testimony,James Hansen had a sharp warning for poli-cymakers: “If we don’t begin to reduce green-house gas emissions in the next several years,and get on a very different course, then we arein trouble....This is the last chance.”12

Climate scientists have discovered a par-ticularly inconvenient truth: by the time defin-itive predictions of climate change are adoptedby scientific consensus, the climate systemmay have reached a tipping point at which cli-mate change begins to feed on itself—andbecomes essentially irreversible for centuries

The Perfect Storm



must begin declining within the decade andthen fall to no more than half the currentlevel—and possibly even to zero—by themiddle of this century. (See Chapter 2.)14

This is a tall order indeed. Some would callit impossible. But the resources, technologies,and human capacity for change are all inplace. The missing ingredient is political will,and that is a renewable resource.

A New Political ClimateOver the past few years, political will to tacklethe climate problem has grown in many coun-tries around the world. The European Unionhas committed to reducing its emissions to 20percent below the 1990 level in 2020—andto reaching 30 percent if other industrialcountries join them in a strong internationalagreement. And the political will for changeis building, thanks to the strong base in sci-ence and widening public awareness of climatechange and its risks. In late 2007, Australiansvoted out a conservative government in partout of impatience with the Prime Minister’sunwillingness to support the Kyoto Protocol;the new Prime Minister promptly secured itsratification. His first trip outside Australiawas to a climate negotiation in Bali, and hisgovernment has been working to build anational climate plan ever since.15

In the United States, climate policy is rag-ing like a prairie fire at the state level. By late2008, some 27 states had adopted climateplans, and groups of eastern and westernstates are developing their own regional emis-sions cap and trade systems. In April 2008, thegovernors of 18 states gathered at Yale Uni-versity to proclaim: “Today, we recommitourselves to the effort to stop global warm-ing, and we call on congressional leaders andthe presidential candidates to work with us—in partnership—to establish a comprehen-sive national climate policy.” And the U.S.

into the future. The loss of Arctic ice, forexample, will allow more sunlight to heatthe Arctic Ocean, accelerating the buildup ofheat and putting the vast Greenland ice sheetat risk. And there are early indications that therapid rise in Arctic temperatures is thawing thetundra and thereby releasing additionalamounts of CO2 and methane.

These dramatic changes will affect theentire planet, but the world’s poor will suf-fer first and suffer most. The latest climatemodels indicate particular vulnerability in thedry tropics, where the food supplies for hun-dreds of millions of people will be under-mined by climate change. Hundreds ofmillions more who live in the vast Asianmega-deltas will be at risk from rising sealevels and increased storm intensity. Healththreats from malaria, cholera, and other dis-eases that are likely to flourish in a warmerworld will add to the burdens facing theworld’s poor. The fact that many of the 1.4billion people who now live in severe povertyalready face serious ecological debts—in water,soil, and forests—will exacerbate the newproblems presented by climate change.13

When they were released in 2007, the lat-est findings of the Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change were taken as an urgentwarning of the dangers ahead. But the torrentof scientific data to emerge since then has ledsome scientists to sharpen their advice. JamesHansen and W. L. Hare of Germany’s Pots-dam Institute are among those who haveconcluded that to prevent “dangerous cli-mate change”—the goal that governmentshave already agreed to—global emissions

The political will for change isbuilding, thanks to the strong base inscience and widening public awarenessof climate change and its risks.

The Perfect Storm



Ten Key ChallengesTen challenges must be met in order to cre-ate the world of zero net greenhouse gasemissions that will be needed to achieve cli-mate stability.

Thinking Long-term. Human beings haveevolved to be very good at focusing on animmediate threat—whether it is wild animalsthe first humans faced on the plains of Africaor the financial panic that gripped the worldin late 2008. Climate change is a uniquelylong-range problem: its effects appear grad-ual on a human time scale, and the worsteffects will likely be visited on people not yetalive. To solve this problem, we must embracethe future as our responsibility and considerthe impact of today’s decisions on futuregenerations. Just as Egyptians built pyramidsand Europeans built cathedrals to last mil-lennia, we need to start acting as if the futureof the planet matters beyond our own shortlives.

Innovation. The world needs to developand disseminate technologies that maximizethe production and use of carbon-free energywhile minimizing cost and optimizing con-venience. (Convenience matters: the ease oftransporting, storing, and using carbon-basedfuels is among their attractions, not capturedin price alone.) An effective climate pact willoffer incentives that accelerate technologicaldevelopment and ensure that renewableenergy and other low-emission technologiesare deployed in all countries regardless ofability to pay the costs. (See Chapter 4.) Weneed to dramatically increase the efficiencywith which we use carbon-based energy andlower release into the atmosphere of land-based CO2, methane, nitrogen oxides, andgreenhouse gases stemming from coolingand various industrial processes. The oppor-tunities for quick and inexpensive emissionsreductions remain vast and mostly untapped.

business community is responding as well: 27major corporations, including Alcoa, DowChemical, General Motors, and Xerox, haveannounced their support for caps on nationalgreenhouse gas emissions.16

Developing countries are joining in too. InJune 2008, the prime minister of Indiareleased the much-anticipated National ActionPlan on Climate Change. It focuses on eightareas intended to deliver maximum benefitsin terms of domestic climate change mitiga-tion and adaptation: solar energy, energy effi-ciency, sustainable habitat, water, sustainingthe Himalayan ecosystem, green India, sus-tainable agriculture, and sustainable knowl-edge for climate change. China announced anew climate plan in 2007, and during thecourse of 2008 continued to strengthen itsenergy efficiency programs, including a newincentive system that ties promotion of localofficials to their success in saving energy.17

These advances are welcome. But the worldneeds to change course much faster. To con-centrate the attention of policymakers, a massglobal movement is needed in support of anew climate treaty that picks up where theKyoto Protocol leaves off in 2012. It is every-one’s planet, after all, and everyone’s climate.There are signs that such a public movementis now growing in industrial as well as devel-oping countries, but it is not yet sufficientlystrong or pervasive to counter the vested inter-ests that stand on the other side.

One reason is that climate negotiationsare numbingly hard to follow. Outside of ahard-working community of governmentnegotiators, nongovernmental organizations,and academics, most people have little senseof what is happening. In a modest effort tohelp demystify the process, this book eschewsterms of art and uses everyday language asmuch as possible. (See the Climate ChangeGuide following Chapter 6 for a glossary ofterms used in the climate debate.)

Population. It is essential to reopen theglobal dialogue on human population andpromote policies and programs that can helpslow and eventually reverse its growth bymaking sure that all women are able to decidefor themselves whether and when to havechildren. A comprehensive climate agree-ment would acknowledge both the impacts ofclimate change on vulnerable populationsand the long-term contribution that slowergrowth and a smaller world population canplay in reducing future emissions under anequitable climate framework. And it shouldrenew the commitment that the world’snations made in 1994 to address populationnot by pressuring parents to have fewer ormore children than they want but by meet-ing the family planning, health, and educa-tional needs of women.18

Changing Lifestyles. The world’s climatecannot be saved by technology alone. Theway we live will have to change as well—andthe longer we wait the larger the neededsacrifices will be. In the United States, theinexorable increase in the size of homes andvehicles that has marked the past few decadeshas been a major driver of greenhouse gasemissions and the main reason that U.S.emission are double those of other industrialcountries. Lifestyle changes will be needed,some of which seem unattractive today. Butin the end, the things we may need to learnto live without—oversized cars and houses,status-based consumption, easy and cheapworld travel, meat with every meal, dispos-able everything—are not necessities or inmost cases what makes people happy. Theoldest among us and many of our ancestorswillingly accepted such sacrifices as necessaryin times of war. This is no war, but it may besuch a time.

Healing Land. We need to reverse theflow of carbon dioxide and other greenhousegases from destroyed or degraded forests and

land. Soil and vegetation can serve as powerfulnet removers of the atmosphere’s carbon andgreenhouse gases. (See Chapter 3.) Under theright management, soil alone could absorbeach year an estimated 13 percent of allhuman-caused carbon dioxide emissions. Tothe extent we can make the land into a moreeffective “sink” for these gases we can emitmodest levels essential for human develop-ment and well-being. Like efficiency, however,an active sink eventually faces diminishingreturns. And any sink needs to be securedwith “drain stoppers” to prevent easy returnof greenhouse gases to the atmosphere whenconditions change.19

Strong Institutions. “Good governance”can be a cliché—until someone needs it tosurvive. The final months of 2008 laidpainfully bare the dangerous imbalancebetween a freewheeling global economy anda regulatory system that is a patchwork of dis-parate national systems. And if there was evera global phenomenon, the climate is it. In factit is not hard to imagine the climate problemdriving a political evolution toward globalgovernance over the long term, but giventhe public resistance to that idea the nextmost effective climate-regulating mechanismwill be the strength and effectiveness of theUnited Nations, multilateral banks, and majornational governments. New institutions andnew funds will be needed, but it could takea major public awakening or a dramaticallydeteriorating climate to overcome the obsta-cles to inventing and establishing them.

The Equity Imperative. A climate agree-ment that can endure and succeed will findmechanisms for sharing the burden of costsand potential discomforts. Per capita fossil fuelCO2 emissions in the United States are almostfive times those in Mexico and more than 20times the levels in most of sub-Sahara. Aneffective climate agreement will acknowledgethe past co-optation of Earth’s greenhouse-



The Perfect Storm

gas absorbing capacity by the wealthiest andmost industrialized countries and the corre-sponding need to reserve most of what littleabsorbing capacity is left for countries indevelopment. Most people live in such coun-tries, and they bear little responsibility forcausing this problem—though it is worthrecalling that a small but growing share oftheir populations already have large carbonfootprints.20

Economic Stability. In the fall of 2008the global economy foundered, raising theobvious question: can a world heading intohard economic times add to its burdens thecosts of switching from fossil to renewablefuels or managing precious land for carbonsequestration? Any climate agreement built onan assumption of global prosperity is doomedto failure. And as growing and increasinglyaffluent populations demand more of theresources of a finite planet, we may have tobalance the future of climate against presentrealities of hunger, poverty, and disease. Arobust international climate regime will needto design mechanisms that will operate con-sistently in anemic as well as booming eco-nomic times. And a strong pact will be builton principles and innovations that acknowl-edge and accommodate the problem of cost—while building in monitoring techniques toensure that efficiency is not achieved at theexpensive of effective and enduring emissioncuts and adaptation efforts.21

Political Stability. A world distracted bymajor wars or outbreaks of terrorism will notbe able to stay focused on the more distantfuture. And just such a focus is needed to pre-vent future changes in climate and adapt tothe ones already occurring. A climate pactcould encourage preemptive action to dimin-ish insecurity caused or exacerbated by climatechange. But unless nations can find ways todefuse violent conflict and minimize thechance that terrorism will distract and disrupt

societies, climate change prevention and adap-tation (along with development itself) willtake a back seat. On the bright side, negoti-ating an effective climate agreement offerscountries an opportunity, if they will onlyseize it, to practice peace, to look beyondthe narrowness of the interests within theirborders at their dependence on the rest of theworld, to see humanity as a single vulnerablespecies rather than a collection of nationslocked in pointless and perpetual competition.

Mobilizing for Change. As fear of climatechange has grown in recent years, so haspolitical action. But opponents of action haverepeatedly pointed to the vast costs of reduc-ing emissions. At a time of serious economicproblems, the power of that argument isgrowing, and some of those who are per-suaded are going straight from denial todespair. The most effective response to bothof those reactions is, in the words of CommonCause founder John Gardner, to see globalwarming as “breathtaking opportunities dis-guised as insoluble problems.” Solving the cli-mate problem will create the largest wave ofnew industries and jobs the world has seen indecades. Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvaniain the United States are among those thathave devoted enormous efforts to attractingnew energy industries—with a glancing ref-erence to climate change and a major focuson creating new jobs to revive “rustbelt”economies.22

In November 2009, the world faces a test.Will the roughly 200 national governmentsthat meet in Copenhagen to forge a new cli-mate agreement come up with a new proto-



The Perfect Storm

Solving the climate problem willcreate the largest wave of newindustries and jobs the world hasseen in decades.

col that provides both vision and a roadmap,accelerating action around the globe? Thechallenges are many: Will the global financialcrisis and conflict in the Middle East distractworld leaders? Will the new U.S presidenthave time to bring his country back into aleadership position? Will the global North-South divide that has marked climate talks inrecent years be overcome?

State of the World 2009 presents somepotential answers to these challenges. Onevital theme stands out from the rest: climatechange is not a discrete issue to be addressed

apart from all the others. The global econ-omy fundamentally drives climate change,and economic strategies will need to berevised if the climate is ever to be stabi-lized—and if we are to satisfy the humanneeds that the global economy is ultimatelyintended to meet.

We cannot afford to have the Copenhagenclimate conference fail. The outcome of thismeeting will be written in the world’s historybooks—and in the lasting composition ofour common atmosphere.



The Perfect Storm


Our climate system is in trouble. It haswarmed by over 0.7 degrees Celsius in the last100 years. Most of the warming since at leastthe mid-twentieth century is very likely dueto human activities. Warming’s impacts onhuman and natural systems are now beingobserved nearly everywhere—perhaps mostobviously in the recent loss of Arctic sea ice,which in 2007 and 2008 reached record lowlevels at the end of the northern summer. Inspite of nearly 20 years of international atten-tion, emissions of greenhouse gases(GHGs)—principally carbon dioxide (CO2)from the burning of fossil fuels—continueto grow rapidly. As a consequence, the con-centration of carbon dioxide in the atmos-phere has increased faster during the last 10years than at any time since continuous mea-surements began in 1960.1

Unabated, current increasing trends inemissions can be expected to raise Earth’stemperature by a further 4–6 degrees Celsius

(7.2–10.8 degrees fahrenheit), if not more,by the end of this century. If even half thatmuch warming occurs, it will bring hugedamages and potentially catastrophic prob-lems. The Fourth Assessment Report of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), which was released at the end of2007, predicted serious risks and damages tospecies, ecosystems, human infrastructure,societies, and livelihoods in the future unlesswarming is reduced. The report’s projectedrisks and damages are larger and more seri-ous than previously estimated and threatendevelopment in several regions of the world.The IPCC also found that reducing green-house gas emissions would lower the globaltemperature increase and consequently lessenthe risks and damages. Yet it is also importantto note at the outset that even reducingemissions 80 percent by 2050 will not elim-inate all serious risks and damages.2

One of the great icons of the modern world,

C H A P T E R 2

W. L. Hare

A Safe Landing forthe Climate

W. L. Hare is a scientist in Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Researchin Germany and advises Greenpeace International on climate policy and science.

the jet aircraft, provides a telling metaphorfor what the world faces in terms of climatechange. Jet aircraft burn prodigious quantitiesof fossil fuels in order to move passengers andfreight across vast distances in relative safety andluxury. Yet like the climate system, the rules ofoperating these machines are not widely under-stood by anyone except the few people whosejob it is to know about such things. The climatesystem is like a jet aircraft that has become air-borne safely but is now facing grave difficultyand must land as a matter of urgency beforedisaster becomes inevitable. If we do notreduce emissions fast enough and bring thewarming of the climate system to a halt, we riska major catastrophe.

This chapter is about how much and howfast the world needs to reduce greenhouse gasemissions in order to prevent or limit seriousdamage—in other words, to bring the climatesystem to a safe landing. But first it is impor-tant to review the current state of scientificknowledge on the risks, damages, and impactsestimated for different levels of warming inorder to see what level might prevent dan-gerous changes and thus be “safe.”

Preventing dangerous climate change isthe universally agreed ultimate goal of climatepolicy established in the 1992 U.N. Frame-work Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC). (See Box 2–1.) Once a dan-gerous level of change has been defined, sci-entists can calculate with reasonableconfidence an emission pathway that can limitwarming and other changes to this level, tak-ing into account continuing uncertainties intheir understanding of the climate system.3

Projected Climate Changeand Sea Level Rise

In the latest IPCC report the projected lev-els of global warming in the absence ofefforts to reduce emissions are not dramat-

ically different from those made in earlierreports: warming by 2100 is projected to bein the range of 1.1–6.4 degrees Celsius abovethe average in the 1980–99 period. Giventhat emissions, warming, and sea level riseduring the current decade have all been at theupper end of projected ranges, it would beprudent to assume that the likely warming inthe absence of major emission reductionsover the next century will be toward themid or upper end of the range projected bythe IPCC.4

The main reference point for greenhousegas concentrations and temperature increasesis typically preindustrial times. This is usuallytaken as 1750, so preindustrial CO2 concen-tration levels are given as 278 parts per mil-lion (ppm) CO2. Increases in greenhousesgases (taken together as CO2-equivalent(CO2eq) concentrations) are generally relatedto this number. A doubling of GHG con-centrations means an increase that is equiva-lent to the effect of about 556 ppm CO2(often just rounded to 550 ppm CO2).

As far as possible, global temperatureincreases here are referred to as increasesabove the preindustrial level. Given that aglobal instrumental temperature series onlyexists for the period after 1850, the prein-dustrial period is defined as the 30-year aver-age from this year. (The average global meantemperatures between 1750 and the 1850swere quite similar, so this is considered sat-isfactory.) From the 1850s to the five-yearperiod ending in 2007, global mean tem-perature increased by more than 0.7 degreesCelsius. In the IPCC report, projections areoften stated with respect to the period1980–99 (with 1990 used as the midpoint),which was a bit over 0.5 degrees Celsiuswarmer than the preindustrial period. So theIPCC’s projected increase for the twenty-first century of 1.1–6.4 degrees Celsius above1980–99 levels would be about 1.6–6.9



A Safe Landing for the Climate

degrees Celsius above preindustrial level.Since 1980–99, the climate system has alreadywarmed about 0.25 degrees Celsius.5

For projected sea level rise the IPCC wasunable to estimate fully all the contributionsof global warming, as numerical computermodels of the ice sheets of Greenland andAntarctica cannot yet adequately project theeffects. So the range of sea level rise esti-mated by the IPCC—between 0.18 and 0.59meters by 2100 above 1980–99 levels—washeavily qualified, given that the possible future

rapid loss of ice from Greenland and Antarc-tica could not be quantified. The alreadyobserved rapid loss of ice in response torecent warming of the atmosphere and oceanaround Greenland and West Antarctica indi-cates that these ice sheets could be more vul-nerable to warming than implied by ice sheetmodels and hence could add significantly tofuture sea level rise. As a consequence, theIPCC could not give a “best estimate” orupper bound for sea level rise.6

After the writing of the IPCC science




The guiding principles of international effortsto deal with climate change were established in1992 in the United Nations Framework Conven-tion on Climate Change, which was adopted inRio de Janeiro at the Earth Summit:“The ultimateobjective of this Convention and any related legalinstruments…is to achieve…stabilization of green-house gas concentrations in the atmosphere at alevel that would prevent dangerous anthropo-genic interference with the climate system. Sucha level should be achieved within a time-framesufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturallyto climate change, to ensure that food productionis not threatened and to enable economic devel-opment to proceed in a sustainable manner.”

This is a powerful statement, as it contains alegally binding requirement to prevent dangerouschanges. In practice, however, exactly what thismeans remains undefined in international law.Thearticle is ambiguous, as it leaves open core ques-tions such as dangerous to whom and to what.What if food production increases in someregions due to global warming and increasedCO2 concentration, as is projected for the north-ern high latitudes, but decreases perhaps danger-ously in other regions, as is projected forlow-latitude tropical regions such as Africa? Isthat dangerous within the meaning of theconvention? Answering such questions is funda-mental to the development of a fair and equitableglobal approach to climate change.

While most attention in debates about

climate change has focused on changes inclimate, it needs also to be noted that underArticle 2 “dangerous anthropogenic interference”relates to the climate system as whole: changesin ocean acidity due to human-induced CO2

increases that result in adverse changes in theoceans and marine ecosystems could also bedeemed dangerous. University of Toronto clima-tologist Danny Harvey has pointed that there areimportant differences between terms such asdangerous interference and dangerous climatechange. (For simplicity’s sake, however, these areused synonymously in this chapter.)

Decisions as to what is “dangerous” funda-mentally affect the rate, timing, and scale of emis-sions reductions required regionally and globallyin the coming years and decades. If “dangerousinterference” is considered to begin only oncethe global average temperature exceeds 4degrees Celsius above the preindustrial level,then it will be hard to justify urgent and stringentmitigation action in the next 10–30 years, asgreenhouse gas emissions would not need topeak until well after the 2050s before dropping.If, on the other hand, warming of more than 2degrees above preindustrial is deemed danger-ous, then there is acute and urgent emphasison near-term emission actions leading to largeglobal emissions reductions of 80 percent ormore by 2050.

Source: See endnote 3.

Box 2–1. Preventing Dangerous Climate Change

report was completed, Stefan Rahmstorf ofthe Potsdam Institute for Climate ImpactResearch projected future sea level rise basedon the observed relationship between sealevel and temperature over the last century.Using a similar range of emission and cli-mate projections, he estimated a sea level risein the range of 0.5–1.4 meters above 1990levels by 2100. More recent work indicatesthat the increase during this century could beeven higher. In short, the evidence points toa likelihood of meter-scale sea level rise by2100, well above the top end of the rangequantified by the IPCC. Thus, much largerrisks to coastal zones and small islands seemlikely during this century than had previouslybeen estimated.7

There is much greater confidence nowthan in earlier IPCC assessments in theregional changes that can be expected in awarmer world. Warming will be greatest in thehigh north and in the interiors of the conti-nents. Reduction in snow cover, a thawing ofpermafrost, and decreases in the extent ofsea ice in both hemispheres can be expected.8

Weather extremes and water availabilityare two of the most important projections interms of impacts on human and natural sys-tems. More-frequent heat extremes and heatwaves, more-intense tropical cyclones, andheavier precipitation and flooding can beexpected in many regions. Recent projec-tions confirm that extreme high surface tem-peratures will rise faster than global warmingand indicate a 10 percent chance of “dan-gerously high” surface temperatures over 48degrees Celsius every decade in much of theworld by 2100 if the global temperatureexceeds 4 degrees Celsius above the prein-dustrial level.9

Precipitation can be expected to decreasein most subtropical land regions but toincrease in the high latitudes. The IPCCassessment found with “high confidence that

many semi-arid areas (e.g. Mediterraneanbasin, western United States, southern Africaand northeast Brazil) will suffer a decrease inwater resources due to climate change.” Bythe 2050s it is projected that there will be lessannual river runoff and water availability indry regions in the mid-latitudes and tropicsbut an increase in high-latitude regions andin some tropical wet areas.

Especially Affected Systems,Sectors, and Regions

For the first time the systems, sectors, andregions most likely to suffer adverse effectswere identified in the latest IPCC report,providing important details of risks, impacts,and vulnerabilities at different levels of futurewarming. The especially affected ecosystemsidentified were tundra, boreal forest andmountain regions, Mediterranean types, trop-ical rainforests where precipitation declines,coral reefs, mangroves and salt marshes, andsystems dependent on sea ice. A sector iden-tified as of special concern is the health of vul-nerable populations who have a low capacityto adapt. As Hurricane Katrina and the Euro-pean heat wave of 2003 showed, even inhigh-income countries the poor, the elderly,and young children can be particularly at riskfrom climatic extremes.10

For sea ice, the IPCC projected a decreasein both the Arctic and Antarctic under everyunmitigated emissions scenario, with sum-mer sea ice in the Arctic disappearing almostentirely toward the end of this century. Thiswould have far-reaching adverse consequencesfor ice-dependent species and ecosystems aswell as speeding up the warming far into theinterior of the bordering continental regionsof Russia, Canada, and Alaska.11

Large losses of sea ice threaten the con-tinued existence of polar bears. Based on theprojections available for the latest assessment,




the IPCC predicted that this risk would occurfor a global warming of 2.5–3.0 degrees Cel-sius above the preindustrial level. But it seemsclear that this threshold could be much lower,as the observed rapid loss of summer ice(about 9.1 percent a year for the 1979–2006period) exceeds the projections in nearly allthe latest IPCC models.12

In already dry regions in the mid-latitudes,in drier parts of the tropics (predominantlydeveloping countries), and in regions thatdepend on melting snow and ice for riverand stream flows, water resources will beadversely affected. Glaciers in regions such ascentral Asia and the Himalaya and Tibetanplateau are melting faster than expected.Large adverse effects on water supply avail-ability are predicted, threatening billions ofpeople with water insecurity. Developingcountries are not the only ones at risk. Seri-ous water supply impacts have been seen inAustralia from the 2001–07 drought—themost extreme and hottest drought recordedfor this continent. Water inflows into Aus-tralia’s largest and most important river basin,the Murray-Darling, are expected to decline15 percent for each 1 degreeCelsius of warm-ing, and dramatic and adverse impacts areforecast for the water supply for large cities insoutheast Australia.13

Agriculture and food supply in low-latituderegions, which are predominantly poor devel-oping countries, are projected to be adverselyaffected even at low levels of warming. Recentclimate trends, some of which can be attrib-uted to human activities, appear to have hada measurable negative impact on global pro-duction of several major crops. In India, forexample, it is clear that agricultural produc-tion has suffered due to a combination ofclimate change and air pollution.14

Substantial to sometimes severe adverseeffects on food production, water supply, andecosystems are projected for sub-Saharan

Africa and small island developing states if theaverage temperature reaches 1.5 degrees Cel-sius above preindustrial level. Large riverdeltas, such as those of the Nile in Africa andof the Mekong and Ganges-Brahmaputra inAsia, are particularly at risk as they are hometo large vulnerable populations and have ahigh exposure to sea level rise, storm surges,and river flooding.15

Tipping PointsLevels of warming that can trigger changes inlarge-scale components of the climate sys-tem, that can be irreversible for all practicalpurposes, and that have large-scale adverseconsequences are often called tipping points.If a tipping point is passed, then a subse-quent cooling of the climate system wouldlikely not reverse the change. In some cases,such as disintegration of the West Antarcticice sheet, the process would continue until anew equilibrium is reached.16

Elements of the climate system that are sus-ceptible to “tipping” include Arctic summersea ice (possible complete loss ), the Green-land ice sheet (a meltdown would raise sealevel 6–7 meters over many centuries to mil-lennia), the West Antarctic ice sheet (disin-tegration would raise sea level 4–5 metersover several centuries), the circulation of themajor Atlantic Ocean currents (risks of com-plete shutdown, with cooling of Europe andother adverse impacts), and the Amazon rain-forest (risk of collapse due to warming andrainfall reductions).

A recent assessment indicates that a sig-nificant number of tipping points could beapproached if the climate warms more than3 degrees Celsius over the preindustrial level.Loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet is onesuch element. Other tipping points could beapproached at warming levels over 1.5–2degrees Celsius, such as the loss of the Green-




land ice sheet. Arctic summer sea ice could belost at even lower levels of warming (0.8–2.6degrees Celsius), and its rapid loss wouldamplify warming in the adjacent continents,accelerating permafrost decay.17

What Levels ofWarmingMight Be Safe?

Deciding what level of climate change is dan-gerous and what might be safe is not a purelyscientific question. It involves normative andpolitical judgments about acceptable risks.Science has, however, a fundamental role toplay in providing information and analysisrelevant to this question and has contributedto policy and political debates on acceptablelevels of climate change since the 1980s.18

By the late 1980s the scientific communityhad begun to recognize that a warming ofmuch more than 1–2 degrees Celsius over thepreindustrial level could lead to rapid andadverse changes to many human and naturalsystems. In 1986 the U.N. Environment Pro-gramme set up an Advisory Group on Green-house Gases, which in 1990 reported that a2-degree warming could be “an upper limitbeyond which the risks of grave damage toecosystems, and of non-linear responses, areexpected to increase rapidly.” Also in the late1980s the Enquete Komission, a joint com-mittee of German parliamentarians and sci-entists, sought to define acceptable limits.Warming more than 0.1 degree Celsius perdecade was seen as especially risky to forestecosystems, with an overall acceptable max-imum warming estimated to be 1–2 degreesCelsius. In 1995 the German government’sGlobal Change Advisory Council found that2 degrees Celsius should be the upper limitof “tolerable” warming.19

Efforts to define acceptable limits to warm-ing at a political level started in the EuropeanUnion and among its member states. Based

on the IPCC’s Second Assessment Reportat the end of 1995, the European Union’sCouncil of Environment Ministers in 1996called for warming to be limited to 2 degreesCelsius above the preindustrial level. Nearlya decade later this position was confirmedby European Union Heads of Governmentafter consideration and debate over the find-ings of the IPCC’s 2001 Third AssessmentReport, as well as more recent scientific devel-opments. Since 2005 other countries havejoined in calling for global mean warming tobe limited to 2 degrees: Chile, Iceland, Nor-way, Switzerland, the Least Developed Coun-tries, and Small Island Developing States.The latter two groups of countries haveargued that 2 degrees may in fact be toomuch warming if their safety and survival areto be guaranteed.20

From the nongovernmental sector, theClimate Action Network, which has workedon climate change since 1989, has called forwarming to be limited to a peak increase asfar below 2 degrees Celsius as possible. Italso calls for warming to be reduced as fast aspossible from this peak. In 1997, based on areview of risks identified in mid-1990s, Green-peace International called for the long-termcommitted increase of temperature to be lim-ited to less than 1 degree Celsius above prein-dustrial and for warming rates to be less than0.1 degree Celsius per decade.21

Several groups of scientists who haveattempted to define a safe limit have alsoendorsed the need to stop before warming by2 degrees Celsius. In a 2007 paper, NASA’sJames Hansen and colleagues argued for alimit of 1.7 degrees Celsius above preindus-trial on the basis that potential changes abovethis level—including irreversible loss of theGreenland and Antarctic ice sheets and speciesextinction—would be “highly disruptive.”Following further analysis of ongoing cli-mate changes and of Earth’s sensitivity to




climate changes in the past, Hansen and hiscolleagues called for an “initial” CO2 stabi-lization level of 350 ppm, significantly belowpresent levels of close to 390 ppm. Thiswould produce a warming in the long termof around 1 degree Celsius if the climate sen-sitivity were close to the IPCC best estimateof 3 degrees Celsius. The present CO2 level,they argued, “is already too high to maintainthe climate to which humanity, wildlife, andthe rest of the biosphere are adapted.” Oneimplication of Hansen’s reasoning is thatwarming may need to be lowered even fromthis level in centuries to come in order toreduce the risks of large-scale loss of ice fromthe ice sheets.22

Taking into account uncertainties in thesensitivity of the climate system to green-house gas increases, climatologist Danny Har-vey of the University of Toronto has arguedthat even the present GHG concentrationlevels may constitute dangerous interferencewith the climate system. This would meanthat a “safe” warming limit would be below1.3–1.4 degrees Celsius above the preindus-trial level, given that the present GHG con-centration levels would likely warm the planetby about this amount once the world oceanand climate systems fully respond to theseconcentrations.23

The findings of the latest IPCC assess-ment and more-recent studies strongly rein-force the conclusions reached by all thesedifferent groups that “safe” levels of warm-ing lie at 2 degrees Celsius or below. Table2–1 summarizes salient examples of highly sig-nificant projected risks both below and abovethat level of warming.24

It is clear from this overview that sub-stantial risks, dangers, and damages are likelyacross multiple sectors should global tem-peratures warm 1.5–2 degrees Celsius abovethe preindustrial level. Risks of extinctionand major ecosystem disruption are evident

at the low end of this range and increaserapidly with the rising temperature. Whilescientists are uncertain of the probability thata warming in the range of 1.5–2 degrees Cel-sius would destabilize the Greenland or WestAntarctic ice sheets, this would have verylarge consequences if it did happen and hencequalifies as a high risk that “is somethingthat should rather be avoided.”25

It is hard to avoid the conclusion thateven a warming of 2 degrees Celsius posesunacceptable risks to key natural and humansystems. It is clearly not “safe” and wouldnot prevent, with high certainty, dangerousinterference with the climate system. Fromthermal expansion of sea water alone, ameter or more of sea level rise over cen-turies cannot be excluded if there is a 2degrees Celsius warming.

Furthermore, there is no “magic num-ber” lower than 2 degrees Celsius that wouldlimit warming to safe levels with high confi-dence. Warming in the range of 1.5–2 degreesCelsius clearly contains a significant risk ofdangerous changes. Thus the amount of timethe climate system remains in this temperatureregion should be minimized if it cannot beprevented. Below 1.5 degrees Celsius, therestill appears to be a risk of dangerous changes.And at even a 1 degree Celsius warming thereremains a risk of significant loss of ice from theice sheets as well as large damages to vulner-able ecosystems.

Thus it does not appear possible to defineat present an ultimate warming limit that isunambiguously safe or that undoubtedlywould prevent dangerous interference with




A warming of 2 degrees Celsius isclearly not “safe” and would notprevent, with high certainty, dangerousinterference with the climate system.




System 1.5–2.0 Degrees Celsius 2.0–2.5 Degrees Celsius > 2.5 Degrees Celsius

Ecosystemsandbiodiversity

FoodProduction

Coastalregions

Health

Table 2–1. Risks and Impacts at DifferentWarming Levels above Preindustrial Level

• 10–15 percent of speciesassessed committed to extinc-tion, and significant risks formany biodiversity hotspots• Sharply accelerating risk ofextinction for land birds, withloss of 100–500 species perdegree of warming• Evidence from observedamphibian and reptile declines“portend a planetary-scalemass extinction”

•Widespread damages to coralreef systems due to bleaching

• Observed larger-than-expected losses of Arctic seaice indicate increasing risk ofextinction for the polar bear• High extinction risk pro-jected for the King Penguin,with a reduction in adult sur-vival of about 30 percent perdegree of warming

• Decreases in cereal produc-tion for some crops in low-latitude poor regions• Risk of highly adverse andsevere impacts on foodproduction in someAfricancountries• Substantial risks to rice pro-duction in Java and Bali

• Increased damages fromstorms and floods, with up to 3million additional people atrisk of coastal flooding

• Increasing burden frommalnutrition and fromdiarrheal, infectious,and cardiovascular

• 20–30 percent ofplant and animalspecies assessed atincreased risk ofextinction• Loss of 20–80percent of Amazonrainforest and itsbiodiversity

•Widespread mor-tality of corals

• High risk of extinc-tion for the polarbear due to pro-jected loss of Arcticsea ice

• Risk of decline incrop yield globally

• Increasing damages


• Major losses of endemicplants and animals in SouthernAfrica, northeastern Australia

• Increasing damage to coralreefs

• Significant decreases in cropproduction of around 5 per-cent for wheat and maize inIndia and rice in China• Agriculture losses of up 20percent of GDP in low-lyingisland states• Recent review indicates thatincreases in productivity pro-jected in IPCC report forwarming of up to 2 degreesCelsius may not occur






System 1.5–2.0 Degrees Celsius 2.0–2.5 Degrees Celsius > 2.5 Degrees Celsius

Health,continued

Water

Sea level rise

Table 2–1. continued

diseases, with increased mortal-ity from heat waves, floods, anddroughts

• Many hundreds of millionsat risk of increased water stressin Africa, Asia, andLatin America

• Glacial area in the HimalayaandTibetan plateau regionscould be reduced by 80percent, adversely affectingbillions of people•Transition to a more arid climatein southwestern North America

• Greenland ice sheet risk ofirreversible meltdown for warm-ing of 1.9–4.6 degrees Celsius• New data from the last inter-glacial period, 125,000 years ago,indicates that average rates ofsea level rise in this period wererapid, around 1.6 meters percentury

• Accelerating ice loss fromtheWest Antarctic ice sheetindicates risk of significantsea level rise at low levels ofwarming

• Commitment to minimum sealevel rise of 0.3–1.2 metersover many centuries due tothermal expansion (0.2–0.6meters per degree Celsius ofglobal average warming)

• 2 billion at risk ofincreased water stressfor warming over2–2.5 degrees Celsius

• Loss of ice sheetwould raise sea levelby some 2–7 metersover centuries tomillennia

• Increasing likelihoodof partial or completeloss of theWestAntarctic ice sheet,raising sea level 1.5–5meters over severalcenturies to millennia

• New sea levelrise projections of0.5–1.4 metersabove 1990 levels

• Increasing number at risk ofwater stress

• Colorado River flowreduced to unprecedentedlevels that cannot be compen-sated by increased reservoircapacity or operating policiesfor water supplies

• Increasing risk of Greenlandmeltdown raising sea level;rapid sea level rise from this“cannot be excluded”

• Increasing risk

• New projections indicatelikely well above 0.5 metersof sea level rise by 2100• Commitment to minimumsea level rise over many cen-turies of 0.4–1.5 meters dueto thermal expansion irre-spective of loss of the icesheets and glaciers, whichwould only add to this risk


the climate system. It would seem safest andmost prudent to reduce emissions fast enoughin the coming decades so that global warm-ing can be stopped soon and as far below 2degrees Celsius as possible. The warmingwould then also need to be reduced as rapidlyas possible, aiming to get it below 1 degreeCelsius above preindustrial level—in otherwords, to at most about one fifth of a degreeCelsius from where it is today.

Emission PathwaysThat Could LimitWarming

to “Safe” Levels

Working out an emission path that wouldlimit warming to any particular level involvesaccounting for a wide range of uncertaintiesin the causal chain from emissions to con-centration to radiative forcing (the warmingeffect of changed concentrations in GHGsand aerosols, gaseous suspensions of fine solidor liquid particles that are associated withmost CO2 emissions, on the energy balanceof the lower atmosphere) to climate change.Major uncertainties include the sensitivity ofthe climate system to changes in GHG con-centration, the rate at which the ocean takesup heat from the atmosphere, the effects ofaerosols on radiative forcing, and the responseof the carbon cycle to changes in climate.26

In addition to scientific and technicaluncertainties, it is important to decide howmuch confidence there needs to be that awarming limit will be achieved—in otherwords, how certain to be that specific risks anddamages will be avoided or prevented. Theemission pathways that are consistent withlimiting warming to, say, 2 degrees Celsius orbelow with a 50 percent confidence are verydifferent, and higher, than those that woulddo so with 90 percent confidence. (See Box2–2 for how GHG concentration levels

change for different probabilities of limitingwarming to 2 degrees Celsius.) Before turn-ing to the specific question of “safe” levels ofemissions, this section reviews some of theimportant scientific aspects of generating anemission pathway.27

The important greenhouse gases havelong lifetimes in the atmosphere, with largefractions of emissions remaining there fordecades to centuries—and in some case, suchas CO2, for a thousand years or longer. Cut-ting emissions of these long-lived gases there-fore leads to only slow reductions in theirwarming effect. Aerosols from human activ-ities (principally sulfate compounds, organicand black carbon, nitrates, and dust) have anet cooling effect on the lower atmosphereand offset some of the warming effect of thelong-lived GHGs.28

Aerosols have short lifetimes in the air,on the order of days or weeks. Reducingaerosol emissions thus has a rapid effect ontemperatures since aerosol concentrationscan drop quickly. The effect is so large that ifall combustion and other activities that emitCO2 and lead to the production of aerosolswere cut to zero overnight, there would bea sharp warming spike before temperaturesbegan to decline. The rapid drop in the con-centration of aerosols would lead to a suddenloss of their cooling effect, which would occurfaster than the slow reduction in the warm-ing effect due to the much more slowlydeclining greenhouse gas concentrations. Inrealistic scenarios, when GHG emissions arereduced, air pollutants are also reduced. Thisleads to a more rapid reduction in aerosolconcentrations, including those related toblack carbon (suspended particles that absorbheat and contribute to warming), than in thegreenhouse gas concentrations. As a conse-quence, the drop in aerosol cooling leads toa delay in the reduction of warming thatwould otherwise occur.29







A further important property of the cli-mate system that has to be accounted for indevising a safe emission pathway is inertia.Although the atmosphere responds quicklyto changes in greenhouse gas forcing, a sub-stantial component of the overall response islinked to the very long time scales of hun-dreds to thousands of years that the oceantakes to respond fully to the same climateforcing changes. Once GHG concentrationsare stabilized, global mean temperature

would very likely also begin to stabilize afterseveral decades, though a further slightincrease is likely to occur over several cen-turies. For sea level rise the inertia is evenlarger, as thermal expansion of the oceancontinues for many centuries after GHGconcentrations have stabilized due the ongo-ing heat uptake by oceans.30

The response of the carbon cycle to addi-tions of fossil CO2 is also very long. Of 1,000tons of fossil CO2 emitted now, after one cen-

Converting greenhouse gas concentrations totemperature cannot be done with certainty, asscientific knowledge of the sensitivity of the cli-mate system is uncertain. Climate sensitivity isdefined as the global mean temperature increasethat would result in the long term after adoubling of CO2 concentration above the prein-dustrial level of about 278 ppm.This temperaturewould be reached after a few hundred years,when the climate system comes into balancewith the increased greenhouse gas concentra-tion. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report foundthat this was higher than previously estimated.It increased the “best” estimate from 2.5 to 3degrees Celsius and the lower bound estimatefrom 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, and it kept theupper bound of 4.5 degrees Celsius unchangedfrom earlier assessments.There is some possibil-ity that the climate sensitivity could be higherthan 4.5 degrees.

Climate sensitivity is a vital number: if it werelow (1 degree Celsius), then CO2 levels couldperhaps be doubled to around a concentration of550 ppm CO2 without causing large risks to manysystems. If it were high (4.5 degrees), a doublingof CO2 concentration could lead to a potentiallycatastrophic level of warming.

For stabilization of greenhouse gas concen-trations at 550 ppm CO2, the best estimate ofthe warming at equilibrium would be 3 degreesCelsius.The uncertainty in scientists’ knowledgeof climate sensitivity means that there is a chancethe warming would be lower or higher than this.

Taking into account this uncertainty, there isabout a 75 percent risk that stabilizing green-house gas concentrations at 550 ppm would leadto warming exceeding 2 degrees Celsius.

Stabilizing at a lower level, 475 ppm CO2eq,would reduce the risk to about 50 percent: inother words, there would be about an evenchance that warming would stabilize at 2 degrees.Risks of dangerous changes to the climate systemat this level could not be avoided with any confi-dence. Finally, for a concentration pathway thatpeaks at 475 ppm CO2eq and then drops to stabi-lize at 400 ppm CO2eq, there would be about a20 percent chance of exceeding 2 degrees Cel-sius. If concentrations were reduced further, therisk of exceeding 2 degrees would be lower still.

In 2005, atmospheric CO2 concentrationswere 379 ppm, and they are now over 382 ppm.The IPCC best estimate of the total CO2-equiva-lent concentration in 2005 for all long-livedGHGs was about 455 ppm—and at the end of2007 it was 460 ppm. For 2005, the most recentyear for which comprehensive figures are avail-able, the “net” forcing, after taking into accountaerosols and other human-induced climate forc-ing agents, was around 375 ppm CO2eq, or aboutthe same as the CO2 concentration.Aerosolsare short-lived; hence reductions of these leadto rapid reductions in the net cooling effect,whereas reductions in long-lived GHGs produceonly a slow reduction in the warming effect.


Box 2–2.Greenhouse Gas Concentrations and GlobalWarming




uncertainties in the response to a given emis-sions path.32

The greenhouse gases covered in theUNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, as well asthe ozone-depleting substances (also green-house gases) covered in the Montreal Proto-col, need to be accounted for in devisingemission pathways. The phaseout of theselatter gases also has a positive benefit for theclimate. Emissions of air pollutants affectaerosol concentrations, including black car-bon, and also affect concentrations of tro-pospheric ozone, a short-lived GHG. Allthese key climate forcings are included inMAGICC 6.0.33

Emission pathways are usually expressed interms of CO2-equivalent emissions, wherethe effects of non-CO2 gases—methane,nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluo-rocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride—are com-pared using global warming potentialscalculated over a 100-year time frame, as inthe UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol. This con-vention is followed here.

Limiting the peak warming to less than 2degrees Celsius will not be easy, and gettingit back below 1 degree Celsius will be evenharder, requiring a multicentury commit-ment to action. The inertia in the response ofthe climate system to rapid reductions inGHGs and aerosols means that even stringentshort-term reductions in greenhouse gasemissions will not ensure that peak warmingstays below about 1.6–1.8 degrees Celsius.Reducing emissions fast enough to actuallylower the level of warming ultimately will beas difficult as it is essential.34

The goal of the pathway in this chapter isto show what might be a safe emission sce-nario without requiring a full demonstra-tion of technical feasibility. It could be arguedthat the “safest” pathway is one that imme-diately cuts emissions to very low levels. Butsince that lacks technical and economic fea-

tury less than 500 tons would remain in theatmosphere. The rate of uptake of fossil CO2emissions by the world’s oceans slows rapidlyafter a century or so; 1,000 years from now,170–330 tons would remain in the atmos-phere—and even after 10,000 years some100–150 tons would remain. As David Archer,a geologist from the University of Chicagoputs it, the lifetime of a fossil CO2 emission inthe atmosphere might best be described as“300 years, plus 25% that lasts forever.”31

All these climate system processes andfactors need to be brought within an inte-grated system model that accounts for theinteractions between emissions of green-house gases and aerosol pollutants and theresponses and interactions among the dif-ferent components of the climate system.For the analysis here, a new version of thesimple climate-carbon cycle model MAG-ICC has been used to comprehensively cap-ture current scientific knowledge anduncertainties in the response of the climatesystem. MAGICC 6.0 has been calibratedagainst, and can emulate, the higher com-plexity Atmospheric Ocean General Circu-lation models and carbon cycle modelsreviewed in the latest IPCC assessment. Andit includes enhanced representations ofaerosol forcing, carbon cycle feedbacks,ocean heat uptake, and climate sensitivitybehavior over time. Reduced complexitymodels such as MAGICC are used as it is notpractical to run many different emissionsscenarios through a full climate systemmodel. And further, as no specific model isa perfect representation of the climate system,doing so would not describe the scientific

Limiting the peak warming to lessthan 1 degree Celsius will require amulticentury commitment to action.




out this key component, CO2 concentra-tions would drop only slowly, and warmingwould likely remain well above 1.5 degreesCelsius for many centuries.37

The possible need to stabilize CO2 at lowconcentration levels to avoid dangerous cli-mate changes has been recognized for a longtime, as has the need for negative CO2 emis-sions if low CO2 stabilization levels are to bereached. But evaluation of the implications ofthe technologies required to achieve this isonly just beginning. In the low stabilizationstudies, models rely on the capture of CO2from biomass-fired power plants to essen-tially draw CO2 out of the air so it can bestored underground in stable geological reser-voirs (referred to often as biomass energywith carbon capture and storage, or BECS,technology). Biofuel plantations grow plantsthat take up CO2 from the air as they grow,and if much of this is captured when theplants are burned, the process effectivelypumps CO2 out of the air. The environmen-tal and sustainability consequences of such astrategy have yet to be fully evaluated. Air cap-ture technology—taking CO2 out of the airand storing it underground—has also beenproposed as a feasible technology.38

While reducing emissions from deforesta-tion is important, the scale of potential uptakeof carbon in forests and agricultural soils isunlikely to be sufficient to draw atmosphericCO2 concentrations down significantly.Recent results using the LPJ (Lund-Pots-dam-Jena) land biosphere model—with sce-narios of population increase, deforestation,land use change, and agriculture from theDutch IMAGE 2.2 integrated assessmentmodel—indicate that under high environ-mental sustainability assumptions (taking intoaccount the effects of increased CO2 and cli-matic changes) the net uptake of carbon overthe twenty-first century would not increasethe additional carbon stored in terrestrial

sibility, such a pathway has little meaning.The jet plane metaphor is again helpful.Faced with a dire in-flight emergency, itwould be safest to be on the ground imme-diately. In the real world, however, it takestime to prepare the aircraft, get into a safeconfiguration for descent and landing, andfind a safe runway to land on. Otherwisethe outcome would be an unmitigated dis-aster—the plane would crash.

The approach taken here is to constructa pathway whose achievement in practice isplausible technically. It goes beyond thetechnically and economically feasible path-ways published elsewhere so far. No pathwaypublished to date brings warming below 1degree Celsius. A few pathways could getwarming below 1.5 degrees Celsius by thetwenty-third century if the negative CO2emissions at the end of the twenty-first cen-tury in these scenarios were sustained for atleast 100 years.35

Recent research has demonstrated that itis technically and economically feasible toreduce CO2 emissions fast enough so thatGHG concentrations can be limited to around400 ppm CO2eq, or to lower in the longerterm. Under these scenarios it is likely thatpeak warming would occur close to, if notbelow, 2 degrees Celsius. And in some casestemperatures might slowly decline beyondthe twenty-first century. All these scenariosrequire rapid fossil fuel CO2 emission reduc-tions, approaching zero emissions between2050 and 2100, along with rapid reductionsin deforestation.36

One very important finding is that inorder to reach low stabilization levels ofGHG concentrations, nearly all these sce-narios require negative CO2 emissions bythe last quarter of the twenty-first century atthe latest. Without this it is impossible todraw down atmospheric CO2 concentrations,owing to the long lifetime of this gas. With-

ecosystems due to hu-man activities enoughto outweigh the needfor negative emis-sions from the energysector.39

Recent scenariosthat keep warmingbelow 2 degrees Cel-sius and get to concen-trations of around 400ppm CO2eq or lowerreduce CO2 emissions60–70 percent below1990 levels and cuttotal GHGs around40–60 percent by2050. And they havenegative CO2 emissionsin the range of 1 billonto 8 billion tons of car-bon per year in 2100. All would requireBECS.40

The emission pathway required to limitwarming to below 2 degrees Celsius withhigher confidence and at the same timereduce warming rapidly to below 1 degreeCelsius (see Figure 2–1) would require amore rapid reduction in emissions by 2050than in the most recent scenarios, which havealready been at the limits of what modelsindicate is feasible based on present techno-logical assessments. Plausible additional mea-sures to achieve this include a more rapidreduction in fossil fuel emissions.

Getting fossil CO2 emissions down to closeto zero in 2050—which would be 25 yearsearlier than in most low-stabilization scenar-ios—would require an earlier and more mas-sive global deployment of renewable energysystems, accelerated energy efficiency mea-sures, and a limit to the lifetime of coal powerplants. (See Chapter 4.) Deploying as-yet-unproven carbon capture and storage (CCS)

technology after the mid-2020s may alsohelp. However, the expected large life-cycleenergy and emissions costs of CCS technol-ogy indicate that it cannot be relied on toreduce fossil CO2 emission to zero. The fasterthat renewable energy systems can be scaledup and deployed, the less will be needed ofCCS coal and gas power plants.41

In addition to action on fossil fuels, defor-estation would need to be halted well before2030, and there would need to be large-scale efforts to store carbon in soils throughprogress toward sustainable agriculture andregrowing forests. (See Chapter 3.) Thereductions assumed here for emissions ofmethane and nitrous oxide, two powerfulgreenhouse gases, from agriculture andindustry are not taken significantly furtherthan can be found in the literature for lowscenarios. And the emission pathway is rela-tively insensitive to the phaseout schedules foremissions of ozone-depleting substances,hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorcarbons, and




1850 1900 1950 2000 2050 2100

Billi

onT

ons

ofC

arbo

npe

rY

ear

SRES A1FI

Below 1°CScenario

Source: Potsdam Inst.

Figure 2–1. CO2 Emissions from Fossil Fuelsthrough 2100, IPCC SRES (High) Scenarioand the Below 1 Degree Celsius Scenario

-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

sulfur hexafluoride.42

The resulting path-way has Kyoto GHGreductions of around85 percent from 1990levels by 2050 afterpeaking before 2020.(See Figure 2–2.) GHGatmospheric concen-trations drop belowtoday’s levels by themid twenty-secondcentury and toward thepreindustrial level bythe twenty-fourth cen-tury. After the 2050sthis pathway also wouldrequire the capturefrom the atmosphereand permanent storageof initially around 2.5billion tons of carbon ayear (about 9 billiontons of CO2 per year)for more than 200years in order to drawtotal GHG concentra-tions down to below300 ppm CO2eq. Globaltemperatures shouldpeak below 2 degreesCelsius around mid-century and begina slow decline, drop-ping to present levelsby the last half of thetwenty-third centuryand to 1990s levels bythe end of the twenty-fourth century. (SeeFigure 2–3.) In Fig-ures 2–2 and 2–3,there are bands of pro-jected levels due to




1850 1900 1950 2000 2050 2100

Part

spe

rM

illio

n SRES A1FI

Below 1°CScenario


Figure 2–2. Greenhouse Gas AtmosphericConcentration through 2100, IPCC SRES (High)

Scenario and the Below 1 Degree Celsius Scenario

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Note: The darker parts show the higher confidence range of changes for theemission pathway shown.

1850 1900 1950 2000 2050 2100

Deg

rees

Cel

sius

Rel

ativ

eto

Prei

ndus

tria

lLev

el

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Figure 2–3. Global Mean SurfaceTemperature through2100, with Uncertainty, IPCC SRES (High) Scenario

and the Below 1 Degree Celsius Scenario

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Note: The darker parts show the higher confidence range of changes for theemission pathway shown.

uncertainties in the science.The amount of carbon that would need to

be captured and stored to achieve all thiswould be on the same order as that emittedsince the nineteenth century. As the amountof additional carbon that can be taken upand stored by the terrestrial biosphere due tohuman activities is limited—assumed here tobe about 0.5 billion tons a year during muchof the latter part of the twenty-first centuryand dropping to zero by 2200—the extrac-tion of CO2 from the atmosphere would haveto be largely done using technologies similarto those just mentioned.

Just as the effects of climate change poseenormous long-term problems, a safe reso-lution of the problem will require a commit-ment to action that spans centuries. Returningto warming levels significantly below 2degrees Celsius implies the need for largelong-term extraction of CO2 from the airand the storage of the captured carbon insecure underground reservoirs, which willneed to be watched and managed over manycenturies, perhaps millennia. Extracting CO2from the air appears to be a necessity thatmust be confronted within the next 50 years.

From any perspective the consequences offollowing an emissions pathway that keeps thetemperature increase below 1 degree Cel-sius are quite radical and may be seen astechnologically, economically, and politicallyclose to impossible. But this needs to placedagainst the also quite radical risks that globalwarming poses if emissions are not reducedto low levels.43

As difficult as this emissions pathwayseems, it is important to note that the low-emissions scenarios reviewed by the IPCC(all consistent with limiting warming to about2 degrees Celsius) start out much like thisone. In the lowest scenarios, global emis-sions need to peak before 2020. After that itmay not be possible for technologies to be

introduced fast enough to lower emissions atthe rate required to keep warming below 2degrees Celsius. Delay in acting entails fasterrates of emissions reduction and significantlyincreased costs to reach the goal. And itmight totally foreclose the ability to reduceGHG concentrations to low levels once soci-eties are locked into emission-intensive energysources and other infrastructure as well asdevelopment pathways that are carbon-inten-sive. Delay obviously also increases the risk ofmore-severe climate change impacts.44

Once a global emission pathway is defined,the next key question is, How much GHGcan countries emit and still be consistent withglobal emissions limits? There are many pos-sible ways to allocate emissions to countriesto meet global limits, and review of these isbeyond the scope of this chapter. Neverthe-less it is useful here to point out the broadimplications of the 2 degrees Celsius emissionspathway for different groups of countries inthe next decade and beyond.45

An indication of the required reductionscan be seen from the IPCC Fourth Assess-ment Report, where the reductions for dif-ferent regions from a range of models arereviewed for different GHG stabilization sce-narios. The lowest scenario was for stabiliza-tion at 450 ppm CO2eq, far higher than theCO2eq stabilization levels that would providea higher probability of keeping warmingbelow 2 degrees Celsius. Industrial-countryGHG reductions in 2020 were generallyrequired to be 25–40 percent below 1990 lev-els. By 2050, reductions for these countrieswould need to be 80–95 percent below 1990levels. (The reductions refer to emissionallowances and hence do not necessarily indi-cate the physical emissions levels of the coun-tries in 2020 or 2050.) The exact reductionfor each industrial country depends on theemission allocation system, individual cir-cumstances, and other assumptions in the




different models assessed.46

For developing countries, by 2020 therewould need to be a substantial reduction inthe growth of emissions in Latin America, theMiddle East, and East Asia (China and oth-ers), but not in South Asia (including India)or Africa. By then the wealthier developingcountries would need to reduce significantlythe growth in emissions from their business-as-usual emissions. By the 2050s, all theseregions would have to substantially reducethe growth in emissions. For the few sce-narios available that stabilize GHG concen-trations at 400 ppm CO2eq, which wouldprovide around a 75 percent chance of lim-iting warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, theemissions reductions in 2020 and 2050 arequite similar to but a little lower than in thehigher scenarios.

Critical Priorities for theNext 10Years

Halting the increase in global warming at farbelow 2 degrees Celsius is possible, and low-ering global warming as rapidly as possible tobelow an increase of 1 degree Celsius appearscritical if there is to be a high probability ofpreventing dangerous climate change. The

emissions reduction actions required toachieve this are massive and appear to be atthe outer edge of what is technically and eco-nomically feasible. Scenarios that can startto get within reach of these temperature goalsrequire GHG emissions to peak before 2020and then to drop toward 85 percent below1990 levels by 2050, with further reductionsbeyond this time.

To return to the metaphor of the heavy jetaircraft facing an emergency, wherever theaircraft is going to land it needs to startpreparing a long way out. Altitude needs tobe lost without excessive speed buildup, fuelneeds to be dumped and systems checkedand prepared for a landing, and all this mustbe done quickly and expeditiously. As for cli-mate policy, the vital preparation for a safelanding—whether the final safe landing placeis a 2 degrees Celsius runway or a below 1degree Celsius runway—is to halt the rise inglobal emissions by 2020 and to start to putin place the policies that can lower emissions.For policymakers, these are the decisions thatmust urgently be made at the end of 2009when governments gather in Copenhagenfor the next Conference of the Parties to theclimate change convention.




For more than a decade, thousands of low-income farmers in northern Mindanao, thePhilippines, who grow crops on steep, defor-ested slopes, have joined landcare groups toboost food production and incomes whilereducing soil erosion, improving soil fertility,and protecting local watersheds. They leftstrips of natural vegetation to terrace theirslopes, enriched their soils, and planted fruitand timber trees for income. And their com-munities began conserving the remainingforests in the area, home to a rich but threat-ened biodiversity. Yet these farmers achievedeven more—their actions not only enrichedtheir landscapes and enhanced food security,they also helped to “cool” the planet by cut-ting greenhouse gas emissions and storingcarbon in soils and vegetation. If their actionscould be repeated by millions of rural com-munities around the world, climate changewould slow down.1

Indeed, climate change and global food

security are inextricably linked. This was madeabundantly clear in 2008, as rioters fromHaiti to Cameroon protested the global “foodcrisis.” The crisis partly reflected structuralincreases in food demand from growing andmore-affluent populations in developingcountries and short-term market failures, butit was also in part a reaction to increasedenergy costs, new biofuel markets created bylegislation promoting alternative energy, andclimate-induced regional crop losses. More-over, food and fiber production are leadingsources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emis-sions—they have a much larger “climate foot-print” than the transportation sector, forexample. Degradation and loss of forests andother vegetative cover puts the carbon cyclefurther off balance. Ironically, the land usesand management systems that are accelerat-ing GHG emissions are also underminingthe ecosystem services upon which long-termfood and fiber production depend—healthy

C H A P T E R 3

Sara J. Scherr and Sajal Sthapit

Farming and Land Useto Cool the Planet

Sara J. Scherr is President and CEO of Ecoagriculture Partners (EP) in Washington, DC. Sajal Sthapitis a Program Associate at EP.


watersheds, pollination, and soil fertility.2This chapter explains why actions on cli-

mate change must include agriculture andland systems and highlights some promisingways to “cool the planet” via land usechanges. Indeed, there are huge opportuni-ties to shift food and forestry production sys-tems as well as conservation area managementto mitigate climate change in ways that alsoincrease sustainability, improve rural incomes,and ease adaptation to a warming world.

The Need for Climate Actionon Agriculture and Land Use

Land is one fourth of Earth’s surface and itholds three times as much carbon as theatmosphere does. About 1,600 billion tons ofthis carbon is in the soil as organic matter andsome 540–610 billion tons is in living vege-tation. Although the volume of carbon onEarth’s surface and in the atmosphere palesin comparison to the many trillions of tonsstored deep under the surface as sediments,sedimentary rocks, and fossil fuels, surfacecarbon is crucial to climate change and lifedue to its inherent mobility.3

Surface carbon moves from the atmos-phere to the land and back, and in thisprocess it drives the engine of life on theplanet. Plants use carbon dioxide (CO2) fromthe atmosphere to grow and produce foodand resources that sustain the rest of thebiota. When these organisms breathe, grow,die, and eventually decompose, carbon isreleased to the atmosphere and the soil. Car-bon from this past life provides the fuel fornew life. Indeed, life depends on this har-monized movement of carbon from one sinkto another. Large-scale disruption or changeson land drastically alter the harmonious move-ment of carbon.

Land use changes and fossil fuel burningare the two major sources of the increased

CO2 in the atmosphere that is changing theglobal climate. (See Box 3–1.) Burning fos-sil fuel releases carbon that has been buriedfor millions of years, while deforestation,intensive tillage, and overgrazing release car-bon from living or recently living plants andsoil organic matter. Some land use changesaffect climate by altering regional precipita-tion patterns, as is occurring now in the Ama-zon and Volta basins. Overall, land use andland use changes account for around 31 per-cent of total human-induced greenhouse gasemissions into the atmosphere. Yet othertypes of land use can play the opposite role.Growing plants can remove huge amounts ofcarbon from the atmosphere and store it invegetation and soils in ways that not onlystabilize the climate but also benefit foodand fiber production and the environment. Soit is imperative that any climate change mit-igation strategy address this sector.4

Extensive action to influence land use isalso going to be essential to sustain foodand forest production in the face of climatechange. Agricultural systems have developedduring a time of relatively predictable localweather patterns. The choice of crops andvarieties, the timing of input application,vulnerability to pests and diseases, the tim-ing of management practices—all these areclosely linked to temperature and rainfall.With climate changing, production condi-tions will change—and quite radically insome places—which will lead to major shiftsin farming systems.

Climate scenarios for 2020 predict that inMexico, for example, 300,000 hectares willbecome unsuitable for maize production,leading to estimated yearly losses of $140million and immense socioeconomic disrup-tion. And in North America, the areas with theoptimum temperature for producing syrupfrom maple trees are shifting northward, leav-ing farmers in the state of Vermont at risk of


Farming and Land Use to Cool the Planet


yearly. Once it disappears, the Ganges willbecome a seasonal river, depriving 40 per-cent of India’s irrigated cropland and some400 million people of water. The frequency,intensity, and duration of rainfall are also likely

losing not only their signature product butgenerations of culture and knowledge.5

The Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas,which provides up to 70 percent of the waterin the Ganges River, is retreating 35 meters

Land Use Annual Emissions Greenhouse Gas Emitted

(million tons CO2 equivalent)

Agriculture 6,500

Soil fertilization (inorganic fertilizers andapplied manure) 2,100 Nitrous oxide*

Gases from food digestion in cattle (entericfermentation in rumens) 1,800 Methane*

Biomass burning 700 Methane, nitrous oxide*

Paddy (flooded) rice production (anaerobicdecomposition) 600 Methane*

Livestock manure 400 Methane, nitrous oxide*

Other (e.g., delivery of irrigation water) 900 Carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide*

Deforestation (including peat) 8,500

For agriculture or livestock 5,900 Carbon dioxide

Total 15,000

* The greenhouse gas impact of 1 unit of nitrous oxide is equivalent to 298 units of carbon dioxide; 1 unit ofmethane is equivalent to 25 units of carbon dioxide.


Carbon dioxide (77 percent), nitrous oxide (8percent), and methane (14 percent) are the threemain greenhouse gases that trap infrared radia-tion and contribute to climate change. Land usechanges contribute to the release of all three ofthese greenhouse gases. (SeeTable.) Of the totalannual human-induced GHG emissions in 2004of 49 billion tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent,roughly 31 percent—15 billion tons—was fromland use. By comparison, fossil fuel burningaccounts for 27.7 billion tons of CO2-equivalentemissions annually.

Deforestation and devegetation release car-bon in two ways. First the decay of the plant mat-ter itself releases carbon dioxide. Second, soilexposed to the elements is more prone to ero-

sion. Subsequent land uses like agriculture andgrazing exacerbate soil erosion and exposure.The atmosphere oxidizes the soil carbon, releas-ing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.Application of nitrogenous fertilizers leads tosoils releasing nitrous oxide. Methane is releasedfrom the rumens of livestock like cattle, goats,and sheep when they eat and from manure andwater-logged rice plantations.

Naturally occurring forest and grass firesalso contribute significantly to GHG emissions.In the El Niño year of 1997–98, fires accountedfor 2.1 billion tons of carbon emissions . Due tothe unpredictability of these events, annual emis-sions from this source vary from year to year.

Box 3–1.Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Land Use







ply chains, could have significant success inslowing climate change.

Making Agriculture andLand Use Climate-friendly

and Climate-resilient

An agricultural landscape should simultane-ously provide food and fiber, meet the needsof nature and biodiversity, and support viablelivelihoods for people who live there. In termsof climate change, landscape and farmingsystems should actively absorb and store car-bon in vegetation and soils, reduce emissionsof methane from rice production, livestock,and burning, and reduce nitrous oxide emis-sions from inorganic fertilizers. At the sametime, it is important to increase the resilienceof production systems and ecosystem ser-vices to climate change.8

Many techniques are already available toachieve climate-friendly landscapes. None isa “silver bullet,” but in combinations thatmake sense locally they can help the worldmove decisively forward. This chapterdescribes five strategies that are especiallypromising: enriching soil carbon, creatinghigh-carbon cropping systems, promotingclimate-friendly livestock production sys-tems, protecting existing carbon stores innatural forests and grasslands, and restoringvegetation in degraded areas. (See Figure3–1.) Many other improvements will alsobe needed for production systems to adapt toclimate change while meeting growing foodneeds and commercial demands, such asadapted seed varieties. But these five strate-gies are highlighted because of their power-ful advantage in mitigating climate change aswell as contributing broadly to more-sus-tainable production systems and other ecosys-tem services.9

Moreover, these strategies can help mobi-

to change, increasing production risks, espe-cially in semiarid and arid rainfed productionareas. Monsoons will be heavier, more variable,and with greater risk of flooding. An increasedincidence of drought threatens nearly 2 billionpeople who rely on livestock grazing for partof their livelihoods, particularly the 200 mil-lion who are completely dependent on pastoralsystems. The incidence and intensity of nat-ural fires is predicted to increase. 6

The poorest farmers who have little insur-ance against these calamities often live andfarm in areas prone to natural disasters. More-frequent extreme events will create both ahumanitarian and a food crisis.

On the other hand, climatic conditionsmay improve in some places. In the high-lands of East Africa, for example, rains maybecome more reliable and growing seasons forsome crops may expand. The growing seasonin northern latitudes in Canada and Russiawill extend as temperatures rise. Even in thesesituations, however, there will be high costsfor adapting to new conditions, includingfinding crop varieties and management thatare adapted to new climate regimes at this lat-itude. The impacts on pest and diseaseregimes are largely unknown and could off-set any benefits. For instance, the Easternspruce budworm is a serious pest defoliatingNorth American forests. Changing climate isshifting the geographic range of the warblersthat feed on the budworms, increasing theodds for budworm outbreak.7

Many of the key strategies described inthis chapter for agricultural, forest, and otherland use systems to mitigate climate change—that is, to reduce GHG emissions or increasethe storage of carbon in production and nat-ural systems—also will help rural communi-ties adapt to that change. Mobilizing actionfor adaptation in these directions rather thanrelying only on other types of interventions,such as seed varieties or shifts in market sup-

more time-consuming or costly yet offer noparticular benefits to farmers or land man-agers, and invest in the development of tech-nologies and management systems that areespecially promising but not yet ready forwidespread use.

Enriching Soil CarbonSoil has four components: minerals, water, air,and organic materials—both nonliving andliving. The former comes from dead plant,animal, and microbial matter while the livingorganic material is from flora and fauna of thesoil biota, including living roots and microbes.Together, living and nonliving organic mate-rials account for only 1–6 percent of the soil’svolume, but they contribute much more to its

lize a broad political coalition to support cli-mate action by meeting the urgent needs offarmers, grazers and rural communities, thefood industry, urban water users, resource-dependent industries, and conservation orga-nizations. They can help meet not onlyclimate goals but also internationally agreedMillennium Development Goals and otherglobal environmental conventions.

Many of these approaches will be eco-nomically self-sustaining once initial invest-ments are made. It is important to implementthis agenda on a large scale in order to havesignificant impacts on the climate. Key rolesthat governments need to play are to mobi-lize the financing and social organizationneeded for these initial investments, developadditional incentives for activities that are

Degraded soils are revegetated,producing biochar; fertile soilsremain productive using organicmethods and reducing tillage.

Retaining forests and grasslandsmaintains carbon sinks whileprotecting watersheds.

Perennials, tree crops, andother agroforestry methodsretain greater biomass inthe cropping system.

Rotational grazing minimizeslivestock impacts; biogasdigesters turn waste intoenergy and organic fertilizer.

Figure 3–1.Multiple Strategies to Productively Absorb and Store Carbonin Agricultural Landscapes







increased soil carbon by 15–28 percent andnitrogen content by 8–15 percent. Theresearchers concluded that if the 65 millionhectares of corn and soybean grown in theUnited States were switched to organic farm-ing, a quarter of a billion tons of carbondioxide could be sequestered.13

The economics and productivity implica-tions of these methods vary widely. In somevery intensive, high-yield cropping systems,replacing some or all inorganic fertilizer mayrequire methods that use more labor orrequire costlier inputs, but there is commonlyscope for much more efficient use of fertilizerthrough better targeting and timing. In mod-erately intensive systems, the use of organicnutrient sources with small amounts of sup-plemental inorganic fertilizer can be quitecompetitive and attractive to farmers seekingto reduce cash costs.14

Improvements in organic technologiesover the past few decades have led to com-parable levels of productivity across a widerange of crops and farming systems. Thequestion of whether organic farming can feedthe world, as some claim, remains contro-versial. And more research is needed to under-stand the potentials and limitations ofbiologically based soil nutrient managementsystems across the range of soil types and cli-matic conditions. But there is little questionthat farmers in many production systems canalready profitably maintain yields while usingmuch less nitrogen fertilizer—and with majorclimate benefits.

Minimize soil tillage. Soil used to growcrops is commonly tilled to improve the con-ditions of the seed bed and to uproot weeds.But tilling turns the soil upside down, expos-ing anaerobic microbes to oxygen and suf-focating aerobic microbes by working themunder. This disturbance exposes nonlivingorganic matter to oxygen, releasing carbondioxide. Keeping crop residues or mulch on

productivity. The organic materials retain airand water in the soil and provide nutrientsthat the plants and the soil fauna depend onfor life. They are also reservoirs of carbon inthe soil.10

In fact, soil is the third largest carbon poolon the planet. In the long term, agriculturalpractices that amend soil carbon from year toyear through organic matter managementrather than depleting it will provide produc-tive soils that are rich in carbon and requirefewer chemical inputs. New mapping tools,such as the 2008 Global Carbon Gap Mapproduced by the Food and Agriculture Orga-nization, can identify areas where soil car-bon storage is greatest and areas with thephysical potential for billions of tons of addi-tional carbon to be stored in degraded soils.11

Enhance soil nutrients through organicmethods. Current use of inorganic fertilizersis estimated at 102 million tons worldwide,with use concentrated in industrial countriesand in irrigated regions of developing nations.Soils with nitrogen fertilizers release nitrousoxide, a greenhouse gas that has about 300times the warming capacity of carbon diox-ide. Fertilized soils release more than 2 billiontons (in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent)of greenhouse gases every year. One promis-ing strategy to reduce emissions is to adoptsoil fertility management practices thatincrease soil organic matter and siphon car-bon from the atmosphere.12

Numerous technologies can be used tosubstitute or minimize the need for inor-ganic fertilizers. Examples include compost-ing, green manures, nitrogen-fixing covercrops and intercrops, and livestock manures.Even improved fertilizer application methodscan reduce emissions. In one example oforganic farming, a 23-year experiment by theRodale Institute compared organic and con-ventional cropping systems in the UnitedStates and found that organic farming




option to buy time while alternative energysystems develop.17

Incorporate biochar. Decomposition ofplant matter is one way of enriching soil car-bon if it takes place securely within the soil;decomposition on the surface, on the otherhand, releases carbon into the atmosphere ascarbon dioxide. In the humid tropics, forexample, organic matter breaks down rapidly,reducing the carbon storage benefits oforganic systems. Another option, recentlydiscovered, is to incorporate biochar—burned biomass in a low-oxygen environ-ment. This keeps carbon in soil longer andreleases the nutrients slowly over a longperiod of time. While the burning doesrelease some carbon dioxide, the remainingcarbon-rich dark aromatic matter is highlystable in soil. Hence planting fast-growingtrees in previously barren or degraded areas,converting them to biochar, and adding themto soil is a quick way of taking carbon fromthe atmosphere and turning it into an organicslow-release fertilizer that benefits both theplant and the soil fauna.

Interestingly, between 500 and 2,500 yearsago Amerindian populations added incom-pletely burnt biomass to the soil. Today, Ama-zonian Dark Earths still retain high amountsof organic carbon and fertility in stark contrastto the low fertility of adjacent soils. There isa global production potential of 594 milliontons of carbon dioxide equivalent in biocharper year, simply by using waste materials suchas forest and milling residues, rice husks,groundnut shells, and urban waste. Far morecould be generated by planting and convert-ing trees. Initial analyses suggest that it couldbe quite economical to plant vegetation forbiochar on idle and degraded lands, thoughnot on more highly productive lands.18

Most crops respond with improved yieldsfor biochar additions of up to 183 tons of car-bon dioxide equivalent and can tolerate more

the surface helps soil retain moisture, preventserosion, and returns carbon to the soilthrough decomposition. Hence practices thatreduce tillage also generally reduce carbonemissions.15

A variety of conservation tillage practicesaccomplish this goal. In nonmechanized sys-tems, farmers might use digging sticks toplant seeds and can manage weeds throughmulch and hand-weeding. Special mecha-nized systems have been developed that drillthe seed through the vegetative layer and useherbicides to manage weeds. Many farmerscombine no-till with crop rotations and greenmanure crops. In Paraná, Brazil, farmers havedeveloped organic management systems com-bined with no-till. No-till plots yielded a thirdmore wheat and soybean than conventionallyploughed plots and reduced soil erosion by upto 90 percent. No-till has the additional ben-efit of reducing labor and fossil fuel use andenhancing soil biodiversity—all while cyclingnutrients and storing carbon.16

Worldwide, approximately 95 millionhectares of cropland are under no-till man-agement—a figure that is growing rapidly,particularly as rising fossil fuel prices increasethe cost of tillage. The actual net impacts ongreenhouse gases of reduced emissions andincreased carbon storage from reduced tillagedepend significantly on associated practices,such as the level of vegetative soil cover andthe impact of tillage on crop root develop-ment, which depends on the specific cropand soil type. It is projected that the carbonstorage benefits of no-till may plateau over thenext 50 years, but this can be a cost-effective

In Paraná, Brazil, no-till plots yielded athird more wheat and soybean thanconventionally ploughed plots andreduced soil erosion by up to 90 percent.




But achieving a high-carbon cropping sys-tem, as well as the year-round vegetativecover required to sustain soils, watersheds,and habitats, will require diversification andthe incorporation of a far greater share ofperennial plants.21

Perennial grains. Currently two thirdsof all arable land is used to grow annualgrains. This production depends on tilling,preparing seed beds, and applying chemicalinputs. Every year the process starts overagain from scratch. This makes productionmore dependent on chemical inputs, whichalso require a lot of fossil fuels to produce.Furthermore, excessive application of nitro-gen fertilizer is a major source of nitrousoxide emissions, as noted earlier.22

In contrast, perennial grasses retain astrong root network between growing sea-sons. Hence, a good amount of the living bio-mass remains in the soil instead of beingreleased as greenhouse gases. And they helphold soil organic matter and water together,reducing soil erosion and GHG emissions.Finally, the perennial nature of these grassesdoes away with the need for annual tilling thatreleases GHGs and causes soil erosion, and italso makes the grasses more conservative inthe use of nutrients. In one U.S. case, forexample, harvested native hay meadowsretained 179 tons of carbon and 12.5 tons ofnitrogen in a hectare of soil, while annualwheat fields only retained 127 tons of carbonand 9.6 tons of nitrogen. This was despite thefact that the annual wheat fields had received70 kilograms of nitrogen fertilizer per hectareannually for years.23

Researchers have already developed peren-nial relatives of cereals (rice, sorghum, andwheat), forages (intermediate wheatgrass,rye), and oilseeds (sunflower). In Washing-ton state, some wheat varieties that havealready been bred yield over 70 percent asmuch as commercial wheat. Domestication

without declining productivity. Advocatescalculate that if biochar additions were appliedat this rate on just 10 percent of the world’scropland (about 150 million hectares), thismethod could store 29 billion tons of CO2-equivalent, offsetting nearly all the emissionsfrom fossil fuel burning.19

Creating High-carbonCropping Systems

Plants harness the energy of the sun andaccumulate carbon from the atmosphere toproduce biomass on which the rest of thebiota depend. The great innovation of agri-culture 10,000 years ago was to manage thephotosynthesis of plants and ecosystems so asto dependably increase yields. With 5 billionhectares of Earth’s surface used for agricul-ture (69 percent under pasture and 28 per-cent in crops) in 2002, and with half a billionmore hectares expected by 2020, agriculturalproduction systems and landscapes have tonot only deliver food and fiber but also sup-port biodiversity and important ecosystemservices, including climate change mitiga-tion. A major strategy for achieving this is toincrease the role of perennial crops, shrubs,trees, and palms, so that carbon is absorbedand stored in the biomass of roots, trunks, andbranches while crops are being produced.Tree crops and agroforestry maintain signif-icantly higher biomass than clear-weeded,annually tilled crops.20

Although more than 3,000 edible plantspecies have been identified, 80 percent ofworld cropland is dominated by just 10annual cereal grains, legumes, and oilseeds.Wheat, rice, and maize cover half of theworld’s cropland. Since annual crops needto be replanted every year and since themajor grains are sensitive to shade, farmersin much of the world have graduallyremoved other vegetation from their fields.




in agricultural systems in forest ecosystemsand is being newly introduced into present-day subsistence and commercial systems. Thehighest carbon storage results are found in“multistory” agroforestry systems that havemany diverse species using ecological“niches” from the high canopy to bottom-story shade-tolerant crops. Examples areshade-grown coffee and cocoa plantations,where cash crops are grown under a canopyof trees that sequester carbon and providehabitats for wildlife. Simple intercrops areused where tree-crop competition is minimalor where the value of tree crops is greaterthan the value of the intercropped annuals orgrazing areas, or as a means to reduce mar-ket risks. Where crops are adversely affectedby competition for light or water, trees maybe grown in small plots in mosaics with crops.Research is also under way to develop low-light-tolerant crop varieties. And in the Sahel,some native trees and crops have comple-mentary growth patterns, avoiding light com-petition all together.25

While agroforestry systems have a lowercarbon storage potential per hectare thanstanding forests do, they can potentially beadopted on hundreds of millions of hectares.And because of the diverse benefits they offer,it is often more economical for farmers toestablish and retain them. A Billion TreeCampaign to promote agroforestry waslaunched at the U.N. climate conventionmeeting in Nairobi in 2006. Within a year anda half the program had shattered initial expec-tations and mobilized the planting of 2 bil-lion trees in more than 150 countries. Halfthe plantings occurred in Africa, with 700 mil-lion in Ethiopia alone. By taking the leadfrom farmers and communities on the choiceof species, planting location, and manage-ment, and by providing adequate technicalsupport to ensure high-quality planting mate-rials and methods, these initiatives can ensure

work is under way for a number of lesserknown perennial native grasses, and manymore perennials offer unique and excitingopportunities.24

Shifting production systems from annualto perennial grains should be an importantresearch priority for agriculture and cropbreeding, but significant research challengesremain. Breeding perennial crops takes longerthan annuals due to longer generation times.Since annuals live for one season only, theygive priority to seeds over vegetative growth,making yield improvement in annuals easierthan in perennials that have to allocate moreresources to vegetative parts like roots inorder to ensure survival through the winter.But in the quest for high-carbon agriculturalsystems, plants that produce more biomass area plus. Through breeding, it may also bepossible to redirect increased biomass contentto seed production.

Agroforestry intercrops. Another methodof increasing carbon in agriculture is agro-forestry, in which productive trees are plantedin and around crop fields and pastures. Thetree species may provide products (fruits,nuts, medicines, fuel, timber, and so on),farm production benefits (such as nitrogen fix-ation for crop fertility, wind protection forcrops or animals, and fodder for animals),and ecosystem services (habitat for wild pol-linators of crops, for example, or micro-cli-mate improvement). The trees or otherperennials in agroforestry systems sequesterand store carbon, improving the carbon con-tent of the agricultural landscape.

Agroforestry was common traditionally

A BillionTree Campaign launched in2006 shattered initial expectationsand mobilized the planting of 2 billiontrees in more than 150 countries.




lyptus in some dry areas of Ethiopia.28

Shifting biofuel production from annualcrops (which often have a net negative impacton GHG emissions due to cultivation, fertil-ization, and fossil fuel use) to perennial alter-natives like switchgrass offers a major newopportunity to use degraded or low-produc-tivity areas for economically valuable cropswith positive ecosystem impacts. But this willrequire a landscape approach to biofuels plan-ning in order to use resources sustainably,enhance overall carbon intensity in the land-scape, and complement other key land usesand ecosystem services.29

Promoting Climate-friendlyLivestock Production

Domestic livestock—cattle, pigs, sheep, goats,poultry, donkeys, and so on—account formost of the total living animal biomass world-wide. A revolution in livestock product con-sumption is under way as developing countriesadopt western diets. Meat consumption inChina, for example, more than doubled in thepast 20 years and is projected to double againby 2030. This trend has triggered the rise ofhuge feedlots and confined dairies aroundmost cities and the clearing of huge areas ofland for low-intensity grazing. Livestock alsoproduce prodigious quantities of greenhousegases: methane (from fermentation of food inthe largest part of an animal’s stomach andfrom manure storage), nitrous oxide (fromdenitrification of soil and the crust on manurestorage), and carbon (from crop, animal, andmicrobial respiration as well as fuel combus-tion and land clearing).30

Livestock now account for 50 percent ofthe emissions from agriculture and land usechange. Remarkably, annual emissions fromlivestock total some 7.1 billion tons (includ-ing 2.5 billion tons from clearing land for theanimals), accounting for about 14.5 per-

that the trees will thrive and grow longenough and large enough to actually store asignificant amount of carbon.26

Tree crop alternatives for food, feed, andfuel. In a prescient book in 1929, JosephRussell Smith observed the ecological vul-nerabilities of annual crops and called for “APermanent Agriculture.” This work high-lighted the diversity of tree crops in theUnited States that could substitute for annualcrops in producing starch, protein, edibleand industrial oils, animal feed, and othergoods as well as edible fruits and nuts—ifonly concerted efforts were made to developgenetic selection, management, and process-ing technologies. Worldwide, hundreds ofindigenous species of perennial trees, shrubs,and palms are already producing useful prod-ucts for regional markets but have never beensubject to systematic efforts of tree domesti-cation and improvement or to market devel-opment. Since one third of the world’s annualcereal production is used to feed livestock,finding perennial substitutes for livestock feedis especially promising.27

Exciting initiatives are under way withdozens of perennial species, mainly tappingintra-species diversity to identify higher-yielding, higher-quality products and devel-oping rapid propagation and processingmethods to use in value-added products.For example, more than 30 species of trees,shrubs, and liane in West Africa have beenidentified as promising for domesticationand commercial development. Commercial-scale initiatives are under way to improveproductivity of the Allanblackia and muiri(Prunus africanus) trees, which can be incor-porated into multistrata agroforestry sys-tems to “mimic” the natural rainforesthabitat. Growing trees at high densities isnot, however, recommended in dry areasnot naturally forested, as this may causewater shortages, as has happened with euca-

cent of emissions from human activities.Indeed, a cow/calf pair on a beef farm areresponsible for more GHG emissions in ayear than someone driving 8,000 miles in amid-size car.31

Serious action on climate will almost cer-tainly have to involve reducing consumptionof meat and dairy by today’s major consumersand slowing the growth of demand in devel-oping countries. No such shift seems likely,however, without putting a price on the costof emissions. Meanwhile, some solutions areat hand to reduce emissions of greenhousegases by existing herds.

Intensive rotational grazing. Innova-tive grazing systems offer alternatives toboth extensive grazing systems and con-fined feedlots and dairies, greatly reducingnet GHG emissions while increasing pro-ductivity. Conventional thinking says thatthe current number of livestock far exceedsthe carrying capacity of a typical grazingsystem. But in many circumstances, thisreflects poor grazing management practicesrather than numbers.

Research shows that grasslands can sus-tainably support larger livestock herdsthrough intensive management of herd rota-tions to allow proper regeneration of plantsafter grazing. By letting the plants recover, thesoil organic matter and carbon are protectedfrom erosion, while livestock productivity ismaintained or increased. For example, a4,800-hectare U.S. ranch using intensiverotational grazing tripled the perennial speciesin the rangelands while almost tripling beefproduction from 66 kilograms to 171 kilo-grams per hectare. Various types of rotationalgrazing are being successfully practiced inthe United States, Australia, New Zealand,parts of Europe, and southern and easternAfrica. Large areas of degraded rangelandand pastures around the world could bebrought under rotational grazing to enable

sustainable livestock production.32

Rotational grazing also offers a viablealternative to confined animal operations.A major study by the U.S. Department ofAgriculture compared four temperate dairyproduction systems: full-year confinementdairy, confinement with supplemental graz-ing, outdoor all-year and all-perennial grass-land dairy, and an outdoor cow-calfoperation on perennial grassland. The over-all carbon footprint was much higher forconfined dairy than for grazing systems,mainly because carbon sequestration in thelatter is much higher even though carbonemissions are also higher. The researchersconcluded that some of the best ways toimprove the GHG footprint of intensivedairy and meat operations are to improvecarbon storage in grass systems, use higher-quality forage, eliminate manure storage,cover manure storage, increase meat or milkproduction per animal, and use well-man-aged rotational grazing.33

Feed supplements to reduce methane emis-sions. Methane produced in the rumen (thefirst stomach of cattle, sheep, and goats andother species that chew the cud) account forabout 1.8 billion tons of CO2-equivalentemissions. Nutrient supplements and innov-ative feed mixes have been developed that canreduce methane production by 20 percent,though these are not yet commercially viablefor most farmers. Some feed additives canmake diets easier for animals to digest andreduce methane emissions. These requirefairly sophisticated management, so they aremainly useful in larger-scale livestock opera-tions (which are, in any case, the main sourcesof methane emissions).34

Advanced techniques being developed formethane reduction also include removingspecific microbial organisms from the ani-mal’s rumen or adding other bacteria thatactually reduce gas production there. Research







is also under way to develop vaccines againstthe organisms in the stomach that producemethane.35

Biogas digesters for energy. Manure is amajor source of methane, responsible forsome 400 million tons of CO2-equivalent.And poor manure management is a leadingsource of water pollution. But it is also anopportunity for an alternative fuel thatreduces a farm’s reliance on fossil fuels. Byusing appropriate technologies like an anaer-obic biogas digester, farmers can profit fromtheir farm waste while helping the climate.A biogas digester is basically a tempera-ture-controlled air-tight vessel. Manure (orfood waste) is fed into this vessel, wheremicrobial action breaks it down intomethane or biogas and a low-odor, nutrient-rich sludge. The biogas can be burned forheat or electricity, while the sludge can beused as fertilizer.36

Some communities in developing coun-tries are already using manure to producecooking fuel. By installing anaerobicdigesters, a large pile of manure can be usedto produce biogas as well as fertilizer forfarms. Even collecting the methane andburning it to convert it to carbon dioxide willbe an improvement, as methane has 25 timesthe global warming potential of carbon diox-ide, molecule for molecule, over a 100-yearperiod. And the heat this generates can beused to produce electricity. By thinking cre-atively, previously undervalued and danger-ous wastes can be converted into newsources of energy, cost savings, and evenincome. Biogas digesters involve an initialcash investment that often needs to beadvanced for low-income producers, butlifetime benefits far outweigh costs. Thistechnology could be extended to millions offarmers with benefits for the climate as wellas for human well-being through expandedaccess to energy.37

Biogas can even contribute to commercialenergy. In 2005, for instance, the Penn Eng-land dairy farm in Pennsylvania invested$141,370 in a digester to process manure and$135,000 in a combined heat and powerunit, with a total project cost of $1.14 mil-lion to process the manure from 800 cows.Now the farm makes a profit by using thebiogas to generate 120 kilowatt-hours ofelectricity to sell back to the local utility, at3.9¢ per kilowatt-hour. The system also pro-duces sufficient heat to power the digesteritself, make hot water, and heat the barns andfarm buildings.38

Protecting Existing CarbonStores in Natural Forests

and Grasslands

The world’s 4 billion hectares of forests and5 billion hectares of natural grasslands are amassive reservoir of carbon—both in vegeta-tion and root systems. As forests and grass-lands continue to grow, they remove carbonfrom the atmosphere and contribute to cli-mate change mitigation. Intact natural forestsin Southeast Australia hold 640 tons of car-bon per hectare, compared with 217 tonson average for temperate forests. Thus avoid-ing emissions by protecting existing terrestrialcarbon in forests and grasslands is an essen-tial element of climate action.39

Reduce deforestation and land clearing.Massive deforestation and land clearing arereleasing stored carbon back into the atmos-phere. Between 2000 and 2005, the worldlost forest area at a rate of 7.3 millionhectares per year. For every hectare of for-est cleared, between 217 and 640 tons ofcarbon are added to the atmosphere,depending upon the type of vegetation.Deforestation and land clearing have manydifferent causes—from large-scale, organized




ments agreed to a two-year negotiationprocess that would lead to adoption of amechanism for Reducing Emissions fromDeforestation and Degradation (REDD) after2012. Implementation of any eventual REDDmechanism will pose major methodological,institutional, and governance challenges, butnumerous initiatives are already under way tobegin addressing these.41

A second incentive for conservation isproduct certification, whereby agriculturaland forest products are labeled as havingbeen produced without clearing natural habi-tats or in mosaic landscapes that conserve aminimum area of natural patches. For exam-ple, the Biodiversity and Agricultural Com-modities Program of the InternationalFinance Corporation seeks to increase theproduction of sustainably produced and ver-ified commodities (palm oil, soy, sugarcane,and cocoa), working closely with commod-ity roundtables and their members, regula-tory institutions, and policymakers. Whilethe priority focus is on conservation of bio-diversity, this initiative will have significant cli-mate impacts as well, due to its focus onprotecting existing carbon vegetative sinksfrom conversion, developing standards forsustainable biofuels, and establishing certifi-cation systems.42

A third approach is to secure local tenurerights for communal forests and grasslandsso that local people have an incentive to man-age these resources sustainably and can pro-tect them from outside threats like illegalcommercial logging or land grabs for agri-culture. A study in 2006 of 49 community for-est management cases worldwide found thatall the initiatives that included tenure security(admittedly a small number) were successfulbut that only 38 percent of those without itsucceeded. Diverse approaches and legalarrangements are being used to strengthentenure security and local governance capacity.43

clearing for agricultural use and infrastruc-ture to the small-scale movement of mar-ginalized people into forests for lack ofalternative farming or employment oppor-tunities or to the clearing of trees for com-mercial sale of timber, pulp, or woodfuel. Inmany cases the key drivers are outside theproductive land use sectors—the result ofpublic policies in other sectors, such as con-struction of roads and other infrastructure,human settlements, or border control.40

Unlike many of the other climate-miti-gating land use actions described in this chap-ter, protecting large areas of standing naturalvegetation typically provides fewer short-term financial or livelihood benefits forlandowners and managers, and it may indeedreduce their incomes or livelihood security.The solution sometimes lies in regulation,where there is strong enforcement capacity,as with Australia’s laws restricting the clear-ance of natural vegetation. But in many areasthe challenge is to develop incentives for con-servation for the key stakeholders.

Several approaches are being used. One isto raise the economic value of standing forestsor grasslands by improving markets for sus-tainably harvested, high-value products fromthose areas or by paying land managersdirectly for their conservation value. Currentinternational negotiations are exploring thepossibility of compensating developing coun-tries for leaving their forests intact or improv-ing forest management. During theConference of the Parties to the climate con-vention in Bali in December 2007, govern-

Current international negotiationsare exploring the possibility ofcompensating developing countriesfor leaving their forests intact orimproving forest management.




greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, due tosome early effects of climate change, impor-tant habitats for wildlife are shifting out ofprotected areas. Plants are growing in higheraltitudes as they seek cooler temperatures,while birds have started altering their breed-ing times. Larger and geographically well dis-tributed areas thus need to be put undersome form of protection.

This need not always be through publicprotected areas. At least 370 million hectaresof forest and forest-agriculture landscapesoutside official protected areas are alreadyunder local conservation management, whilehalf of the world’s 102,000 protected areasare in ancestral lands of indigenous and othercommunities that do not want to see themdeveloped. Conservation agencies and com-munities are finding diverse incentives forprotecting these areas, from the sustainableharvesting of foods, medicines, and raw mate-rials to the protection of locally importantecosystem services and religious and culturalvalues as well as opportunities for naturetourism income. Supporting these efforts todevelop and sustain protected area networks,including public, community, and privateconservation areas, can be a highly effectiveway to reduce and store greenhouse gases.46

RestoringVegetationin Degraded Areas

Extensive areas of the world have beendenuded of vegetation from large-scale landclearing for annual crops or grazing and fromoveruse and poor management in communityand public lands with weak governance. Thisis a tragic loss, from multiple perspectives.People living in these areas have lost a poten-tially valuable asset for the production of ani-mal fodder, fuel, medicines, and raw materials.Gathering such materials is an especiallyimportant source of income and subsistence

Reduce uncontrolled forest and grasslandburning. Biomass burning is a significantsource of carbon emissions, especially in devel-oping countries. Controlled biomass burningin the agricultural sector, on a limited scale,can have positive functions as a means ofclearing and rotating individual plots for cropproduction; in some ecosystems, it is a healthymeans of weed control and soil fertilityimprovement. In a number of natural ecosys-tems, such as savanna and scrub forests, wildfires can help maintain biotic functions, as inAustralia. In many tropical forest ecosystems,however, fires are mostly set by humans andenvironmentally harmful—killing wildlife,reducing habitat, and setting the stage formore fires by reducing moisture content andincreasing combustible materials. Even wherethey can be beneficial from an agricultural per-spective, fires can inadvertently spread to nat-ural ecosystems, opening them up for furtheragricultural colonization.44

Systems are already being put in place totrack fires in “real time” so that governmentsand third-party monitors can identify thepeople responsible. In the case of large-scaleranchers and commodity producers, betterregulatory enforcement is needed, along withalternatives to fire for management purposes.For small-scale, community producers, themost successful approaches have been to linkfire control with investments in sustainableintensification of production, in order todevelop incentives within the community toprotect investments from fire damage. These“social controls” have been effectively used togenerate local rules and norms around the useof fire, as in Honduras and The Gambia.45

Manage conservation areas as carbonsinks. Protected conservation areas provide awide range of benefits, including climate reg-ulation. Just letting these areas stand notonly helps the biodiversity within, it alsostores the carbon, avoiding major releases in

for low-income rural people. For example,researchers found in Zimbabwe that 24 per-cent of the average total income of poorfarmers came from gathering woodland prod-ucts. At the same time, the loss of vegetationseriously threatens ecosystem services, par-ticularly watershed functions and wildlifehabitat.47

Efforts to restore degraded areas can thusbe “win-win-win” investments. Althoughthere may be fewer tons of CO2 sequesteredper hectare from restoration activities, millionsof hectares can be restored with low oppor-tunity costs and strong local incentives for par-ticipation and maintenance.

Revegetate degraded watersheds andrangelands. Hydrologists have learned that“green water”—the water stored in vegetationand filtrating into soils—is as important as“blue water” in streams and lakes. When rainfalls on bare soils, most is lost as runoff. Inmany of the world’s major watersheds, mostof the land is in productive use. Poor vege-tative cover limits the capacity to retain rain-fall in the system or to filter water flowing intostreams and lakes and therefore acceleratingsoil loss. From a climate perspective, landsstripped of vegetation have lost the potentialto store carbon. Landscapes that retain year-round vegetative cover in strategically selectedareas and natural habitat cover in criticalriparian areas can maintain most, if not all, ofvarious watershed functions, even if much ofthe watershed is under productive uses.48

With rapid growth in demand for waterand with water scarcity looming in manycountries (in part due to climate change),watershed revegetation is now getting seriouspolicy attention. Both India and China havelarge national programs targeting millions ofhectares of forests and grasslands for reveg-etating, and they see these as investments toreduce rural poverty and protect critical water-sheds. In most cases, very low-cost methods

are used for revegetation, mainly temporaryprotection to enable natural vegetation toreestablish itself without threat of overgraz-ing or fire. For example, in Morocco 34 pas-toral cooperatives with more than 8,000members rehabilitated and manage 450,000hectares of grazing reserves. On highlydegraded soils, some cultivation or reseedingmay be needed. Two keys to success in theseapproaches are to engage local communitiesin planning, developing, and maintainingwatershed areas and to include rehabilitationof areas of high local importance, such asproductive grazing lands, local woodfuelsources, and areas like gullies that can beused for productive cropping.49

In Rajasthan, India, for example, com-munity-led watershed restoration programshave reinstated more than 5,000 traditionaljohads (rainwater storage tanks) in over 1,000villages, increasing water supplies for irriga-tion, wildlife, livestock, and domestic useand recharging groundwater. In Niger, a“regreening” movement, using farmer-man-aged natural regeneration and simple soiland water conservation practices, reverseddesertification, increased tree and shrub cover10- to 20-fold, and reclaimed at least250,000 hectares of degraded land for crops.Over 25 years, at least a quarter of the coun-try’s farmers were involved in restoring about5 million hectares of land, benefiting at least4.5 million people through increased cropproduction, income, and food security.Extending the scale of such efforts couldhave major climate benefits, with huge advan-tages as well for water security, biodiversity,and rural livelihoods.50

Reestablish forest and grassland cover inbiological corridors. Loss and fragmentationof natural habitat are leading threats to bio-diversity worldwide. Conservation biologistshave concluded that in many areas conserva-tion of biodiversity will require the estab-




lishment of “biological corridors” throughproduction landscapes, to connect fragmentsof natural habitat and protected areas and togive species access to adequate territory andsources of food and water. One key strategyis to reestablish forest or natural grasslandcover (depending on the ecosystem) to playthis ecological role. These reforestation effortsalso have major climate benefits.

In Brazil’s highly threatened Atlantic For-est, for example, conservation organizationsworking in the Desengano State Park strucka deal with dairy farmers to provide techni-cal assistance to improve dairy-farm produc-tivity in exchange for the farmers reforestingpart of their land and maintaining it as a con-servation easement. Milk yields tripled andfarmers’ incomes doubled, while a strategicbuffer zone was established for the park.51

In northwestern Ecuador, two thirds ofcoastal rainforests have been lost due to log-ging and agricultural expansion, risking thesurvival of 2,000 plant and 450 bird species.The Chocó-Manabí corridor reforestationproject is attempting to improve wild species’access to refuge habitats by restoring con-nectivity between native forest patchesthrough reforestation efforts. This project isrestoring 265 hectares of degraded pastureswith 15 native trees species and as a resultsequestering 80,000 tons of carbon dioxide.The opportunity for such investments ismobilizing new partnerships between wildlifeconservation organizations, the climate actioncommunity, farmers, and ranchers.52

Market Incentives forClimate-friendly Agriculture

and Land Use

All the strategies described in the precedingsections are already available or are well withintechnological reach at far lower cost than

many climate solutions being discussed (suchas geological storage of carbon). The chal-lenge is shifting policy and investment prior-ities and supporting institutions to createincentives for farmers, pastoralists, forest own-ers, agribusiness, and all other stakeholderswithin the agriculture and forestry supplychains to scale up best practices and con-tinue to innovate new ones. This will requireconcerted action by consumers, farmers’ orga-nizations, the food industry, civil society, andgovernments.

The central players in any response to cli-mate change are the farmers and communi-ties—those who actually manage land—andthe food and fiber industry that shapes theincentives for the choice of crops, qualitystandards, and profitability. Some innova-tors are already showing the way. For exam-ple, the Sustainable Food Lab, a collaborativeof 70 businesses and social organizationsfrom throughout the world, has assembled ateam of member companies, universityresearchers, and technical experts to developand test ways to measure and provide incen-tives for low-carbon agricultural practicesthrough the food supply chain, mainly byincreasing soil organic matter, improvingfertilizer application, and enhancing thecapacity of crops and soil to store carbon.53

A key driver is consumer and buyer aware-ness. Consumers will take the needed stepsonce they realize that their choice of meat anddairy products, and their support for naturalforests and grassland protection, can have asgreat an impact on the climate as how far theydrive their cars. One immediate action is forconsumers, processors, and distributors toadopt greenhouse gas footprint analysis forfood and fiber products, addressing their full“life cycle,” including production, transport,refrigeration, and packaging, to identify strate-gic intervention points.

In 2007, for instance, the Dole Corpora-




tion committed to establishing by 2021 acarbon-neutral product supply chain for itsbananas and pineapples in Costa Rica. Theirfirst step in this process was to purchase for-est carbon offsets from the Costa Rican gov-ernment equal to the emissions of its inlandtransport of these fruits. GHG impact is a keymetric that can be used for evaluating newfood and forest production technologies andfor allocating resources and investments. Pol-icymakers can then include incentives forreducing carbon emissions in cost structuresthroughout the food and land use systems,using various market and policy mechanisms.54

Product markets are also beginning torecognize climate values. The last 20 yearshave seen the rise of a variety of “green”certified products beyond organic, such as“bird-friendly” and “shade-grown,” thathave clear biodiversity benefits. Various cer-tification options already exist for cocoa andcoffee (through the Rainforest Alliance, Star-bucks, and Organic, for example). The For-est Stewardship Council’s certificationprinciples “prohibit conversion of forests orany other natural habitat” and maintain that“plantations must contribute to reduce thepressures on and promote the restorationand conservation of natural forests,” sup-porting the use of forests as carbon sinks.New certification standards are starting upthat explicitly include impacts on climate,which will for the first time send clear signalsto both producers and consumers.55

The rise of carbon emission offset tradingcould potentially provide a major new sourceof funding for the transition to climate-friendly agriculture and land use. (See Box3–2.) A great deal can be done in the shortterm through the voluntary carbon market,but in the long run it will be essential for theinternational framework for action on cli-mate change to fully incorporate agricultureand land use.56

Public Policies toSupport theTransition

Governments can take specific steps imme-diately to support the needed transition byintegrating agriculture, land use, and climateaction programs at national and local land-scape levels. Costa Rica is a leader in theseefforts. The government has committed toachieving “climate neutrality” by 2021, withan ambitious agenda including mitigationthrough land use change. Costa Rica is a par-ticipant in the Coalition for RainforestNations, a group encouraging avoided-defor-estation programs, and has already increasedits forest cover from 21 percent in 1986 to 51percent in 2006. The country is taking advan-tage of markets that make payments forecosystem services and ecotourism to supportthese efforts.57

Currently, governments spend billions ofdollars each year on agricultural subsidy pay-ments to farmers for production and inputs,primarily in the United States ($13 billion in2006, which was 16 percent of the value ofagricultural production) and Europe ($77billion, or 40 percent of agricultural pro-duction value) but also in Japan, India,China, and elsewhere. Most of these pay-ments exacerbate chemical use, the expan-sion of cropland to sensitive areas, andoverexploitation of water and other resourceswhile distorting trade and reinforcing unsus-tainable agricultural practices. Some coun-tries are beginning to redirect subsidypayments to agri-environmental paymentsfor all kinds of ecosystem services, and thesecan explicitly include carbon storage or emis-sions reduction.58

Growth in commercial demand for agri-cultural and forest products from increasedpopulations and incomes in developing coun-tries and demand for biofuels in industrial




nations is stimulating investments by bothprivate and public sectors. In 2003, African

governments committed to increase publicinvestment in agriculture to at least 10 per-




Paying farmers and land managers to reducecarbon emissions or store greenhouse gases isa critical way to both mitigate climate changeand generate ecosystem and livelihood benefits.The carbon market for land use has three maincomponents: carbon emissions offsets for theregulatory market, as established by the KyotoProtocol; offset activities in emerging U.S. regu-latory markets operating outside the KyotoProtocol; and the sale of voluntary carbon off-sets coming from land use, land use change, andforestry, primarily to individual consumers, phil-anthropic buyers, and the private sector.

Developing countries can implementafforestation and reforestation projects thatcount toward emission reduction targets ofindustrial countries through the Clean Develop-ment Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol.Thetreaty authorizes afforestation and reforestationbut excludes agricultural or forest management,avoided deforestation or degradation, and soilcarbon storage. However, each CDM projectmust address thorny issues of nonpermanence ofcarbon uptake by vegetation and soil, risks ofpotential displacement of emissions as deforesta-tion just moves elsewhere, and sustainable devel-opment prospects in the host country that canlimit implementation.

There is more innovation in the voluntarymarket, where buyers value multiple benefits.Thevalue of forestry plus land use projects morethan doubled from $35 million in 2006 to $72million in 2007.Work is proceeding to lend morecredibility, transparency, and uniformity in meth-ods used for creating land-based carbon credits.

There are several ongoing initiatives to pro-mote diverse types of land-use-based payments:• TheWorld Bank’s $91.9-million BioCarbonFund is financing afforestation, reforestation,REDD, agroforestry, and agricultural andecosystem-based projects that not onlypromote biodiversity conservation and povertyalleviation but also sequester carbon.

• The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the

northeastern United States will include affores-tation and methane capture from U.S. farms.

• The trading system in New SouthWales,Aus-tralia—the world’s first—provides for carbonsequestration through forestry, including on-farm forest regeneration.

• The New Zealand government is investingmore than $175 million over five years in a Sus-tainable Land Management and Climate ChangePlan to help the agriculture and forestrysectors adapt to, mitigate, and take advantage ofthe business opportunities of climate change.This scheme will include specific cap-and-tradeallocations to the dairy sector and will incorpo-rate cash grants to encourage new plantings bylandowners, increased research funding,technology transfer, and incentives to use morewood products and bio-energy.

• Rabobank, the world’s largest agriculturalfinancier, will pay farmers $83,000 to reforest,which will be sold as carbon offsets; the bankmay use some of these credits to offset its ownactivities.This is the first transaction of its kindin Brazil’s Xingu province, which has the coun-try’s highest deforestation rates. Soy and cattlefarmers are targeted, and replanting is plannedfor riparian stretches through the region.

• REDD payments for avoided deforestation inMato Grosso state alone in Brazil are estimatedat $388 million annually.

Much larger initiatives are needed now tolink carbon finance with investments to achieverural food security by “re-greening” degradedwatersheds, promoting agroforestry, restoringsoil organic matter, rehabilitating degraded pas-tures, controlling fires, or protecting threatenedforests and natural areas important for local liveli-hoods. If low-income landowners and managersare to benefit from payments for ecosystem ser-vices, they need secure rights, clear indicators ofperformance, and systems for aggregating buyersand sellers to keep transaction costs low.


Box 3–2. Paying Farmers for Climate Benefits




Taking Action for Climate-friendly Land Use

Human well-being is wrapped up with howfood is produced. Ingenious systems weredeveloped over the past century to supplyfood, with remarkable reliability, to a goodportion of the world’s 6.7 billion people.But these systems need a fundamental restruc-turing over the next few decades to establishsustainable food systems that both slow andare resilient to climate change. Land-managerand private-sector action will determine theresponse, but public policy and civil societywill play a crucial role in providing the incen-tives and framework for communities andmarkets to respond effectively.61

Food production and other land uses arecurrently among the highest greenhouse gasemitters on the planet—but that can bereversed. Although recent food price riotsmay discourage any actions that could raisecosts, if action is not taken costs will rise any-way as local food systems are disrupted andas higher energy costs ripple through a systemthat has not been prepared with alternatives.

The strategy for reducing greenhouse gasemissions from agriculture and other landuse sectors also must recognize the need formajor increases in food and fiber productionin developing countries to feed adequately the850 million people currently hungry orundernourished, as well as continually grow-ing populations. Investments must be chan-neled so that increased production comesfrom climate-friendly production systemsrather than from systems that clear large areasof natural forest and grasslands, mine organicmatter from the soil, strip vegetative coverfrom riparian areas, or leave soils bare formany months of the year.62

As described in this chapter, many availabletechnologies and management practices could

cent a year, although only Rwanda and Zam-bia have done this so far. The World Bank andthe Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation havecommitted to large increases in funding in thedeveloping world. There is a major windowof opportunity right now to put climatechange adaptation and mitigation at the coreof these strategies.59

This is beginning to happen in small steps.Brazil is crafting a diverse set of investmentprograms to support rural land users whoinvest in land use change for climate changemitigation and adaptation. The U.N. Envi-ronment Programme is initiating dialogues on“greening” the international response to thefood crisis, linking goals of international envi-ronmental conventions with the MillenniumDevelopment Goals.60

But much more comprehensive action isneeded. If not, this otherwise positive trendcould seriously undermine climate actionprograms. A new vision is needed to respondto this food crisis that not only provides ashort-term Band-Aid to refill next year’sgrain bins but also puts the planet on a tra-jectory toward sustainable, climate-friendlyfood systems.

National policy, however, is not enough.It is essential to invest in building capacity atlocal levels to manage ecoagricultural land-scapes—to enable multistakeholder platformsto plan, implement, and track progress inachieving climate-friendly land use systemsthat benefit local people, agricultural pro-duction, and ecosystems.

Many available technologies andmanagement practices couldlighten the climate footprint ofagriculture and other land usesand protect existing carbon sinksin natural vegetation.




With the exception of the recent REDD ini-tiatives to save standing forests through inter-governmental action, which are still in anearly stage, there are no major internationalinitiatives to address the interlinked challengeof climate, agriculture, and land use.

A worldwide, networked movement forclimate-friendly food, forest, and other land-based production is needed. This calls forforging unusual political coalitions that linkconsumers, producers, industry, investors,environmentalists, and communicators. Food,in particular, is something that the publicunderstands. By focusing on food systems, cli-mate action will become more real to people.It is realistic to expect that the prices of foodand other land-based products will rise in awarming world, at least for a time. This mustnot be the result of scarcity caused by climate-induced system collapse but rather becausenew investment has been mobilized to createsustainable food and forest systems that alsocool the planet.

lighten the climate footprint of agricultureand other land uses and protect existing car-bon sinks in natural vegetation and soils.Many more could become operational fairlyquickly with proper policy support or adap-tive research and with a more systematiceffort to analyze the costs and benefits ofdifferent strategies in different land use sys-tems. Other innovative ideas will emerge ifleading scientists and entrepreneurs can beinspired to tackle this challenge. And many ofthe actions most needed in land use systemsto adapt to climate change and mitigate GHGemissions will bring positive benefits for waterquality, air pollution, smoke-related healthrisks, soil health, energy efficiency, and wildlifehabitat. These tangible benefits can generatebroader political support for climate action.

It is heartening that there are already somany initiatives to address climate change inthe food and land use sectors, and theseefforts have established a rich foundation ofpractical, implementable models. But thescale of action so far is dishearteningly small.

As the stability of the world’s climate isincreasingly at risk and governments grap-ple with the monumental task of cuttingemissions, there is a group of little knownbut powerful greenhouse gases that, leftunchecked, could ultimately undermine thebest efforts to tackle the climate crisis. Fluo-rocarbons, or F-gases, are the quintessentialgreenhouse gases, since chemical engineersdesigned them to trap heat and to be stableand durable.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change calculated that the cumulative build-up of these gases in the atmosphere wasresponsible for at least 17 percent of globalwarming due to human activities in 2005.And the use of these chemicals worldwide ison the rise, with increased consumption indeveloping countries like China and India.1

Several chemical cousins make up the F-gas family: chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), hydro-fluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons(PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Themajor applications of these chemicals todayare in refrigeration and air-conditioning(including in cars), which account for 80

percent of F-gas use. The chemicals arealso used as solvents, as blowing agents infoams, as aerosols or propellants, and infire extinguishers. The most commonlyused F-gases at the moment are the HFCs,a class of powerful greenhouse gases whoseconsumption is rising exponentially. HFCswere developed by the chemical industryin response to the discovery of damage toEarth’s ozone layer due to CFC use. Butthis development ignored the known globalwarming effects of the newer chemicals.2

F-gases have incredibly strong globalwarming potential (GWP) relative to carbondioxide (CO2) pound per pound, or gram forgram, because they were built to trap heatvery effectively. GWP is calculated relative tocarbon dioxide, which is assigned a GWP of1. Global warming potential depends on theability of a molecule to trap heat and its“atmospheric lifetime”—how long the chem-ical stays in the atmosphere before it is bro-ken down or is absorbed or settles out intothe ocean, soil, or biosphere, for instance.3

GWPs are generally averaged over 100years, as a baseline for comparison tocarbon dioxide. The most popular HFC inuse today has an atmospheric lifetime ofabout 14 years and a 100-year GWP of 1,400,but a 20-year GWP of 3,830. This means thatone pound of this HFC is the same as 3,830pounds of CO2 in terms of global warmingimpact for 20 years after it is released intothe atmosphere. Of course, there is one ben-efit to this high short-term GWP: phasing

The Risks of Other Greenhouse Gases

Janos Maté, Kert Davies, and David Kanter

Janos Maté is Ozone Policy Consultant for the Polit-ical Business Unit of Greenpeace International,based in Vancouver, Canada. Kert Davies isResearch Director at Greenpeace US, based inWashington, DC. David Kanter is a Research Fellowfor Greenpeace International, based in the UnitedKingdom.


Climate Connections STATE OF THE WORLD 2009


out HFCs has an immediate global warmingbenefit. Cutting HFC use slows global warm-ing right now, when that is most needed.4

The chemical industry argues that HFCscan be safely contained and prevented fromleaking into the atmosphere, but so far con-tainment has been an unqualified failure—more than 50 percent of all HFCs producedto date have already found their way into theatmosphere.5

Greenpeace estimates that HFCs willbecome an ever-increasing portion of theglobal warming pollution load exactly whenscientists say greenhouse gases need to bereduced rapidly. The popular HFC-134a alone,which currently accounts for about 1 percentof greenhouse gases, is expected to accountfor 10 percent of emissions by 2050—andreleases will still be on the rise. Growing HFCemissions could significantly hamper effortsto keep global temperatures from exceedingcrucial tipping points in climate change thathave been identified by scientists.6

Fortunately, there are environmentallysafe, efficient, technologically proven, andcommercially available alternatives to F-gasesin almost all domestic and commercialapplications. These use natural substances,such as simple hydrocarbons, carbon diox-ide, ammonia, or even straight water. Typi-cally, systems using natural refrigerants areat least as energy-efficient as those usingHFCs or even more efficient. So they are lessexpensive to operate and create fewer green-house gases through reduced electricity use,and thus less load on dirty power plants.In addition, there are novel technological

solutions for air conditioning and refrigera-tion such as solar adsorption, which usessolar heat as the engine for compressionof a liquid refrigerant, most commonly waterand ammonia or water and lithium bromidesalt. There are also refrigerators thatoperate with sound waves, and in certain

climates simple evaporation devices provideair-conditioning.The chemical industry does not profit

from any of these alternatives. Getting rid ofHFCs would put an end to the industry’sglobal, long-term hold on the multibillion-dollar monopoly it has enjoyed with CFCsand other F-gases. The industry is thereforefighting any replacements, especially naturalrefrigerants, using its global lobbying effortsto soften—or stop—strong legislation andregulations.There are many examples in all sectors of

using natural refrigerants instead of HFCs.One outstanding example is the hydro-carbon domestic Greenfreeze refrigerator(safe for both the ozone layer and theclimate) developed in 1993 by Greenpeaceand a tiny East German company. Green-freeze refrigerators are typically more effici-ent than their HFC counterparts. There arean estimated 300 million Greenfreeze-typerefrigerators in the world today, built by lead-ing manufacturers and accounting forapproximately 40 percent of the 80 millionrefrigerators produced annually. This tech-nology dominates the domestic refrigerationmarkets of Europe and is prominent in Japanand China, but it is conspicuously unavail-able in North America due to obsolete regu-latory obstacles.7

The search for HFC alternatives has beentaken up by many large multinational corpo-rations that use refrigeration and coolingtechnology. A technology-sharing coalitioncalled Refrigerants Naturally was founded in2004, set up by Greenpeace and the UnitedNations Environment Programme with thegoal of replacing HFCs with natural refriger-ants in vending machines, freezers, andfridges. The current partners include Uni-lever, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, McDonald’s,IKEA, and Carlsberg.8

The success of Refrigerants Naturally has

STATE OF THE WORLD 2009 Climate Connections

been broad. By 2008 Unilever had placed upto 275,000 climate-friendly retail ice-creamfreezers in the field. And in late 2008 Ben &Jerry’s ice cream, a Unilever brand, startedusing non-HFC freezers in the United States.

The new units save at least 10 percent of theenergy used by identical HFC freezers. Coca-Cola has developed a new, high-efficiencycompressed carbon dioxide technology forits vending machines and planned to haveup to 30,000 CO2 vending machines in thefield by 2008, which will increase to 100,000by 2010. All Coca-Cola vending machines atthe 2008 Beijing Olympics were HFC-free.9

Supermarkets and other retail stores arealso making the switch from HFCs and F-gastechnology. In March 2006, several majorU.K. supermarket chains—including ASDA,Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Somerfield,Tesco, and Waitrose—announced their deci-sion to phase out their use of HFCs in cool-

ing equipment and to convert to naturalrefrigerants such as carbon dioxide.10

In another crucial development, progressis being made in phasing out potent F-gasesfrom automobile air-conditioning. The Euro-pean Union (EU) moved to phase out HFC-134a in mobile air-conditioning by 2011. Inresponse, the German car industry decidedin August 2007 to deploy compressed car-bon dioxide as the replacement refrigerant.11

HFCs and other non-ozone depleting F-gases are currently included in the KyotoProtocol’s “basket” of greenhouse gases, butthe parties to the treaty have yet to addressHFCs specifically and proactively. (CFCs andHCFCs were not included in the Kyoto Proto-col because they were already being bannedand phased out under the earlier MontrealProtocol on the ozone layer.) In the mean-time, a few jurisdictions around the worldare already taking action in a variety of ways.Individual countries and jurisdictions—

including Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, theEU Commission, and most recently the stateof California—have all moved to curtailreleases of F-gases by variously banning newuses, phasing out old ones, and providingincentives to reduce leakage of high-GWPF-gases. Governments have made thesemoves by passing regulations, providingincentives for technology upgrades, levyingtaxes on imports of HFCs based on theirwarming impact, and providing refunds fordestruction of captured used F-gas. Thesebold moves have led to increased awarenessand adoption of alternatives.12

The global solutions to this potentiallydevastating problem are quite clear andavailable. The Kyoto Protocol and the Mon-treal Protocol both could, in complementaryways, act swiftly to reduce and eliminateuses of F-gases. For example, the MontrealProtocol’s practice of pushing developingcountries to replace HCFCs with HFCs



One of Ben & Jerry’s non-HFC freezers freshly installed

greentechnica.com

should be stopped immediately. And thetreaty could be used to stimulate the recov-ery of millions of tons of “banked” HFCs,CFCs, and HCFCs sitting in old coolingequipment that need to be safely recoveredat the end of the equipment’s life anddestroyed.Meanwhile, the parties to the Kyoto Pro-

tocol are in the midst of serious and com-plex negotiations leading up to their nextconference, in Copenhagen in late 2009,when new emissions reduction targetsshould be on the table. Negotiators arehaving a difficult time setting targets andcommitments for reducing carbon dioxide,the largest greenhouse gas, and shaping arenewed commitment to limit deforestation-related greenhouse gas emissions. As of late2008 the parties to the treaty had not founda path to develop strong specific incentivesand actions on HFCs.Some observers are now proposing that

HFCs be regulated under the Montreal Pro-tocol instead of the Kyoto Protocol. They callfor HFCs to be phased out of production

over time just as other F-gases were andsimultaneously be removed from the KyotoProtocol basket entirely. The argument ismade that Montreal Protocol participantshave more expertise with F-gases andassessment of alternatives and that develop-ing countries already participate strongly inthe treaty.13

This approach—removing agreed green-house gases or sectors from the climatechange treaty at this point—risks weakeningthe Kyoto agreement. In addition, it wouldkill a strong financial incentive to reduceF-gas emissions by removing HFCs fromthe rapidly evolving GHG emissions tradingschemes, erasing potentially lucrativecarbon credits that adopters of non-HFCtechnology could earn and trade under theKyoto Protocol. It is hoped that an effectiveapproach will evolve during the treaty nego-tiations of 2009 and beyond, makingefficient use of the best capacities of bothtreaties. Until then, the Kyoto Protocol arenaremains the best place to kick-start and dealwith this growing threat to the climate.



Black carbon, a component of soot, is apotent climate-forcing aerosol and may bethe second-leading cause of global warmingafter carbon dioxide (CO2). Unlike CO2,however, black carbon remains in the atmos-phere for only a few days or weeks. Thereforereducing these emissions will have an almostimmediate climate mitigation impact. Whilesubstantial reductions of greenhouse gasemissions should remain the anchor of over-all climate stabilization efforts, dealing withblack carbon may be the fastest means ofnear-term climate mitigation and could becritical in forestalling climate tipping points.1

Black carbon is a product of the incom-plete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuels,and biomass. The main sources are openburning of biomass, diesel engines, and theresidential burning of solid fuels such ascoal, wood, dung, and agricultural residues.(See Figure.) Black carbon contributes to cli-mate change in two ways: It warms theatmosphere directly by absorbing solar radi-ation and converting it to heat and indirectlyby darkening the surfaces of ice and snowwhen deposited on them. This reducesalbedo, the ability to reflect light, and there-by increases heat absorption and acceleratesmelting. As large masses of both land andsea ice disappear, they reflect less and lesssolar radiation, so heat is increasingly

absorbed at the surface. Thus not only dosea and land ice face tipping points ofirreversible melting, but this melting cancreate positive feedbacks leading to evenfurther warming.2

The ability of black carbon to acceleratesnow and ice melt makes it a particular con-cern in Arctic and glacial areas, where tip-ping points for melting are considered amongthe most imminent. According to CharlesZender of the University of California, Irvine,black carbon on snow warms Earth aboutthree times as much as an equal forcing ofCO2. Zender and others argue that forcing,which is a measure of the amount of heat a

Reducing Black Carbon

Dennis Clare

Dennis Clare is a Law Fellow at the Institute ofGovernance & Sustainable Development inWashington, DC.



Combustion Sources of Black Carbon

Source: Bond

Open biomass(42%)

Residential,biofuel(18%)

Industryand powergeneration

(10%)Transport,

Road(14%)

Residential,coal and

other(6%)

Transport,non-road

(10%)

TEXT REVISED, 16 December 2008


substance traps in the atmosphere, does notmeasure the amount of warming that a sub-stance will actually cause. They claim thatto most effectively address climate change,substances should be dealt with based onthe amount of warming they cause. Meltingglaciers are a concern not only because ofthe feedback warming they can cause butalso because they feed rivers that supplywater to hundreds of millions of people. Asglaciers retreat due to melting, these watersources become threatened. V. Ramanathanand Y. Feng of the Scripps Institution ofOceanography claim that the world hasalready committed to warming in a rangethat could lead to “a major reduction of areaand volume of Hindu-Kush-Himalaya-Tibetan (HKHT) glaciers, which provide thehead-waters for most major river systems ofAsia.” And as land-based ice melts, thewater flows into the oceans, contributing topotentially dangerous sea level rise.3

The 2007 report of the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change for the first timecalculated the direct and indirect climateforcings of black carbon. It estimated thedirect forcing from fossil fuel sources to be+0.2 watts per square meter (W/m2) andfrom biomass and other sources to be +0.2W/m2. The report estimated the indirectforcing from black carbon’s effect on snowand ice to be an additional +0.1 W/m2, for atotal forcing from black carbon of +0.5W/m2. More recent studies have estimatedthe figure is as high as +0.9 W/m2 for directforcing alone. This is equal to about 55 per-cent of the forcing from CO2. Although thenet impact of black carbon is squarely withina significant warming range, further studywill be required to calculate its forcing moreprecisely.4

It is important to understand that whenblack carbon is emitted from incompletecombustion, other particles such as organic

carbon, nitrates, and sulfates are emitted aswell. Some of these other particles, such assulfates, can have a cooling effect on theatmosphere. But because sulfates have beendetermined to harm public health, world-wide efforts are under way to reduce them.When this happens, further warming will beunmasked. Ramanathan and Feng claim thattemperature-masking due to cooling aero-sols is currently over 1 degree Celsius andthat as aerosols continue to be reduced bylocal air pollution control measures, thiswarming will be felt—likely within the next50 years. Thus it is all the more important toreduce black carbon to offset the increasedwarming that will result from the expectedelimination of sulfates.5

A number of technologies for reducingblack carbon emissions are available nowand others are being developed. For dieselvehicles, highly effective diesel particulatefilters (DPFs) can eliminate over 90 percentof particulate emissions, although DPFsrequire the use of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel(ULSD), which is not yet widely availableoutside the United States, the EuropeanUnion, or Japan. Increasing the availabilityof ULSD is an important step in reducingblack carbon and other emissions fromdiesel vehicles worldwide. For vehicles with-out access to ULSD, other filters can beused. Newly developed flow-through, or par-tial, filters can eliminate 40–70 percent ofemissions from vehicles using traditionaldiesel fuel. Programs for retrofitting dieselvehicles with the most efficient filters avail-able will be essential, as older vehicles areoften highly polluting.6

Ocean vessels generally use dieselengines as well and therefore emit substan-tial amounts of black carbon. Emissionsfrom vessels in the northern hemisphere,especially those near the Arctic, can be espe-cially harmful. Efficient DPFs for vessels are



currently in development but likely could notbe used until marine fuel sulfur levels aregreatly reduced. Other means of reducingblack carbon emissions from ocean vesselsinclude reducing diesel fuel use by usingshoreside electricity when at port and simplytraveling more slowly at sea.7

Because of the higher ratio of cooling par-ticles emitted with black carbon when bio-mass is burned, it is more complicated toget climate benefits from changing cookingand agricultural burning practices. Butenergy security and indoor air pollution con-cerns have already led to a variety of pro-grams aimed at improving the efficiency oftraditional cookstoves. A better understand-ing of the possible climate benefits of reduc-ing black carbon provides further incentiveto look closely at the potential to improvecooking techniques and agricultural burningpractices. Several stoves being developednot only reduce black carbon emissions butalso produce biochar, a stable form of car-bon that can be stored permanently in soils

and improve soil productivity.Ensuring compliance and enforcement

with existing national laws on black carboncan provide some relief from warming. Thisis being pursued by the International Net-work for Environmental Compliance andEnforcement. But new laws and regulationsare needed at all levels for further and fasterreductions. As a start, where ultra-low sulfurdiesel fuel is available, diesel particulate fil-ters should be required on both new vehiclesand existing ones that may be used for manyyears. In addition, northern countries couldrestrict agricultural burning in the spring-time melt season in order to reduce theimpact of black carbon on snow and ice.Institutions such as the World Bank shouldmake climate funding available for black car-bon reduction programs.8

The faster-than-anticipated approach ofdangerous tipping points is forcing societyto consider the quickest ways to mitigate cli-mate change. Reducing black carbon may bethe fastest means of all.






Although climate change will affect everyoneworldwide, its impacts will be distributed dif-ferently between men and women as well asamong regions, generations, age classes,income groups, and occupations. The poor,the majority of whom are women living indeveloping countries, will be disproportion-ately affected. Yet most of the debate on cli-mate so far has been gender-blind.1

Gender inequality and climate change areinextricably linked. By exacerbating inequalityoverall, climate change slows progresstoward gender equality and thus impedesefforts to achieve wider goals like povertyreduction and sustainable development.And women are powerful agents of changewhose leadership on climate change is criti-cal. Women can help or hinder strategiesrelated to energy use, deforestation, popula-tion, economic growth, and science andtechnology, among other things.Climate change can have disproportionate

impacts on women’s well-being. Throughboth direct and indirect risks, it can affecttheir livelihood opportunities, time availabil-ity, and overall life expectancy. (See Table.)An increase in climate-related disease out-breaks, for example, will have quite differentimpacts on women than on men. Each year,some 50 million women living in malaria-endemic countries become pregnant; half of

them live in tropical areas of Africa withhigh transmission rates of the parasite thatcauses malaria. An estimated 10,000 ofthese women and 200,000 of their infantsdie as a result of malaria infection duringpregnancy; severe malarial anemia isinvolved in more than half of these deaths.2

People’s vulnerability to risks depends inlarge part on the assets they have available.Women, particularly poor women, face dif-ferent vulnerabilities than men. Approximat-ely 70 percent of the people who live on lessthan $1 a day are women. Many live in con-ditions of social exclusion. They may faceconstraints on their mobility or behaviorthat, for example, hinder their ability to relo-cate without a male relative’s consent.3

In general, women tend to have more lim-ited access to the assets—physical, finan-cial, human, social, and natural capital—that would enhance their capacity to adaptto climate change, such as land, credit, deci-sionmaking bodies, agricultural inputs, tech-nology, and extension and training services.Thus any climate adaptation strategy shouldinclude actions to build up women’s assets.Interventions should pay special attentionto the need to enhance women’s capacity tomanage risks with a view to reducing theirvulnerability and maintaining or increasingtheir opportunities for development.4

Ways to reduce climate-related risks forwomen include improving their access toskills, education, and knowledge; strength-ening their ability to prepare for and manage

Women and Climate Change:Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacities

Lorena Aguilar

Lorena Aguilar is the Global Senior Gender Adviserfor the International Union for Conservation ofNature–IUCN.

disasters; supporting their political ability todemand access to risk-management instru-ments; and helping households gain greateraccess to credit, markets, and social security.Despite the many challenges they face,

women are already playing an important rolein developing strategies to cope with climatechange. They have always been leaders incommunity revitalization and natural

resource management, and there are count-less instances where their participation hasbeen critical to community survival. In Hon-duras, for example, the village of La Masicawas the only community to register nodeaths in the wake of 1998’s HurricaneMitch. Six months earlier, a disaster agencyhad provided gender-sensitive communityeducation on early warning systems and

Potential Risks Examples Potential Effects onWomen

Direct RisksIncreaseddroughtand watershortage

Increasedextremeweatherevents

Indirect RisksIncreasedepidemics

Loss of species

Decreased cropproduction


Direct and Indirect Risks of Climate Changeand Their Potential Effects onWomen

Morocco had 10 years of droughtfrom 1984 to 2000; northern Kenyaexperienced four severe droughtsbetween 1983 and 2001.

The intensity and quantity ofcyclones, hurricanes, floods, andheat waves have increased.

Climate variability played a criticalrole in malaria epidemics in theEast African highlands andaccounted for an estimated 70percent of variation in recentcholera series in Bangladesh.

By 2050, climate change couldresult in species extinctions rangingfrom 18 to 35 percent.

In Africa, crop production isexpected to decline 20–50 percentin response to extreme El Niño-likeconditions.

Women and girls in developing countries areoften the primary collectors, users, and managersof water. Decreases in water availability will jeop-ardize their families’ livelihoods and increase theirworkloads, putting their capacity to attend schoolat risk.

An analysis of 141 countries in the period 1981to 2002 found that natural disasters (and theirsubsequent impacts) on average killed morewomen than men in societies where women’seconomic and social rights are not protected, orthey killed women at an younger age than men.

Women have less access to medical services thanmen, and their workloads increase when theyhave to spend more time caring for the sick.Adopting new strategies for crop production ormobilizing livestock is harder for female-headedand infected households.

Women often rely on crop diversity to accommo-date climatic variability, but permanent tempera-ture change will reduce agro-biodiversity andtraditional medicine options.

Rural women in particular are responsible for halfof the world’s food production and produce 60–80percent of the food in most developing countries.In Africa, the share of women affected by climate-related crop changes could range from 48 percentin Burkina Faso to 73 percent in the Congo.





hazard management. Women took over theabandoned task of continuously monitoringthe warning system. As a result, the munici-pality was able to evacuate the area promptlywhen the hurricane struck.5

Women also play a crucial role in forestpreservation strategies and increasing car-bon sinks through reforestation and affores-tation. For example, since 2001 women inGuatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Hon-duras, and Mexico have planted more than400,000 Maya Nut trees as part of theMayan Nuts Project supported by the Equi-librium Fund, which also increased foodsupplies for the communities. This showshow specific projects can improve the qual-ity of life for women and at the same time bestrategies for mitigation and adaptation toclimate change.6

And in Kenya, the Green Belt Movementand the World Bank’s Community Develop-ment Carbon Fund signed an emissions-reduction agreement in November 2006to reforest two mountain areas. Women’sgroups are planting thousands of trees, anactivity that will provide poor rural womenwith a small income and some economicindependence as well as capture some350,000 tons of carbon dioxide, restoreeroded soils, and support regular rainfallessential to Kenya’s farmers and hydroelec-tric plants.7

Women from indigenous communitiesoften know a range of “coping strategies”traditionally used to manage climate varia-bility and change. In Rwanda, women pro-duce more than 600 varieties of beans, andin Peru Aguaruna women plant more than60 varieties of manioc. These vast varieties,developed over centuries, allow them toadapt their crops to different biophysicalparameters, including soil quality, tempera-ture, slope, orientation, exposure, anddisease tolerance.8

Despite their experience and knowledge,women have not been given an equal oppor-tunity to participate in critical decisionmakingon climate change adaptation and mitiga-tion. Any accurate examination of climatechange must integrate social, economic,political, and cultural dimensions—including analysis of gender relations.

The first important step is to promoteinternational policy action on climate andgender. Negotiations on a post-2012 climateframework under the United NationsFramework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) should incorporate the principlesof gender equity and equality at all stages,from research and analysis to the design andimplementation of mitigation and adapta-tion strategies. It is critical that the UNFCCCrecognize the importance of gender in itsmeetings and take the necessary measuresto abide by key human rights and genderframeworks, especially the Convention onthe Elimination of All Forms of Discrimina-tion against Women, known as CEDAW. TheUNFCCC needs to develop a gender roadmap, to invest in specialized research ongender and climate change, and to guaran-

This Guatemalan women’s Maya Nut producer grouphas contracted to provide school lunches, using MayaNut products, to three school districts.

CourtesyEquilibrium

Fund

tee the participation of women and genderexperts at all meetings and in the prepara-tion of reports. It should establish a systemof gender-sensitive indicators for its nationalreports and for planning adaptation strate-gies or projects under the Clean Develop-ment Mechanism (CDM).Second, governments need to take action

at regional, national, and local levels, includ-ing translating international agreementsinto domestic policy. They can also developstrategies to improve and guarantee women’saccess to and control over resources, usewomen’s specialized knowledge and skills instrategies for survival and adaptation to nat-ural disasters, create opportunities to edu-cate and train women on climate change,provide measures for capacity building andtechnology transfer, and assign specificresources to secure women’s equal partici-pation in the benefits and opportunities ofmitigation and adaptation measures.Third, all financial mechanisms and

instruments associated with climate changeshould include the mainstreaming of a genderperspective and women’s empowerment.For example, climate change adaptationfunds could guarantee the incorporation ofgender considerations and the implementa-tion of initiatives that meet women’s needs.Women could also be included in all levelsof the design, implementation, and evalua-tion of afforestation, reforestation, and con-servation projects that receive payments forenvironmental services, such as carbonsinks. And women should have access tocommercial carbon funds, credits, and infor-mation that enable them to understand anddecide which new resources and technolo-gies meet their needs. Finally, the CDMshould finance projects that bring renewableenergy technologies within the reach ofwomen to help meet their domestic needs.Fourth, the many organizations, minis-

tries, and departments that address women’sissues, including UNIFEM, should play amore active role in climate change discus-sions and decisionmaking. Climate changecannot be considered an exclusively environ-mental problem; it needs to be understoodwithin all its development dimensions.One encouraging sign of progress on

these issues was the establishment of theGlobal Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA)in December 2007 at the Bali Conference ofthe Parties to the UNFCCC. This was set upby the U.N. Development Programme, theInternational Union for Conservation ofNature–IUCN, the U.N. Environment Pro-gramme, and the Women’s Environmentand Development Organization in responseto the lack of attention to gender issues inexisting climate change policymaking andinitiatives.9

The GGCA plans to:• integrate a gender perspective into globalpolicymaking and decisionmaking in orderto ensure that U.N. mandates on genderequality are fully implemented;• ensure that U.N. financing mechanisms onmitigation and adaptation address theneeds of poor women and men equitably;• set standards and criteria for climatechange mitigation and adaptation thatincorporate gender equality and equityprinciples;• build capacity at global, regional, and locallevels to design and implement gender-responsive climate change policies, strate-gies, and programs; and• bring women’s voices into the climatechange arena.Climate change is a global security issue

and a question of freedom and fundamentalhuman rights. It represents a serious chal-lenge to sustainable development, social jus-tice, equity, and respect for human rights forboth current and future generations





Given its potential to cause a serious declinein the livability of different regions aroundthe world, policymakers and others arebeginning to identify climate change as asecurity threat. Although there is no consen-sus that this drives violent conflict, securityconcerns arise from its indirect impacts onlocal institutions in areas challenged by envi-ronmental degradation. Particularly inEurope, climate change is increasinglyprominent in national security strategies andmilitary policies, a reflection of the globalreach of socioeconomic and political conse-quences. The fact that traditional securityactors are involved in discussions on thisissue confirms that state stability and secu-rity are no longer confined to the realms ofterritoriality and weapons-based threats. Abroader understanding is needed of thethreats to security posed by the direct andindirect impacts of climate change.

The direct impacts of climate change onhuman welfare are multiple and interlinked.The likely increase in the volatility of thewater supply will threaten health and sanita-tion for the most vulnerable societies, forexample. According to the Intergovernmen-tal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 1.3billion people today do not have adequateaccess to drinking water and 2 billion peoplelack access to sanitation. In Africa, anywhere

from 75 million to 250 million people areprojected to be exposed to increased waterstress due to climate change by 2020. Yieldsfrom rainfed agriculture could be cut in half,adversely affecting the food supply and exac-erbating malnutrition. Increased tempera-tures also have a direct effect on the spreadof disease, adding to the potential for thedisruption of social stability. The IPCC pre-dicts more frequent temperature extremes,heat waves, and heavy precipitation eventsas well as more intense tropical cyclones,threatening the physical safety of people liv-ing in areas with limited capacity to adapt tothese changes.1

The indirect impacts on states and com-munities are equally important. Migration,the collective impacts on human welfare, andthe threat to livelihoods undermine politicalinstitutions in vulnerable states. They chal-lenge the maintenance or establishment ofpolitical and socioeconomic stability—a wor-rying consequence since cooperative andlegitimate governance is considered the keydeterminant in the peaceful management ofscarce resources. The negative effect on gov-ernance structures is particularly relevantwhen an economy depends heavily on itsresource base, which is the case in mostdeveloping countries.2

As centers of production shift to areasthat remain viable during climate change,state and local institutions may be incapac-itated. Loss of revenue, combined with thedirect threats of climate change, bode ill for

The Security Dimensions of Climate Change

Jennifer Wallace

Jennifer Wallace is a doctoral candidate in theDepartment of Government and Politics at theUniversity of Maryland.



institutions struggling to ease conflict, regard-less of whether the tensions emerge overthe division of scarce goods or other social,political, or economic divisions. The directimpacts and indirect institutional challengeslinked to climate change can reinforce eachother as security effects emerge at the stateand transnational levels.

Recognizing these complex linkages, theU.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relationsheld a hearing on the National Security Imp-lications of Climate Change. In his openingstatement Senator Richard Lugar acknow-ledged that “the problem is real and is exac-erbated by man-made emissions of green-house gases. In the long run this could bringdrought, famine, disease, and mass migra-tion, all of which could lead to conflict.”3

The military board of the CNA Corpora-tion, a nonprofit research organization forpublic policy decisionmakers, notes that theNational Security Strategy and NationalDefense Strategy of the United States shoulddirectly address the threat of climate changeand prepare the military to respond to theconsequences. So far this advice has notbeen implemented in security policy plan-ning at the national level: the most recentNational Security Policy of the United Statesdid not mention anthropogenic climatechange as an issue area of concern. In con-trast, climate change is mentioned specifi-cally as a security interest within the first fewpages of the European Security Strategy.4

Researchers remain divided on the directlinks between climate change and violentconflict. The models have been based on oneof two scenarios: conflict over increasinglyscarce resources such as water or arable landor migration as a trigger of conflict. Researchin the early 1990s by Thomas Homer-Dixonon the resource scarcity–conflict relationshipfound limited evidence supporting a connec-tion, but it did identify a causal link when

resource competition was combined withother socioeconomic factors such as poorinstitutional capacity to govern the resource.5

One challenge in examining the relation-ship across a large number of cases was thatboth degradation and conflict data were onlyavailable at the national level, producingmixed results and masking the incidencesof conflict within and between communities.A recent study by Clionadh Raleigh and Hen-rik Urdal used georeferenced data to look atthe relationship of conflict occurrence togeographical boundaries rather than politicalones. Although their analysis provided onlymoderate support for the effect of demo-graphic and environmental variables onconflict, the authors called for further invest-igation into the links between physical pro-cesses and the political processes of rebellion.6

Migration is identified as the second pri-mary climate-induced driver of conflict. In2007 the Stern Review warned that “by themiddle of the century, 200 million more peo-ple may become permanently displaced dueto rising sea levels, heavier floods, and moreintense droughts.” Weak states are particu-larly vulnerable to climate-induced migra-tion, since environmental impacts can beaddressed by adaptation and mitigation orby leaving an affected area, but weak institu-tions are less capable of successfully imple-menting the former strategies.7

Resource competition can emerge whenlocal and resettled populations are forced toshare subsistence resources, which canserve to worsen preexisting ethnic or socialtensions. Adrian Martin notes that in com-munities with resettled populations, “thereis a growing concern that scarcity-inducedinsecurities can contribute to an amplifica-tion of the perceived significance of ethnicdifferences and inequalities, creating theconditions for unproductive conflict.…Insuch cases, perceptions of resource use con-


flict and perceptions of inequity are mutuallyreinforcing.” Nonetheless, some scholarsemphasize that conflict in these cases is bet-ter explained by the migration of feudingparties or the weak institutional capacity ofthe receiving community.8

What the academic debate is unable toaccount for, based on historical incidencesof conflict, is the threat to security and statestability posed by unprecedented levels ofclimate change due to human activities. Theevidence from several areas indicates thatclimate change can act as a “risk multiplier,”revealing a potential for unprecedented vio-lent outcomes as climate conditions worsen.

In Sudan, for example, climate changeis an additional stress in an area alreadyunable to meet its resource demands. TheU.N. Environment Programme (UNEP)reports that “desertification is clearly linkedto conflict, as there are strong indicationsthat the hardship caused to pastoralist soci-eties by desertification is one of the causesof the current war in Darfur.” The pastoral-ists were forced to move south to find arableland as the boundaries of the desert shiftedsouthward due to declines in precipitation.In northern Darfur, the annual amount ofrainfall has dropped by 30 percent over 80years. As demand increases, in line withprojected growth rates in the human andlivestock populations, climate change isexpected to aggravate conflicts in an areawith an extensive history of local clashesover agricultural and grazing land.9

In one case reported by UNEP, the camel-herding Shanabla tribe had migrated south-ward into the Nuba mountains as a resultof northern rangeland degradation, and theNuba population “expressed concern overthe widespread mutilation of trees due toheavy logging by the Shanabla to feed theircamels, and warned of ‘restarting the war’if this did not cease.” While the primary dri-

vers of the Darfur crisis include a range ofsocial, political, and economic issues, epi-sodes like this one demonstrate how declin-ing resources can fuel an environment ofcompetition and mistrust in regions plaguedby conflict.10

Bangladesh is considered to be amongthe countries at highest risk from the effectsof climate change, as floods, monsoons,tropical cyclones that increase in intensity,and sea level rise from melting glaciers


People frantically pull water from a well just filled by atank truck with water from a nearby borehole, in theOromiya region of Ethiopia during a severe drought, 2006.

AndrewHeavens

threaten the population, particularly incoastal areas. Abnormally high destructionwas already witnessed in the flood of 1998,when two thirds of the country was inun-dated. The flood led to more than 1,000deaths, the loss of 10 percent of the coun-try’s rice crop, and 30,000 people being lefthomeless.11

Continued climate change may preventfuture recovery in Bangladesh, since smallislands in the Bay of Bengal are home toapproximately 4 million people, many ofwhom will need to be relocated as theislands are rendered uninhabitable by risingsea levels. Conflict over territorial bordersalready plagues the region, and the resettle-ment of vulnerable populations threatensto add to these conflicts. The deterioratingsocioeconomic and political situation inBangladesh is already a security concern forother nations; following the U.S. invasion ofAfghanistan in 2001, Taliban and Islamicextremists relocated to Bangladesh. Increas-ing extremism threatens to further destabi-lize the country as environmental stresscombines with socioeconomic factors toweaken the government’s ability to copewith multiple sources of instability.12

As the Darfur and Bangladesh casesdemonstrate, the threat posed to securityand stability at the global, state, and individ-ual levels from environmental degradation isincreasingly evident, despite academic criti-cism about the lack of precise evidence link-ing climate change to violent outcomes. Yetacademic research suffers from improperlyscaled national aggregate data, the challengeof capturing complex causal models, and thedifficulty of accounting for the time-laggedeffects of climate change. These constraintsshould not excuse policymakers who fail toaddress increasingly visible security challenges.

While preparing for the effects of climatechange is receiving more attention throughstrategies of mitigation and adaptation, thedeveloping world remains most at risk fromthe consequences of temperature rise—andit has the least access to financial, technical,and human resources to implement preven-tive measures. As threats to stability andsecurity are increasingly seen to transcendpolitical borders, climate change presentsclear security challenges for industrialnations as well as for the most volatile orvulnerable regions of the world.





The last 10,000 years has been a period ofunusually stable climate very favorable tothe development of human civilization. Theworld’s ecosystems also adjusted to the sta-bility. Now that is beginning to change.Nature is responding to the climate changethat has taken place on a planet 0.75 degreesCelsius warmer than preindustrial levels.Some of the change is physical in nature,most notably the phase change between iceand water. Northern hemisphere lakes arefreezing later in the year and ice is breakingup earlier in the spring.1

Glaciers are in retreat in most of theworld, with those in the tropics due to dis-appear in 12–15 years. Some of these areimportant water sources for cities like LaPaz and Quito. Others are important for themajor rivers of China and the Ganges. Thishydrological shift obviously has implicationsnot only for human populations but also forthe ecosystems that depend on them.2

The most dramatic changes are thosetaking place in the Arctic: the summerretreat of the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean hasbeen accelerating, as might have been anti-cipated with more dark water exposed andabsorbing heat from the sun. The biodiver-sity poster child for this situation is the PolarBear, now listed as threatened under theU.S. Endangered Species Act because the

critical habitat these huge animals need inorder to survive is literally disappearingbeneath them.3

Beyond the Arctic, the timing of the lifecycles of many plant species is changing,plant and animal species ranges are shifting,and the rising temperature is having numer-ous other unexpected effects. (See Table.)These changes are no longer single exam-ples. They constitute statistically robust doc-umentation that nature is on the move allover the planet.4

Yet all these changes are relatively minorripples in nature. The more important ques-tion is, What is in store? There is at least anadditional 0.5 degrees Celsius of warmingalready implicit in the current atmosphericconcentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs)because of the lag time in the buildup of heat.5

Climate change is, of course, nothing newin the history of life on Earth. Clearly, glacierscame and went in the past hundreds ofthousands of years without major biodiver-sity loss. But today’s landscapes—highlymodified by human activities—presentobstacle courses to species as they attemptto follow the habitat conditions they need tosurvive. The obvious policy response to thisis to restore natural connections in the land-scapes in order to ease species dispersal.A more difficult complication is that

ecosystems and biological communities donot move as a unit. Rather, studies of pastresponses to climate change (for instance,after the retreat of the last glacier in Europe)

Climate Change’s Pressures on Biodiversity

Thomas Lovejoy

Thomas Lovejoy is President of The H. John Heinz IIICenter for Science, Economics, and the Environmentin Washington, DC.

reveal that individual species each move intheir own direction and in their own way.In essence, ecosystems will disassemble.After tracking their required conditions, thesurviving species will assemble into novelecosystems the likes of which are difficultto anticipate.6

Another complication is that change willnot be linear and gradual. Much as therewill be abrupt change in the climate systemitself, there will also be abrupt change inecosystems. In fact, such threshold changesare already being observed. In southernAlaska, British Columbia, the U.S. North-west, and Colorado, as well as in Scandin-avia and Germany, the longer and warmersummers and less severe winters are tippingthe balance in favor of the native pine barkbeetle, for example. With one more genera-tion able to reproduce, there are now tens ofmillions of hectares where up to 70 percentof the trees are dead, creating an enormoustimber and fire management problem and,through the loss of trees, adding yet morecarbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. Itwill be difficult to anticipate all such thresh-old changes; indeed, the world can expect

a lot of surprises.7

In addition, change at an even greaterscale—namely, system change—can beexpected, such as with the hydrological cycleof the Amazon. It has been known for 30years that the Amazon forest has theremarkable feature of generating an impor-tant fraction of its own rain. Windbornemoisture from the Atlantic Ocean drops asrain, and most of it evaporates from thecomplex surfaces of the forest or is trans-pired by the trees, thus returning to thewestward moving air mass to become rainand to then recycle again farther to the west.This is important in maintaining the forestand providing precipitation farther south onthe continent.8

In 2005, the Amazon “rain machine” sys-tem failed, creating the greatest drought inrecorded history in Amazonian Brazil. Thiswas traced to changes in the Atlantic circula-tion—and believed to be a preview of whatclimate change could bring. Indeed, most ofthe major climate models, particularly thatof Britain’s Hadley Centre, predict “Amazondieback” at somewhere around a tempera-ture change of plus 2.5 degrees Celsius.9

Indicator Changes to Date

Flowers Blooming earlier at Kew Gardens in London

Tree swallows Migrating, nesting, and laying eggs earlier

Butterflies Ranges shifting for Edith’s Checkerspot Butterfly in western United States and formany species in Europe

Golden Toad of Formerly found in Costa Rica, first species to become extinct due to climate changeMonteverde

Eel grass Southern limit in U.S. Chesapeake Bay moving northward every year

American ash tree Warmer and longer summers allowed Emerald Ash Borer to produce one moregeneration than before, producing massive tree death

Coral reefs Algae expelled from reefs due to warming water, leading to coral “bleaching events”


Selected Examples of Climate Change’s Effects on Biodiversity





An even more devastating system changeis already taking place: the acidification ofthe oceans. This is change driven by theincreased concentrations of carbon dioxidein the atmosphere. So much attention hadbeen paid to the CO2 absorbed by theoceans (which has kept climate change frombeing even greater) that the portion of theCO2 converted to carbonic acid was largelyoverlooked. The oceans are today 0.1 pHunit more acid than in preindustrial times.That may seem inconsequential, butbecause pH is a logarithmic scale, this isequivalent to 30 percent more acid.10

Increasing acidity is a matter of greatconsequence because tens of thousands ofmarine species build shells and skeletonsfrom calcium carbonate. They depend on acalcium carbonate equilibrium that is sensi-tive to both temperature and pH: the colderand more acid the water is, the harder it isfor organisms to mobilize calcium carbon-ate. This includes species like corals orGiant Clams. It also includes tiny planktonicorganisms that exist in huge profusion atthe base of marine food chains. Change isalready being detected at the base of foodchains off Alaska and in the North Atlantic.11

What can be done to diminish as muchadditional climate change as possible and tosimultaneously buffer natural systemsagainst the change that is all but inevitable?The former involves producing a new energybasis for civilization. One component of thatis reducing CO2 emissions from the destruc-tion of modern biomass, principally tropicalforests. At the moment that accounts forroughly one fifth of the annual increase inGHG concentrations. This makes Indonesiaand Brazil the third and four largest CO2-emitting nations even though their fossil-fuel-derived emissions are relatively low.12

But forest carbon (other than reforesta-tion and afforestation, and to a large extent

plantation forests) was left out of the currentarrangements for carbon trading through theClean Development Mechanism establishedin the Kyoto Protocol. Its status is currentlybeing explored in hopes of negotiating a sys-tem to reward countries for reducing emis-sions from deforestation and degradation.Finding a solution to lower and eliminatethis source of CO2 emissions is good for theforest, good for biodiversity, good for forestpeoples, and good for the climate.At the same time, a great deal of atten-

tion needs to be paid to “adaptation,” tomaking biodiversity and ecosystems resilientin the face of climate change. Natural con-nections urgently need to be reestablished inlandscapes to facilitate the dispersal of indi-vidual species as they follow the conditionsthey need to survive. Basically, the oppositeof the current situation of patches of naturein human-dominated landscapes needs tobe created, so that human needs and aspira-tions are embedded in a natural matrix.A second obvious measure is to reduce

other stresses on ecosystems so that they donot reinforce the changes taking place in awarming world—by reducing siltation, forinstance, on coral reefs. Biodiversity andecosystems basically integrate all environ-mental stress, so this aspect makes theexisting conservation and environmentagenda even more important.A lot of the potential management and

adaptation measures are hard to designusing the extremely coarse scale of globalclimate models. Managers need a muchmore precise idea of what kind of change islikely to take place within a square kilometerand over the next few decades. This can begreatly facilitated by “downscaling,” whichcan be done quickly and cheaply usinglaptops instead of supercomputers. Therewill undoubtedly be a succession of down-scaled projections, each refining scientists’

understanding of what is likely to happen insmall units of landscape. One of the mostuseful things that can be done quickly is toproduce a first set of downscaled projectionsthat can highlight the challenges that man-agers need to address.

In particular situations, adaptation optionscan be illuminated through modeling pro-jected range shifts of individual species, as hasbeen done for some of the flowering plantspecies of the Cape Floral Kingdom in SouthAfrica. And in very special situations man-agement can actually “assist” migration.Unfortunately, the cold, hard reality is that thenumber of species in the world is far too largefor these options to be used extensively.13

Adaptation to sea level rise, although vir-tually nonexistent for low-lying islands, ispossible in coastal areas. The Nature Con-servancy has a valuable experiment on thisin Albemarle Sound in North Carolina thatanticipates sea level rise and will facilitatethe development of new freshwater wetlands

as current ones become tidal. But suchadaptation is useful only with gradual sealevel rise, not the rapid rise likely to occurfollowing major changes in the Greenlandice sheet, for example.14

The world’s protected areas are certainlynot being invalidated because the speciesfor which many were established will moveaway. Indeed, they have a new conservationrole: to be the safe havens from whichspecies will move to new locations. Withoutthe existing protected areas, there will benowhere for the new biogeographical patternto emerge from. Species will of course needsafe havens once they have moved and willneed natural connections in the landscapeto facilitate the movement to those areas.The most important conclusion is that

ecosystems and biodiversity are extremelysensitive to climate change and representone of the most urgent reasons to limitadditional change. The warming inherent incurrent GHG levels will bring the planet’saverage temperature increase to 1.3 degreesCelsius. This is just a bit more than half adegree short of the level at which manyconservation organizations anticipate eco-systems will be in serious trouble. Yet sincethere are already threshold changes in eco-systems and ocean acidification at currentlevels of climate change and greenhouse gasconcentrations, dangerous change is likelyto appear before 2.0 degrees Celsius. Inessence, biodiversity is indicating climatechange needs to be treated with unprece-dented immediacy and urgency.15



Emerald Ash Borer larva in fall

www.emeraldashborer.info



The world’s small island developing states(SIDS) are often cited as the most vulnera-ble countries to climate impacts and thefirst nations on Earth to face critical climatechange thresholds. Yet they have contributedleast to the growing concentrations of green-house gases in the atmosphere and so havethe least responsibility for the crisis theworld now faces. They are least likely to beheard at the negotiating table, as they lackthe political weight of the major emitters. Asa result, their vulnerability goes unnoticedand their voices go unheard. They are alsoleast likely to be the beneficiaries of climatefunds, most of which get spent on mitigation(particularly energy projects) rather thanadaptation. And when action is taken they areleast likely to be involved in the consultations.The Caribbean states provide a good

example of the vulnerability of small islandsstates. According to the New EconomicsFoundation, the increased strength of stormsand hurricanes and the surge in their des-tructive forces have affected hundreds ofthousands of victims and led to multimillion-dollar damages. In 2004 Grenada, an islandconsidered to be outside the hurricane belt,was devastated when Hurricane Ivan struck,destroying over 90 percent of the country’sinfrastructure and housing stock and caus-ing over $800 million in damages, the equiv-

alent of 200 percent of Grenada’s grossdomestic product. The increase in frequencyand intensity of these storms expected dueto climate change could well place furtherstrain on political, social, and economic sys-tems and act as an additional constraint ondevelopment in the region.1

These islands depend on fragile eco-systems such as coral reefs. Globally, coralreefs provide critical habitat for more than25 percent of marine species and contributemore than $30 billion in annual net eco-nomic benefit. Recent studies estimate thata third of the world’s reef-building coralspecies are facing extinction. Climatechange, coastal development, overfishing,and pollution are the major threats. A newanalysis shows that before 1998, only 13 ofthe 704 coral species assessed would havebeen classified as threatened. Now the num-ber in that category is 231.2

The Caribbean has the largest proportionof corals in high extinction risk categories,but reefs in the Indian Ocean and the Pacificare also likely to be decimated. Sea levelrises, flooding, and storm surges are a par-ticular concern for the atoll states in thePacific and Indian Oceans. If the projectionsof the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange prove correct, these island nationswill effectively disappear by the end of thiscentury.3

SIDS also suffer from a lack of naturalresources, often have limited freshwatersupplies, and are constrained by poor trans-

Small Island Developing Statesat the Forefront of Global Climate Change

Edward Cameron

Edward Cameron is a Washington-based climatechange specialist who has worked extensively withsmall island states.



port and communication infrastructure. Thismeans they are particularly susceptible toeven small changes in the global climate.Furthermore, the chronic lack of adaptivecapacity, including financial, technical, andinstitutional resources, means they are illprepared to deal with these multiple threats.Today small island states are striving to

achieve long-term sustainable developmentand implement the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs). Climatechange impacts are already underminingtheir efforts, however.The first MDG—to eradicate extreme

poverty and hunger—is being affected bychanging patterns of food production andthe gradual undermining of livelihoods.Many of these islands depend heavily ontourism and natural resources for their eco-nomic livelihood. They also depend on localstaples and species for the bulk of theirfood. Threats to biodiversity and coral reefsystems will reduce these livelihood assets,undermine economic performance, andthreaten regional food security.The second goal—to achieve universal

primary education—is being compromisedby extreme weather events that create a cycleof destruction and reconstruction and thatreduce the amount of investment flowinginto long-term development. Tropicalcyclones destroy schools and hospitals,damage public utilities and infrastructure(including energy, water, and transport con-nections), and so reduce access to educa-tion, health care, and other public services.Loss of national revenue from associatedimpacts may also undermine public spend-ing on education.The third MDG—to promote gender

equality and empower women—is jeopar-dized, as women living in poverty are oftenthe most threatened by the dangers thatstem from climate change. Cultural norms

can mean that women do not have theappropriate skill sets to deal with myriadimpacts. The statistics indicating fatalitiesfrom extreme weather events are revealing inthis regard. Moreover, as resources becomescarcer, women and young girls spend moretime collecting food and water and less timecaring for their health and education.Three of the MDGs deal with health and

aim to reduce child mortality, improvematernal health, and combat HIV/AIDS,malaria, and other diseases. The WorldHealth Organization and leading healthproviders are anticipating an increase inwaterborne and vector-borne diseases, indiarrheal diseases, and in malnutrition as aresult of associated climate impacts. Thiscould lead to increases in child mortality, areduction in maternal health, and the under-mining of nutritional health needed to com-bat HIV/ AIDS.4

In the Maldives, a small islands nation inthe Southern Indian Ocean, the humandrama of climate change is a daily reality for300,000 residents. In 1987 the President ofthe Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom,became the first world leader to draw atten-tion to the threat of climate change. In alandmark speech to the United Nations Gen-eral Assembly, he warned that this wouldresult in the death of his nation and otherslike it. Twenty years on and the effects ofclimate change are already evident: stormsurges and coastal erosion destroy homes,pose dangers to infrastructure and utilities,and divert limited resources from strategicdevelopment.5

In the medium term, rising oceantemperatures, coupled with growing acidifi-cation, threaten the survival of coral reefs inthe Maldives—the very lifeblood of the econ-omy. The island’s two principal industries,tourism and fisheries, are entirely dependentupon the reefs. They account for 40 percent


of the national economic output andmore than 40 percent of the jobs.Together, these industries havefueled the sustained and enviableeconomic development that hasenabled the Maldives to grow frombeing one of the poorest countriesin South Asia in the 1970s to therichest country per capita in theregion today.6

In the long term, it is not eco-nomic development but thecountry’s very survival that is threat-ened. With most of the islands lyingless than one meter above sea level,this generation—the most fortunateone to have ever lived on theseislands—may be the last one to livein the Maldives.Since some degree of climate change is

already inevitable as the effects of currentconcentrations of greenhouse gases in theatmosphere continue to be felt for the nextfew decades, the government of the Mal-dives has developed a comprehensive pro-gram of domestic adaptation. Work hasconcentrated on reinforcing vital infrastruc-ture, particularly related to transport andcommunications. Public services rangingfrom water supply and electricity generationto the provision of health care and educationare being strengthened against climatethreats. Flood defenses have been con-structed, and measures are being taken tominimize coastal erosion.7

Perhaps the most innovative adaptationmeasure is the development of the “safeisland” concept. This initiative is designed tominimize climate vulnerability by resettlingcommunities from smaller islands that aremore vulnerable onto larger, better-protectedones. This lets the government concentratelimited resources on protecting the moreviable islands. It also allows for public

services to be strengthened and economicopportunities to be developed.8

Domestic adaptation in the Maldivesand throughout other vulnerable societieswill involve significant engineering projectsand large financial investments. It will alsorequire large-scale capacity building tostrengthen institutional capacity, to enhanceknowledge, human, and financial resources,and to encourage an awareness-raising pro-gram to prepare people for the inevitablechanges.Adaptation without mitigation will result

in little more than a temporary respite, post-poning catastrophic climate change to alater date. Urgent and ambitious action mustbe taken to reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions. Small island states have been activein attempts to find a global consensus onclimate action from the very beginning.Indeed, the momentum to create the UnitedNations Framework Convention on ClimateChange and the Kyoto Protocol was in parta result of moral and ethical argumentsadvanced by members of the Alliance ofSmall Island States (AOSIS), earning the


Part of the Maldive tourist infrastructure at risk of sea level rise

NevitDilmen

organization the title of “Conscience of theConvention.”Today AOSIS members are participating

actively in the Bali process, which seeks tofind an appropriate global climate regime tosucceed the Kyoto Protocol’s first commit-ment period, which expires in 2012. TheAOSIS negotiating position for the Bali pro-cess is entitled No Island Left Behind. It out-lines three long-term strategic objectives:• An ambitious long-term goal for reducinggreenhouse gas emissions should be theorganizing point for all other processeswithin the Bali process. This implies deepand aggressive cuts in emissions to levelsthat keep long-term temperature increasesas far below 2 degrees Celsius above prein-dustrial levels as possible.• More funding for adaptation is needed,with priority access given to SIDS on anexpedited basis based on their specificvulnerabilities and lack of capacity.• SIDS need support and technical assis-tance to build capacity and gain access totechnologies to respond and adapt to cli-mate change across a wide range of socio-economic sectors.9

AOSIS favors an expanded and broad-ened Kyoto protocol, with clear opportuni-ties for developing countries that may wishto enter into full Kyoto commitments. Theoverall outcome should use impacts onSIDS as a benchmark for effectiveness andsuccess. Although AOSIS has had a legiti-mate and important voice in the climatechange process, the organization has oftensuffered from its own capacity constraintsand from division among its members.Many countries have become frustrated

at the lack of urgency and ambition in inter-

national negotiations and believe that thetime has come to change the dynamic byintroducing new approaches to solving theclimate crisis. In March 2008, the govern-ment of the Maldives, working closely with anumber of other island nations and drawingon the support of more than 70 countries,introduced a resolution on climate changeand human rights at the United NationsHuman Rights Council in Geneva. It calledon the Office of the High Commissioner forHuman Rights to conduct an analyticalstudy exploring the interface betweenhuman rights and climate change. Thisgroundbreaking and innovative initiativeseeks to import the rhetorical, normative,and operational force of internationalhuman rights law into the climate changediscourse.10

A rights-based approach to climatechange holds a great deal of promise forsmall island states as they seek to injecturgency and ambition into mitigation policywhile simultaneously lobbying for increasedfinancial flows to support mitigation. First, arights-based approach could help improveanalysis of the human impacts of climatechange by linking it to realizing more than50 international human rights laws, such asthe right to life, health, and an adequatestandard of living. Second, a rights-basedapproach replaces policy preferences withlegal obligations and turns the communitiesmost vulnerable to climate change from pas-sive observers of climate negotiations intorights holders. This will give voice to the vul-nerable and compel the major emitters toact on climate change before the clock runsout on small island states.





Cities are often blamed for contributing dis-proportionately to global climate change.Numerous sources state that cities areresponsible for 75–80 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gases (GHGs)—although the scientific basis for these figuresis unclear. One detailed analysis concludedthat the number is more like 40 percent.1

In fact, many cities combine a good qual-ity of life with relatively low levels of green-house gas emissions per person. There isno inherent conflict between an increasinglyurbanized world and reduced global GHGemissions. Focusing on cities as “the prob-lem” often means that too much attentionis paid to the reduction of greenhouse gasemissions, especially in low-income nations,and too little to minimizing climate change’sdamaging impacts. Certainly, the planning,management, and governance of citiesshould have a central role in reducing GHGemissions due to human activities world-wide. But this should also have a central rolein the often neglected activities of protectingpeople in cities from the floods, storms, heatwaves, and other likely impacts of climatechange.The main sources of greenhouse gas

emissions in cities are the use of energy in

industrial production, transportation, andbuildings (heating or cooling, lighting, andappliances) and waste decomposition.Transport is an important contributor toGHG emissions in almost all cities, althoughits relative contribution varies a lot—fromaround 11 percent in Shanghai and Beijing(in 1998) to around 20 percent in Londonand New York and as much as 30–35 percentin Rio de Janeiro and Toronto.2

GHG inventories show more than a tenfolddifference in average per capita emissionsbetween cities—with São Paulo responsiblefor 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent perperson compared with 19.7 tons per personin Washington, DC. If figures were availablefor cities in low-income nations, the differ-ences could well be more than 100-fold. Inmost cities in low-income nations, GHGemissions per person cannot be highbecause there is scant use of fossil fuelsand little else to generate other greenhousegases. There is little industry, very low levelsof private automobile use, and limited own-ership and use of electrical equipment inhomes and businesses.3

Thus perhaps it is not cities in generalthat are the main source of greenhouse gasemissions but only cities in high-incomenations. Yet an increasing number of studiesof particular cities in Europe and NorthAmerica show that they have much lowerlevels of greenhouse gas emissions thantheir national averages. New York and Lon-don, for example, have much lower emis-

The Role of Cities in Climate Change

David Satterthwaite and David Dodman

David Satterthwaite is a Senior Fellow in theHuman Settlements Group at the InternationalInstitute for Environment and Development (IIED)in London. David Dodman is a researcher in IIED’sHuman Settlements and Climate Change Groups.



sions levels per person than the average forthe United States and the United Kingdom.4

Of course, it is not cities (or small urbancenters or rural areas) that are responsiblefor greenhouse gas emissions, but particularactivities. Figuring out how to allocate emis-sions to different locations is not a simpleexercise. For instance, locations with largecoal-fired power stations are marked as veryhigh GHG emitters, even though most ofthe electricity they generate may be usedelsewhere. That is why it is common in GHGinventories for cities to be assigned theemissions generated in providing theelectricity used within their boundaries, andit explains why some cities have surprisinglylow per capita emissions: much of theelectricity they import comes from hydro,nuclear power, or wind and solar, not fromfossil-fueled power stations.There are other difficulties too. For

instance, do the emissions from gasolineused by car-driving commuters get attri-buted to the city where they work or the sub-urb or rural area where they live? Whichlocations get assigned emissions from airtravel? Total carbon emissions from any citywith an international airport are greatly influ-enced by whether or not the city is assignedthe fuel loaded onto the aircraft—even ifmost of the fuel is used in the air, outsidethe city.A more fundamental question is whether

greenhouse gas emissions used in produc-ing goods or services are allocated to pro-duction or consumption. If they are assignedto the location of the final consumer, muchof the greenhouse gas emissions from agri-culture and deforestation would go on thetally sheet of the cities where wood productsare used and food is consumed. If insteadthey are assigned to where goods are pro-duced, then a city that was a major producerof windmills, photovoltaic cells, and hydro-

gen-fueled buses could have high green-house gas emissions per person eventhough its products help keep emissionsdown wherever they are used.These questions over how to assign GHG

emissions have enormous significance forallocating responsibility for reducing emis-sions between nations and, within nations,between cities and other settlements.If China’s major manufacturing cities areassigned all the GHG emissions related toexported goods (including the coal-firedelectricity that helped produce them), thisimplies a much larger responsibility formoderating and eventually reversing emis-sions than if the nations or cities wheregoods are used are held accountable. Thus,seeing cities as “the problem” misses thefact that the driver of most GHG emissionsis the consumption patterns of middle- andupper-income groups in wealthier nations,including those who live outside cities.This attitude also misses the extent to

which well-planned and well-governed citiescan provide high living standards withouthigh greenhouse gas emissions. Considerthe large differences among wealthy cities ingasoline use per person. People in mostU.S. cities use three to five times as muchgasoline as people in most European citiesbecause of much higher private automobileuse. But even within U.S. cities people canhave a relatively small carbon footprint. Ona per capita basis, for example, New Yorkersemit just 30 percent as much greenhousegas as the national average, in part becauseof smaller and more concentrated housesand apartments and the greater use of pub-lic transportation. Many of the most des-irable (and expensive) residential areas inthe world’s wealthiest cities have high densi-ties and buildings that minimize the needfor space heating and cooling—in distinctcontrast to houses in suburban or rural


areas. Most European cities have high-den-sity centers where walking and bicycling arecommon. High-quality public transport cankeep down private car use.5

Cities also concentrate so much of whatcontributes to a high quality of life that doesnot involve high material consumption (andthus high GHG emissions): theater, music,museums, libraries, the visual arts, dance,and the enjoyment of historic buildings anddistricts. They have long been places ofsocial, economic, and political innovation—something already evident regarding climatechange. In many high-income nations, citypoliticians like Mayor Michael Bloomberg ofNew York and Ken Livingston (when he wasmayor of London) are more committed toreducing greenhouse gas emissions thannational politicians are.6

How a city is planned, managed, and gov-erned also has important implications forhow it will cope with the impacts of climatechange. Most cities in low-income nations inAfrica and Asia have very low emissions perperson. Yet they house hundreds of millionsof people who are at risk from the increasedfrequency or intensity of floods, storms, andheat waves and from the water supply con-straints that climate change is likely to bring.Discussions of climate change priorities sooften forget this. And these risks are not eas-ily addressed, especially by international aidagencies that show little interest in tacklingthe reasons so many people are at risk, suchas the lack of provision for urban infrastruc-ture (such as drains) and the high propor-

tion of people living in poor-quality homesin informal settlements. A great deal ofurban expansion increases risks from cli-mate change, because the only sites thatlow-income groups can find for their housesare on floodplains or other dangerous sites.7

But there are some good precedents toshow what can be done. Manizales inColombia, for example—long an innovatorin environmental policies—has shown howto reduce risks for vulnerable populations,as people living on dangerous hillsides wereprovided with alternative sites and thehillsides were turned into locally managedeco-parks. Yet the good examples will remainisolated and unusual unless national govern-ments and international agencies learn howto support these kinds of local innovationson a much larger scale.8


Traffic on Avenida Atlântica, Copacabana Beach, Riode Janeiro, with a pall of pollution on the horizon

AlbertCesario

Climate change has multiple direct and indi-rect consequences for human health—all ofwhich are important. Climate change alsothreatens to disrupt Earth’s life-support sys-tems that underlie health and well-being.After all, human health and well-being basi-cally depend on the health of crop systems,forests, other animals, and marine life.Health is the final common pathway forenvironmental and social conditions.Thus, the well-documented threats thatclimate change holds for societies and forecosystems—for coral reefs, forests, andagriculture—ultimately pose the greatestlong-term threats to health, nutrition, andwell-being.1

One of the first direct and most obviousresults of climate change—an outcomeclearly tied to rising average temperatures—is heat waves. These are expected to take anincreasing toll in all nations. The dispropor-tionate increase in nighttime temperaturessince 1970 and the rising humidity thatstems from warming oceans and a heatedatmosphere increase the health threats fromheat waves.2

Extreme weather events, especially heavydownpours, can create conditions conduciveto “clusters” of diseases carried by mosqui-

toes, rodents, and water. In addition, more-intense hurricanes, droughts, and sea levelrise are all projected to increase substan-tially the number of refugees and internallydisplaced persons across the globe—condi-tions that will squeeze resources (like waterand food) and raise the risk of epidemics ofcommunicable diseases.3

Intense storms have other, less obviouseffects on health. When Hurricane Mitch hitCentral America in October 1998, it depos-ited six feet of rain in three days, causingflooding, landslides, and mudslides, and itdislodged pesticide-laden soils from banana,sugarcane, and African palm plantations aswell as sediments from ancient Mayan ruins.Areas surrounding gold mines became heav-ily contaminated with toxic chemicals andheavy metals, and surveys of the local popu-lation have shown a dramatic rise in skinand eye diseases. Along with causing 11,000deaths, Mitch brought epidemics of malaria,dengue fever, cholera, and leptospirosis, andthe damages continue to affect developmentin Honduras today.4

Changes in the availability of water due toclimate change are another area of concern.Droughts and disappearing glaciers are pro-jected to take an increasing toll on health,agricultural yields, and hydropower. Drought,for example, is associated with epidemicsof bacterial meningitis across the AfricanSahel. And water shortages contribute towaterborne disease outbreaks.5

Warming also expands the potential range

Climate Change and Health Vulnerabilities

Juan Almendares and Paul R. Epstein

Dr. Juan Almendares is Physiology Professor at theMedical School, Universidad Nacional Autonomade Honduras. Dr. Paul R. Epstein is the AssociateDirector of the Center for Health and the GlobalEnvironment at Harvard Medical School.




of infectious diseases and disease carriers.In southern Honduras, the warming has beenso great that malaria no longer circulates.But people have also found the tempera-tures inhospitable and have moved northinto forested areas ripe with malaria; so theindirect impact of climate change is thatmore people are exposed to health threats.Insect pests can affect not just humans butalso forests and crops, as well as livestockand wildlife.6

To deal with these escalating problems,health care systems must be supported and

public health services strengthened. Neededenvironmental measures include ecologicallysound control of vector-borne diseases, suchas malaria and dengue fever. Communityresearch on the prevention of malaria hasdemonstrated that integrated control can beachieved without using DDT. The measuresneeded include community participation andtraining, treatment of infected populations,and larval control of anopheline mosquitoes.7

Such solutions require organizing com-munities and mobilizing international forcesto address these vital problems. Education isan essential component of all solutions. Thedevelopment of schools that are ecologicallysustainable in Colombia, El Salvador, Hon-duras, and Guatemala by Friends of theEarth International has helped in the searchfor appropriate solutions to climate changeand health problems. Organic, locally grownagriculture promotes health and nutrition—the basis of resistance to disease.8

Health ministries must have conveningpower and support to work with ministriesof agriculture, planning, education, andfinance on climate change protection, pre-paredness, and prevention. At the interna-tional level, the World Health Organizationcan provide guidelines for all nations toprepare for climate change–related ills and“natural” catastrophes. Financial supportfor this initiative is sorely needed.Energy poverty is standing in the way

of achieving the Millennium DevelopmentGoals. The bottom line is that health mustagain take center stage and—as it did in thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries,when vast improvements in basic water andsanitation were made—become the corner-stone of clean, healthy, and sustainabledevelopment.9


A Honduran boy excited about a carrot fromhis parents’ organic garden—established withtechnical assistance and support from Sustain-able Harvest International

SustainableHarvestInternational

In 2009, the eyes of the world will be onChina, India, and the United States. Thethreat of climate change is now so great,and dealing with it effectively is so central tothe future of national economies, that newscripts are being called for. The role of theUnited States as the world’s single largestpolluter in per capita terms remains pivotal.But China and India are now assuming animportance they did not have in 1997, whenthe world came together in Kyoto to do adeal on climate change.

This is a moment of decision for India.How can a country with one sixth of theglobal population, and more billionairesthan Japan, not play a leadership role on theclimate agenda? As the world’s third largesteconomy (in purchasing power parityterms), and the fourth largest emitter ofgreenhouse gases (GHGs), India’s positiveengagement will be crucial to constructinga “global deal” on climate at Copenhagen,the next pivotal meeting of governmentsthat are party to the Framework Conventionon Climate Change.1

For India, the stakes are too high to con-tinue with politics as usual. Many studieshave underscored the nation’s vulnerabilityto climate change. The impacts are alreadybeing seen in unprecedented heat waves,floods, cyclones, and other extreme weatherevents. With its long coastline, India is expe-

riencing sea surges and salinization, affect-ing infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries,livelihoods, and human health. Food securityis being compromised through reduced cropyields, and water security is under threateverywhere with declining water tables, con-flicts over rivers and basins, and the prospectof severely diminished freshwater resourcesdue to glacier retreat in the Himalayas.2

The government claims it is alreadyspending over 2 percent of gross domesticproduct (GDP) on measures to adapt to theimpacts of the changing climate. The CarbonDisclosure Project estimates that climatechange could result in a loss of 9–13 percentin the country’s GDP in real terms by 2100.3

Given India’s deeply stratified society, thehardest hit will be the poor and the margin-alized. India is home to one third of theworld’s poor and a still growing, predomin-antly youthful population. By 2045 India willhave overtaken China as the most populousnation, with an estimated population of 1.501billion compared with China’s 1.496 billion.4

Although India has not been an emitterhistorically, the past is no predictor of thefuture. As the economy grows and consump-tion patterns change, there is little doubtthat emissions will rise and the country’scarbon footprint will increase dramatically.The International Energy Agency projects thatIndia will become the third-largest emitter by2015, precisely when global GHG emissionsneed to peak if the world is to avoid theseverest impacts of climate change.5

India Starts to Take on Climate Change

Malini Mehra

Malini Mehra is founder and CEO of the Centre forSocial Markets, based in London and Kolkata.




India’s problem is its energy economy.The country has an extremely high depen-dence on fossil fuels—in particular onimported oil and dirty coal, which it has inabundance. Fossils fuels are responsible for83 percent of India’s carbon dioxideemissions; coal alone accounts for 51percent. Addressing climate change effec-tively therefore will require a transformationof India’s energy economy.6

The government’s rhetoric on this topicremains tinged with fear. While it recognizesthat “global warming will affect us seri-ously,” the government concludes that “theprocess of adaptation to climate changemust have priority” and that “the mostimportant adaptation measure is develop-ment itself.”On mitigation, the governmentis unequivocal: “With a share of just 4percent of global emissions, any amount ofmitigation by India will not affect climatechange.” Instead the government calls foraction by industrial countries and a burden-sharing formula based on historical culpabil-ity, common but differentiatedresponsibilities, differences in respectivecapabilities, and the per capita emissionsprinciple. The Prime Minister has pledged,however, that India’s per capita emissions(presently 1.2 tons annually) will neverexceed those of industrial countries.7

Yet if the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-mate Change’s figures are to be believed,India will experience “the greatest increasein energy and greenhouse gas emissions inthe world if it sustains eight percent annualeconomic growth or more as its primaryenergy demand will then multiply at leastthree to four times its present levels.” Achange of direction therefore is very muchneeded.8

The government has recognized thatbusiness as usual is no longer tenable.For example, the Eleventh Five Year Plan

(2007–12) commits the country to reducingenergy intensity per unit of GHG by 20 per-cent in the period 2007 to 2017. Further, itseeks to boost access to cleaner and renew-able energy by “exploiting existing resources(e.g., hydropower and wind power), develop-ing nuclear power, and also supportingresearch in newer areas such as biofuelsfrom agro-waste, solar energy, etc.”9

In June 2008, the Prime Minister releasedthe much-anticipated National Action Planon Climate Change. It focuses on eight areasintended to deliver maximum benefits forclimate change mitigation and adaptation inthe broader context of promoting sustain-able development: solar energy, energy effi-ciency, sustainable habitat, water, sustainingthe Himalayan ecosystem, green India, sus-tainable agriculture, and sustainable knowl-edge for climate change.10

The plan was launched with much fan-fare, but the detailed action plans for eacharea are yet to be worked out, and the docu-ment contains virtually no targets or time-tables. The Climate Challenge India coalitionconcluded that while the Action Plan is amore coherent approach to sustainabledevelopment across government depart-ments, it is not a new agenda based onensuring climate security or a strategy for alow-carbon pathway for India. The group gavethe report a B+ for effort and a D for vision.11

Although the Action Plan may have beena missed opportunity for leadership by thegovernment, it did contain some innovationssuch as a domestic cap-and-trade system asan incentive for emissions reductions innine energy-intensive sectors. It also standsfull-square behind market tools such as theClean Development Mechanism (CDM),which the government has used as a leverto accelerate take-up of clean technology byIndian firms and to encourage participationin the global $30-billion carbon market.


India now accounts for more than one thirdof all CDM projects registered worldwide.12

The government can claim some creditfor a few achievements that provide a goodfoundation for further improvements. Forexample, India was the first country to estab-lish a ministry for non-conventional energysources and has the world’s fourth largestinstalled wind power capacity. Since 2004,India has managed to decouple economicgrowth from energy use, with the economygrowing annually at a rate of over 9 percentbut energy growing at less than 4 percent.The country has had an energy labeling pro-gram for appliances since 2006, with almostall fluorescent tube lights and about twothirds of refrigerators and air conditionersnow covered by the scheme.13

Yet it will take more than a smatteringof good examples to make the changesneeded. Instead of following the example ofindustrial countries, India needs to opt forsmart, low-carbon growth and make sustain-ability the organizing principle of its econ-omy and modernization agenda. For acountry with an advanced nuclear programand space exploration ambitions, leap-frogging from a high-carbon to a low-carbonenergy economy is timely and possible.

The good news is that change is coming.And India’s business community appears tobe setting the pace. Dismayed at the lack ofgovernment leadership, many people in thebusiness community are beginning to tackleclimate change head-on as a businessissue. In a recent survey of Indian businessleaders, 83 percent of those questioned saidthey had a fair to good understanding of cli-mate change, 65 percent said that Indiashould be leading the way, and almost halfsaid that climate change is a crucial andurgent issue that should be near the top ofIndia Inc.’s agenda.14

Many Indian businesses are beginning to

look to the future and invest in clean energy,energy conservation and efficiency, smartbuildings, and green products. They realizethe market is changing and the time to act isnow. Industrialist Anand Mahindra relisheshis “eco-warrior” tag, for instance, and viewsclimate change as an emerging consumerand competitiveness issue. He wants hisgroup to be at the forefront of addressingit and is redesigning his automotive portfo-lio accordingly.15

ITC’s headquarters in Gurgaon is LEEDPlatinum-rated by the U.S. Green BuildingCouncil. Infosys, another sector leader, hasembraced carbon neutrality, and Bangalore’sReva car is now the world’s biggest sellingelectric vehicle. Cleantech and renewableenergy investments are soaring in India, andthe domestic wind power giant Suzlon isnow the largest in Asia and fifth largest glob-ally. Solar energy is undergoing a renais-sance, with companies such as Tata BTSolar betting on it meeting the majority ofIndia’s energy needs by 2100.16

These examples show that India Inc. isprepared to move and doing so voluntarilyin many respects. None of this shouldsurprise anyone familiar with the country’sdeep-rooted enterprise culture. Where thereis a market opportunity, Indian business willfind it. With a supportive policy environ-ment—in particular, a carbon tax to level theplaying field—fiscal incentives, improvedinfrastructure, and clear standards and guid-ance, Indian business can do much more.What is needed is a strategic partnershipbetween government and the private sectorfor a low-carbon development path. Estab-lishing low-carbon innovation zones to incu-bate and promote such initiatives, as isbeing piloted in China, could be one imagi-native way forward.17

Cities and municipalities are also tacklingenergy and environmental challenges, par-



ticularly in transportation—India’sfastest-growing user of energy. Ban-galore is leading the way with astate-of-the-art low-emissionsmass transit system, and Delhi issubsidizing the purchase of Revaelectric cars. A new breed of eco-developer is focusing on housing,seeking to capitalize on a projected$4-billion market for greenbuildings by 2012 and pushingexisting building codes on energyefficiency.18

Civil society groups are mobiliz-ing, and initiatives such as ClimateChallenge India are leading the waywith new thinking and optimism.India’s “generation next” is comingtogether in networks such as theIndian Youth Climate Network. Media lead-ership is emerging, with national papers andmagazines dedicating themselves to climatecoverage. Madhya Pradesh, one of India’slargest states, has broken new ground byestablishing a committee on climate change.So all across India there is a palpable sensethat the country has awoken and is on themove on climate change.19

These are small beginnings, but they rep-resent a huge opportunity. The year 2009 isvery different from those before it. With elec-tions in both India and the United States,and with domestic electorates more alive tothe need for action and leadership, it is agame-changing moment. Both India andthe United States need a new narrative thatlooks forward, not backward. One where the

politics of blame is replaced by the recogni-tion of a shared dilemma and the value ofcollective action.

The shaky global economy provides a starkbackdrop to why cooperation in an interde-pendent world is the only way forward. Tosucceed, climate change must be reframedas an agenda of hope, growth, innovation,and opportunity. It must be used to mobilizea new sense of national purpose and imbuepeople with optimism. India has a billiongood reasons for leadership on climatechange. Addressing this could be the bestway for the country to secure prosperityand development. If India truly aspires togreatness, no other issue is more timelyor compelling.



A charcoal vendor in Mysore, India

AdamCohn,www.adamcohn.com

As the world considers what to do about cli-mate change, attention has turned to China,the most populous and fastest-developingcountry, for its current and potential emis-sions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). China’scarbon dioxide emissions are now estimatedto be about 24 percent of the global total,surpassing the U.S. contribution of 21 per-cent, although China’s per capita emissionsare still far below those in industrial coun-tries. But China’s rapid economic growthshows no sign of leveling off, making itmore than likely that the country’s energyconsumption and GHG emissions will con-tinue to grow. The energy path China followsis going to determine not only its own devel-opment course but also global environmen-tal well-being.1

The dominance of coal in China’s energyportfolio is responsible for much of its GHGemissions, accounting for 85 percent of thetotal. The country relied heavily on this dirtyconventional energy source throughoutthree decades of economic boom, and it hasthe world’s third largest remaining provenrecoverable coal reserves. The share of coalin total primary energy consumption hascome down only slightly, from 72 percent in1980 to 69 percent in 2006.2

Another source of concern is that China’senergy consumption has shot up drasticallysince the beginning of this century, after

almost two decades of low and stable growth,mainly due to the country’s skewed industrialstructure. Industry uses 70 percent of China’stotal energy, and energy-intensive industriessuch as steel, nonferrous metals, petrochem-icals, and construction materials account foralmost half of national energy use.3

Emphasis on these energy-intensiveindustries has been driven by demands froman expanding Chinese urban populationand from overseas markets as a result ofeconomic globalization. The number of citydwellers increased from 370 million in 1997to 594 million by 2007. Thus 224 millionpeople—roughly as many as live in all U.S.cities—were added to China’s cities in justone decade. Urbanites normally use threeto four times as much energy as rural resi-dents. And the need to accommodate, movearound, and entertain this expanding urbanpopulation has driven up energy-intensivesectors such as power generation, steel andcement production, and the manufacture ofcars, appliances, and machinery.4

China’s increased emissions have alsobeen tied to economic globalization. Thisencourages the global flow of capital andresources, driving businesses to whereverthey can maximize profits. This has meantthe massive relocation of energy-intensiveindustries to places with good investmentenvironments and lower costs—and Chinais a major destination. Its entry into theWorld Trade Organization in late 2001 fun-damentally integrated the country into the

A Chinese Perspective on Climate and Energy

Yingling Liu

Yingling Liu is China Program Manager at World-watch Institute.




world economy.While exports bring wealth to the country,

continuous global demands for energy-intensive products have also acceleratedheavy industrialization. China is the thirdlargest trading nation, and industrial pro-ducts accounted for more than 90 percentof total exports. A September 2008 studysuggested that about one third of China’semissions were embedded in exports in2005, a figure that was just 21 percent asrecently as 2002.5

Since 2005, as the unbridled develop-ment of China’s energy-intensive industriespressured the country’s energy supply andenvironment, policymakers have hastenedtheir efforts to move the country in a moresustainable direction. Although many of theenergy policy changes have been for eco-nomic, health, and security reasons, theyare also bringing immediate benefits tothe climate.

The government is experimenting with amix of state-led regulatory and policy toolsto restructure energy-intensive industries.The most notable has been the ambitiousnational target for increasing energyefficiency. In early 2006 the governmentannounced a plan to cut energy consump-tion per unit of gross domestic product by20 percent by 2010.6

This announcement followed the 2005launch of 10 national energy-saving projectsthat targeted major energy-intensive sectors,closing down and phasing out inefficientpower and industrial plants and improvingenergy efficiency through technological inno-vations, financial support, and pilot projects.In September 2006, the government madeeight energy-intensive industries pay morefor electricity. It has also adjusted exportrebates and tariffs to discourage energy-intensive exports. Since 2004, China haschanged the export tariff on steel products

more than 10 times, not only scrappingexport rebates of 15 percent but also levyingan export tariff of 25 percent. And in June2007 the government abolished exportrebates for 533 energy- and resource-intensiveand polluting commodities and imposedexport tariffs on 142 of these items.7

At the same time that it is weaning energyguzzlers from cheap electricity and exportrebates, the government has increasedfinancial support for energy conservationprojects. In mid-2007 it added 10 billionyuan to the existing 6.3 billion yuan of statebonds and an earlier input of 5 billion, mak-ing a total of 21.3 billion yuan ($2.9 billion)dedicated to energy-saving and emissionreduction projects. Some 9 billion yuan wasset aside for the national energy-saving pro-jects, 13 times as much as in 2006. The gov-ernment requires financial institutions toincrease credit support for such projectsand encourages enterprises to raise fundsthrough markets. Local governments havegradually followed suit and set up specialfunds for energy conservation, although theseare too limited to make visible changes.8

These state-led measures need local gov-ernment support to make real changes onthe ground. The top leaders have taken stepsto get local officials to cooperate. The macro-economic planning body forced local govern-ments to abandon preferential policies onland, taxes, and electricity prices for energy-intensive industries. In June 2007, the StateCouncil (China’s cabinet) made it clear forthe first time that performance in meetingenergy-saving and emission reduction tar-gets could be the decisive “one-vote veto” inassessing local leaders’ political performance.In other words, local officials risk their politi-cal careers if they fail to save energy.9

The legal framework for reducing emis-sions has improved gradually. In 2007,China revised its decade-old Energy Conser-


vation Law, defining energy saving as a basicstate policy. The law requires energy conser-vation to be integrated in all developmentplans and eases the way for enforcing andreporting through the institutional system.The law also has specific stipulations target-ing industries, setting up a system to evalu-ate and assess energy efficiency in fixedcapital investment projects, and providingmore severe punishments for enterprisesthat fail to reach energy efficiency goals.10

Unfortunately, the state-led efforts havenot sparked much enthusiasm from localgovernments and industries because of alack of incentives. And the annual energyefficiency targets are rather arbitrary, withfew considerations of the time frame neededby industries for such changes. As a result,the targets were not reached in 2006 or2007. The policies and regulations do, how-ever, indicate the central government’spolitical will, and they have cleared manyobstacles for optimal market functioning.This has opened up a potential businessrealm for energy efficiency technologiesand services.11

Yet energy saving alone cannot solveChina’s emissions problem. Despite someimprovements, energy consumption will stillrise. The country’s urban population willcontinue to swell, with 45 percent of Chin-ese already living in urban areas by 2007(compared with about 70 percent in indus-trial countries). Domestic demand for heavyindustrial products will thus keep ongrowing and is far from being saturated. Thecountry will remain a major exporter as well.Even if China meets the 2020 emission cut-ting target proposed in its national climatechange assessment report, its emissionscould more than double by then.12

Thus China urgently needs to introduceclean energy technologies. The country hasthe necessary industrial base and potential

vast market for new clean energy optionsand poses as a potential world leader inrenewable energy. This sector has seenbreathtaking development over the last threeyears, driven by a mix of domestic and inter-national factors. Its rapid evolution showshow state policies can encourage the devel-opment of industries for a new market nicheand how market forces can inject vitality inthe private sector and achieve policy goals ata much faster pace. The reinforcement ofpolicies and markets will likely provide themost lasting and profound force in pushingChina onto a new energy path.

Aiming to diversify the country’s energyportfolio, China enacted a landmark renew-able energy law at the start of 2006. Itrequires the government to formulatedevelopment targets, strategic plans, andfinancial-guarantee measures for renewableenergy. It also establishes a framework forsharing the extra costs of renewable energyamong users and requires power utilities tobuy more renewable power. In addition, thelaw establishes fixed premium prices andpricing mechanisms for biomass and windpower.13

As a result of this law and related imple-mentation regulations, China’s renewableenergy sector has taken off, with wind andsolar being the two leading stars. Mean-while, a surging demand in the global mar-ket for renewable energy products, especiallyfor photovoltaic (PV) systems in Europe andthe United States, has encouraged a world-class solar PV manufacturing base to springup in China literally from scratch.

China is quickly becoming a global leaderin wind and solar power, in addition to itsleading position in the production andinstallation of solar water heaters and inhydro and biogas development. Wind poweris the fastest-growing renewable energy sec-tor. New installed capacity grew by over 60



percent in 2005, and it more than doubled inboth 2006 and 2007. By the end of 2007,cumulative wind power capacity had reachedroughly 6 gigawatts (GW), up from 0.8 GWin 2004—making China fifth in global windinstallations. The cumulative wind installa-tions in 2007 exceeded the target that hadbeen set for 2010 only one year earlier. Andthe target for 2020 of 30 GW is now likelyto be reached by 2012—eight years aheadof schedule.14

China’s PV manufacturing has witnessedphenomenal development in recent years aswell. Total solar cell production has jumpedfrom less than 100 megawatts (MW) in2005 to 1,088 MW in 2007, making Chinathe world’s top solar cell producer. Chineseexperts and business leaders believe thatsolar cell production will exceed 5 GW by2010, accounting for one third of the worldtotal, and 10 GW by 2015, or two thirds ofthe world total by then. The country isalready turning into a major solar PV base,with the lion’s share of production beingfor export.15

In just a few years, renewable energy hasbecome a strategic industry in China. Thereare more than 50 domestic wind turbinemanufacturers, over 15 major solar cellmanufacturers, and roughly 50 companiesconstructing, expanding, or planning poly-silicon production lines, the key componentsfor solar PV systems. Those two sectorsemploy some 80,000 people. Togetherwith the 266,000 working in biomassand 600,000 in the solar thermal sector,renewable energy industries employ some946,000 people in a new market niche inde-pendent of conventional energy industries.16

China currently gets 8 percent of itsprimary energy from renewable sources, withlarge hydro being dominant. The countryaims to expand that share to 15 percent by2020. Developments in the marketplaceshow that this target could well be exceeded.Policy tools and market forces can togetherpush China toward a less carbon-intensiveenergy path. And there is considerable roomfor international cooperation and businessinitiatives to accelerate the process.17



Yang Ba Jing grid-connected solar PV station, Tibet

Cou

rtesyofLiJunfeng

International trade has continued toincrease in the last few decades as a resultof deepening globalization. Relocation ofproduction in the pursuit of comparativeadvantages has brought economic growth tomany regions. Some developing countrieshave benefited from this trend due to abun-dant resources or labor supply or both. Butthe environmental consequences of interna-tional trade have been increasingly high-lighted. Within discussions about theinternational targets for and mechanismsto achieve large-scale reductions in carbonemissions, the emissions embodied intraded goods have often been highlightedas a particular challenge.1

Emissions embodied in internationallytraded goods are currently attributed to theproducing nation under the U.N. FrameworkConvention on Climate Change’s definition.Many of these goods are manufactured indeveloping countries, such as China, thatlack binding carbon emissions targets.Exports now account for more than a thirdof China’s total economic output, muchhigher than most economies of similar size.In 2006, some 58 percent of China’s exportswere from multinational ventures andaround 70 percent of foreign direct invest-

ment went to manufacturing. Given thetreaty’s definition of the source of emissions,it is not surprising that China is now theworld’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide.2

Thus the industrial world is becomingever more reliant on importing goods fromChina and at the same time “exporting car-bon” to this nation to meet carbon reductiontargets. A recent Tyndall Centre for ClimateChange Research assessment of the carbonemissions embodied in China’s internationaltrade found that net exports accounted for23 percent of China’s carbon emissions in2004. This is partly because of China’s largetrade surplus but also because of China’shigher carbon intensity due to an inefficient,coal-dominated energy system. The carbonembodied in China’s exports was compara-ble to Japan’s total carbon emissions in2004 and more than double the emissionsfrom the United Kingdom. (See Table.) Andseveral studies show a clear trend of increas-ing embodied carbon during the last decadeas well as an increasing share of total carbonemissions over time.3

These findings highlight the importanceof an issue that has been underplayed in cli-mate policy. They show that consumers inindustrial countries are indirectly responsi-ble for a significant proportion of China’scarbon emissions. This evidence addsweight to the view that industrial countriesshould help developing ones reduce theircarbon emissions through technical assis-tance and finance.

Trade, Climate Change, and Sustainability

Tao Wang and Jim Watson

Tao Wang is a Research Fellow at the Sussex EnergyGroup and the Tyndall Centre for Climate ChangeResearch in England. Jim Watson is Deputy Directorof the Sussex Energy Group and Deputy Leader ofTyndall’s Climate Change and Energy Programme.




The scale of this “carbon leakage” to dev-eloping countries through international tradeis so significant that it needs to be taken intoaccount in the next round of internationalclimate agreements. Some observers havecalled for a radical change from production-based to consumption-based national emis-sions accounts so that emissions embodiedin traded goods are included within the con-suming country’s targets. But this would beimpractical due to data uncertainties and thelarge amount of political capital that hasalready been invested in the current account-ing system. Measurement of consumption-based carbon emissions could, however, beused as a “shadow indicator” in negotiationsand could complement official nationallybased emissions inventories.4

This shadow indicator could help informa range of policies for the mitigation ofemissions. Some of these are known as“sectoral agreements.” These are designed todeal with sectors that are not only exposedto high levels of international competitionbut are also carbon-intensive. If they are suf-ficiently binding, sectoral approaches couldhelp reduce emissions while helping compa-nies in developing countries improve theirtechnological capacity.

Another approach to including tradedgoods might be to impose border tax adjust-ments on goods brought into countries orregions with emissions caps. Senior policy-makers in both the European Union and UnitedStates are considering such an approach sinceit would internalize the embodied carbon costof imports and would “level the playing field”with goods produced domestically. Theseproposals have inevitably been criticized asbeing “protectionist,” however, by some dev-eloping countries and may be subject to chal-lenge within the World Trade Organization.Again, if this policy were implemented care-fully, with compensatory financial and tech-nological assistance to developing countryproducers, it might be seen more favorably.5

It is important not to overstate theimpacts of carbon leakage on internationalcompetitiveness. Contrary to the argumentsof some industrial lobbyists, emissions capsin the United States or the European Unionwill only significantly affect the competitive-ness of a few energy-intensive industries,such as steel and cement. The products ofthese industries make a relatively small con-tribution to China’s exports—and to theemissions embodied in them. China’s exportsare instead dominated by consumer goodssuch as textiles, footwear, and electronics,which are not as carbon-intensive or sensi-tive to carbon taxes.6

Whichever way forward is followed, thesolution will require trust, not suspicion. Col-laboration rather than confrontation in bilat-eral or multilateral relationships is required,as no country can deal with climate changealone in a globalized trade network. Interna-tional trade policy could play a significantrole in the future climate regime as well as insustainable development. It is important tomake sure trade is more ethical and moreenvironmentally friendly and that the costsand benefits are more fairly distributed.


Country CO2 emissions

(million tons)United States 5,800China 4,732China, from net exports 1,109

Japan 1,215Germany 849United Kingdom 537Australia 354

Source:Wang and Watson.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions from China’sNet Exports andTotal Emissions from

Selected Countries, 2004

On small islands, adaptive management andplanning is the cornerstone for survival. Cli-mate change is putting additional stress onislands’ limited resources, thereby threaten-ing livelihoods. The need for local solutionsthat are flexible and responsive to the localcontext is paramount.

The Republic of Fiji has recently gainedvaluable experience with local adaptive man-agement. In an archipelago of more than300 islands in the South Pacific Ocean, Fiji-ans have learned to coexist with the oceanfor centuries and to make a living throughthe management of limited resources.As the sea level rises and severe stormsbecome more frequent and damaging due tothe changing climate, this management isbeing put to the test.

Over the past decade, more than 300communities in Fiji have adopted a manage-ment model tailored to the needs of thecommunity: the locally managed marinearea (LMMA). The LMMA Network waslaunched in August 2000 as a learning net-work after a series of workshops to provideguidance on community-based managementof marine areas. Promoting models of adap-tive governance and knowledge-sharingnetworks, the network now has membersin Indonesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea,

the Philippines, Micronesia, the SolomonIslands, and Fiji.1

As an alternative to conventional cen-tralized resource management or typicalgovernment approaches, the LMMAapproach is a local community-driven effortto design, manage, and monitor marineresources through co-management bycommunity members, with the supportof traditional leaders, government agenciesor ministries, nongovernmental organiza-tions (NGOs), and educational institutions,in collaboration with other stakeholderssuch as businesses. LMMAs do not neces-sarily exclude government or other institu-tions; they engage them as partners ratherthan as commanders. It is an inclusive gov-ernance model for resource management,integrating different stakeholders in thedecisionmaking process.

Communities are empowered to decidehow to best use their resources in light ofthe predicted effects of climate change. Thestrategies created by the communities havemultiple benefits, including community-based risk reduction, protection of endan-gered resources that are critical for foodsecurity, community engagement and capac-ity building, and enhanced disaster riskmanagement. In Fiji, improvement in theintegrity of the marine ecosystem is meas-ured by monitoring reefs with the help ofNGOs, the University of the South Pacific,and trained members of the community.

Many communities using the LMMA

Adaptation in Locally Managed Marine Areas in Fiji

Alifereti Tawake and Juan Hoffmaister

Alifereti Tawake is the national coordinator for theFij LMMA Network. Juan Hoffmaister is a WatsonFellow 2007–08 researching community-basedadaptation.




model have found practical solutions toemerging problems by reviving traditionalknowledge, which can then be combined withmodern tools. To decide the best combina-tion, communities use an adaptive manage-ment approach, which the LMMA Networkdefines as “the integration of design, man-agement, and monitoring of a project tosystematically test assumptions in order toadapt, learn, and improve the results of theirefforts.” With the help of the Network, prac-titioners increase the effectiveness and effi-ciency of local strategies over time.2

The community engagement processinvolves initial awareness-raising aboutmarine issues and dialogue with stakehold-ers to engage them in the goals of the LMMAconcept and ensure that the community is inharmony with the process of developingtheir local plans. This is followed by a work-shop in which the community develops amarine resource management plan, whichmight include:• declaration of a tabu (no-catch area) areaand other traditional management practices,

• reduction in the number of fishing licenses,• banning the use of duva (fish poisoning)and destructive fishing measures,

• restoration of economically importantspecies such as clams,

• reduction of marine pollution,• replanting of mangroves and coastal treesto reduce coastal and riverside erosion,

• marine awareness raising, and• alternative livelihood options.

LMMAs and tabu areas are set up not justfor conservation but to improve the yield ofmarine resources that people use for subsis-tence and trade. The tabu is implementedby the communities, led by a local headmanwhom the community trusts to decideon implementation. A community with ademonstrated sustainable and secure sourceof food and livelihood is better prepared to

address and adapt to climate change. Acommon Fijian saying is that “a hungrycommunity will be handicapped in makingand acting on good decisions.”

Communities are trained to do biologicaland socioeconomic monitoring to monitorthe effects of their management actions.Meetings are held regularly to review pro-gress and see if changes in the action planare needed.

Drama is an important component ofcommunity education and awareness in Fiji,as many elders who are key decisionmakersin villages find reading to be very challenging.Drama provides an interactive and innova-tive means of translating complex technicalconcepts such as climate change, and it canalso paint a picture of its likely impacts.

More than 200 different localities in Fijiare using the LMMA model. The results vary,but most groups have found that effectiveimplementation of this strategy can helprecover marine resources through improvedhabitat quality (coral cover, seagrass, andmangroves) and increased fish populations.By being engaged in the LMMA, communi-ties are also better prepared to implementpractical solutions to emerging externalthreats such as climate change

The key element of the LMMA work in Fijiis that the communities are in control. Infor-mation on management options is providedby co-managers to help make decisions, butthe community members make all decisions,such as location of the tabus. Thus the goalof informed decisionmaking on resourcemanagement is as important as the actualresource improvement. This will be increas-ingly valuable in a warming world. For whileLMMAs initially focused on food securityissues and resource depletion, Fijian com-munities are learning important lessons aboutmanaging the impacts of climate change.


Drought, population pressures, and conflictare degrading lands and undermining theresilience of ecosystems. Severe droughtacross many parts of Sudan is affecting sev-eral million people, many of whom are atacute risk of food insecurity. Low and spor-adic rainfall has severely affected waterresources and agricultural production, par-ticularly in the traditional rainfed sector.1

Population and economic pressures havedriven people to intensify cultivation of dry-lands, extend cultivation into more marginalareas, overgraze rangelands, and overhar-vest vegetation. These factors have degradedlands, reduced the availability of water, anddepressed the production of food, fodder,and livestock. Competition for these lifelineshas been a source of conflict and has con-tributed to the tragic violence that hasengulfed parts of Sudan.2

Climate change is an additional source ofuncertainty and risk. Sudan has experiencedmore than 20 years of below average rainfallduring which there have been many locali-zed droughts, as well as a severe and wide-spread drought from 1980 to 1984. Theseconditions can be expected to worsen duringfuture climate change, with the country’s cli-mate becoming even drier.3

Sudan’s rural communities are adaptingin order to reduce their risks in a harsh, vari-able, and changing environment. While theadaptations are not necessarily driven by cli-mate change, they are nonetheless buildingresilience to it. The measures being adoptedinclude using water harvesting and specialirrigation methods, expanding food storagefacilities, managing rangelands to preventovergrazing, replacing goats (which areheavy grazers and are sold at a lower value)with sheep (which have less impact ongrassland and are sold at higher value),planting and maintaining shelterbelts, plant-ing backyard farms or jubraka to supplementfamily food supplies and incomes, supplyingmicrocredit and educating people about itsuse, and forming and training communitygroups to implement and maintain thesevarious measures.4

Environmental Strategies for IncreasingHuman Resilience in Sudan is a regionalassessment that was undertaken by theSudan Higher Council for Environment andNatural Resources in collaboration with theStockholm Environment Institute–BostonCenter and with the participation ofresearchers from the University of Khartoumand experts from local nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs). The assessmentexamined three cases of community effortsto improve livelihoods and manage naturalresources that succeeded in increasing theoverall resilience of the communities. Allthree projects were prompted by the adverse

Building Resilience to Drought and Climate Change in Sudan

Balgis Osman-Elasha

Balgis Osman Elasha is a Senior Researcher at theHigher Council for Environment and NaturalResources in Sudan and a lead author of the FourthAssessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change.




consequences of Sahel-wide droughts in theearly 1980s. The vulnerability and adaptationof these communities were assessed interms of their financial, physical, human,social, and natural capital, taking intoaccount productivity, equity, and sustainabil-ity as well as risk factors. This involved thecollection and analysis of “resilience indica-tors” data and an analysis of national andlocal institutions.5

The first assessment looked at 17 villagesof Bara province in North Khordofan. Locatedin the Sahel zone, which has undergone ageneral decline of rainfall since the late1960s, the area is marked by high rainfallvariability. The severe 1980–84 Sahel-widedroughts deeply affected family and tribalstructures among pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, deepening poverty, marginali-zation, and food insecurity. Thousands ofpeople ended up in refugee camps surround-ing towns and cities.6

The project in Bara aimed to sequestercarbon by setting up a resource manage-ment system that prevents degradation andthat rehabilitates or improves rangelands toreduce the risks of production failure so asto limit outmigration and stabilize popula-tion. The measures undertaken includedthe following:• establishment of local institutions such asVillage Community Development Commit-tees to coordinate natural resource man-agement and community developmentactivities;• development of land use master plans toguide future resource use and implemen-tation of sustainable rotational grazingsystems;• establishment of community mobilizationteams to conduct outreach and training;• rangeland rehabilitation, including landmanagement, livestock improvement,agroforestry, and sand dune fixation to pre-

vent overexploitation and restore rangelandproductivity;• water harvesting and management, ruralenergy management, and diversification oflocal production systems and income-gen-erating opportunities to reduce pressureon rangelands; and• creation of water management subcommit-tees to better manage wells.7

Original expectations for the project weremore than met: the achievements to dateinclude revegetation and stabilization of 5kilometers of sand dunes to halt desertencroachment; construction of 195 kilo-meters of windbreaks to protect 30 farmsfrom soil erosion, restocking of livestock byreplacing goat herds with sheep, establish-ment of 17 women’s gardens to producevegetables for household consumption andto sell at local markets, and establishmentof five pastoral women’s groups to supportsupplemental income-generating activitiessuch as sheep fattening, handicrafts, andmilk marketing.8

The second project, carried out by theBritish NGO SOS Sahel, focused on KhorArba’at in Red Sea state, home to Beja pas-toralist and agro-pastoralist tribal groups. Itaimed to improve the livelihoods of tribalgroups in farming, local water resources, andother natural resources. Rainfall is highlyvariable, with averages recorded between1900 and 1980 ranging between 26 and 64millimeters per year. The rocky and compactnature of soils, steep slopes, heavy down-pours, and poor vegetation cover all contri-bute to the high rates of runoff. A traditionalpattern of natural short-term recovery wasshattered after the long drought and famineof the 1980s.9

Because the Khor Arba’at delta had beenneglected by the government in recent years,local communities were eager to participatein a broad-ranging program that promised


to improve their livelihoods. The main objec-tives of the project were to rehabilitate theKhor Arba’at delta, to realize the full agricul-tural potential of the area for the benefit oftribal groups, to tailor the sustainable man-agement of natural resources so as to meetlocal needs, to ensure the sustainability offood security, to set up an equitable waterharvesting scheme, and to enhance grass-roots participation in the overall develop-ment of the community. It was also hopedthat success in this project could be repli-cated elsewhere.10

The third case study involved communi-ties in North Darfur that implemented vari-ous measures to cope better with variablewater resources and land productivity. Thisis one of the most drought-affected regionsof the Sudan. The target group in this pro-ject was the most vulnerable householdspracticing subsistence farming and raisinglivestock in the area. Following the droughtyears of 1983–85, many people left theirhomes due to increasing poverty, famine,desertification, and land degradation. Thiswas accompanied by tribal conflicts, thegrowth of shantytowns, and changes in thepattern of livestock raising and agriculturalproduction. Most people lost more thanhalf their cattle as well as large numbersof sheep, goats, and camels.11

Unlike the other two cases, these adapta-tion measures were initiated by the localcommunity and only later were supported byexternal funding. The key measures under-taken included adoption of better waterharvesting techniques and construction ofterraces that helped farmers grow vege-tables that can be harvested up to fivemonths after the rainy season, restockingof gum trees (Acacia Senegal) and retentionof part of the tree cover in agriculturalfields with alluvial soils for the provisionof fuelwood, and cultivation of clay soil,

easing pressure on the sandy soil.12

Indicators on the sustainability of liveli-hood assets and adaptation measuresshowed improvement in all three projectsas a result of the efficiency of the localCommunity Development Committees andthe efforts of the Sudanese EnvironmentConservation Society–Kordofan Branch,which has been very active in supporting thecontinuity of measures and the dissemina-tion of information on rainfall, new produc-tion inputs and technologies, and prices.Another key aspect of the success has beenhigh loan repayment rates to the communityrevolving funds.A number of key conclusions emerge from

these three cases. First, successful strategiesemphasize livelihoods and are embedded incommunity development efforts rather thanbeing implemented in isolation. Typicallysuites of measures are implemented thatprovide the means to improve and diversifylivelihood opportunities, advance sustainablemanagement of natural resources, andhedge against risks of variable incomes andvariable access to food, water, and otherresources. Successful strategies that haveadded to human and social capital includetraining farmers in techniques to diversifytheir production activities and improveresource management, involving women inhome gardening of vegetables, and aidingtraditional farmers, fruit growers, and vege-table growers to form unions to help harvestand market products.13

Second, adaptation requires effectiveinvolvement of local institutions, triballeaders, community-level committees, andNGOs. Such a participatory, bottom-upapproach is essential to successfully engageat-risk groups in decisionmaking processes.Farmers, herders, women, and minoritiesgain a better understanding of their vulnera-bility, priorities, and adaptation needs.



It also facilitates cooperation within thecommunity and the mobilization of localresources and indigenous knowledge. Localinstitutions can ensure continuity of devel-opment and adaptation activities after exter-nally funded projects end.Third, the sustainability of adaptation

measures depends on enhancing the senseof responsibility among communities. Toensure proper implementation of policies,work should focus on improving communi-ties’ knowledge and capacity to managetheir own natural resources. Regulations andpolicies that are based on real knowledge ofcommunities and a sense of responsibilitylead to positive results and improved per-formance. Central to the success of theinterventions are efforts to strengthen insti-tutions with training and resources, formnew community institutions, empower localinstitutions with skills and information toplan and implement project activities, andpromote the participation of communitymembers in different sustainable livelihoodactivities and decisionmaking processes.A final lesson is that adaptation falls

short of what is needed. Existing efforts to

cope and adapt are insufficient in the face ofpresent-day risks. Drought already exacts anunacceptably high toll on the people ofSudan, and the suffering is likely to growfurther with climate change. The adaptiveresponses that have been applied andshown to be successful in building resilienceneed to be replicated and expanded even asnew approaches are explored and tried.



Children learn how to use an ox-plow in Twic County,southern Sudan. In this remote province, the use ofanimal traction in agricultural work is not yet common.

©2007BeniaminoSavonitto,CourtesyPhotoshare

In June 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philip-pines erupted explosively—the biggest erup-tion of the twentieth century. The volcanocreated a column of ash and debris extend-ing upward 40 kilometers (about 25 miles).The eruption ejected around 20 million tonsof sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, whereit oxidized to form sulfate dust particles. Thestratosphere is the part of the atmospherethat is higher than where jets normally fly.1

As a result, about 2 percent of thesunlight passing down through the stratos-phere was deflected upward and back intospace. The dust particles were big enough toscatter sunlight away from Earth but smallenough to allow Earth’s radiant heat energyto escape into space. Earth cooled about halfa degree Celsius (almost 1 degreeFahrenheit) the following year, despite thecontinued increase in greenhouse gas con-centrations. This raises an obvious question:Could we similarly put dust into the stratos-phere to offset climate change?2

Earth is heated by sunlight and cooledby the escape of radiant heat into space.Earth’s atmosphere is relatively transparentin the wavelengths that make up sunlightbut somewhat opaque in the wavelengthsthat make up escaping radiant heat energy.As greenhouse gases accumulate, theatmosphere becomes more opaque to out-

going radiant heat. With greater amounts ofradiant heat trapped in the loweratmosphere, Earth’s surface warms.3

The most obvious approach to keepingEarth cool is to reduce greenhouse gas con-centrations in the atmosphere, so that heatenergy can escape more easily into space.But another strategy involves reducing theamount of sunlight absorbed by Earth. Ifgreenhouse gases accumulating in theatmosphere are like closing the windows ofa greenhouse and trapping heat inside, then“geoengineering” approaches seek to keepEarth cool by putting the greenhouse par-tially in the shade. They try to reverse warm-ing by preventing sunlight from beingabsorbed by Earth.4

A number of modeling and theoreticalstudies have looked into such climate engi-neering schemes. The consensus appears tobe that these will not perfectly reverse theclimate effects of increased greenhousegases but that it might be technically feas-ible to use geoengineering to reduce theoverall amount of climate change. Obvi-ously, however, these schemes would notreverse the chemical effects of increased car-bon dioxide (CO2) in the environment, suchas ocean acidification or the CO2-fertilizationof land plants.5

Several approaches have been suggestedfor deflecting sunlight away from Earth. Themost science-fiction scheme would be toplace sunlight-blocking satellites betweenEarth and the sun. But in order to compen-

Geoengineering to Shade Earth

Ken Caldeira

Ken Caldeira is a climate scientist at the Depart-ment of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institutionfor Science in Stanford, California.




sate for the current rate of increases of green-house gases in the atmosphere, governmentswould need to build and put in place morethan a square mile (about 3 square kilome-ters) of satellite every hour. Most peoplewould probably agree that such an enor-mous effort would be better applied toreducing greenhouse gas emissions.6

The placement of sulfur dust particles inthe stratosphere appears to be the leadingcandidate for most easily engineering Earth’sclimate. (Numerous other approaches havebeen suggested, including some designedto increase the whiteness of clouds overthe ocean with sea salt particles formed byspraying seawater in the lower atmosphere.)Tiny particles have a lot of surface area, so alot of sunlight can be scattered with a rela-tively small amount of dust. The full amountof sulfur from Mount Pinatubo, if it hadremained in the stratosphere for a long time,would have been more than enough to offsetthe warming (at least, on a global average)from a doubling of atmospheric carbon diox-ide content. The actual short-lived coolingfrom the Mount Pinatubo eruption turnedout to be much less because the oceanshelped keep Earth warm despite the reduc-tion in the amount of absorbed sunlight.7

The sulfur from Mount Pinatuboremained in the stratosphere only for a yearor two. To maintain a dust shield in thestratosphere for the long term would requirecontinual dust injection. It is thought that asmall fleet of planes, or perhaps a singlefire hose to the sky suspended by balloons,would be enough to keep the dust shield inplace. Costs are uncertain, but it might totalless than a few billion dollars a year. Theamount of sulfur required would be a fewpercent of what is currently emitted frompower plants and so would contribute some-what to the acid raid problem.8

Why might policymakers want to deploy

climate engineering systems? The main rea-son is to reduce climate damage and the riskof further damage from greenhouse gases.Some commentators deny the reality ofhuman-caused greenhouse warming butthink it worth developing climate engineer-ing systems as an insurance policy—justin case events prove them wrong. Othersaccept human-induced climate change butthink reducing emissions will be either toocostly or too difficult to achieve, so theyfavor climate engineering as an alternativeapproach. Some people fear that a climatecrisis may be imminent or already unfoldingand that these systems are needed rightaway to reduce negative climate impactssuch as the loss of Arctic ecosystems whilethe world works to reduce greenhouse gas


Mount Pinatubo erupting on June 12, 1991, asseen from Clark Air Force base eight miles away

KarinJackson,U.S.A

irForce

emissions in the longer term. Still othersthink climate engineering is needed as anemergency response system in case an unex-pected climate emergency occurs whilegreenhouse gases are being reduced.9

There are also many reasons not todevelop climate engineering, some of themhaving to do with climate science and somehaving to do with social systems. Theseschemes will not work perfectly, for example,and there is some chance that unanticipatedconsequences will prove even more environ-mentally damaging than the problems theyare designed to solve. Concerns include pos-sible effects on the ozone layer or patternsof precipitation and evaporation. Climateengineering would not solve the ocean acidi-fication problem, although it would notdirectly make it worse either.10

Some observers fear that the mereperception that there is an engineering fix tothe climate problem will reduce the amountof effort placed on emissions reduction.Climate engineering could lull people intocomplacency and produce even greateremissions and ultimately greater climatedamage. (On the other hand, such schemesalso could frighten people into redoubling

efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions.) And it might work well at first, withnegative consequences manifesting them-selves strongly only as greenhouse gasconcentrations and the offsetting climateengineering effort both continued to grow.11

Climate engineering will affect everyone onthe planet, but there is no clear way to dev-elop an international consensus on whetherit should be attempted and, if so, how andwhen. It would likely produce winners andlosers and therefore has the potential togenerate both political friction and legal lia-bility. Conflict over deployment could producepolitical strife and social turmoil. (On theother hand, any success at reducing climatedamage could lessen strife and turmoil.)

From the perspective of physical scienceand technology, it appears that climate engi-neering schemes have the potential to lowerbut not eliminate the risk of climate damagefrom greenhouse gas emissions, yet unantic-ipated effects and difficult-to-predict politicaland social responses could mean increasedrisk. Thus the bottom line is that climateengineering schemes have the potential tomake things better, but they could also makethings worse.





Rising oil and gas prices, insecure energysupplies, and increased energy consumptionin transition economies have boosted theuse of coal—the most abundant fossil fueland one that many countries have consider-able reserves of. The United States, China,and some other countries are highly depen-dent on coal. In the United States, coal-pow-ered plants generate more than half theelectricity, and some observers expect thatexpanding the use of coal will help reduceU.S. reliance on foreign oil.

But coal is the most carbon-intensivefossil fuel. Thus a new technology called car-bon capture and storage (CCS) has recentlygained considerable attention. CCS aims tocapture carbon dioxide (CO2) from any largepoint source, liquefy it, and store it under-ground. Because of its high costs and com-plex infrastructure, CCS is by necessitysuited primarily for centralized, large-scalepower stations or big industrial facilities likecement plants and steelworks.

With today’s technologies, there are threeways to capture CO2. Post-combustion cap-ture, which involves capturing CO2 from fluegases in conventional power stations, is bas-

ically available today, but it has not yet beendemonstrated at a commercial power sta-tion scale. In the longer term, this technol-ogy is unlikely to become widely establishedunless its energy consumption can bereduced significantly.

A more efficient method is pre-combustioncapture of CO2 in coal-fired power stationswith integrated gasification combined cycletechnology. These plants use heat to gasifycoal that is then burned to generate electric-ity. During the gasification step, CO2 can beremoved relatively easily. Apart from itshigher efficiency levels, the prime advantageof this method lies in its flexibility in termsof both fuel (coal, biomass, and substitutefuels) and product (electricity, hydrogen,synthetic gas, and liquid fuel). Pre-combus-tion capture of CO2 has not yet been demon-strated on a large scale.

The so-called oxyfuel process currentlyoffers the best prospects for CO2 capture interms of achievable overall process efficiencyas well as costs because it is largely basedon conventional power station componentsand technology. Combustion takes place in95 percent pure oxygen rather than air,enabling efficient CO2 capture due to theconcentrated flue gas. This process is stillnear the beginning of its demonstrationphase. It is expected to capture 99.5 percentof the emissions directly at the stack, whilethe post-combustion and pre-combustionmethods would reduce CO2 by 88–90 per-cent on average.1

Carbon Capture and Storage

Peter Viebahn, Manfred Fischedick, and Daniel Vallentin

Peter Viebahn is a Project Co-ordinator andresearch fellow, and Daniel Vallentin is a PhD stu-dent, in the Research Group on Future Energy andMobility Structures at the Wuppertal Institute forClimate, Environment and Energy in Germany.Manfred Fischedick is head of the Research Groupand Vice-President of the Institute.



Once CO2 has been captured from indus-trial sources and pressurized into a quasi-liquid form, it can be pumped into geologi-cal formations such as deep saline aquifersmore than 2,000 feet underground,depleted oil and gas fields, and deep andnon-exploitable coal seams. It can also bedeposited deep in the ocean. Furthermore,the productivity of oil and gas fields in theirfinal stages of exploitation can be increasedby injecting CO2 into them, something theoil and gas industry has been doing foryears. A mineralization process for bindingCO2 to silicates is also under discussion asa way to sequester and store the gas, alongwith a method for fixing CO2 using algae toproduce biomass that can be turned intoanimal fodder, biodiesel, or constructionmaterials.2

Along with the overriding motivation ofclimate protection, questions of security ofenergy supply, technological aspects, andin some cases immediate economic consid-erations have increased interest in carboncapture and storage. Technology that canfacilitate progress in international climateprotection negotiations is of particularimportance. Some of the strongest support-ers of CCS are governments that have so farrejected the international climate protectionprocess or adopted a wait-and-see stance,such as the United States.3

Yet several constraints make it question-able that a global rollout of CCS will consistof more than demonstration plants andsome initial commercial plants. The firstconcern is the time frame. CO2 capture tech-nologies are more likely to become availablein the medium than the short term. Mostexperts anticipate large-scale applicationsbetween 2020 and 2030. But the rush tobuild new coal-fired power plants will likelytake place within the next 10 years—toosoon to take advantage of CCS technologies.

And decisions on new power plants madetoday will influence the energy mix 40–50years from now, when greenhouse gas emis-sions need to be substantially lower thantoday. For plants built before CCS is mature,only retrofitting of CCS technology, usuallywith the low-efficiency post-combustionmethod, would be an option. And retrofittingpower stations would cost more and be lessefficient than newly built plants fitted withCCS from day one.4

The number and location of safe reser-voirs is a second concern. To be able to storebillions of tons of CO2 “safely and cheaply,on a global scale, both in the West and inthe developing world,” one observer notes,advanced methods other than “simple”enhanced oil and gas recovery will berequired. For various reasons, storage possi-bilities for CO2 are restricted at both nationaland global levels. Gas fields are believed tohave the largest potential, followed by coalseams, oil fields, and aquifers. From a purelytechnical perspective, there appears to beenough capacity to store global CO2 emis-sions for many decades. Yet there is a greatdegree of uncertainty about the fundamentalsuitability of the various storage options.Ultimately a case-by-case analysis will berequired to obtain practical and relevantresults for each storage site considered.Another important question is that of liabil-ity. Undoubtedly, similar questions will ariseas in discussions of nuclear energy wastedisposal.5

High energy penalties and environmentalimpacts are a third constraint. CapturingCO2 requires additional fuel consumption of20–44 percent to generate the same amountof useful energy, which in turn leads to moreCO2 and other harmful emissions. But onlythe CO2 emitted directly at the stack can becaptured, in contrast to the CO2 and otheremissions of upstream and downstream


processes. For instance, methane emissionsduring coal mining or natural gas pipelinetransport cannot be reduced by CCS. Yetaccording to the Kyoto Protocol, greenhousegas (GHG) emissions as a whole—not justCO2 emissions—must be reduced. Recentlife-cycle assessments show that assuming aCO2 capture rate of 88 percent, GHG emis-sions along the whole value chain can bereduced by only 67–78 percent, dependingon the fuels or power station technologiesused. Furthermore, other environmentalimpacts like photooxidant formation, eutro-phication, or particle emissions will increasewith CCS, while acidification will decreaseslightly.6

One of the most pressing environmental

issues could be water use: it is expectedthat CCS will require 90 percent more freshwater. The increase of hazardous waste pro-duction due to the chemical reaction of thescrubbing agents is also important. Lastbut not least, CCS would only worsen manymajor local environmental problems tied tothe extraction and transport of coal, such ashabitat destruction, damage to waterways,and air pollution.7

The fact that alternatives to CCS havealready entered the market could reduceinterest in this technology. The GHG emis-sions associated with electricity generatedfrom solar thermal power or wind power arejust 2–3 percent of the amounts for fossil-fueled CCS plants. And the GHG emissionsof electricity generated by advanced natural-gas-fired combined heat and power stationsare roughly the same as those for power sta-tions using CCS. Thus there are even fossilfuel technologies commercially availablethat are already as “green” as CCS powerstations aim to be in 2020. Expanding useof these alternatives will of course requiresignificant structural changes in the overallenergy system.8

Cost is another constraint. CO2 capturerequires high investment costs in addition tothe costs resulting from the energy penalty.Different sources put CO2 capture costs atbetween 35 and 50 euros per ton of CO2 in2020, translating to a 50-percent increasein electricity generation costs (assuming noincrease in fossil fuel prices). This assumesthat significant learning processes will haveoccurred by then. Yet just when the first CCSpower stations might be coming on stream,some individual renewable technologies(such as offshore wind and solar thermalpower plants) could already be offeringcheaper electricity. In the longer term,renewables can be expected to have consid-erable cost advantages due to their indepen-


Coal trains near Gillette, Wyoming

©LyleRosbotham

dence from fuel price fluctuations.9

A final constraint is infrastructure require-ments. Suitable storage sites will not usuallybe located in the immediate neighborhoodof the power stations, which means thatlarge investments in a completely new pipe-line infrastructure will be necessary. In theUnited States, deploying a national CCS sys-tem at the scale needed would require “noless fundamental a transformation of thecountry’s energy infrastructure than would ahuge-scale adoption of wind energy,” notedthe World Resources Institute. If the storagelocations are 500 kilometers or more awayfrom the big emitters, CO2 transport will likelynot pay off. A possible solution to this prob-lem would be to place new power stationsdirectly at potential storage sites and totransport the electricity instead of the car-bon dioxide.10

It is possible that technological develop-ments might be able to offset some of thesignificant constraints on CCS. In the future,for example, the combination of CCS withbiomass-fired power plants could be aninteresting option due to the negative car-bon balance of such a system. CO2 is firstcaptured from the atmosphere duringbiomass growth and then could again becaptured from the power plant’s flue gasesand sequestered afterwards. If storageworks, this process could help achieve dras-tic CO2 emission reductions. On the otherhand, processes using biomass could meetonly a part of the energy demand due to lim-ited acreage.11

In general, several national and globalenergy scenarios show that even ambitiousgreenhouse gas emission targets can be metby a three-step strategy without assumingany appreciable use of CCS within the nextfew decades: increased energy efficiency,

more-efficient use of primary energy by usingcombined heat and power plants, and ambi-tious development of renewable energy.12

Even if CCS is supposed to just be abridging technology, significant research anddevelopment efforts are needed. Further-more, if this technology can be demon-strated successfully, additional financinginstruments will be needed to help spreadthe use of CCS. Including CCS-CO2 in thecarbon market, as planned by the EuropeanUnion, would mean that deployment of CCSwill strongly depend on the price develop-ment of CO2 certificates. If CCS is includedas an avoidance measure in the Kyoto Proto-col, these projects could also be handled viaflexible instruments such as the Clean Devel-opment Mechanism and Joint Implementa-tion. Another incentive under discussion isgovernment subsidies to make the technol-ogy competitive. Yet all these instrumentsraise fears that financing CCS could takefunds away from renewable energy orenergy efficiency measures, which wouldbe counterproductive as these are the mostrobust climate protection strategies.13

In the end, a lot of open questions aboutCCS remain to be solved—technical as wellas legal and socioeconomic ones. Today itcannot be foreseen if, how much, where,and when CCS will play a significant role asa strategic climate protection option. If itproves to be both commercially availableand competitive, the question of suitableand safe storage places may become the tip-ping point for extensive use. What is clear isthat there will not be a large-scale deploy-ment of CCS in the next 10–15 years. If thistime is used for ambitious development anddiffusion of renewable sources, the argu-ment for CCS as a “bridge” to renewableenergy will lose its force.





There is near-universal agreement amongscientists and economists that climate ischanging in ways that reduce economic well-being due in part to emissions of carbondioxide (CO2) during the combustion of fos-sil fuels. The price of these fuels does notreflect these effects, and this omission is aclassic example of what economists call anexternality. By definition, externalities are notcorrected by the market—government inter-vention is required.1

Policymakers are discussing two forms ofintervention to abate CO2 emissions: carbontaxes and a cap and trade system. Both sys-tems seek to reduce emissions toward theiroptimal level—the point at which the margi-nal benefit of burning fossil fuels equals thedamage caused by its combustion. But thisoptimum is unknown and probably willnever be known with a high degree of cer-tainty. This uncertainty creates advantagesand disadvantages for the two mitigationstrategies that arise from the ways in whichthey reduce emissions.

Carbon taxes raise the price of fuels basedon the amount of carbon they emit. Ideally,the tax rate is set by the marginal damagedone by a unit of carbon emitted. Becausethis quantity is unknown, a carbon tax startswith a political decision about a tax rate perunit of carbon emitted. Emission rates vary

for the different fossil fuels. One thousandBTUs of coal emit 26 grams of carbon, athousand BTUs of oil emit 21.4 grams, anda thousand BTUs of natural gas emit 14.5grams. Nonconventional fossil fuels, such asoil shale, emit even more carbon per BTU.2

Using these emission rates to tax fossilfuels changes their relative prices. Basedon prices to U.S. electric utilities in 2007, a$100 tax on a ton of carbon emissions wouldraise coal prices by 14.6 percent, oil prices by2.5 percent, and natural gas prices by 2.0 per-cent. (Surprisingly, even though natural gasemits less carbon than oil, the percentagerise in the prices of the two fuels is very sim-ilar. This is because natural gas is generallyless expensive than oil, so a smaller nominalincrease in price resulting from the tax canresult in a larger percentage increase.)3

These price increases can lower energyuse and carbon emissions in two ways. Con-sumers can reduce activities that use energyand emit carbon. Examples include drivingfewer miles or turning down the thermostatfor home heating (or raising it for air condi-tioners). Because this strategy lowers emis-sions by reducing activities that consumersenjoy, these actions often are considered areduction in well-being.

A second strategy allows consumers tolower emissions while maintaining activitylevels. This involves two forms of substitu-tion. In one, consumers purchase more-effi-cient machinery or use more labor, whichallows them to use less energy and hence

Using the Market to Address Climate Change

Robert K. Kaufmann

Robert K. Kaufmann is Director of the Centerfor Energy and Environmental Studies at BostonUniversity in Massachusetts.



emit less carbon. For example, buying amore-efficient car or installing insulation letspeople maintain their driving habits or theircomfort level while reducing emissions.

A second form of substitution, interfuelsubstitution, changes the mix of fuels awayfrom those that emit large amounts ofcarbon per heat unit. Because a carbon taxraises the price of coal relative to oil or nat-ural gas, consumers can reduce their energycosts and carbon emissions by substitutingnatural gas or oil for coal. Many industrialboilers, for instance, can switch among coal,oil, and natural gas relatively quickly.

The other major form of market interven-tion is a cap and trade system. As impliedby its name, policymakers choose a cap orupper limit for the amount of carbon thatcan be emitted in a given period, most oftena year. This cap is represented by an equalnumber of allowances. Individual allowancesentitle the holder to emit a specified quantityof carbon. Allowances are then allocated tothose included in the cap and trade system.

Allowances can be allocated using twogeneral approaches. “Grandfathering” allo-cates allowances to emitters based on theiremissions during some earlier referenceperiod. Alternatively, allowances can beauctioned and sold to the highest bidder.These two mechanisms are not mutuallyexclusive—the U.S. cap and trade systemfor sulfur emissions made initial allocationsusing a combination of grandfathering andauctions. Once they are allocated, allowancescan be bought or sold by participants.4

By issuing fewer allowances than theamount of current emissions, a cap andtrade system forces individuals to make asimple decision: Should they reduce emis-sions and sell some allowances? Or shouldthey buy allowances to cover all their emis-sions? The answer varies because the costof reducing a unit of carbon emissions (by

eliminating activities, using more energy-efficient machinery, or substituting amongfuels) differs among individuals. If some-one’s cost of reducing emissions is lessthan the price of an allowance, the personwill reduce emissions, sell a correspondingnumber of allowances, and make money bylowering emissions. If the cost of reducingemissions is greater than the price of anallowance, the person will buy allowances.Despite these purchases, the cost of compli-ance is typically less than a system in whichall individuals are forced to lower emissionsby a fixed amount or adopt a prescribedtechnology (known as a command and con-trol strategy).

The price of allowances is determined bythe market balance between buyers and sell-ers. When the market for permits is in equi-librium (the number offered for sale equalsthe number wanted by buyers), the market-clearing price will represent the marginalcost of abatement. In theory, the price forpermits will be the same as the carbon taxrate that is required to reduce emissions bythe amount specified by the cap. As such,carbon taxes are functionally equivalent toa cap and trade system, although the costsimposed by the latter are less visible, so acap and trade system may be more politi-cally palatable than a carbon tax.

But carbon taxes are not equivalent to acap and trade system when it comes to real-world practicalities. One important differ-ence concerns uncertainty. Because the priceincrease associated with carbon taxes isdetermined by the price per unit of carbonemitted, the increase is known at inception.What is not known is the quantity of emis-sions abated. This number is uncertainbecause economists have not quantifiedprecisely how increases in energy pricesaffect energy demand—both directly viaprice elasticities and indirectly by altering


rates of economic activity. These uncertain-ties are reversed by a cap and trade system.By printing a limited number of allowances,the quantity of abatement is known. Yetuncertainty about the cost of abatement andthe effect of higher energy prices on eco-nomic activity makes it difficult to forecastthe price of the allowances.

Recently policymakers have talked aboutreducing this uncertainty with a hybrid sys-tem. Under this scheme, cap and trade pro-grams would have a “safety valve.” Whenthe market price for permits reaches a pre-established threshold, the governmentwould sell an unlimited number of allow-ances at that price. This would in effectestablish a backstop carbon tax—the pricefor allowances could not go beyond thismaximum. But this hybrid approach wouldease constraints on emissions and therebyintroduce uncertainty about abatement.

The two systems also have differentimplications for inclusivity and costs. Thenumber of consumers who will pay a carbontax is likely to be greater than the number ofconsumers who buy and sell allowances in acap and trade system. The efficiency of capand trade depends in part on the technicalsophistication of the participants and thecost of enforcement. Participants must beable to make economically rational decisionsto buy or sell allowances and must haveaccess to capital that would support eco-nomically rational investments to reduceemissions. These requirements imply thata cap and trade system is most likely toinclude only large energy consumers, suchas manufacturers and electricity generators.A small subset of large emitters also reducesthe costs of enforcement.

A cap and trade system is likely to havehigher overhead costs. While carbon taxescan be implemented and collected throughthe existing infrastructure, cap and trade will

require a monitoring system to ensure thatthose who emit carbon dioxide have the req-uisite number of allowances. To be efficient,there must be a market in which allowancescan be bought and sold. Furthermore, firmswill have to establish organizational struc-tures that will allow them to participate inthe program.

This last set of costs may increase theeffectiveness of a cap and trade system.Organizational structures for participation insuch a system will have a mandate to quan-tify emissions and reduce them where eco-nomically effective. A carbon tax is less likelyto generate such structures, and most firmsdo not have structures specifically aimed atevaluating options for reducing energy use.The lack of such structures may be one rea-son why the academic literature describes


Will these emissions be “grandfathered”?

Photodisc

vast opportunities to save energy and moneyeven though many of those opportunities gounrealized in the real world.

Finally, the way in which allowances areintroduced highlights equity issues. If allow-ances are distributed free to existing emit-ters, these individuals or entities retain aproperty right, the right to emit carbon, thatbecomes valuable once the cap and tradesystem is implemented. As such, thosereceiving the allowances benefit. That prop-erty right and economic gain is confiscatedby the government if emitters are forced topurchase their initial allocation. In this case,the government captures the economicvalue of this new property right. The captureof this property right lies behind the debateabout whether the additional revenuesraised by a carbon tax should be returnedto taxpayers by lowering some other tax.

Even if permits are given away for free,equity issues arise regarding how they aredistributed. If allowances are distributedbased on previous levels of emissions, exist-ing patterns are merely reinforced. That is,heavily polluting industries and affluent con-sumers have an advantage over newer indus-tries or poorer individuals. Conversely, heavilypolluting industries and affluent consumersbear the brunt of efforts to reduce emissionsif allowances are distributed more evenly.

The relative magnitude of these advan-

tages and disadvantages differs at variousgeographical scales. Equity issues associa-ted with the initial distribution of allowancesprobably preclude a global cap and tradesystem. In an auction, consumers fromindustrial nations would largely outbid con-sumers from developing nations, and thiswould make it difficult for developing nationsto expand their energy use, which is closelycorrelated with economic development. Con-versely, a distribution scheme based on pop-ulation would force significant reductions inexisting emissions (or wealth transfer) fromindustrial nations, which would reduce theireconomic well-being.

For individual nations, a cap and tradesystem may be the most effective means formeeting emission targets. Equity issues arereduced because participants are drawnfrom a single nation, which minimizes differ-ences in income, technical sophistication, orgovernance. In many nations, the populationof large emitters is sufficient to justify thefixed costs of trading allowances.

A carbon tax probably would be mosteffective at the subnational scale, where themarket may be too thin to establish a capand trade system. Instead, the low overheadand wide incidence of a carbon tax would beconsistent with the popularity of efforts thatwould be needed to generate climate changepolicy at a local level.





Climate governance at all levels, from localto international, must be designed to pro-mote technology innovation and to ensurefast and fair dispersion of new technologies.The governments that signed on to theUnited Nations Framework Convention onClimate Change (UNFCCC) and the KyotoProtocol recognize the vital importance oftechnology. They also recognize that industrialcountries need to provide funding for climate-friendly technologies, which ultimately arethe key to avoiding dangerous levels ofclimate change due to human activities.i

A technology needs assessment done bythe UNFCCC identified many advanced tech-nologies that can simultaneously reducegreenhouse gases (GHGs), increase profits,and create jobs. The benefits of these areparticularly important for the developingworld. Many of these technologies alreadyexist and simply need to be deployed effec-tively. They include technologies:• to use renewable energy sources;• to improve energy efficiency in key sectors(cement, aluminum, steel, and otherindustries, along with transport, building,and consumer sectors);• to recover or prevent methane emissions,fluorine gases, and other greenhouse gasesbeyond carbon dioxide (CO2);

• to improve forest and soil management; and• to adapt to climate change.In addition, numerous technologies are

currently in development, ranging fromthose in the research phase to those readyfor demonstration and accelerated commer-cialization.2

Technology transfer has three key compo-nents: capital goods and equipment, skilland know-how for operating and main-taining equipment, and knowledge andexpertise for generating and managing tech-nological change. Since 1991 various insti-tutions and funding mechanisms havesuccessfully promoted technology transferto developing countries—including theGlobal Environment Facility, the Special Cli-mate Change Fund and the Least DevelopedCountries Fund of the UNFCCC, the Multi-lateral Fund (MLF) of the Montreal Protocolon Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer,the World Bank, regional developmentbanks, international partnerships, nationaldevelopment assistance programs, and non-governmental organizations. The CleanDevelopment Mechanism (CDM) of theKyoto Protocol has also played a part.3

The Montreal Protocol’s MLF is widelyacclaimed as having been particularly suc-cessful at helping developing countriesmeet scheduled reduction targets for the 97ozone-depleting substances that had to bephased out. These substances are also pow-erful greenhouse gases, so phasing themout will mitigate climate change by 11 billion

Technology Transfer for Climate Change

K. Madhava Sarma and Durwood Zaelke

K. Madhava Sarma is the former Executive Secre-tary, Montreal Protocol Secretariat. DurwoodZaelke is President of the Institute for Governance& Sustainable Development.



tons of CO2-equivalent a year between 1990and 2010. Because ozone-depletingsubstances are covered under the MontrealProtocol, they were not addressed in theKyoto Protocol.4

Despite ongoing efforts since 1995, how-ever, governments have been unable to agreeon a technology transfer mechanism toaddress climate-specific emissions. In Decem-ber 2007, at a Conference of the Parties tothe UNFCCC, they laid out guidelines forrevising the Kyoto Protocol in the Bali ActionPlan, with the goal of finalizing agreementat a meeting in Copenhagen in December2009. Several primary points of disagree-ment remain to be negotiated. (See Box.)5

Intellectual property rights (IPR) remain acontentious topic. For many years industrialcountries have viewed IPR as essential forpromoting innovation, while developingcountries have viewed them as a hindranceto the transfer of critical technologies. Inthe last 20 years, however, many developingcountries have achieved impressive eco-nomic progress and have been attractingforeign investment by creating a stable andenabling economic environment at thedomestic level. These countries increasinglyhave access to technologies from anywherein the globe. In fact, globalization favorsdeveloping-country production of many ofthe most advanced technology products,such as photovoltaic cells.The 193 Parties to the Montreal Protocol

found that most of the technologies neededto phase out the use of ozone-depleting sub-stances were already in the public domain.Of the few technologies covered by IPR,most were owned by private businessesoperating in a competitive market and eagerto sell those rights on reasonable terms. Inonly two cases out of more than 4,000 pro-jects were technologies held by companiesthat insisted on unreasonable conditions. In

both cases developing-country enterprisescame up with their own processes in orderto avoid paying licensing fees or meetingconditions they considered unacceptable.The lesson repeated over and over again isthat IPR did not present a barrier to immedi-ate action under that regime.6

Nonetheless, cases may arise where use-ful IPR-protected technologies are owned byonly a few companies, operating in a lesscompetitive market, that refuse to sell thetechnology unless monopoly profits arepaid. Other cases where a premium may bedemanded might include sales to buyers indeveloping countries deemed to have exten-sive internal problems or in markets that aretoo small for substantial investment. In suchcases, industrial countries may need toapply political pressure on their domesticindustries to share the technologies. Theymay also need to relax their IPR regime, asthey have already done for essential medi-cines under the Trade-Related IntellectualProperty Rights regime. But the bottom lineis that IPR may not be a difficult problem inthe vast majority of cases, nor a barrier toimmediate significant action.Funding is another area where a few key

changes could overcome the current stale-mate. The various climate funds for technol-ogy transfer are all voluntary, which makesfunding highly unpredictable. This is notacceptable for near-term mitigation programsneeded to avoid passing tipping points forabrupt climate changes, nor is it acceptablefor the medium-term or long-term andlarger-scale programs required. The volun-tary nature also gives effective control to thedonors, whatever the governing structure.Committed contributions are needed to

create trust among developing countries. Aformula for the percentage to be paid by eachdonor should be agreed upon in advance.The ratio of state contributions to the United


Nations is a time-tested model.Funding needs to be committed for as

long as it takes to reduce emissions andenhance sinks to avoid dangerous anthro-pogenic interference with the climatesyestem. Because it often takes practicalexperience to gain an understanding ofactual costs, funding commitments need tobe reassessed every few years, as is done inthe Montreal Protocol’s MLF, which isreplenished in three-year cycles. Similarly,governing bodies need to include equitablerepresentation from all countries, bothindustrial and developing. A double majority,consisting of a majority of both donor andrecipient countries, works well for the MLFand ensures transparency.7

The UNFCCC Secretariat estimates thatmore than $200 billion will be needed annu-ally to bring about a 25-pecent reduction inglobal greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.Developing countries will need 35–40 per-cent of this total, or up to $80 billion a year.

In addition, adapting to climate change maycost $35–60 billion a year for developingcountries. While this amount may seemlarge, it represents only about 1.5 percentof total global investment projected for theyear 2030.8

The actual amount needed for funding onclimate change cannot be calculated, even inthe short term, until it is clear which itemswill be paid for as grants and which will beconcessional loans, loan guarantees, marketborrowings, the stock market, the CDM, andso on. Once this is known, it will be neces-sary to develop an indicative list of agreedincremental costs, as was done by the MLF.When the final numbers are uncertain, it isprudent to start funding and then to laterreplenish with additional amounts needed toachieve environment goals once recipientinstitutions prove that investments are cost-effective.Funds must not only be predictable;

they must be adequate. What is adequate


On commitments by developing countries to reduce GHG emissions• Developing countries prefer the status quo and do not want to make additional commitments

beyond those that apply to all parties under Article 4.• Industrial countries maintain that “major and emerging economies” should commit to goals.

On technologies• Developing countries want industrial countries to assure transfer of technologies (and meet incre-

mental transfer costs through a financial mechanism) and to relax intellectual property rights on pri-vately owned technology if needed.

• Industrial countries want intellectual property protection to continue under the current Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights regime.They maintain that an enabling environment in develop-ing countries will attract technologies via markets.

On a funding mechanism• Developing countries call for a new mechanism modeled on the Montreal Protocol’s highly success-

ful MLF (committed funding by industrial countries to meet all agreed incremental costs, includingcost of technologies, capacity building, and conversion of facilities).

• Industrial countries prefer existing mechanisms, with voluntary funding to be enhanced.

On the governance structure• Developing countries want assurance of equitable representation in governance.

Government Positions on Key Issues in Revision of Kyoto Protocol

depends on the climate goals of the benefi-ciaries and the specific national actions theyintend to achieve them. Options includeoverall emissions-reduction goals, sector-specific goals, or mitigation activity goals.They can be long-term, medium-term,or short-term. The goals will have to beworked out by each country. Most developingcountries are already taking up mitigationactivities on their own because of the manystrong co-benefits. However, they are reluc-tant to commit themselves—especially to“stretch goals”—unless they are sure thatthey will get the technologies and fundingneeded.In addition, goals can be mandatory or

voluntary. They can be a part of an amendedKyoto Protocol or can be included in a newagreement with a new funding mechanism.In the Montreal Protocol, many developingcountries agreed to phase out ozone-deplet-ing substances in advance of the prescribedschedule in return for access to additionalMLF funding.Country goals are essential for all devel-

oping nations, not just the major or emerg-ing economies. Climate change cannot besolved without the participation of all coun-tries, industrial and developing. While the“biggest bang for the buck” can be achievedif the focus is on major or emerging econo-mies, the other developing countries arealso investing in infrastructure for economicprogress. If they are ignored, their emissionswill reduce the achievements of others. Also,some energy-inefficient industries mightmigrate to countries that do not have toughregulations or other programs to mitigateclimate change. Including every country inthe mitigation activities is the best way to

ensure a decrease in GHG emissions—andto guard against an increase.But there may be some latitude for differ-

entiation among developing-country groups.Industrial countries proposed that wealthierdeveloping countries not receive assistancefrom any climate fund, even where theyagree to accept mandatory targets. Thisapproach was argued during the MontrealProtocol negotiations as well. That treatyended up prescribing that developing coun-tries with per capita consumption of ozone-depleting substances greater than theprescribed limits be treated on a par withindustrial countries. A similar arrangementmay be appropriate for addressing climatechange.9

An upside of all these considerations forimplementing technology transfer is thatdeveloping countries can start with modestinitial investment goals and then strengthenthese over time. With more confidence inthe system, recipient countries will comeforward with stiffer goals and donors may inturn provide more funds. Rather than let thequest for the perfect become the enemy ofthe effective, it will be better to implement asystem capable of progress in the near termand of being strengthened over time. Thishas been the Montreal Protocol’s successfulapproach: “start and strengthen.” Hence theUNFCCC should agree immediately on goalsand committed funding and then start nego-tiating on the few remaining contentiousdetails so that governments can arrive at afunctional solution in 2009. Overall, the pathforward should aim to start now where con-sensus exists and then strengthen invest-ments in technology transfer as furtheragreement is reached.





Skyrocketing energy prices and concernsabout energy security and climate changehave sparked interest in alternatives totransport systems run on fossil fuels. Inrecent years, electric vehicles have emergedas the preferred alternative thanks to theenvironmental benefits of zero tailpipe emis-sions and the vehicles’ ability to take powerdirectly from the power grid. (See Table.)

In the same way that a cell phone or com-puter runs on its battery when someone ison the go and is then plugged in when theperson is at work or at home, an electricvehicle will run on battery power whensomeone is driving and can be plugged inat night or while the owner is at work torecharge, drawing about as much powerfrom the grid as a dishwasher would. Themain change will be no more trips to the gasstation and extra money in drivers’ pockets.At current U.S. electricity prices, running anelectric vehicle would cost the equivalent of75¢ a gallon (20¢ a liter).1

This ability to “fuel” electric vehiclesdirectly from the existing power grid raisesquestions about how much additional gener-ation capacity would be required to meetincreased demand for power if there werewidespread use of electric vehicles. In partic-ular, people promoting the transition to an

energy system based on renewable sourcesare concerned about whether such forms ofenergy can meet growing power as well astransportation needs.

Fortunately, there is more than enoughrenewable energy to do both. For instance,concentrating solar power plants built onless than 0.3 percent of the deserts of NorthAfrica and the Middle East could generatesufficient energy to meet the local needs ofthese regions as well as the electricity needsof the entire European Union. One effort totap this potential is the DESERTEC Concept,which envisions 100,000 megawatts (MW)of concentrating solar power plants beingdeveloped in North Africa and the MiddleEast by 2050 and transported via underwatercables across the Mediterranean to Europe.Algeria already has plans to build a 3,000-kilometer cable to Germany, allowing it toexport 6,000 MW of solar thermal power by2020 and providing a perfect complement toGermany’s significant wind energy capacity.2

The renewable energy potential in theUnited States is similarly vast, and onlya small fraction of it would need to beharnessed to electrify the current fleet ofcars and light trucks (which account formore than a third of the total world vehiclefleet). If half of the light vehicle fleet wereplug-in hybrid electrics, a transformationthat is likely to require several decades, anincrease in U.S. wind energy capacity ofroughly 105,000 MW would be needed torun the vehicles. This is equivalent to total

Electric Vehicles and Renewable Energy Potential

Jeffrey Harti

Jeffrey Harti is an MSc candidate in the LundUniversity International Masters of EnvironmentalStudies and Sustainability Science program inSweden.



global wind capacity today and could be sup-plied by the addition of 63,000 5-MW windturbines. (These vehicles would still relyon gasoline for longer trips, depending onindividual driving and charging behavior.)A 2008 U.S. Department of Energy reportconcluded that wind power could supply 20percent of U.S. electricity by 2030, or morethan 300,000 MW—which is almost threetimes as much electricity as is used to runhalf the country’s light vehicles today.And—unlike oil—the sun, wind, water, andbiomass needed to produce renewableenergy are available throughout the world. 3

As an additional benefit, existing manu-facturing facilities (some of which are nowidle) could be converted to produce windturbines, creating thousands of green-collarjobs. China provides an example of a boom-ing wind manufacturing industry, which isset to produce 11,000 MW of turbine capac-ity (or more than 7,000 1.5-MW wind tur-bines) in 2008. And Chinese companies arebeginning to export their turbines as well.4

Are there benefits to using renewableenergy to power electric vehicles in additionto the cleaner air and reduced acidrain–forming emissions that would result?The government of Denmark thinks so andis now looking to lead in the move towardelectric vehicles. Wind accounted for 21 per-cent of Danish power production in 2007.Since wind speeds are higher at night, whenelectricity demand is lower, Denmark haslooked for ways to offload its excess genera-tion. Electric vehicles could help here, asmost of them will be charged at night andwill be able to make use of excess windenergy. As Torben Holm of Danish Oil andGas has noted, “by charging the cars atnight Denmark will be able to use windenergy that otherwise would have to beexported to neighboring countries, typicallyat relatively low prices. Moreover…that

energy can be sent back to the grid duringpeak hours.”5

Working with the Danish government tomake this vision a reality is an Israeli-Ameri-can start-up company called Better Place.It plans to provide electric vehicles andcountrywide electric recharge grids in bothIsrael and Denmark beginning in 2009 andexpects to have 100,000 vehicles in place ineach country by the end of 2010. The electricrecharge grid would include rechargingpoints for drivers but also battery exchangestations where they could swap depletedlithium-ion batteries for fully charged ones fortrips of longer than 120 miles (200 kilome-ters), the projected range of these vehicles,thus eliminating concerns about the limitedrange of full electric vehicles. The cars inIsrael and Denmark will rely on solar andwind power respectively, providing truly cleantransportation. Better Place is currently dis-cussing similar projects with 25 countries.6

Key to the implementation of this plan isthe development of vehicle-to-grid technol-ogy. Switching electric vehicles to this sys-tem would create a large, flexible, distributedpower generation, storage, and transmissionnetwork, eliminating the need for othermeans of energy storage as well as reducingthe need for new transmission and distribu-tion infrastructure.7

Google is already putting this approachinto practice at its California headquarters,using a fleet of six plug-in hybrid electricvehicles and a 1.6-MW solar array thatcurrently feeds power into the Californiagrid. Google plans to eventually include 100plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in its fleetand to install solar charging stations so thatthese vehicles can be charged from Google’ssolar array. The company has conducted asuccessful demonstration of vehicle-to-gridtechnology in cooperation with the utilitycompany Pacific Gas & Electric. These vehi-


cles will be able to store energy producedfrom Google’s solar array for later use or tosupply additional power to Google or thegrid during peak demand hours. After theirfirst year on the road, the cars in the Googlefleet are getting an average of 93.5 miles pergallon of gasoline.8

Building on this interest in electricvehicles, major automakers such as GeneralMotors and Nissan-Renault have plans tomarket full electric vehicles or plug-in hybridelectrics within the next two years. Smallerautomakers such as REVA of India and BYDAuto of China are also getting in on thegame, with plans to have electric vehicles onthe market both at home and in Europe andNorth America in the next two years as well.The electric range of these vehicles shouldbe 40–100 miles (about 65–160 kilometers),with prices that are competitive with today’smid-range vehicles.9

Plug-in hybrid electrics provide analternative that eliminates concerns relatedto the limited range of fully electric vehicles.This flexibility does come with increasedemissions, however, although they are stillfar below those produced by cars run juston gasoline. The relatively lower emissionsare due to the fact that 71 percent of cars in

the United States are driven for at most 40miles a day in weekday travel, a distance thatcould be driven entirely in electric mode inmost plug-in hybrid electrics (assuming thatthe vehicles are recharged every night for thenext day’s driving), with gasoline only beingused by people driving beyond the vehicle’selectric range each day.10

In many countries, powering vehicles withthe existing electricity mix would mean thatmuch of the energy would come from coal.But even in the worst-case scenario of using100 percent coal-fired electricity, the carbondioxide emissions associated with electricvehicles are expected to decline—up to 50percent by some estimates—relative tothose of gasoline and diesel-fueled vehiclesbecause electric motors are three to fourtimes more efficient.11

The chief barrier to wider use of electricvehicles is the lack of political will. To date,the private sector has driven the transition,but governments can greatly accelerateit through preferential taxation of electricvehicles, higher taxes on gasoline anddiesel, and public incentives and researchto advance technologies and infrastructure.

Another barrier to deployment is currentbattery technology. The nickel–metal hydride


Technology Description

Hybrid electrics Have an electric motor as well as an internal combustion engine; not able to plug in torecharge

Full electrics Solely battery-powered; recharged by plugging into main electricity source

Plug-in hybrids Combine batteries, which allow them to run in electric mode, with smaller internalcombustion engines (which use gasoline or other liquid fuels) to power the vehicle onlonger trips when battery power has been depleted; recharged by plugging into mainelectricity source

Vehicle-to-grid A form of smart grid technology that allows utilities to communicate with vehicles asthey would larger power plants, with energy able to flow in both directions and thevehicle owner debited or credited for energy taken from or provided to the grid

ElectricVehicleTechnologies

batteries installed in most current hybrid-electric vehicles are limited in both powerand energy storage density. But the develop-ment of lithium-ion batteries promises sig-nificant improvements. These are becomingthe industry standard due to their higherenergy and power densities and lower cost,and most automakers are banking on themto provide the necessary extension in drivingrange for the next generation of electric carsand plug-in hybrids.12

An infrastructure needs to be created toensure that drivers can easily charge their

vehicles wherever they happen to be. Publicand private investment is also required todevelop the “smart” grid technologiesneeded to ensure that all new plug-in hybridelectric and fully electric vehicles are vehicle-to-grid capable and that electricity grids canhandle the demands of these vehicles. Ashundreds of thousands of electric vehicleshit the roads, their charging patterns willhave to be actively managed to reconcile theneeds of drivers and grid operators.13

Electric vehicles have a great potential tohelp reduce the impact of transportation sys-tems on the environment. But it is importantto remember that their adoption must beseen as a part of a larger process of movingtoward a more sustainable transportationsystem. A holistic approach to future trans-port must include not only electric vehiclesbut also the promotion of better urbandesign, walking, cycling, and carpooling aswell as increased investment in public tran-sit and rail—programs that will lead to lessdriving and a more efficient transit system.And that will help the world meet sustain-able mobility goals with renewably generatedenergy sooner.



The Better Place electric car prototype

BetterPlace



As climate action grows urgent, someobservers warn that economies will sufferas a result. But economic prosperity andemployment depend in fundamental wayson a stable climate and healthy ecosystems.Without timely action, many jobs could belost due to resource depletion, biodiversityloss, the impacts of increasing natural dis-asters, and other disruptions. Meanwhile,employment that actually contributes toprotecting the environment and reducinghumanity’s carbon footprint offers people atangible stake in a green economy.

The pursuit of so-called green jobs willbe a key economic driver as the world stepsinto the uncharted territory of building a low-carbon global economy. “Climate-proofing”the economy will involve large-scale invest-ments in new technologies, equipment,buildings, and infrastructure, which will pro-vide a major stimulus for much-needed newemployment and an opportunity for retain-ing and transforming existing jobs.1

The number of green jobs is already onthe rise. Most visible are those in the renew-able energy sector, which has seen rapidexpansion in recent years. Current employ-ment in renewables and supplier industriesstands at a conservatively estimated 2.3 mil-lion worldwide. The wind power industry

employs some 300,000 people; the solarphotovoltaics (PV) sector, an estimated170,000; and the solar thermal industry, morethan 600,000 (this relatively high figure isdue to low labor productivity in China, theleading producer of solar thermal systems).More than 1 million jobs are found in the bio-fuels industry—growing and processing a var-iety of feedstocks into ethanol and biodiesel.2

Some industrial regions that havebecome Rust Belts, such as parts of the U.S.Midwest or Germany’s Ruhr Valley, are gain-ing new vitality from wind and solar develop-ment. Rural communities receive additionalincome when farmers place wind turbineson their land. Installing, operating, and ser-vicing renewable energy systems providesadditional jobs; local by definition, these areresistant to outsourcing. In Bangladesh, thespread of solar home systems—which mightreach 1 million by 2015—could eventuallycreate some 100,000 jobs.3

Wind and solar are poised for continuedrapid expansion. Under favorable invest-ment projections, wind power employmentworldwide could reach 2.1 million in 2030,and the solar PV industry might employ asmany as 6.3 million people by then. Althoughrenewables are more labor-intensive thanthe fossil fuels they replace, the energy sec-tor does not account for a very large portionof employment. Many more green jobs willeventually be created through the pursuit ofmore-efficient machinery and appliances.Energy performance services are already a

Employment in a Low-Carbon World

Michael Renner, Sean Sweeney, and Jill Kubit

Michael Renner is a Senior Researcher at the World-watch Institute. Sean Sweeney and Jill Kubit areDirector and Assistant Director, respectively, of Cor-nell University’s Global Labor Institute in New York.



growing phenomenon.4

Construction jobs can be greened byensuring that new buildings meet high per-formance standards. This is particularlyimportant in Asia, which is undergoing aconstruction boom. And retrofittingcommercial and residential buildings tomake them more energy-efficient has hugejob potential for construction workers,architects, energy auditors, engineers, andothers. For instance, the weatherization ofsome 200,000 apartments in Germany cre-ated 25,000 new jobs and saved 116,000existing jobs in 2002–04 at a time when theconstruction industry faced recession. Pro-viding decent and efficient housing in thedeveloping world’s urban agglomerationsand slums presents an unparalleled jobcreation opportunity—if the necessaryresources are mobilized.5

The transportation industry is a corner-stone of modern economies, but it also hasthe fastest-rising carbon emissions of anysector. Incorporating the very best in fuelefficiency technology would dramaticallylessen the environmental footprint of motorvehicles. An assessment of the most-efficientcars currently available suggests that rela-tively green auto manufacturing jobs maytoday number no more than about 250,000out of roughly 8 million direct jobs in theauto sector worldwide. But a concerted pushtoward much greater efficiency and carbon-free propulsion systems is needed. Likewise,retrofitting highly polluting two-strokeengines that are ubiquitous, especially inAsia, to cut their fuel consumption and emis-sions would create many jobs.6

Overall, the reliance on cars and trucksneeds to be reduced. Railways offer an alter-native, yet many jobs have been lost over thelast few decades as rail has been sidelined.In Europe, railway manufacturing and oper-ating employment is down to about 1 mil-

lion. Even in China and India, rail jobs fellfrom 5.1 million to 3.3 million from 1992 to2002. A recommitment to rail, as well as tourban public transit, could create many mil-lions of jobs. In growing numbers of cities,good jobs are being generated by the emer-gence of bus rapid transit systems. There arealso substantial green employment opportu-nities in retrofitting old diesel buses toreduce air pollutants and in replacing oldequipment with cleaner compressed naturalgas (CNG) or hybrid-electric buses. In NewDelhi, the introduction of 6,100 CNG busesby 2009 is expected to create 18,000 newjobs. More-affordable and nonpollutingtransportation networks also give poor peo-ple in developing-country cities better accessto job opportunities.7

Basic industries like steel, aluminum,cement, and paper may never be truly“green,” as they are highly energy-intensiveand polluting. But increasing scrap use,greater energy efficiency, and reliance onalternative energy sources may at least ren-der them a pale shade of green. Secondaryscrap-based steel production requires up to75 percent less energy than primary produc-tion. Worldwide, 42 percent of steel outputwas based on scrap in 2006, possiblyemploying more than 200,000 people.Likewise, secondary aluminium productionuses only 5–10 percent as much energy asprimary production. About one quarter ofglobal aluminum production is scrap-based.No global employment numbers exist forthis, but in the United States, Japan, andEurope, it involves at least 30,000 jobs. Thecement and the paper and pulp industrieshave similar greening potential, but like thealuminum industry they are relatively smallemployers.8

The number of recycling and remanufac-turing jobs worldwide is another unknown.In the United States, these are estimated at


more than 1 million. With higher rates ofrecycling, Western Europe and Japan can beassumed to have greater employment in thissector. In developing countries, paper recy-cling is often done by an informal network ofscrap collectors, sometimes organized intocooperatives in order to improve pay andworking conditions. Jobs and livelihoods ininformal communal recycling efforts are dif-ficult to document; in Cairo, the Zabbaleenhave received considerable internationalattention. Believed to number some 70,000,they recycle an estimated 85 percent of thematerials they collect. Brazil is thought tohave some 500,000 recycling jobs. China,with estimates as high as 10 million jobs,trumps all other countries in this area.9

For many developing countries, a key con-cern is the future of agriculture and forestry,which often still account for the bulk ofemployment and livelihoods. Small farmsare more labor- and knowledge-intensivethan agroindustrial farms, and they use lessenergy and chemical inputs. But relativelysustainable forms of smallholder agricultureare being squeezed hard by energy- and pes-ticide-intensive plantation and specializedcrops, trade liberalization, and the power ofglobal supply and retail chains. Organicfarming is still limited, although expanding.More labor-intensive than industrializedagriculture, this can be a source ofadditional green employment in the future.A study in the United Kingdom and Irelandshowed that organic farms employed onethird more full-time equivalent workers thanconventional farms do.10

Afforestation and reforestation efforts, aswell as generally better stewardship of criti-cal ecosystems, could support livelihoodsamong the more than 1 billion people whodepend on forests, often through non-timberforest products. Planting trees creates largenumbers of jobs, although these are often

seasonal and low paid. Agroforestry—whichcombines tree planting with traditional farm-ing—offers significant environmental bene-fits in degraded areas, including carbonsequestration. It has been shown to providefood and fuel security and to create employ-ment and supplementary income for smallfarmers. Some 1.2 billion people alreadydepend on agroforestry to some extent.11

There is additional job potential in deal-ing with the accumulated environmentalills of the past and improving the ability tocope with the climate change that is alreadyinevitable. The building of much-neededadaptation infrastructure, such as flood bar-riers, to protect communities from extremeweather events has barely started but pre-sumably would employ large numbers ofpeople, even if only temporarily. Activitiessuch as terracing land or rehabilitating wet-lands and coastal forests are labor-intensive.Efforts to protect croplands from environ-


Installing solar panels on a roof in Atlanta, Georgia

NREL

mental degradation and to adapt farming toclimate change by raising water efficiency,preventing erosion, planting trees, usingconservation tillage, and rehabilitatingdegraded crop and pastureland can alsosupport rural livelihoods.

So the potential for green jobs is im-mense. But much of it will not materializewithout massive and sustained investmentsin the public and private sectors. Researchand development programs need to shiftdecisively toward clean technology, energyand materials efficiency, and sustainableworkplace practices, as well as towardenvironmental restoration and climateadaptation.

Governments need to establish a firmand predictable policy framework for green-ing all aspects of the economy, with the helpof targets and mandates, business incen-tives, and reformed tax and subsidy policies.It will also be critical to develop innovativeforms of technology transfer to spread greenmethods around the world at the scale andspeed required to avoid full-fledged climatechange. Cooperative technology develop-ment and technology-sharing programscould help expedite the process of replicat-ing best practices.

To provide as many workers as possiblewith the qualifications they will increasinglyneed, an expansion of green education,training, and skill-building programs in abroad range of occupations is crucial. Somejobs involve sophisticated scientific andtechnical skills. But green job developmentalso needs to offer opportunities for thebroad mass of workers, including those who

have too often found themselves in under-privileged situations.

The transition to a low-carbon future willinvolve major shifts in employment patternsand skill profiles. Resource extraction andenergy-intensive industries are likely to feelthe greatest impact, and regions andcommunities highly dependent on them mayface serious consequences. They will needproactive assistance in diversifying their eco-nomic base, creating alternative jobs andlivelihoods, and acquiring new skills. Today,such a “just transition” remains a theoreticalnotion.

Green jobs need to be decent jobs—offer-ing good wages and income security, safeworking conditions, dignity at work, andadequate workers’ rights. Sadly, this is notalways the case today. Recycling work issometimes precarious, involving seriousoccupational health hazards and often gen-erating less than living wages and incomes,as is the case for 700,000 workers in elec-tronics recycling in China. Growing crops forbiofuels at sugarcane and palm oil planta-tions in countries like Brazil, Colombia,Malaysia, and Indonesia often involvesexcessive workloads, poor pay, exposure topesticides, and oppression of workers. Also,the expansion of biofuels plantations hasdriven people off their land in some cases,thus undermining rural livelihoods.12

These cautionary aspects highlight theneed for sustainable employment to be goodnot only for the environment but also for thepeople holding the jobs. Still, an economythat reconciles human aspirations with theplanet’s limits is eminently possible.





In Operation Climate Change, members of aNigerian indigenous peoples’ rights move-ment attempt to shut down oil flow stationsin the Niger Delta. Ecuadorian environmentalactivists risk their lives to protest construc-tion of an oil pipeline through the Amazon-ian forest that is home to the native Quichua,Shuar, and Achuar people. More than 200farmers from 20 countries march in Bali,Indonesia, during a meeting on the U.N. cli-mate convention to demand that food sover-eignty be addressed by negotiators.1

These are just three of the many grass-roots initiatives worldwide that are seekingto mobilize governments and the public totackle climate change. In doing so, mostgroups argue that human rights includepeople’s rights to a clean environment andaccess to critical natural resources. Many ofthem advocate the participation of marginal-ized communities in the U.N. climate nego-tiation process. Although their specificagendas differ, these groups are part of anemerging global movement for climate jus-tice—an intricate web of grassroots initiativesfrom diverse regions calling for attention tothe inequities inherent in climate changeand the need to consider human rights whenaddressing this pressing global issue.These grassroots groups tend to be self-

organized and oriented toward visible actionand advocacy rather than research. They typ-

ically define themselves as “economicallymarginalized” peoples, “disadvantaged,” or“poor.” The livelihoods of many membersdepend extensively on climate-sensitive sec-tors for their survival, such as farming, fores-try, and fisheries. Others are union membersseeking alternative employment opportuni-ties within a growing green economy oryoung people concerned about their future.Local struggles for climate justice con-

nect at the international level with a sharedunderstanding that in addition to accelerat-ing environmental degradation and speciesloss, global climate change will jeopardizehuman rights and exacerbate socioeconomicinequities. According to a recent report bythe U.N. Development Programme, climatechange is “intensifying the risks and vulnera-bilities facing poor people, placing furtherstress on already over-stretched copingmechanisms.”2

The first-ever Climate Justice Summit tookplace in The Hague, Netherlands, in Novem-ber 2000 at the same time as the Sixth Con-ference of the Parties to the U.N. FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).More than 500 grassroots leaders from Asia,Africa, Latin America, and North Americagathered to build bridges across borders andthematic issues. Regional and internationalnetworks quickly merged, building the foun-dation of a global grassroots movement totackle climate change.3

Members of international coalitions suchas the Indigenous Environmental Network,

Climate Justice Movements Gather Strength

Ambika Chawla

Ambika Chawla is the 2009 State of the World Fel-low and Project Coordinator for this year’s book.



the World Rainforest Movement, OilwatchInternational, and Friends of the Earth Inter-national joined to craft the climate justicemovement’s initial guiding principles and toorganize parallel events to the official meet-ing, such as cultural activities and massmobilizations. “We affirm that climatechange is a rights issue. It affects our liveli-hoods, our health, our children and our nat-ural resources. We will build alliances acrossstates and borders to oppose climate changeinducing patterns and advocate for and prac-tice sustainable development,” proclaimedthe summit’s action statement.4

In addition, individual international coal-itions presented statements on specificissues of concern. Indigenous groups hadcollaborated on the Declaration of the FirstInternational Forum of Indigenous Peopleson Climate Change, calling for the creationof an adaptation fund with financing allocatedfor indigenous groups and the inclusion ofindigenous peoples in all levels of decision-making in the UNFCCC process. The WorldRainforest Movement presented the MountTamalpais Declaration, demanding deepgreenhouse gas emissions cuts and anend to the inclusion of tree plantations as

“carbon sinks” within the Clean DevelopmentMechanism established in the Kyoto Proto-col. According to the declaration, “licensingthe burning of fossil fuels by financing treeplantations to ‘absorb’ carbon dioxide wouldexpand the ecological and social footprint ofthe rich, making existing social inequalitiesworse.” As an alternative strategy, the decla-ration recommended that local communitiesmanage forest ecosystems.5

The global climate justice movement hassince grown and evolved as a widening circleof civil society groups worldwide integrateclimate protection objectives into theirstrategic agendas. At the Thirteenth Confer-ence of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Bali inDecember 2007, a diverse spectrum ofsocial movement groups held street demon-strations, press conferences, and educa-tional side events. An Asian Young LeadersClimate Forum brought together 35 youngpeople from 14 nations who developed aregional climate action plan that was laterpresented to the official conference.6

Farmers from around the world filled thestreets with bright and colorful banners, call-ing for small-scale, sustainable agricultureas an alternative to industrial farming.“Sustainable agriculture will cool the earth!”they cried. Oilwatch International activistsdemanded the redirection of financing fromfossil fuels to emissions mitigation andclean renewable energy technologies. Num-erous groups at the meeting decided to formthe Climate Justice Now! coalition, demand-ing that industrial nations implement drasticemissions, increase financing to supportadaptation programs in the developingworld, and support rights-based conserva-tion programs that promote communitycontrol over energy, forests, and water.7

Assessing the impact of climate justicemovements on domestic and internationalclimate governance can be a challenge, as

Representatives of indigenous peoples protest theirexclusion from the UNFCCC meeting in Bali.

OrinLangelle


these movements tend to participate outsideof climate conventions, have no votingauthority within official negotiations, andoften use international conferences as anopportunity to strengthen their agendasthrough networking and alliance building.The movement’s overarching principles—climate equity, inclusive participation, andhuman rights—play a limited role in thearena of global policymaking on climatechange. The UNFCCC, for example, makesno mention of human rights.8

But those key principles are beginning toemerge in the activities of nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs), some branches ofthe United Nations, and some intergovern-mental organizations. International human-itarian organizations such as ActionAid,Christian Aid, Oxfam, and Tearfund havedeveloped climate campaigns based onequity and human rights, often acting as abridge between underrepresented communi-ties and official policymakers. The UnitedNations is increasingly integrating the con-cerns of marginalized groups such as indig-enous peoples into its program work onclimate change. According to a recent U.N.report, “the proposals of indigenous com-munities to integrate their social, political,cultural, and economic rights and their aspi-rations into future development strategiesmust be considered so that the challengesthey are facing are fully addressed, respect

for their rights and cultures is ensured, andtheir survival and well-being is protected.”And in mid-2008 the World Bank initiateda program on human rights and climatechange, with a focus on developing policiesand procedures that build resilience toclimate change and reduce vulnerability byusing a rights-based approach.9

Moreover, climate justice movementscollaborate closely with NGOs that in turnincorporate the movement’s principles intoproposals they submit to the UNFCCC Sec-retariat. Tearfund, for example, has submit-ted a proposal on disaster risk reductionthat focuses on community participationwithin the context of adaptation planning.The Global Forest Coalition has presenteda proposal addressing the need to involveindigenous peoples in policymaking pro-grams to reduce emissions from deforesta-tion in developing countries. And theClimate Action Network has put in a pro-posal calling for governments to initiate acollaborative dialogue on how adaptation ofthe most vulnerable groups of a populationcan be effectively supported. Thus althoughmembers of marginalized communities maynot join in international climate negotiationsat the official level, they have succeeded inmaking their voices heard by influencingmore-established NGOs that work closelywith the negotiators.10


Tamsen Butler was living the busy life of amother of two, a college student, and a free-lance writer when her 15-month-old soncould no longer breathe properly. She carriedhim into the ambulance, clutching “my sonin one arm while I used my other arm to bal-ance my laptop bag.” After a couple of nightsin a Nebraska hospital tending to her sonand staying up late trying to meet writingdeadlines, she had an epiphany: “My sonwas in the hospital and I was a fool.” Ratherthan working while her son slept, Butler real-ized she should have been resting. Ratherthan “clutching my son with only one arm Ishould have had both arms wrapped aroundhim.” When her son recovered, Butler andher family began spending less time rushingfrom here to there and reorganized their livesaround their health and their time together.They also gave to charity the many extra toysand clothes they had accumulated.1

J. Eva Nagel awoke one autumn night inupstate New York to find her house wasburning. The fire moved slowly enough thatshe got her children, pets, and photo albumsout, but she watched as her clothes, herbooks, and her dissertation notes weredestroyed. Nagel eventually came to see thefire not as a tragedy but rather as “a wake-upcall.” Now, she writes, “Our priorities…are

Tim Kasser, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychol-ogy at Knox College in Illinois and a member of theEnvironmental Protection and Justice Action Com-mittee of Psychologists for Social Responsibility.



as clear as a crisp autumn evening”: herfamily, her health, the pursuit of joy, and giv-ing back to the community.2

These are true stories, but they are alsometaphors for the situation facing humanity.The world is full of busy people whose livesare jam-packed with appointments and pos-sessions. The Earth is ill and, although noton fire, it is warming at a dangerous rate.As these problems worsen, humanity isfaced with a choice: Continue with life asusual, like Butler first did during her son’shospitalization, or “wake up,” realize thatonly “fools” persist in a damaging lifestyle,and use the environmental threats humanityfaces as an opportunity to shift prioritiesand values.

The scientific evidence is quite clearabout the environmental dangers of contin-uing to focus on the values and goals soprominent in today’s hyperkinetic, consum-eristic, profit-driven culture. A growing bodyof research shows that the more peoplevalue money, image, status, and personalachievement, the less they care about otherliving species and the less likely they are torecycle, to turn off lights in unused rooms,and to walk or bicycle to work. One study of400 American adults showed that the morepeople pursue these extrinsic, materialisticgoals, the higher were their “ecological foot-prints.” And when researchers have askedpeople to pretend to run a timber companyand bid to harvest trees from a state forest,those who care more about money, image,

Shifting Values in Response to Climate ChangeTim Kasser



ues as a way of helping humans avertecological catastrophe. For just as scientificresearch has documented that materialistic,self-enhancing values contribute to climatechange, the pursuit of intrinsic values hasbeen empirically associated with more sus-tainable and climate-friendly ecological activ-ities. What’s more, to ensure that ecologicaldamage is not borne primarily by the mostvulnerable (whether that be poor people,other species, or future generations), a shifttoward intrinsic values will again be benefi-cial, as such aims promote more empathyand higher levels of pro-social and coopera-tive behavior. And, in a happy convergence, ashift toward intrinsic values may also benefithumanity’s well-being: whereas dozens ofstudies show that materialistic, self-enhanc-ing goals are associated with lower life satis-faction and happiness, as well as higherdepression and anxiety, intrinsic values andgoals promote greater personal well-being.7

But here is the rub. While Butler andNagel were both able to use their lifechallenges to reorient their lives, and whilesome people do grow out of traumas, thisdoes not always occur. Stress, trauma, andfear often lead people to treat themselves,others, and the environment in moredamaging ways. Experiments show thatwhen people are led to think only super-ficially (instead of deeply) about their owndeath, they become more defensive, morefocused on consumption and acquisition,more greedy, and more negative in their atti-tudes toward wilderness. Similarly, studiesshow that economically difficult times oftenincrease people’s levels of materialism anddecrease their concern for the environmentand for other people.8

Thus, there are both potentially very scaryand very hopeful outcomes of the loomingclimate crisis. On the one hand, humanitymight respond in a defensive fashion,

and status act more greedily and cut treesdown at less sustainable rates.3

In psychological parlance, life challengesspurred Tamsen Butler and Eva Nagel tocare less about such materialistic aims andinstead focus more on “intrinsic” values andgoals. Intrinsic goals are those focused onself-acceptance (personal growth and pursu-ing an individual’s own interests), affiliation(close relationships with family and friends),physical health (fitness), and communityfeeling (contributing to the broader world).4

Such shifts toward intrinsic values afterpeople experience a very stressful life eventare well documented in the psychological lit-erature on “post-traumatic growth.” Some-times traumatic events (including brusheswith death) jar people loose from their typi-cal ways of living and the standard goalsthey thought were important. As they struggleto understand and assimilate these trau-matic events, many people reject materialis-tic, self-enhancing values and goals andinstead express a newfound appreciation forfamily and friends, for helping others, andfor personal growth.5

Two recent sets of experiments have evendocumented that “virtual” death experiencescan help people shift, at least temporarily,away from extrinsic and toward intrinsic val-ues. In one study, people scoring high inmaterialism who were asked to deeply imag-ine their own death and reflect on the mean-ing it held for their life later behaved in amore generous, less greedy fashion thandid materialistic individuals who thoughtabout neutral topics. In another experiment,sustained reflection on their own death oversix days helped intrinsically oriented peoplemaintain intrinsic values, while dailyreminders of death helped more materialisticpeople become more intrinsically oriented.6

It is crucial not to underestimate theimportance of this shift toward intrinsic val-



advertising messages almost always activateand encourage the materialistic values knownto undermine environmental sustainability.Rather than allowing young children to beexposed to such messages and encouragedto develop such values, some Scandinaviannations have banned advertising to children,thereby helping lessen their materialisticvalues. Other countries need to follow thisprecedent. And rather than allowing corpora-tions to deduct the costs of marketing andadvertising, the government could tax thetens of billions of dollars spent each yearinculcating materialistic values and use that

revenue to promote intrinsic values.9

American families also need helpto reorient their lives away from thepursuit of material affluence andtoward the pursuit of “timeaffluence.” Research shows thatpeople who work fewer hours perweek are more likely to be pursuingintrinsic goals, are happier, and areliving in more sustainable ways.What’s more, a recent cross-national study concluded that “If,by 2050, the world works as manyhours as do Americans it could con-sume 15–30 percent more energythan it would following Europe. Theadditional carbon emissions couldresult in 1 to 2 degrees Celsius inextra global warming.” Rather thanmaintaining practices and policies

that promote time poverty, time affluencecan be enhanced by passing laws mandatingthat Americans be given paid vacations andfamily leave (which is the case in most everyother nation in the world, rich or poor). Andthe number of holidays per year can beincreased while the number of hours workedper week can be decreased so that peoplecommute less and have more time to live insustainable ways.10

becoming increasingly fearful and insecureas the climate changes, as species goextinct, and as Earth’s resources becomescarcer. If this happens, psychological—and,indeed, international—forces are likely toperpetuate the very materialistic values thathave contributed to current environmentaland social challenges. On the other hand,the present climate crisis could be the“wake-up call” necessary to help humansrealize how foolish they have been to fixateon material progress and personal achieve-ment to the detriment of Earth, civil society,and human well-being.

Butler and Nagel had little time to pre-pare for the crises they faced, but scientistshave given humanity substantial forewarningabout the ecological challenges ahead. For-tunately, there is still a window of opportun-ity to change lifestyles and societal practicesso as to lessen the coming damage. Thereis much that can be done right now to pro-mote such a shift in values.

First, it is important to recognize that

Extrinsic house of worship? Shopping mall in Hamburg, Germany

CarolineHoos



likelihood that humanity will grow fromthem rather than succumb to and worsenthem. This will be an enormous challenge,for facilitating growth in the face of traumaentails a tricky balance of helping people toacknowledge, process, and accept the dis-turbing realities around them while at thesame time seeing these realities as opportu-nities to create a new and better life. It willrequire leaders who can help people developa new set of beliefs and meanings, a funda-mentally new narrative of what it means to bea civilized human. Ultimately, this will haveto be a narrative that promotes growing aspeople, loving each other, and transcendingself-interest to benefit the poor in floodingcountries, the species on the verge of extinc-tion, and future generations of humansrather than the current dominant narrativethat is obsessed with acquisition, self-enhancement, and profit.12

It is also important to recognize thatseeking economic growth above all else isjust another way that materialistic valuesdominate intrinsic pursuits. Rather thanallowing a flawed measure like gross domes-tic product to direct national policy, newindicators such as the Happy Planet Indexcan be used that incorporate values like peo-ple’s well-being and environmental sustain-ability. And rather than focusing on greenconsumption and the business case for sus-tainability, environmental organizations canstop capitulating to materialistic values andinstead argue for the reduced levels of con-sumption that most know are necessary toavoid massive climate change.11

And if these and other efforts are too littleor too late to avert climate change, leadersfrom every arena will need to help peopleexperience and interpret the coming ecolog-ical challenges in ways that maximize the

Scientific reports on how quickly climatechange is proceeding have divided climateexperts on the issue of how far the delicateglobal ecological balance has tipped. While vir-tually all experts agree that the situation is pre-carious, a growing number of influentialleaders are quietly whispering that we arealready too late to avoid cataclysmic change.Don’t believe them.

When you think things seem impossible,consider migrating birds. By some miracu-lous combination of genetic coding andsheer determination, warblers, waterfowl,hummingbirds, and hawks travel thousandsof miles each year, despite increasinglyscarce habitat and food, to mate and nest.Some birds weigh less than an ounce yettravel at high altitudes from hillsides inCanada to mountains in the DominicanRepublic. Homo sapiens can be equallyamazing. We consciously sacrifice ourselvesto protect others. We do extraordinary thingsto ensure that life flourishes. The drive for asafe future should never be underestimated.

Earth is resilient, and humans have aremarkable capacity to overcome toughodds in the quest for survival, freedom, andjustice. We have our stories—Nelson Man-dela, Vaclav Havel, Wangari Maathai,Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Berlin

Wall, and the journey to the moon amongthe most inspiring. Now a worldwide move-ment inspired by the prospect of climatechange is refusing to accept the traditionalpattern of incremental change. Bold actorsin a variety of fields and professions arerapidly emerging on every continent and inevery sector of human society.

Author and academic Michael Pollan, forexample, envisions a radical restructuring ofthe global food system that rapidly elimin-ates the need for fossil-fuel fertilizers andminimizes global transport of most foods.Stephen Heinz of Rockefeller Brothers Fund,Jules Kortenhorst of the European ClimateFoundation, and Uday Harsh Khemka of theNand & Jeet Khemka Foundation togetherare harnessing the power of philanthropyon a global scale to support energy innova-tions in China, India, Europe, and theUnited States. Local officials like MayorMarcelo Ebrard of Mexico City, formerschool teacher and now California legislatorFran Pavley, and Mayor Michael Bloombergof New York City are changing transporta-tion, land use, and energy policies to reducecarbon emissions.1

The case for bold action is indisputable.The roadmap into the future is becomingincreasingly clear.

Imagine it is 2025 and you are speakingwith a young person, describing the role youplayed in helping your school, community,or country turn away from fossil fuel con-sumption and catastrophic climate change

Not Too Late to Act

Betsy Taylor

Betsy Taylor is a consultant on climate solutionsand founder of the 1Sky Campaign and the Centerfor a New American Dream based in Takoma Park,Maryland.




and toward a more just, secure, sustainablepath. Rather than a story of mass migrations,rising sea levels, and collapsing ecosystems,it is a story of heroism, unexpected break-throughs, and climate solutions. Instead offeeling hopeless about a global economicmachine built on coal and oil, you are feelingexcited about the new ways we generatepower, grow food, and live together. Let’slook ahead and imagine that together withmillions of other concerned citizens wedefied the doomsday prophets and createdthe foundation for transformational change.

By 2025 global carbon emissions arerapidly decreasing. The world has embarkedon a green economic recovery program thatstimulates new jobs, businesses, and sus-tainable growth. Millions of new jobs havebeen created on every continent to hastenthe transition to a zero-carbon economy. Inthe United States alone, 2 million new jobswere created by 2010. Today roofers, electri-cians, civil engineers, assembly-line workers,lawyers, loan officers, and urban plannersare building zero-carbon schools, healthclinics, and homes. They manufacture andmarket wind turbines, solar panels, andhybrid vehicles. Many plant and harvestcommunity gardens and small farms, whileothers design and construct mass transitsystems, a smart grid, and new solar-powered irrigation systems. Work is valued,and green jobs in New Orleans as well as inHaiti, Zimbabwe, and Liberia lift people outof poverty.2

The world has experienced a revolution inenergy efficiency. We stop wasting energy andrealize that conserving energy means savingmoney. The extra money we initially spendon efficient cars, appliances, and buildings isquickly paid back in reduced energy and gasbills. By 2012 incandescent light bulbs werebanned everywhere, and our homes, offices,and buildings have LED lights that have dis-

placed at least 700 coal-fired plants. Wehave exciting and climate-friendly new tech-nologies to use, such as solar-powered elec-tric bicycles that go up to 20 miles per hourand cars that get the equivalent of 200 milesper gallon of gasoline—but that use no gasat all. Zero-carbon mass transit systemsoperate in nearly every major metropolitanarea, funded by dramatic reductions inglobal military spending.3

Offices in New York, Beijing, and Bombayhave task lighting, occupancy sensors, high-efficiency windows, and white or pastel roofsthat deflect rather than absorb heat. Old-fashioned energy conservation is popular.Millions of people in industrial countries drytheir clothes in the sun and turn off unnec-essary lights and electronics. Women-ownedenterprises in India, Honduras, and Ethiopiaproduce naturally dyed clotheslines, andinner-city youth in Detroit employed by theConservation Jobs Corps ensure that homesare properly insulated.

Nations have saved billions of dollars andhundreds of gigawatts of electricity by estab-lishing aggressive codes and standards forbuildings, vehicles, appliances, and powerplants. These standards unleash market-driven innovations in lighting, heating andcooling, building materials, insulation, vehi-cles, industrial processes, power generation,and appliances. Looking back, it is clear that2009 and 2010 were pivotal years—a timewhen forward-thinking nations recharged theglobal economy with a program to retrofithalf of the world’s buildings with energy-efficient technologies and restart auto assem-bly lines to produce affordable plug-inhybrid vehicles.4

Electricity from renewable sources has dis-placed coal and traditional fossil fuel powerplants. Renewable sources of energy such aswind, solar, geothermal, and biomass havedisplaced conventional power plants in the




Solar-powered rickshaws in Milan, Calcutta,and Jakarta offer mobile coffee bars. In theUnited States, all coal-fired power plantshave been shut down, replaced by renewableenergy and the short-term use of naturalgas. Former coal workers in Wyoming andHuainan now build small-scale, state-of-the-art underground storage facilities for zero-carbon food preservation.6

The world is greener as we look around in2025. By the end of 2009, more than 7 billionnew trees had been planted. The success ofthis initial campaign led to vast tree plantingaround the world. Early successes with refor-

estation and tree planting in tropicalzones were pivotal in demonstratinga global spirit and commitment toaction. With leadership from CostaRica, Ethiopia, Kenya, and PapuaNew Guinea, and financing from theindustrial world, each of the billionsof trees on average absorb 6 tons ofcarbon dioxide a year.7

Developing nations are on thepath to greater prosperity, andindustrial countries are on the pathto sufficiency without excess. Popu-lation is declining because men andwomen in the developing worldhave access to family planning andto food and shelter. We joinedtogether in 2009 and 2010 and saidNO to business as usual and YES to

a fundamental change in direction. We arepreoccupied with creating convergencebetween those who do not have nearlyenough and those who have more than theirshare. We do this joyfully, for we recognizethat climate change can no longer be deniedand that social justice and globalcooperation at all levels are prerequisites fora safe future. Our economies are more localthan global and as a result, small businessesand farms thrive.

United States and in many other parts of theworld. In northern Africa, parabolic solartroughs span the equivalent of nearly 45football fields in the Sahara. Along withsmaller-scale community-ownedphotovoltaic and hot water systems, solarpower from this region alone annually sup-plies the equivalent of half of the MiddleEast’s annual oil production. Community-owned solar installations in developingnations provide power for water pumpingand drip irrigation, health clinics, schools,homes, streetlights, and wireless Internet.5

Wind power is a source of rural economic

development in China, the United States,Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere. Chinaexceeded its goals and had more than150,000 megawatts of wind power by 2020.Communities and buildings look different:Rooftop solar panels and flat-profile residen-tial windmills feed electricity back into thegrid. Pedestrians generate electricity justby walking on energy-generating sidewalks,while health clubs produce electricitythrough treadmills and aerobics classes.

Part of our solar-powered future

TerriH

eisele



individual concerns to embrace the concernsof all humanity. We must also act with asense of overwhelming urgency. The incre-mental baby steps of the past will not beenough. Millions of students, business lead-ers, engineers, community activists, andlocal elected officials are taking bold actionand we must join with them. So don’tbelieve those who whisper that we are actingtoo late. The future will be determined bythose who defy the odds to imagine a verydifferent tomorrow and then get seriousabout the kind of transformational changeneeded to get there.8

We have begun to see that life can besafer, slower, and less driven by anxiety.More of us have a sense of sufficiency andsecurity. Global capitalism driven by ever-rising consumption has been fundamentallyaltered by a new system of rules that unleashinnovation while protecting freedom and alllife on the planet. We have transcended pow-erful special interests and centuries-olddebates about economic systems to build adynamic and promising world. Young peoplefeel hopeful.

We will not reach this world of 2025 untilwe rise above the narrow confines of our

In 1992, Güssing was a dying town not farfrom the rusting remains of the Iron Curtainand the capital of one of Austria’s poorest dis-tricts. Just nine years later, Güssing wasenergy self-sufficient, producing biodieselfrom local rapeseed and used cooking oil, aswell as heat and power from the sun, and hada new biomass-steam gasification plant thatsold surplus electricity to the national grid.New industries and more than 1,000 jobsflocked to the town. Today, not only doGüssing residents enjoy much higher livingstandards, they have cut their carbon emis-sions by more than 90 percent. And Güssingis not an isolated case. The Danish island ofSamsø and several other communities haveachieved similar transformations using vari-ous combinations of innovations.1

A growing number of towns are rapidlytransitioning to low-carbon renewable energy,and larger cities are attempting to followtheir lead. But most of the world remains

wedded to polluting, carbon-intensive fossilfuels, despite rising economic costs and threatsto human health, national security, and theenvironment. Until recently, fossil fuels werecheap and abundant; as a result, they havebeen used very inefficiently. The tenfold risein the price of oil in the past decade andrecent increases in natural gas and coal pricesmean fossil fuels are no longer cheap, andtheir volatile prices have devastated manyeconomies. Readily accessible conventionalfuels are in increasingly shorter supply as dis-coveries fail to keep up with demand, andextraction requires developing ever moreremote resources and using increasingly dras-tic measures—from removing mountain topsto heating tar sands. Competition for fossilfuels is heightening international tensions, atrend likely to intensify over time. The urgentneed to reduce the release of carbon dioxide(CO2) and methane in order to avoid cata-strophic climate change has finally focused the

C H A P T E R 4

Janet L. Sawin and William R. Moomaw

An Enduring Energy Future

William R. Moomaw is Director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy atThe Fletcher School at Tufts University.





existing solar water heating.5As this chapter describes, a range of renew-

able technologies are used to produce elec-tricity and meet heating and cooling needs.They are available now and ready for rapidscale-up. Most of them are experiencingannual growth rates in the double digits, withseveral in the 20–50 percent range. Oncethese technologies are in place, the fuel formost of them is forever available and foreverfree. The current technical potential of renew-able resources is enormous—many times cur-rent global energy use. (See Figure 4–1.)6

Some observers propose that coal withcarbon capture and storage or nuclear powermay be needed to address climate changewhile meeting rising energy demand. Butrenewable energy combined with energy effi-ciency can do the job, and renewables are theonly technologies available right now that canachieve the emissions reductions needed inthe near term. Efficiently delivered energyservices that use natural energy flows willprotect the global climate, strengthen theeconomy, create millions of new jobs, helpdeveloping countries reduce poverty, increasepersonal and societal security in all coun-tries, reduce international tensions overresources, and improve the health of peopleand ecosystems alike. Although this chapterfocuses on industrial countries and rapidlydeveloping emerging markets, it is importantnot to forget the needs of people in thepoorest economies.

Making Every Buildinga Power Plant

Buildings use about 40 percent of globalenergy and account for a comparable shareof heat-trapping emissions. About half ofthis demand is for direct space heating andhot water needs, and the rest is associatedwith the production of electricity for light-

world’s attention on the need for a rapidshift in how energy services are provided.2

Energy scenarios offer a wide range ofestimates of how much renewable sourcescan contribute and how fast. The Interna-tional Energy Agency (IEA) recently pro-jected that the share of primary world energyfrom renewables will remain at 13 percentbetween 2005 and 2030. But if national poli-cies now under consideration are imple-mented, that share could rise to 17 percent,and renewables could be generating 29 per-cent of global electricity by then. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) projects that, with a CO2-equivalentprice of up to $50 per ton, renewables couldgenerate 30–35 percent of electricity by 2030.As a 2007 review of global energy scenariosnoted, the “energy future we ultimately expe-rience is the result of choice; it is not fate.”3

The transition away from fossil fuelsinvolves a dual strategy: reducing theamount of energy required through energyefficiency and then meeting most of theremaining needs with renewable sources.The IEA estimates that $45 trillion in invest-ment, or an average 1 percent of annualglobal economic output, will be neededbetween now and 2050 in order to wean theworld off oil and cut CO2 emissions in half.It is imperative that the vast majority ofthese investments be in efficiency improve-ments and renewable energy.4

Renewables already provide a significantshare of the world’s energy. In 2007 renew-able energy, including large hydro, gener-ated more than 18 percent of globalelectricity. At least 50 million householdsuse the sun to heat water. Renewableresources are universally distributed, as are thetechnologies. While much of the currentcapacity is in the industrial world, developingcountries account for about 40 percent ofrenewable power capacity and 70 percent of

ing, space cooling,appliances, and officeequipment.7

The advent of cheapand readily availableenergy enabled modernbuildings to work inspite of nature ratherthan with it. But it ispossible to reduce de-mand in existing build-ings by insulating themproperly, controllingunwanted air infiltra-tion, and improvingperformance for spaceand water heating, light-ing, ventilation, and airconditioning. For newconstruction, an inte-grated design with mul-tiple energy efficiency measures can reduceenergy use to at least half of a conventionalbuilding, and gains of greater than 80 percenthave been achieved. The use of informationtechnology to manage multiple functions canalso help make the best use of energy.8

The potential savings could be great. Thefragmented nature of building and lightingcodes in the United States, for example, hasmeant the continuing construction of ineffi-cient buildings and the unavailability of tech-nologies that are common in Europe andCanada. India has no mandatory efficiencycodes for commercial buildings, and mostcontractors do not know how to install insu-lation. But greener buildings are on the wayin India as well. One of the largest greencommercial developments in the world isunder construction near Delhi; it is expectedto exceed international energy performancestandards.9

As energy efficiency improves, each energyunit is cheaper, so consumers might choose

to use more energy or to spend their savingson other goods that require energy. This isknown as the rebound effect or leakage, andit is measured by the difference between pro-jected and actual energy savings that resultfrom an increase in efficiency. Evidence sug-gests that in developing countries the reboundeffect can be 100 percent or greater, mean-ing that efficiency improvements have at bestno impact on energy use. In mature orwealthier markets, however, efficiencyimprovements in electrical equipment resultin energy savings that are 60–100 percent ofprojected levels. Case studies in the UnitedStates have concluded that energy savings incommercial buildings—from schools to officetowers—have frequently been greater thanprojected. Perhaps most promising are more-efficient, or even zero-net-energy, buildings.10

A zero-energy, zero-carbon building isone that produces all its own energy on sitewith renewable energy and emits no CO2.Most buildings will need an energy supply

WorldEnergy Use

Solar Wind Geo-thermal

Biomass Hydro-power

Ocean

Ener

gyFl

ow(e

xajo

ules

per

year

)

600500

>250

50 <1

477

>1600

Source: UNDP, Johansson et al., IEA

Figure 4–1.World Energy Use in 2005 and AnnualRenewable Energy Potential with CurrentTechnologies

0

500

1000

1500

2000




from outside to meet peak demands at par-ticular times of day. Still, such buildings canbe zero-net-energy if they produce as muchenergy as they consume in a year. And if theyimport renewable, or zero-carbon, energyfrom elsewhere, they can also be zero-carbonbuildings. The United Kingdom has man-dated that all new homes built after 2016and all commercial buildings constructedafter 2019 must be zero-carbon.11

Once buildings are as efficient as possible,remaining energy demands can be met withrenewable technologies. Passive solar heatingand thermal storage in buildings can signifi-cantly lower the need for additional heating,and judicious placement of windows and roofshading can reduce cooling needs. In manylocations, solar thermal panels can cost-effec-tively provide water and space heating. Solarphotovoltaics (PVs) can be integrated intorooftops and even building facades, wherethey are often cheaper than traditional sidings.In some locations PVs are already cost-com-petitive with conventional power at peakdemand times as they compete with the pricecustomers pay for power rather than utilitywholesale rates. They are also often cheaperthan extending the electric grid or usingdiesel generators.12

The Passivhaus Institute in Germany hasbuilt more than 6,000 dwelling units thatconsume about one tenth the energy of stan-dard German homes. These low demand lev-els are achieved through passive solarorientation for heating and daylighting, effi-cient lighting and appliances, super insulationand ultra-tight air barriers on doors and win-dows, and heat recovery ventilators. As peakloads decline for lighting, heating, ventilation,and cooling, so does the required size offans, boilers, and other equipment, providinggreater savings.13

There are multiple benefits to the on-sitegeneration of energy from a variety of dis-

tributed production sites or nodes. New pro-duction units can be brought on line in smallincrements that conform to the new demandin a timely manner without requiring addi-tional transmission lines and often withoutadditional distribution lines. Since power isproduced and consumed on site, transmissionand distribution (T&D) of electricity fromcentral plants are lowered, and losses arereduced—so less energy must be generated tomeet the same demand. Local thermal powersystems allow the capture and use of wasteheat along with the production of electricity,providing heat to adjacent buildings andthereby reducing energy use and associatedemissions; using renewable energy sourcesreduces emissions even more.

A multi-nodal system of distributed energyis more resilient and more reliable, especiallywhere the power grid is subject to frequentinterruptions from accidents or other fail-ures. Having more but smaller power pro-duction units reduces a system’s vulnerabilityto major disruptions. An analysis following amajor 2003 blackout in the U.S. Northeastfound that a few hundred megawatts (MW)of distributed PV, strategically placed aroundthe region, would have reduced the risk ofpower outages dramatically. Wind turbinesmight play a similar role, placed along trans-mission corridors, highways, or train tracks,as they are in parts of Denmark.14

Other options for distributed powerinclude fuel cells and thermal power systemsfueled by solid biomass, biogas or liquid bio-fuels, or conventional natural gas turbines; allprovide heat as well. The U.K. governmentprojects that distributed generation couldprovide electricity for 40 percent of Britain’shomes by 2050.15

The full benefits of interconnected systemscould be achieved by transforming the out-dated central-power-plant-dominated T&Dsystem into a dynamic “hybrid” network that




Many technical issues of interconnectionfor distributed systems have been addressedin Europe, where homes, farms, and busi-nesses produce significant shares of electric-ity for the grid. Most remaining problems aredue to regulatory rules. In many places, elec-tric utilities have monopolistic control overgeneration; in others, distributed genera-tors must pay retail rates for electricity fromthe grid but are then paid only wholesalerates—or, in some cases, nothing—for power

relies on diverse and multiple productionnodes, much like the Internet. This networkwould consist of locally sited renewable powerand combined heating, cooling, and powerunits, some large-scale centralized powerplants, and electricity storage systems. Thedevelopment of “smart grids,” which useinformation technology to manage supplyand demand, will also be critical to achievingthe full potential of renewables and multipledistributed storage devices. (See Box 4–1.)16

In today’s “dumb” electricity grid, communicationis only one-way, from consumers to utilities,which attempt to adjust to changes in demand byramping production up and down.When utilitiescannot respond as needed, system problems suchas blackouts can occur. KurtYeager, former presi-dent of the U.S.-based Electric Power ResearchInstitute, compares the current electromechani-cally controlled grid to “a railroad on which ittakes 10 days to open or close a switch.”

Yet the digital age, which has increaseddemand for electricity and highly reliable powersystems, is now allowing the transition to a faster,smarter grid that can provide better-qualitypower with two-way communication, balancingsupply and demand in real time, smoothing outdemand peaks, and making customers activeparticipants in the production as well as con-sumption of electricity. The smart grid allowsmore-efficient use of existing power capacity andofT&D infrastructure by reducing line lossesthrough the use of more local, distributed gener-ation. As the share of generation from variablerenewable resources increases, a smart grid canbetter handle fluctuations in power when thewind ebbs or clouds hide the sun. It will alsoallow electric vehicles to store power for trans-port use or to sell back to the grid when needed.

Smart technologies—including smart meters,automated controls systems, and digital sensors—will provide consumers with real-time pricing andenable them to save money and power by settingappliances, entire building heating and cooling sys-

tems, or industrial loads to shut off at specifictimes or when electricity prices exceed a certainlevel or there is a drop in generation from largewind plants.They can help shift loads to low-demand periods, when line losses are lowest andthe dirtiest, least efficient plants are not operat-ing. And they allow grid controllers to anticipateand instantly respond to troubles in the grid.Pilot programs have demonstrated significantconsumer savings and demand reductions.

Full development of smart grids is 10–30years away, depending on the policies enacted.But many countries and regions are well on theirway. Pacific Gas and Electric in California, forexample, is in the process of installing 9 millionsmart meters for its customers, while theNetherlands aims for a “base level” of smartmetering and replacement of all 7 million house-hold meters by autumn 2012.When startingfrom scratch, smart grids are cheaper than con-ventional systems, and they are helping to elec-trify regions of sub-Saharan Africa for the firsttime. The IEA has projected that more than $16trillion will be spent in pursuit of smart gridsworldwide between 2003 and 2030. If consumersare provided direct access to associated benefits,KurtYeager projects that a smart grid will open“the door to entrepreneurial innovation whichwill transform electricity efficiency, reliability andindividual consumer service quality beyond evenour imagination today.”


Box 4–1. Building a Smarter Grid







to produce one unit of energy in the form oflight from an incandescent bulb. Technologyavailable today and just over the horizoncan revolutionize such systems, dramaticallyreducing inefficiencies and associated car-bon emissions.19

Every country has large-scale domesticsources of renewable energy. Africa has themost in the world. An area covering less than4 percent of the Sahara Desert, for example,could produce an amount of solar electricityequal to current global electricity demand.The Middle East, India, China, Australia,and the United States also have enormoussolar resources. China’s wind resources alonecould generate far more electricity than thatcountry currently uses, and in the UnitedStates wind energy in just a few states couldmeet total national electricity demand. Vastresources of geothermal, biomass, and oceanenergy are also found throughout the world.20

Renewables currently provide nearly onefifth of the world’s electricity. Although mostof this comes from large hydropower, theshare from other renewable sources is rising,thanks to growth rates that rival those ofthe computer and mobile phone industries.In 2007, wind power represented 40 percentof new capacity installations in Europe and35 percent in the United States. Cumulativeinstallations of solar photovoltaics havegrown more than fivefold over the past fiveyears, albeit from a very small base. Aseconomies of scale improve and conven-tional fuel costs rise, renewables are rapidlybecoming cost-competitive. Electricity fromwind is cheaper than that from natural gas inmany markets and might compete with coalin China by 2015, if not sooner. Solar ther-mal power now competes with gas peakingplants in California and is close to beingeconomically feasible in China and India.And experts project that PVs will be cost-competitive without subsidies in much of

they feed back into it. Guaranteed access toboth the electric grid and the market—through either feed-in tariffs (local genera-tors are paid a set price for all the renewableelectricity they produce) or net metering(they are paid, generally at the retail rate, forany excess power sent into the grid)—is crit-ical to the expansion of distributed energyand renewables in general, enabling renew-able energy not only to add energy supplybut also to replace existing fossil fuel sourcesover time. While most locally generatedpower will not make use of transmissionlines, it will use local distribution systems. Anissue still to be resolved is the level of pay-ment for use of the distribution system forthe relatively small amount of electricityfrom local distributed sources.17

Smarter Central Power withLarge-scale Renewables

Central electric generating stations will con-tinue to be part of the electricity supply sys-tem in order to take advantage of an energyresource or to meet large industrial or urbanloads. According to the IPCC, installed gen-erating capacity worldwide is now about 2million MW; it is estimated that demandgrowth and the need to replace existing plantswill require an additional 6 million MW by2030—at a cost of $5.2 trillion.18

Today electricity generation accounts for41 percent of global primary energy use—meaning total energy use, from coal mine toappliances or other “end uses”—and 44 per-cent of CO2 emissions. Thermal power plantstypically convert only one third of the energyin fuels to electricity; at least 5–10 percent ofthat electricity is then lost in transmission,distribution, and voltage adjustments. End-use devices such as computers and appli-ances are also especially inefficient, and it cantake 320 units of energy at a power station

the world within a decade.21

Despite such advances, skepticismabounds: some observers claim that renew-ables lack power density or are too far fromdemand centers, that they cannot providebaseload power—power available 24 hours aday all year long, that they require 100 per-cent backup, that they cannot meet morethan a small share of global power needs, orthat it will be many decades before they playa significant role. Certainly, renewables facesignificant challenges in achieving large pen-etrations of the world’s electricity system overthe time frame required, but all of these hur-dles are surmountable.

Large-scale renewable resources far frompopulation centers require new transmissionlines. Although this poses a challenge, it isnothing new. The United States, Egypt, Brazil,Canada, China, and Russia transmit powerfrom dams to cities hundreds of miles away,and new lines were required to bring electricityfrom large nuclear facilities and from coalplants near mines. New transmission infra-structure will be required for all forms of gen-eration as capacity expands, and vulnerable,ailing grids will need to be replaced.22

There will be opposition to new powerlines in many places, and minimizing theenvironmental and social impacts will cer-tainly require careful analysis. But innovativetechnologies, such as high-voltage direct cur-rent lines, offer the potential to transmit elec-tricity reliably over enormous distances withlower line losses. Extensive direct currentgrids have already been erected to balancewind power in Germany and Denmark withhydropower from Norway, for example. Nowseveral European nations are considering amassive grid to North Africa’s tremendoussolar resource of the Sahara.23

In the United States, studies have foundthat adding new transmission to transportwind energy from the Great Plains to popu-

lation centers would yield large net economicsavings for customers as the benefit of com-petitive and stable long-term wind powerprices outweighs the costs of new transmis-sion. And some of the best renewableresources do not need to travel far. For exam-ple, solar in the U.S. Southwest and wind andocean resources along coastlines offer manylarge cities the potential to get clean energywhile reducing grid congestion and line lossesand improving system reliability.24

Renewable resources—including biomass,geothermal, ocean thermal, and hydro-power—can in fact provide large-scale base-load power, and many already do. Newconcentrating solar thermal plants in Spainand under construction in the United Statescan store heat for up to seven hours in moltensalts, enabling them to dispatch power ondemand and maximize production when it isof greatest value, during hot summer after-noons and early evenings. In coming decades,ocean energy technologies under develop-ment will offer power that is baseload orhighly predictable. Economical options arebeing pursued to store wind and PV energyand allow generation of high-value electric-ity even when the wind is not blowing and thesun is not shining.25

For more than a century, pumped hydroand large hydroelectric reservoirs have pro-vided storage for conventional power, enhanc-ing grid stability and balancing demand andsupply. They now do the same for renew-ables. Facilities that store compressed air inunderground caverns have operated for yearsin Alabama in the United States and inHuntorf, Germany, and are under develop-ment elsewhere. Low-cost power is used tocompress air that can later increase the out-put of natural gas turbines during peakdemand periods. Studies have found thatcompressed air storage would allow windpower to provide baseload power and that any




cost-effective storage option could boostwind’s share of the electricity system to morethan 80 percent. A diversity of rapidly advanc-ing battery technologies offer great storagepotential, particularly in electric vehicles,which could revolutionize how the worldproduces and uses power and enable allrenewables to displace oil. And the value ofstorage goes beyond renewables, enablingbetter management of peak demand, pro-viding a more stable grid and better powerquality, and in some cases reducing the needfor new transmission lines.26

Better storage has often been called renew-able energy’s “Holy Grail.” But even withoutstorage, electric utilities are recognizing thatindividual variable renewable sources like thesun or wind—despite variations in availabil-ity from moment to hour to season—canprovide as much as 20 percent of a system’selectricity, and in some cases more, withoutserious technical problems. So far no addi-tional backup capacity has been requiredbecause existing systems are designed to han-dle variations in demand and outages ofpower plants or transmission lines on a rou-tine basis.27

The addition of new renewables changesthe degree—but not the kind—of variabilitythat utilities face in matching supply withdemand. The capacity to absorb largeamounts of renewable power is determinedprimarily by regulatory and market barriersrather than technical constraints. Variabilityand uncertainty may increase operating costs,but generally by modest amounts, and theoverall cost and risk reductions associatedwith free fuel of most renewables can be sig-nificant. It is also worth noting that there arecosts to integrating conventional power plantsinto existing systems, but a lack of studiesmakes cost comparisons impossible.28

Denmark generated 21 percent of its elec-tricity with the wind in 2007, and occasion-

ally wind power meets more than 100 percentof peak demand in parts of western Den-mark. Four German states produced morethan 30 percent of their electricity with windpower in 2007. In California, renewablesmake up more than 30 percent of the port-folios of some large utilities. Utilities have bal-anced supply and demand through theinterconnection of grid systems over largeregions with a diversity of loads and resources,use of hydropower as temporary storage, dis-persal of renewable power plants over largegeographic areas, and solar and wind fore-casting an hour or a day ahead. These “hybridgrid” tools help utilities to regulate supply, butthere is also more they can do to control thedemand side—to reduce demand or shift itaway from time-insensitive uses.29

Through demand-side management pro-grams, utilities help customers undertakeconservation, efficiency, or load shifting toreduce demand or shift it to off-peak periods,when electricity can be generated and trans-mitted more efficiently, in order to avoid theneed for new power plants. Thanks to a Cal-ifornian program that decoupled transmis-sion utility revenue from sales in 1982, percapita electricity use of the average Californ-ian has remained nearly constant for 25 yearsand is significantly less than that of the aver-age American. Efficiency improvementsenable renewables to more rapidly play agreater role.30

But unleashing the full potential of effi-ciency and renewables will require a modern,more reliable, intelligent grid at the distrib-




In the United States, adding newtransmission to transport wind energyfrom the Great Plains to populationcenters would yield large neteconomic savings for customers.

power company DONG is making conven-tional power plants more flexible so they canbe turned down, or even off, when the windis blowing. “In the old times,” explains ChiefExecutive Anders Eldrup, “wind power wasjust something we layered on top of our reg-ular production. In the future, wind will pro-vide a big chunk of our baseload production.”32

A report by the German Aerospace Cen-ter (DLR) projects that by 2030 renewablescould generate at least 40 percent of nationalelectricity in 13 of the 20 largest economies.(See Figure 4–2.) Hydro, wind, and bio-mass power will likely achieve the greatestmarket shares in the near to medium term,with geothermal and particularly solar powerplaying greater roles in the longer term. By2050, renewables could contribute at least 50percent of national electric power in each ofthe world’s large economies, and up to 90percent in some countries. Some projections

ution level, where lower voltage power linestransport electricity to (and increasingly from)homes, offices, and other facilities. Smartgrid technologies, now being installed inAfrica, Asia, Europe, New Zealand, and theUnited States, will be able to smoothly inte-grate all types of central plants with renew-ables, distributed generation, electric vehicles,and electrical storage facilities while enhanc-ing grid reliability. By controlling the flow ofelectricity electronically, in real time, smarttechnologies maximize the capacity of exist-ing grid infrastructure and minimize the needfor backup and storage, enabling grids toabsorb unlimited renewable capacity.31

Implementation of smart, hybrid grid sys-tems will require rethinking how the electricindustry works in much of the world, butaddressing climate change requires such atransformation in any case. Some utilities arealready making this transition. The Danish

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Figure 4–2. Renewables’ Potential Share of Electricity Supply in 2030in 20 Largest National Economies

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go even further—a U.S. study projects thatby 2050 solar power alone could provide 69percent of the nation’s electricity, plusenough power to fuel 344 million plug-inhybrid vehicles.33

By tapping the potential of all renewables,the world can move away from fossil fuels inthe next few decades, not only reducing thethreat of climate change but also creating amore secure and far less polluting electricitysystem. The Combined Power Plant, a pro-ject linking 36 wind, solar, biomass, andhydropower installations throughout Ger-many, has already demonstrated that a com-bination of renewable sources andmore-effective control can balance out short-term fluctuations and provide reliable elec-tricity with 100 percent renewable sources. Ina recent interview about the future of theelectric industry, S. David Freeman, a 50-year veteran of the U.S. electric industry, said“it still will take 25, 30 years to phase out theexisting coal-fired plants and have an all-renewable world.” But, he concludes, “I’m autility executive that ran major utilities, andI can tell you there is no reason why the elec-tric-power industry can’t be all renewable.”34

Heating and Coolingwith Renewables

Renewable heating and cooling are too oftenthe neglected twins when it comes to cli-mate change and energy policies. Theyaccount for 40–50 percent of global energydemand. A large share comes from fossil fuelsand is provided inefficiently by electricity ordirect combustion.35

As early as the Bronze Age, wood wasused to turn sand into glass, extract metalsfrom stone, and fuel furnaces to make bronzeand pottery. There is evidence that high-tem-perature geothermal water was used to heatbuildings in ancient Pompeii, while Greeks

and Romans captured the sun’s warmth to dothe same job. Today renewable energy andimproved efficiency options exist to meet awide range of heating and cooling needs,from residential and district heating and cool-ing systems to industrial-scale refrigerationand high-temperature heat. (See Table 4–1.)36

Among new renewables, solar heating rankssecond only to wind power for meeting worldenergy demands. China leads the world inthe production and use of solar thermal sys-tems, with an estimated 1 in 10 householdstapping the sun to heat water; Cyprus, Israel,and Austria top the list for per person use. Solarwater heating is mainstream in Israel thanks toa 1980s law requiring its use in new homes.Hybrid solar hot water/photovoltaic systemsare now available to capture a large amount ofthe heat absorbed by PVs, thereby coolingthem and increasing their efficiency whilesimultaneously heating domestic water. Oneof the first systems sits atop the roof of a cen-tral building in Beijing’s Olympic Village.37

The majority of solar thermal systems inuse are for domestic water and space heating,yet solar heating systems—including systemssimilar to solar heaters for residential build-ings and concentrating solar collectors—offerenormous potential for meeting industrialheat demand, particularly at low and mediumtemperatures (up to 250 degrees Celsius).By late 2007 about 90 solar thermal plantsprovided process heat for a broad range ofindustries, from chemical production todesalination and the food and textile indus-tries. Existing plants worldwide represent atiny fraction of the industrial heat potentialavailable in Europe alone.38

Across Europe, the United States, andelsewhere, people are turning to efficient pel-let stoves and in some cases using liquid bio-fuels in boilers to meet heating needs.Between 1980 and 2005, taxes on energyand CO2 in Sweden drove a major shift from




mark also rely heavily on biomass to heathomes, farms, and district systems. Poland isreplacing coal with biomass for power and

fossil fuels to biomass for district heating,reducing associated emissions to less thanone third their 1980 level. Austria and Den-

Technology Description Where Available or Possible

Absorption cooling

Bioheat

Combined heat andpower (cogeneration)

Concentrating solarthermal

District heating(or cooling)

Geothermalhigh-temperature heat

Ground-sourceheat pump

Passive solar heating

Passive cooling

Seawater orlake cooling

Solar thermalheat system

Table 4–1. Alternatives to Fossil Fuels for Heating and Cooling

Uses a heat source (such as the sun orwaste heat from combined heat and power(CHP)) to cool air through an evaporativeprocess; small to large-scale

Heat derived from the combustion of bio-mass, such as wood or pellets; residentialto large-scale

Use of a power plant to produce both heatand electricity; residential to large-scale

Uses optical concentrators to focus thesun to provide higher-temperature heatand steam for industrial processes (andthermal electricity production)

Distribution of heating (cooling) from acentral generating site, through a pipednetwork, to meet local residential andcommercial needs

Geothermal steam or hot water used fordistrict water and space heating, warminggreenhouses, aquaculture, spas and swim-ming pools, industrial purposes (and ther-mal electricity production)

Pump that makes use of ground-storedsolar heat or well water to provide spaceand water heating/cooling; residential tolarge-scale

Collects solar heat through appropriatebuilding orientation and window placement

Avoids excess heat absorption by designingbuildings to reduce passive solar gain, suchas avoiding glass and using passive ventilation

Harnesses constant coolness of deep waterto provide space cooling (and cold water)to buildings through a piped network

Uses the sun’s heat to provide space andwater heating for buildings and low-temperature heat and hot water for indus-trial processes

Anywhere

Anywhere close to sustainablewood or other biomassresources

Anywhere

Needs clear skies as in Spain,North Africa, parts of China andIndia, or U.S. Southwest

Possible anywhere for use inurban and campus settings withmultiple buildings

Regions of active or geologicallyyoung volcanoes, including Iceland,western North and South Amer-ica, Philippines, Japan, East Africa

Anywhere

Anywhere heating is needed

Hot, particularly dry, regions

Requires proximity to cold waterresource (along deep rivers, lakes,or coastlines)

Anywhere







Lake Ontario provide district cooling toToronto in Canada; the system has the capac-ity to cool more than 3.2 million squaremeters of building space, avoiding 79,000tons of CO2 annually. Many of the world’sbig cities are near large water bodies, whichthey could tap for cooling. And as paradox-ical as it might seem, solar energy can alsoprovide cooling via the oldest form of airconditioning technology—absorption cool-ing—with the same devices that provideheat in the winter. While such systems arestill relatively costly, several are already inoperation, including a solar-driven coolingsystem in Phitsanulok, Thailand.42

Economical heat storage over a wide rangeof temperatures and time periods can signif-icantly increase the potential of renewablesystems. Some storage options are alreadyavailable and cost-effective, particularly incombination with large-scale district systems.For example, surplus solar heat in summer canbe transferred to underground storage forspace and water heating in winter.43

According to the IEA, “solar water heating,biomass for industrial and domestic heating,deep geothermal heat and shallow geothermalheat pumps are amongst the lowest costoptions for reducing both CO2 emissions andfossil fuel dependency. In many circumstancesthese technologies offer net savings as com-pared to conventional heating systems in termsof life-cycle costs.” And yet these renewablesources and technologies currently meet only2–3 percent of total demand.44

Attitudes have begun to change as fuelprices rise and countries recognize the enor-mous potential of renewables. To date, themost successful countries have enacted com-binations of policies to address the differentbarriers facing renewable heating and coolingtechnologies. These include lack of publicawareness, the need to train a work forceand educate city planners and architects about

heating needs. Biomass can directly replacefossil fuels, and modern wood burners canconvert biomass to heat at efficiency rates ofup to 90 percent.39

Geothermal energy is used for everythingfrom space heating and cooling to warminggreenhouses and melting snow on roads andbridges. In France, Iceland, New Zealand, thePhilippines, Turkey, the United States, andother countries with high-temperatureresources, geothermal heat is used for elec-tricity generation, district heat, and indus-trial processes like pulp and paper production.Ground-source heat pumps, which can beused virtually anywhere, use the stored solarenergy of Earth or well water as a heat sinkin summer and heat source in winter. TheUnited States has the world’s largest heatpump market, with up to 60,000 systemsinstalled annually.40

Because buildings generally require heatas well as electricity, combined heat andpower units can be designed to supply both.CHP plants generate electricity and captureremaining heat energy for use in industries,cities, or individual buildings. They convertabout 75–80 percent of fuel into usefulenergy, with efficiencies exceeding 90 per-cent for the most advanced plants. As aresult, even traditional fossil fuel CHP sys-tems can reduce carbon emissions by at least45 percent. These systems can also makeuse of absorption chillers for space coolingto lower electricity demand even further.Residential-scale CHP units have beenwidely available in Japan and Europe foryears and were recently introduced in theUnited States.41

Seawater and lake source district coolingsystems have been developed for a range ofclimates, from Kona in Hawaii to Stock-holm in Sweden, and can save more than 85percent of the energy required for conven-tional air conditioning. The cold waters of

DLR in Germany projects that 12 of the20 largest economies could meet at least40 percent of their heating needs withrenewables by 2030, representing a signifi-cant increase from current shares for mostcountries. (See Figure 4–3.) By 2050,renewables’ share in the majority of thesecountries could exceed 60 percent, accord-ing to DLR and REN21 estimates, withrenewables supplying at least 70 percent ofheating in some countries.47

Waste Not,Want NotIn the natural world, waste from one processprovides nutrients for another. Nothing iswasted. The human world, however, functionsquite differently. For example, most of theworld’s power plants convert heat to mechan-ical energy to electricity; in the process, abouttwo thirds of the primary energy fed into

integrating renewables, high upfront costs, the“tenant-owner” dilemma (where buildingowners and inhabitants are different people,and the person who pays does not benefit),and the need for scale.45

Cloudy Germany has one of the largestsolar thermal heat markets in the world thanksto public awareness of the technology andlong-term government investment subsidies.The German state of Baden Württembergnow requires that all building plans for newhomes include renewable systems to meet atleast 20 percent of space and water heatingneeds, and as of 1 January 2009 the Germanfederal government requires new buildings tomeet at least 15 percent of their heatingrequirements with renewable sources. Since2006 Spain has mandated solar systems for allnew or renovated buildings, and Hawaii willrequire solar water heaters on all new homesstarting in 2010.46

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Figure 4–3. Renewables’ Potential Share of Heat Supply in 2030in 20 Largest National Economies

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useful steam. As a result, Mittal saves $23 mil-lion and avoids 5 million tons of CO2 emis-sions annually.51

In China, energy-intensive industriesaccount for almost half of energy use. Nearly30 percent of large steel furnaces and mostcement manufacturers in this country do notcapture and reuse waste heat, so the savingspotential is enormous. Thus China has beencalled the “Saudi Arabia of waste heat.” Alarge Baosteel furnace uses waste heat togenerate 192,000 kilowatt-hours of elec-tricity a day, enough to meet the needs ofmore than 43,000 average Chinese. In east-ern China, CHP plants are gradually replac-ing individual kilns and boilers to heatindustrial parks and residential facilities clus-tered with factories.52

Anaerobic digesters decompose organicmatter in the absence of oxygen to producebiogas for cooking or transport fuel or togenerate electricity, as well as create high-quality compost for fertilizer. Biodigesters, fedprimarily with animal manure, are widespreadthroughout India, Nepal, China, and VietNam and provide cheap fuel while reducingpollution and diseases caused by untreatedwaste. On a larger scale, dozens of munici-palities in Sweden convert human sewage tobiogas for transport fuel; biogas is also avail-able as vehicle fuel in Austria, France, Ger-many, and Switzerland.53

Fats and waste oils can be converted intorenewable diesel and jet fuel, which can betransported through existing pipelines. Any-thing that contains carbon, oxygen, and hydro-gen—including construction debris, wastepaper, plastic, wood, and lawn trimmings—canbe turned into some form of motor fuel today,which has the added benefit of extending thelife of landfills. The challenge for many ofthese technologies is obtaining the capital toscale up and commercialize.54

While still in the early stages of develop-

these plants is released into the environmentas heat. In Europe, losses from power gen-eration are so great that if they were cap-tured and rerouted they could meet theregion’s heat demand through district heat-ing. Heat is just one form of waste that couldbe captured to dramatically increase usefulenergy without burning more fossil fuels.48

A 2005 study by the U.S. Lawrence Berke-ley National Laboratory examined 19 differ-ent technologies at various scales that canrecover energy from waste heat, manure,food industry waste, landfill gas, wastewater,steam and gas pipeline pressure differentials,fuel pipeline leakages and flaring, and numer-ous other sources. In the United States alonethey offer the technical potential to prof-itably generate almost 100,000 MW of elec-trical capacity—enough to provide about 19percent of the nation’s electricity in 2002—in addition to useful heat or steam.49

Around the world, some of these “wastes”are already being tapped. For example, com-bined heat and power is used widely in muchof northern Europe, with Denmark, Fin-land, and Russia leading in the shares ofnational power production. Finland meetsabout half of its heating needs with districtsystems, mainly CHP plants. District Energyin the U.S. city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, pro-vides electricity, heating, and cooling to itscustomers; 70 percent of its fuel is localwood waste.50

The world’s petrochemical, glass, metal,and other heavy industries offer enormouspotential for using waste heat through CHPand through capturing and reusing “cascad-ing” heat for lower temperature uses. MittalSteel, on the southern shore of Lake Michi-gan in the United States, captures high-tem-perature heat released from 250 ovens usedto produce coke for its blast furnace; thisheat energy, which was formerly vented,today produces 93 MW of electricity plus




and elsewhere prove otherwise, as describedin the next section.

Furthermore, large projects cannot pro-duce any power until construction is com-pleted, which can take a very long time.Consider, for example, that a 1,000-megawatt power facility takes approximately10 years to complete. If all goes well and itoperates at full power in year 11, it will pro-duce almost 8.8 million megawatt-hours ofelectricity that year. Now consider startingat the same time construction of a modularunit that can produce one tenth as muchelectricity per year as the single large unit butthat begins producing power at the end ofyear one. This process is repeated each yearuntil 10 modular units have been built andcome online in each of 10 years. If each oneoperates at full capacity, by the end of theeleventh year the modular units will haveproduced nearly five times as much power asthe large unit produces in its first year ofoperation, and after that the two facilities willproduce the same amount annually.

There are demonstrated advantages tomodularity when it comes to scaling up pro-duction, even with fossil fuels. Most of thethermal electric power capacity introducedover the past 10 years in North America hasbeen natural-gas-fired turbines for severalreasons: they have become exceedingly effi-cient, their unit cost is low because ofeconomies of scale, and they can be pro-duced quickly in modules of 50–100 MW andinstalled within a year. Rapid installationmeans a low cost of borrowing and a bettermatch and immediate production of powerupon installation. Incentives in the deregu-lation process have also encouraged installa-tion of these units.57

The magnitude of the evolution requiredis vast, but it is achievable. In 2007 windpower was the largest single source of newcapacity in Europe and second only to natural

ment, algae can convert as much as 80 per-cent of the CO2 released from coal and nat-ural-gas-fired power plants into biomass.Algae can be used in power plants as fuel orconverted into bioethanol, biodiesel, or bio-gas and provide high-protein feed for live-stock and aquaculture. It can grow inpolluted or salt water, on nonarable land,or at wastewater treatment facilities. Itrequires far less water than most biofuelcrops, produces several times the biofuelsper hectare, and can be productive even indesert regions. Harvesting and processingalgae is an energy-intensive process, but itoffers the potential to “burn carbon twice”—providing additional energy for each unit ofCO2 emitted and an alternative to long-termphysical storage of carbon dioxide.55

Using energy more efficiently can reduceemissions even further. For example, lightingaccounts for 19 percent of world electricityconsumption, yet technologies availabletoday, including compact fluorescent lampsand light-emitting diodes, could halve elec-tricity use for lighting. Realistically, it is fea-sible to eliminate at least one third of globalelectricity consumption for lighting simply bychanging lightbulbs—saving money andavoiding about 450 million tons of CO2 inthe process. By reducing waste in the pro-duction and use of energy, more energy ser-vices can be provided with lower carbondioxide emissions.56

Scaling Up RenewablesSome analysts conclude that only very largefacilities such as nuclear power, large-scalehydro, or large coal plants with carbon cap-ture and storage can meet the world’s rapidlygrowing energy needs. Renewable energy, itis argued, is too small-scale and too dispersedto make more than a modest contribution.But experiences with renewables in Germany

the world in solar PVproduction. Chinacould account for twothirds of global pro-duction by 2010. 59

Current growthrates indicate that wind,solar, and biomassplants can be manufac-tured at rates that arecomparable to large-scale conventionalpower projects. (SeeFigure 4–4.) In2002–07, photovoltaicsgrew at an annual aver-age rate exceeding 40percent and wind’saverage growth ratetopped 24 percent.Annual PV and windgrowth rates have

actually accelerated in recent years. If currentgrowth rates continue, tapping the wind willgenerate more electricity than nuclear powerin 2020.60

Such massive undertakings have succeededin the past. The U.S. public works projects ofthe Great Depression, the vast numbers of air-planes and warships built for two world wars,and the enormous number of automobilesmanufactured annually provide testimony topossible rates of scaling up. It is a matter ofsetting priorities and having the political willto establish effective and long-term policiesthat support a new energy economy. Theresources and capabilities exist. By one esti-mate, if two thirds of U.S. truck productionwere redirected to the production of wind tur-bines, about 100,000 MW of wind capacity—the cumulative total installed globally by early2008—could be manufactured annually inthe United States alone.61

Of course, energy will be required to move

gas in the United States. Globally, even newsolar photovoltaic capacity exceeded that ofnewly installed nuclear power capacity thatyear. And renewable technologies continue toadvance—for example, a new PV technologyintroduced in 2007 bypasses silicon as a basematerial, could lower costs by 75 percent,and allows for increased rates of production.58

More countries are also joining the transi-tion, promising to push growth rates evenhigher for the manufacture of and demand forrenewables. Indian wind turbine manufactur-ers are acquiring European and North Amer-ican suppliers and markets and are now amongthe top global producers and installers of windturbines. China was barely in the wind busi-ness in 2004 but ranked third after the UnitedStates and Spain for new installations in 2007.Similarly, in 2003, China manufactured 9MW of PV cells—1 percent of the global total.But by 2007, by some estimates, Chinesecompanies passed Japan and Europe to lead

Solar

PVW

ind

Biofue

lsCoa

l

Hydro

-

power

Natural

GasO

il

Nuclea

r

Power

Perc

ent

40.6%

24.1%

19.8%

5.9%3.1% 3.1% 1.8%

0.4%

Source: BP, IAEA, VSOnline

Figure 4–4.World Average Annual Growth Ratesfor Energy Resources, 2002–07

0

10

20

30

40

50




away from fossil fuels. This is one reason touse the natural capital stock turnover time toreplace older plants when they reach the endof their useful lives. (See Box 4–2.) Whenexisting infrastructure is replaced, as much ofthe energy embodied in the concrete andsteel as possible should be recovered throughmaterial recycling.62

Building massive numbers of new wind,solar, geothermal, and biomass plants andother renewable systems will also requirelarge amounts of energy. But the energy pay-back periods for renewables are declining asefficiencies increase. They are already relativelyshort—three to eight months (depending onwind speed) for a wind turbine and one to fiveyears for today’s solar PV panels (dependingon cell type and location), which have a life-time of close to 30 years. And once mostrenewable technologies are built, no furtherenergy is required to extract and transportfuels for them to operate.63

Almost all energy-using and energy-producingtechnologies have natural cycles of capital stockturnover, ranging from 3–4 years for computersto 10–20 years for vehicles and 50–150 years forbuildings. Power plants, in contrast, get life exten-sions. Components degrade at different rates,and if there is no required maximum lifetimethey are replaced as needed. Some componentscould be 40 years old and others two monthsold, providing a disincentive for utilities to everretire their plants.

In the United States, power plants con-structed before a specific year are exempt fromair quality standards unless they are “substantiallyupgraded.” Utilities therefore hold on to old inef-ficient power plants, retrofitting the minimumrequired to keep plants operating for as long aspossible. As a result, the average efficiency of U.S.coal-burning power plants is only 33 percent andthe median age is over 40 years. A similar situa-

tion faces heavy coal-producing and coal-consuming countries like China, India, Indonesia,Australia, and Russia.

Economies that successfully reduce theirelectricity use will have a comparatively easytime retiring older, less efficient, high-emissionsplants as demand falls. Those with stable demandmust decide which plants to shut down as theywear out or become obsolete and which tech-nologies will replace them. Rapidly expandingeconomies with a lot of new capacity might notreplace plants for some time, but they must makedecisions about future additions. To avoid gettinglocked further into carbon-intensive fuels, low-carbon plants—distributed or central renewablepower capacity—should be installed as newcapacity is needed.To accelerate the closing ofolder plants everywhere, governments must setphaseout dates and provide incentives.


Box 4–2. Replacing Old Power Plants




Finally, the dramatic improvement inenergy efficiency and the matching of sup-ply to demand that is both required andpossible today means that the replacement ofexisting power generators with smaller unitscapable of delivering comparable energy ser-vices with less energy should accelerate incoming years.

Kicking the HabitShifting to a sustainable energy system basedon efficiency and renewable energy requiresreplacing an entire complex system. Can sucha transformation be accomplished in time toavoid the worst consequences of climatechange? Several communities and countriesprovide hope that it can. Some of the mostrapid transitions have taken place at the locallevel, as seen in Güssing. Many cities aredevising innovative means to finance renew-




has a thousand times as many inhabitants asIceland does and uses more than one fifth ofthe world’s energy.66

Imagine that it is 2030 and that all newbuildings in the United States are zero-car-bon, the current goal of the American Insti-tute of Architects. A large share of existingbuildings have been retrofitted with betterinsulation, windows, and doors. And all build-ings use the most efficient lighting and appli-ances available. As the Passivhaus Instituteprojects and other highly efficient buildingsalready demonstrate, the remaining modestenergy supplies for many buildings can beproduced on site with renewables or highlyefficient systems. Further, industries can dra-matically reduce their energy use by elimi-nating waste and cascading heat from onestep to the next, generating more usefulenergy with the same amount of fuel. By2030, the resulting energy and economicsavings are enormous, and thousands of newlocal jobs have been created.67

Most buildings and factories are still con-nected through the electric grid, but a mod-ern, smarter, more reliable grid allows utilitiesto balance the two-way flow of electricitysupply and demand in real time. The smartgrid in combination with distributed powerproduction and storage—including electricvehicles that charge when the sun shines onPV-covered homes or parking lots, or at nightwhen the wind is blowing—allows even vari-able renewables to generate a large share ofU.S. electricity.

According to a 2008 report by the U.S.Department of Energy, by 2030 the windcould provide 20 percent of U.S. electricity(assuming that U.S. electricity demandincreases 39 percent by then). As a result, thenation’s CO2 and other emissions would besignificantly lower than they would other-wise be. Tens of thousands of new jobs wouldbe created and rural economies would flour-

ables and expand markets. And several coun-tries are demonstrating that transformationcan happen quickly even on a national scale.

In the early 1990s Germany had virtuallyno renewable energy industry and seemedunlikely ever to be in the forefront of thesetechnologies. Yet within a decade this nationhad become a world leader, despite the factthat its renewable resources are a fraction ofthose available in many other countries. In2000, just over 6.3 percent of Germany’selectricity came from renewable sources. Onlysix years later, this industrial power—theworld’s leading exporter—generated morethan 14 percent of its electricity with renew-ables, well ahead of official targets for 2010.The fast pace of growth and associated ben-efits—from new jobs and industries to animproved environment—led the governmentto set more ambitious targets in 2007. Ger-many now aims for renewables to generate 30percent of the country’s electricity by 2020and 45 percent by 2030, meaning renew-ables will become the largest power sourcewithin the next decade.64

Germany’s experience provides proof that,with a clear sense of direction and effectivepolicies, rapid change is possible. And Ger-many is not alone. Denmark’s economy hasgrown 75 percent since 1980, while the shareof energy from renewables increased from 3percent to 17 percent by mid-2008. TheDanes aim to get 20 percent of their totalenergy from renewable sources by 2011 and30 percent by 2030. Costa Rica, Iceland,New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden aim to becarbon-neutral in a matter of decades, relyingheavily on efficiency and renewable energy.65

What might a low-carbon or even a car-bon-free energy future look like? And howmight countries with far larger populationsthan New Zealand or Iceland, or that usemuch more energy than Germany, make thistransition? The United States, for example,




erated. Success stories must be scaled up,and strategies must be shared across nationalboundaries. It is important to realize thatcountries are at different points in their devel-opment trajectory and must tailor theirapproaches to their particular resources andcustomize technologies to meet specific needs.At the same time, there are several key regu-latory and policy changes that, if implementedbroadly worldwide, could put humanity oncourse to steer clear of the worst impacts ofclimate change.

Putting a price on carbon that increasesover time is a critical first step. To encouragean effective transition, most of the revenuegenerated in the near term can be redirectedto help individuals and businesses adjust tohigher prices while adopting and advancing theneeded technologies. In the 1990s, Denmarkbegan taxing industry for the carbon it emit-ted and subsidizing environmental innova-tion with the tax revenues. At the same time,the government made significant investmentsin renewable energy. The tax gave industry areason to stop using carbon-intensive fuel,and advances in renewables provided a viablealternative. By 2005, per capita CO2 emis-sions in Denmark were almost 15 percentbelow 1990 levels. But the global price per tonof carbon will have to rise considerably beforeneeded changes and investments come aboutworldwide, and institutional and regulatorybarriers must be overcome with policies thatdrive the required revolution.71

Policies that begin to wring out energywaste and increase efficiency will be criticalfor reducing demand growth. A combinationof financial incentives, such as low-cost loansand tax benefits to purchase renewable andenergy-saving technologies, plus continu-ously tightening efficiency standards forlighting and appliances, is needed. Regula-tory barriers to the introduction of distrib-uted energy and CHP generation must be

ish as wind farms provided new sources ofincome for landowners and tax revenue forlocal communities. If fossil fuel prices remainstable over this period (an unlikely assump-tion), a 20-percent wind portfolio would costless than an additional 0.06¢ per kilowatt-hour by 2030, or about 50¢ a month for theaverage household.68

Rigorous studies have not yet been carriedout for other renewable technologies, butthe potential for increasing energy generationwith a hybrid electric power generation sys-tem that includes wind, solar, biomass, geo-thermal, small- and large-scale hydropower,and eventually ocean energy is enormous. A2007 study concluded that efficiency in con-cert with renewable energy could reduce U.S.carbon emissions 33–44 percent below cur-rent levels by 2030. Efficiency improvementscould achieve 57 percent of the needed reduc-tions; renewables could provide the rest whilegenerating about half of U.S. electricity. Andthe study did not consider electricity storageor highly efficient transmission lines for trans-porting electricity long distances, nor did itinclude ocean energy or renewable heating.69

The United States is rich in renewableresources. But many other nations are as well,and each country on Earth has a diversity ofrenewable energy sources to draw on. Someof the fastest-growing economies have someof the best resources—for example, China,India, and Brazil have vast solar, wind, bio-mass, and other renewable resources.70

For the world to avoid catastrophic climatechange and an insecure economic future, thetransition already under way must be accel-

One of the most important stepsgovernments can take to addressclimate change is to eliminate subsidiesfor conventional fuels and technologies.




change. Under the German feed-in tariff,priority grid access combined with a guaran-teed market and long-term minimum pay-ments for renewable power have reducedinvestment risks, making it profitable to investin renewable technologies and easier to obtainfinancing. The policy has created nearly300,000 jobs, strong and broad public sup-port for renewable energy, robust new indus-tries, and significant reductions in CO2emissions—all for the cost of a loaf of breada month for the average German household.In 2007, emissions trading reduced the coun-try’s emissions by an estimated 9 milliontons; the feed law avoided approximately 79million tons of CO2 emissions and is consid-ered Germany’s primary climate protectionpolicy. Several studies have determined thatfeed-in laws are the most effective and eco-nomically efficient policy option for advanc-ing renewable electricity generation.Following Germany’s lead, more than 40other countries, states, and provinces haveadopted variations of this law.74

Although feed laws and other policies thatencourage private investment in research anddevelopment (R&D) can play a critical role intechnology advancement, public R&D fund-ing is also important. According to the Inter-national Energy Agency, R&D funding forlow-emission technologies including energyefficiency and renewables declined 50 per-cent between 1980 and 2004. And these tech-nologies continue to receive a relatively smallshare of R&D funds. Between 2002 and 2007in the United States, for example, R&Dexpenditures on energy technologies totaled$11.5 billion, but only 12 percent was directedto all renewable technologies. The vast major-ity went to nuclear power and fossil fuels.75

One of the most important steps govern-ments can take to improve energy marketsand address climate change is to eliminatesubsidies for conventional fuels and tech-

removed, and codes to improve buildingperformance and to use more renewablespace conditioning and daylighting must beintroduced. Establishing an energy ratingsystem for all buildings at the time of sale, assome European countries have done, wouldencourage continuous upgrading of exist-ing structures. Training architects, con-struction tradespeople, and inspectors isessential for designing and constructingmore-efficient buildings. Efficiency improve-ments will reduce energy use and provide life-cycle economic savings as well.72

Regulatory systems must foster innova-tion and motivate vested interests to speed thetransition rather than fighting to maintainthe status quo. Governments must make itmore profitable for electric utilities to investin renewable energy and efficiency than it isto build new fossil fuel plants or even continueoperating old ones. Within the next decade,many power plants in industrial countrieswill reach the end of their technical lifetimes,and it will be critical to ensure than they arereplaced with renewable options. Some coun-tries are starting to phase out subsidies for coalor even its use—for example, the province ofOntario in Canada plans to stop burning coalby 2014—but others have big plans to buildnew coal plants. It will be critical to minimizetheir numbers and to enact policies thatencourage industrial and rapidly developingcountries to blaze new development paths.And governments must work with utilities toupgrade the electric grid so it can use a mul-tiplicity of technologies, both distributed andcentralized, and take advantage of activedemand management through informationtechnology. Otherwise it will not be possibleto take full advantage of renewable energysources or many energy efficiency measures.73

As Germany’s experience demonstrates,policies that create markets for renewabletechnologies can drive dramatic and rapid

nologies. According to the U.N. Environ-ment Programme, global energy subsidiesnow approach $400 billion annually, withthe vast majority going to fossil fuels. Elim-inating fossil fuel subsidies could reduceglobal CO2 emissions at least 6 percentbetween 2000 and 2010 while giving a smallboost to the global economy. Recent analy-sis shows that 96 percent of the annual risein energy use is occurring in developingcountries that subsidize the price of energyat well below world market prices.76

Just as the transition to renewables andmore efficient energy use has transformedGüssing and other towns, reforming the globalenergy economy will lead to major changes innational economies and societies. Renewableenergy and efficiency improvements provideenergy with little to no pollutants, ensuringthat air and water will be cleaner, ecosystemsstronger, and future generations healthier.They create jobs—today, by conservative esti-mates, about 2.3 million people worldwidework directly in renewable technology fieldsor indirectly in supplier industries. And someof the best renewable resources are in some ofthe poorest regions of the world. In June2004, at a major conference on renewableenergy in Bonn, Germany, government dele-gates from several African nations claimedthat their countries could not develop with-out renewable energy. Renewable resources arereadily available, reliable, and secure, and nobattles will ever be waged over access to thewind or sun. As fossil fuel prices continue torise, renewable energy prices will fall whiletechnologies continue to advance andeconomies of scale increase.77

The dramatic and rapid changes needed tocreate this new energy economy appear daunt-ing, but remember that the world under-

went an energy revolution of comparablescale a century ago. Soon after Thomas Edi-son improved the electric lamp, skeptics crit-icized it with comments like this from thePresident of Stevens Institute: “Everyoneacquainted with the subject will recognize itas a conspicuous failure.” In 1907, only 8 per-cent of U.S. homes had electricity. HenryFord had produced about 3,000 vehicles inhis four-year-old factory, and the mass-pro-duced Model T wasn’t introduced until 1908.Few of those who supplied town gas for light-ing or who met the needs of the extensivemarket for horse-drawn carriages felt threat-ened by impending change. Who could haveimagined that by the mid-twentieth centuryvirtually every American home—and millionsof others around the world—would haveelectricity and lighting, that the automobilewould redefine American lifestyles, and thatthe economy would be fundamentally trans-formed as a result?78

Fast forward to 2009. Non-hydro renew-ables generate less than 4 percent of theworld’s electricity and only a small percent-age of its heating and cooling. We are onlybeginning to construct zero-carbon build-ings, and plug-in hybrid vehicles and high-performance electric cars are just makingtheir debut. Yet who can imagine how themid-twenty-first century global economy willbe transformed by more-efficient use ofenergy and cost-effective renewable energysources, and how much they will limit therelease of greenhouse gases into the atmos-phere? We have a once-in-a-century oppor-tunity to make a transformation from anunsustainable economy fueled by poorly dis-tributed fossil fuels to an enduring and secureeconomy that runs on renewable energy thatlasts forever.79





Climate change is going to present societywith a variety of new challenges. Individuals,households, and communities around theworld—but particularly in low- and middle-income nations—will all be affected in thecoming years and decades. Changes in meantemperature are going to affect food pro-duction and water availability, changes inmean sea level will increase coastal inundation,and more-frequent and more-intense extremeevents will result in more damage and loss oflife from floods and storms. On top of this,rising temperatures can increase the burdenof malnutrition, diarrheal illnesses, car-diorespiratory diseases, and infections. Thesechallenges are felt particularly strongly insome of the poorest regions of the world. AsMama Fatuma, a butcher and long-term res-ident of Njoro Division in Kenya, puts it:“These days we do not know what is hap-pening. Either there is too much rain or none

at all. This is not useful to us. When there istoo much rain, the floods that result cause usharm. When there is not enough rain, the dryconditions do us harm.”1

What can be done to reduce the vulnera-bility of individuals, communities, and coun-tries to the threats of climate change? Farmersin Njoro Division have come up with a widearray of adaptive strategies. They are switch-ing from wheat and potatoes to quick-matur-ing crops such as beans and maize, and theyare planting any time it rains because there isno longer a clear growing season. Theiractions have been supported by communitygroups that have built rain-harvesting tanksand set up savings clubs, while local govern-ment agencies have bolstered local resilienceby recommending new species and new cul-tivation techniques to cope with changes inthe climate.

A large proportion of the world’s popula-

C H A P T E R 5

David Dodman, Jessica Ayers, and Saleemul Huq

Building Resilience

David Dodman is a researcher in the Human Settlements and Climate Change Groups at the Interna-tional Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London, Jessica Ayers is a PhD candi-date at the London School of Economics, and Saleemul Huq directs IIED’s Climate Change Group.

tion is vulnerable to changes like those facingfarmers in Kenya, but the risks are not dis-tributed evenly. This reflects profound globalinequalities: the countries that have profitedfrom high levels of greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions are the ones that will be leastaffected by climate change, while countriesthat have made only minimal contributions tothe problem will be among the most affected.The uneven distribution of climate change riskmirrors the existing uneven distribution ofnatural disaster risk—in 2007, Asia was theregion hardest hit and most affected by nat-ural disasters, accounting for 37 percent ofreported disasters and 90 percent of all thereported victims. Human-induced climatechange is likely to have the heaviest impact onsmall island developing states, the poorestcountries in the world, and African nations.Taken together, these countries form a groupof 100 nations, collectively housing morethan a billion people but with carbon dioxideemissions (excluding South Africa’s) account-ing for only 3.2 percent of the global total.2

Adaptation and resilience not only canreduce the risks from climate change, they canalso improve living conditions and meetbroader development objectives around theworld. This requires a recognition of themany ways in which experiences of vulnera-bility and resilience differ: between coun-tries; between children, women, and men;and across class and caste within the samesociety. It requires accepting the importanceof the interactions between human and nat-ural systems and realizing that resilient socialsystems and resilient natural systems—although not the same thing—do exhibit ahigh degree of co-dependence. It also requiresinstitutional transformations at a variety ofscales: local organizations, local governments,national governments, and international orga-nizations all need to become climate-resilientthemselves and to work toward creating the

frameworks within which individuals, house-holds, communities, and nations can dealwith the challenges of climate change.

Vulnerability, Adaptation,and Resilience

Vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience areall deceptively simple concepts with widelyvarying meanings. Vulnerability is the basiccondition that makes adaptation andresilience necessary. In reference to climatechange, it is a measure of the degree to whicha human or natural system is unable to copewith adverse effects, including changing vari-ability and extremes. It can be seen as anoutcome of the seriousness of the stress andthe ability of a system to respond to it. Adap-tation is a related concept that refers specif-ically to the adjustments made in natural orhuman systems in response to actual orexpected threats.3

Both vulnerability and adaptation areunevenly distributed, and in many cases it isthe most vulnerable individuals and commu-nities who are least able to adapt. As theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) concludes, “the technical, financialand institutional capacity, and the actual plan-ning and implementation of effective adap-tation, is currently quite limited in manyregions.” When properly implemented, how-ever, adaptation strategies can help limit theloss of life and livelihoods from changes inmean temperatures and the more-frequentand intense extreme climatic events associatedwith climate change.4

The types and scales of adaptation activi-ties are extremely varied (see Table 5–1), andparticular strategies will depend on the natureand context of climatic vulnerability. Forexample, Cavite City in the Philippines is ona peninsula surrounded by three bodies ofwater, with about half its population on the



Building Resilience

coast. Cavite experiences on average twotropical cyclones every year, and the city is alsoaffected by drought and sea level rise, all ofwhich are predicted to be greatly exacerbatedby climate change. Currently 10 percent ofthe population is vulnerable to sea level rise,but a one-meter increase would put aroundtwo thirds of the population at risk. Peoplehave responded through various adaptationstrategies, including building houses on stilts,strengthening or reinforcing the physicalstructure of houses, moving to safer placesduring extreme weather events, placing sand-bags along the shorelines, and taking up alter-native income-generating activities locally orin other areas.5

Whereas vulnerability is a particular state

and adaptation is a set of activitiesin response to it, resilience is aless distinct concept. In engi-neering it means the ability of amaterial to return to its originalstate after being subjected to aforce; in ecology it often meansthe time taken for a system toreturn to a state of equilibrium.Both of these meanings have beenapplied to human systems, in ananalysis that focuses on the abilityof individuals, households, andnations to return to “normal”after disrupting events. The legacyof these definitions can be seen inthe Fourth Assessment Report ofthe IPCC, which defines resilienceas “the ability of a social or eco-logical system to absorb distur-bances while retaining the samebasic structure and ways of func-tioning, the capacity for self-orga-nization, and the capacity to adaptto stress and change.”6

But is resilience of this typereally desirable? Is it acceptable

to return to the “same basic structure” inwhich some 1 billion people live on less than$1 per day, in which there are 350–500 mil-lion cases of malaria each year, and in whicharound half of the people living in African andAsian cities lack adequate water and sanitationfacilities? With this in mind, perhaps it ismore appropriate to consider resilience as aprocess, a way of functioning, that enables notonly coping with added shocks and stressesbut also addressing the myriad challengesthat constrain lives and livelihoods and facil-itating more general improvements to thequality of human lives. Resilience as a processtherefore needs to take into account the eco-nomic, social, psychological, physical, andenvironmental factors that are necessary for



Building Resilience

Sector Adaptation Strategies

Water Expanded rainwater harvestingWater storage and conservation techniquesDesalinationIncreased irrigation efficiency

Agriculture Adjustment of planting dates and crop varietyCrop relocationImproved land management (such as erosioncontrol and soil protection through tree planting)

Infrastructure Relocationand settlement Improved seawalls and storm surge barriers

Creation of wetlands as buffer against sea levelrise and flooding

Human health Improved climate-sensitive disease surveillanceand controlImproved water supply and sanitation services

Tourism Diversification of tourism attractions and revenues

Transport Realignment and relocation of transportationroutesImproved standards and planning for infrastruc-ture to cope with warming and damage

Energy Strengthening of infrastructureImproved energy efficiencyIncreased use of renewable resources

Table 5–1. Examples of PlannedAdaptationfor Different Sectors

Building Resilience



human, natural, financial, social, and physicalcapital. Resistance and resilience are shapedby a person’s access to rights, resources, andassets. Mobilizing these assets, however,requires local institutions and national andinternational systems of governance to pro-vide the framework within which they canfunction. All these disparate elements—theecological, the individual, and the institu-tional—need to come together in a mutuallyreinforcing manner to help individuals, house-holds, and communities cope with change,including climate change.8

A recent adaptation program in five villagesin Kabilas VDC in the Chitwan district ofNepal run by the nongovernmental organi-zation (NGO) Practical Action demonstrateswell the necessary links between assets, com-munities, and institutions in buildingresilience. The main activities focused onimproving access to resources and assets,which involved small livestock distribution,vegetable farm demonstrations, kitchen gar-dening and organic farming, seed and fruitsapling distribution, and sloping agriculturalland technologies. A subsequent evaluationsuggests that the project had a positive influ-ence on food production and income gener-ation: vegetable production increased in theproject area threefold, and farmers are able tosell surplus vegetables. Some 10 percent offarmers now grow vegetables on a small-scalecommercial basis, compared with none priorto the project.9

The project was linked to local governmentstructures through representatives of eachproject community being members of abroader Climate Change Impacts and Disas-ter Management group, which was registeredwith the District Administration Office. Thisgroup was responsible for coordination andimplementation of the project in differentvillages, encouraging local institutional sup-port for the scaling up of project benefits for

humans to survive and thrive.7Many aspects of resilience are closely asso-

ciated with a holistic approach to develop-ment. Individuals who have access toadequate food, clean water, health care, andeducation will inevitably be better preparedto deal with a variety of shocks and stresses—including those arising from climate change.Communities and cities that are served byappropriate infrastructure—particularly water,sanitation, and drainage—will also be moreresilient to these shocks. Indeed, one of themost significant reasons poor people in devel-oping countries are more at risk from cli-mate change is because they are inadequatelyserved by the day-to-day services that aretaken for granted in more-affluent locations.

Resilience of this kind requires a variety ofcomponents, all of which must be present todifferent extents, but some of which aremore pertinent to human systems or to eco-logical systems. An overriding component isappropriate human-natural relations: humansystems that do not exceed the capacities ofthe natural systems in which they are located,and natural systems that are not undulythreatened by human activities. Both humanand natural systems require a capacity forself-organization in order to deal withthreats, and diversity is a key element forboth types of system too. As shocks andstresses create changes from the norm, acapacity for learning (to deal with novelthreats) and innovation (coming up withnew solutions) are also important.

At a practical level, people rely on a vari-ety of assets and entitlements to supportthemselves in difficult times, including

Resistance and resilience areshaped by a person’s access torights, resources, and assets.

Building Resilience



ploitation of resources). If global mean sur-face temperatures increase by more than 2–3degrees Celsius, an estimated 20–30 percentof plant and animal species will be at increas-ingly high risks of extinction; substantialchanges in the structure and function of ter-restrial ecosystems are also expected.12

The resilience of ecosystems to climatechange depends in large part on the stresses,human and otherwise, that are already beingfaced. Natural systems will be better able toadapt if other stresses are minimized. Forexample, chronic overfishing, blast fishingtechniques, and the pollution of water aroundcoral reefs in South Asia have made themmore vulnerable to cyclones and warmer seatemperatures. In this sense, social resilience toclimate change may sometimes be at oddswith ecological resilience: human adaptivestrategies for socioeconomic developmentmay increase pressure on marine and terres-trial ecosystems through changes in landmanagement practices, shifts in cultivationand livestock production, and changes in irri-gation patterns. In addition, more resilientand developed communities may have agreater capacity to exploit natural resourcesto support their adaptive strategies.13

Attempting to address ecological resiliencefrom this standpoint might encourage a returnto protectionist approaches to conservation inan attempt to minimize the impacts of peopleon nature. But that could actually decreasesocial resilience where people are forced awayfrom certain ecosystem services, which may inturn put greater pressure on alternative nat-ural resources that had previously been man-aged sustainably. Further, such an approach tobuilding ecological resilience overlooks theclose relationship between environmental andsocial vulnerability to climate change and failsto acknowledge the notion of resilience as aprocess rather than a return to a “stable”state. First, climate change is bringing new

replication in other communities. The successof the project was ultimately limited, however,by a lack of access to national financial mar-kets. And there was a lack of support formarketing the surplus agricultural productsgenerated by the project. As a result, peoplehave complained that they have been unableto receive reasonable enough prices for theirproduce to affect their incomes significantly.10

Linking Ecological andSocial Resilience

There are many linkages between social andecological resilience. Human livelihoods andsettlements rely on the resources and ser-vices provided by natural systems, whetherlocated nearby or far away—a concept oftenreferred to as the “ecological footprint.” Inthe face of environmental changes, theresilience of communities that rely heavilyon particular ecosystems will in part be deter-mined by the capacity of those ecosystems tobuffer against, recover from, and adapt tothese changes and continue to provide theecosystem services essential for human liveli-hoods and societal development. In turn,ecological resilience is influenced by the sus-tainability of the human behavior that hasany impact on the environment: an ecosystemis more resilient when resources are used sus-tainably and its capacity is not exceeded.11

Climate is one of the most important fac-tors influencing habitats and ecosystems andthe abundance, distribution, and behavior ofspecies. Climate change therefore carriessevere implications for the sustainability of theworld’s ecosystems, and these impacts arealready beginning to show. The ability ofmany ecosystems to adapt naturally is likely tobe exceeded during this century by anunprecedented combination of change in cli-mate and other global changes (includingland use changes, pollution, and overex-

pressures to ecosystems, so attempting to“restore” ecosystems in the context of achanging climate is inappropriate. For exam-ple, the notion of “invasive species” maybecome redundant as many species expandand retreat in reaction to changing climate pat-terns. Second, approaches to building eco-logical resilience must also focus on thesocioeconomic development of the commu-nities dependent on the ecosystem.

The close association between people andthe environment is perhaps most apparentin poor rural societies in low-income countriesthat rely directly on ecological systems forenvironmental goods and services. Socio-economic development can reduce depen-dence on single ecosystems by paving theway for diversification of livelihood activi-ties, while reliance on a narrow range ofresources can lead to social and economicstresses on livelihood systems, thereby con-straining development. This is not a fixedrelationship, however. Many people living inrural areas use diverse approaches to meettheir basic needs, although these often relystrongly on land-based resources. At the sametime, mono-crop agriculture often allowslarge landowners to become wealthy on thebasis of a reliance on a single activity. Thishighlights an important point: the strength ofassociation between ecological and socialresilience is closely tied to the developmentcontext and is mediated by a variety of otherfactors, including wealth, ownership of landand the means of production, and social net-works. In situations where human activityhas such direct implications for ecosystemresilience, and where the type and level ofthese human activities are determined by theresilience of the ecosystem and the widerinstitutional context, integrated approaches tobuilding resilience are essential.

This social resilience-ecological resilience-development nexus is evident in the coastal

fishing communities in the Straits of Malaccain peninsular Malaysia. Following theNagasaki Spirit oil spill in 1992, a study inKuala Teriang, Malaysia, found that only 4percent of individuals from non-fishing house-holds reported any disruption in their activ-ities or other impacts, including the ability toobtain fish for meals. In contrast, losses dueto the oil spill were reported by 90 percent offishers’ households. The concentration ofimpacts in these households demonstratesthe fishers’ particularly high vulnerability, inpart because their livelihood was tied tocoastal resources. The resilience of the com-munities to the oil spill therefore dependedboth directly on ecosystem resilience (theability of the coastal ecosystem to bufferagainst and recover from the impacts of theoil spill) and on the alternative livelihoodoptions open to the fishers as the ecosystemregenerated. In turn, the resilience of theecosystem was related to the extent to whichsocial systems continued to exploit it in timesof stress.14

So although building ecological resiliencewill certainly contribute to social resilience inresource-dependent communities, it is notenough. The institutional factors that tie asociety to dependence on a narrow range ofecosystems must also be addressed. Adapta-tion strategies that focus on either social orecosystem resilience must take into accountthe tight interactions between them—andthen aim to address both. This requires aholistic approach that addresses the institu-tional barriers to sustainable developmentand livelihood diversification, as well as soundand participatory natural resource manage-ment strategies.

When considering how to build resiliencein the face of climate change, therefore, it isnecessary to consider not only the directimpacts of a changing climate on the envi-ronment but also the implications this has for



Building Resilience

social resilience, the feedbacks on ecologicalvulnerability it may entail, and the widerinstitutional mechanisms that can enable thiscycle to be broken. Building ecologicalresilience is essential, although not sufficient,for achieving social resilience. But achievingsocial resilience through sustainable devel-opment is essential for reducing pressureson ecosystems so they can adapt in the faceof climate change.

Building Rural LivelihoodsThat Are More Resilient

As climate change has an impact on ecosys-tems, the livelihoods and well-being of thosereliant on the functioning of those systems isclearly threatened. This vulnerability is par-ticularly worrying because 75 percent of the1.2 billion people who survive on less than $1per day live and work in rural areas of devel-oping countries. They lack the institutionaland financial capacity to cope with the impactsof climate change, and they already sufferproblems associated with subsistence pro-duction, such as isolated location, small farmsize, informal land tenure, low levels of tech-nology, and narrow employment options, inaddition to unpredictable and uneven expo-sure to world markets.15

Rural households engaged in subsistenceand smallholder agriculture in developingcountries have been identified as one of thegroups most sensitive to the impacts of climatechange because of their high dependence ona climate-sensitive sector within ecologicallyfragile zones. It is impossible to forecast theimpacts on rural households accurately, aslivelihood systems are small, complex, diverse,and context-specific and involve a variety ofcrop and livestock species. Nevertheless, therecent IPCC report on impacts, adaptation,and vulnerability identified several likelyimpacts of climate change on rural small-

holdings in developing countries:• increased likelihood of crop failure;• increased diseases and mortality of live-stock and forced sales of livestock at dis-advantageous prices;

• the sale of other assets, indebtedness, emi-gration, and dependence on food relief;and

• eventual worsening of human developmentindicators.16In Bangladesh, for example, agriculture

employs more than half of the labor force.Temperature and rainfall changes associatedwith climate change have already begun toaffect crop production in many parts of thecountry, and the area of arable land is decreas-ing. On average during the period 1962–88Bangladesh lost about half a million tons ofrice annually as a result of floods, the equiv-alent of nearly 30 percent of the country’saverage annual food grain imports. Future cli-mate change trends are set to worsen agri-cultural conditions; a study by theInternational Rice Research Institute showedthat a 1 degree Celsius increase in night tem-peratures during the growing season wouldreduce global rice yields by 10 percent. Suchtemperature increases are well within the pre-dicted ranges for global warming.17

Although local farmers in Bangladesh aregenerally unaware of the implications of cli-mate change on their livelihoods, they arenoticing changes in seasons and rainfall pat-terns. They have observed that planting sea-sons have shifted and are shorter and earlierthan before; in addition, unusual extremes oftemperature—including cold snaps and heatwaves—are damaging crops. Temperatures inBangladesh increased about 1 degree Celsiusin May and half a degree in Novemberbetween 1985 and 1998, and further tem-perature increases are expected. Extremes arealso increasing, and winter temperatures as lowas 5 degrees Celsius were recorded in January



Building Resilience

2007—reportedly the lowest in 38 years.18The effort to build resilience to climate

change in rural livelihoods is one of the bestillustrations of the close relationship betweenecological resilience, social resilience, andthe development and institutional context.There are a range of adaptation options,many of which are already under way indeveloping and industrial countries, withtheir effectiveness varying from only mar-ginally reducing negative impacts to bringingabout positive benefits for the communitiesinvolved. Clearly, the latter is desirable interms of being resilient.19

Many autonomous adaptations to climatechange are already occurring in rural areas,where livelihood systems experience a num-ber of interlocking stressors other than cli-mate change and where the most appropriatestrategies will incorporate local knowledgeand take a livelihoods-first approach. Theseinclude altering the timing or location ofcropping activities and adopting water stor-age and conservation strategies in times ofwater stress. Poor smallholders in areas ofecological fragility tend to have extensiveknowledge of options for coping with adverseenvironmental conditions and shocks. Fur-ther, local farmers often have intricate systemsof gathering and interpreting weather pat-terns and adapting their seasonal farmingpractices accordingly.20

In northeast Tanzania, for example, localfarmers use very specific indicators to predictthe beginning of the rains: increases in tem-perature; lightning; changing behavioral pat-terns of birds, insects, and mammals; andthree different types of plant changes (flow-ering, new leaves, and grass wilting). Indica-tors for the end of rains rely on meteorologicalfactors such as steady rainfall and windstrength, but also fauna and flora signals suchas bee swarms and the ripening of seeds. Inthe same region, the intensity and quantity of

rainfall are predicted through local assess-ments of the distribution of rains, fogs, andsunshine periods.21

Strengthening and adapting existing localand indigenous coping strategies is key toenabling and empowering communities toenhance their own resilience. Community-based adaptation strategies use participatorytools to identify, assist, and implement com-munity-based development activities thatcontribute to resilience building in rural areasin regions where adaptive capacity dependsas much on livelihoods indicators as it doeson climatic changes.

In Humbane village in Gwanda, Zim-babwe, for instance, traditional methods ofrainwater harvesting are being communi-cated and aided by the NGO Practical Actionin order to help rural communities adapt toincreasing drought conditions. Rainwater isbeing captured as it falls and retained in thesoil or in tanks below ground so that it canbe used later as a source of clean water. Byconstructing ridges of soil along the con-tours of fields, rainfall is held back from run-ning off the hard-baked soils too quickly, sothat even when rain levels are low, families canharvest enough food.22

Tias Sibanda, one of the first farmers on hisward to build contours to conserve rainwa-ter, has experienced significant improvementsin the harvest on his farm. Before the pro-gram, he used to plant maize on 4.5 hectaresbut often had nothing to harvest because ofdroughts. Following the project, he had twocrops of maize, yielding 1.5 tons and then0.75 tons. This meant that Sibanda did nothave to buy food that year and even hadenough left over to last until the next season,saving about $400—or the equivalent ofabout 12 goats—on food.23

However, resilience building is only effec-tive insofar as it is supported by wider insti-tutional and fiscal support mechanisms.



Building Resilience

Efforts to build rural resilience need toaddress the social processes that have causedparticularly vulnerable groups to be vulner-able in the first place and then consider howclimate-related stresses can exacerbate risks torural livelihoods. Higher-level structures areneeded to mediate increasing competitionfor resources, protect poor households againstmarginalization by powerful actors, and coor-dinate responses to increasing climate vari-ability. This would reduce the risk thathousehold decisionmaking, which is typicallyfocused on economic opportunities ratherthan climate-related risk, results in “mal-adaptive” practices.24

All of this requires adaptive institutions—rural institutions that encourage and facilitateresilience and that are themselves resilient inthe face of climate change. Institutions andtheir organizational forms shape the adapta-tion practices of the rural poor. In order tocraft external interventions that can buildrural resilience, it is important to understandhow local institutions can respond.25

The activities of the Direction Nationale dela Météorologie (DNM) in Mali show howgovernment institutions can help rural com-munities manage climate risks. For the past 25years, the DNM has been providing climate-related information directly to farmers, help-ing them to measure climate variablesthemselves so they can incorporate this infor-mation into their decisionmaking. The pro-ject has evolved into an extensive collaborationbetween government agencies and researchinstitutions, media, extension services, andfarmers, forming a strong institutional base onwhich the challenges of climate change can befaced by helping smallholders make the mostefficient decisions.26

Testimonies from farmers indicate thatfollowing the DNM initiative they felt lessexposed to the uncertainties of a changing cli-mate and more confident about investing in

improved seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides, allof which boost production. Results from thecropping season also show that crop yields andfarmers’ incomes were higher in DNM pro-gram fields than in those where it was notused. However, it is difficult to prove thatagrometeorological information is the mainreason for the increased yields. Further, mea-suring the success of any adaptation programis inherently problematic. The impacts aremainly in the form of negative outcomes thathave not happened: the houses that have notbeen destroyed, the people who have notsuffered from diseases, and the children whoare not malnourished.27

Building Urban AreasThat Are More Resilient

While cities are often blamed inaccurately forproducing the bulk of climate-changing activ-ities, there is little doubt that they are centersof climate vulnerability. Hundreds of mil-lions of urban dwellers in low- and middle-income nations are at risk from the directand indirect impacts of climate change. As thenumber of people living in cities and townshas grown—more than half of the world’spopulation now lives in urban areas—so toohas the concentration of residents in vulner-able settings. U.N. estimates suggest that atleast 900 million urban dwellers in low- andmiddle-income nations “live in poverty,” a sit-uation exacerbated by the greater need inurban areas to pay for housing, water, accessto toilets, health care, education for children,and traveling to and from work. Yet this con-centration of people and economic activitiesalso provides the potential for effective adap-tation, improved resilience, and the chance tomeet broader development needs.28

Building urban resilience is important,first, because of the scale of the populationat risk: a large and growing proportion of



Building Resilience

those most at risk from climate change livein urban areas. Second, it is importantbecause of the potential economic costs ofnot having effective adaptation strategies:successful national economies depend onwell-functioning and resilient urban centers.Third, it is important because of the vulner-ability of these large urban populations to avariety of hazards that will result from climatechange, including extreme weather events,floods, and water shortages.

Urban residents are vulnerable to a widerange of climate change impacts. Changes intemperature may worsen air quality andincrease energy demands for heating or cool-ing, changes in precipitation will increase therisk of flooding and landslides, and sea levelrise will lead to coastal flooding and the salin-ization of water sources. More-frequent andmore-intense extreme events—such as trop-ical cyclones, drought, and heat waves—willalso affect human health and well-being. Inaddition, there will be changes in the types ofthreats cities are exposed to as people moveaway from stressed rural habitats and as bio-logical changes mean disease carriers can sur-vive in a wider area.

All these threats come together in cities likeDhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Its popu-lation has grown more than twentyfold inthe last 50 years, and it now has more than10 million inhabitants. Severe floods, mostrecently in 2007, have had major economicimpacts: damaging houses and infrastructureand reducing manufacturing productivitythrough power outages, increased conges-

tion, and poor health among the work force.Large sections of the city are only a fewmeters above sea level, and the combinationof sea level rise and increasingly frequent andintense storms is likely to greatly increasethese risks.29

The challenges are often even more acutein smaller urban centers. Elsewhere inBangladesh, Khulna is a coastal city with apopulation of 1.2 million. Large parts of thecity are frequently waterlogged after heavyrainfall, and there are problems with the salin-ization of surface water. Despite beingneglected by policymakers and researchers,small- and intermediate-sized cities house anincreasing proportion of the world’s urbanpopulation, and the changes that are made—or not made—in these places will have sub-stantial implications for resilience to climatechange in future years.30

What can be done to build resilience inthese settings? Resilience will require improv-ing urban infrastructure, creating more effec-tive and pro-poor structures of governance,and building the capacity of individuals andcommunities to address these new challengesand move beyond them. In some ways, build-ing infrastructural resilience is the moststraightforward aspect of this. After all, citiesaround the world exist in hostile natural sur-roundings: much of lower Manhattan is landthat has been reclaimed from the sea, andLondon is protected from major flood eventsby the Thames Barrier. Even in wealthy coun-tries, however, these measures may not be suf-ficient to deal with the most extreme events,as was horribly evident in the aftermath ofHurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

In many of the most vulnerable cities, thefinancial resources to provide this sort of pro-tection are not available. Thus it is necessaryto place a high priority on ensuring that thesystems that facilitate resilience—at the urban,community, and household scale—are



Building Resilience

The city of Manizales in Colombiahas taken steps to build resilience,particularly by not letting rapidlygrowing low-income populations settleon dangerous sites.



Building Resilience

adapted to take into account the threats of cli-mate change. Indeed, effective adaptation isall about the quality of local knowledge andabout local capacity and the willingness to act,although this has to take place in the contextof transparent and effective systems of localand national governance.

City and municipal governments have a keyrole to play in facilitating urban resilience. (SeeBox 5–1.) They participate directly, throughthe provision and maintenance of infrastruc-ture, but even more important they partici-pate indirectly through encouraging andsupporting particular activities by individualsand private enterprises. Municipal authoritiesoften have responsibility for land use planning,which needs to ensure that low-incomegroups can find affordable land for housingthat is not on a site vulnerable to climatechange. They also often have responsibility forenforcing building codes, and they can ensurethat buildings and infrastructure take accountof climate change risks without imposingunaffordable costs on low-income urban res-idents. Urban resilience can also be facili-tated through the adoption of pro-poorstrategies that enable individuals to developsustainable and resilient livelihoods. Indeed,having a solid economic base is one of themain ways to help households cope with theshocks and stresses that will become more fre-quent as a result of climate change.31

All these urban actions to build resiliencerely on the active engagement of other localstakeholders and a supportive national gov-ernment. Higher levels of government havekey roles in building urban resilience as theyprovide the legislative, financial, and insti-tutional basis within which urban authorities,the private sector, civil society, and otherstakeholders act to adapt to climate change.A supportive legal system can bolster locallydeveloped responses and provide appropri-ate guidelines for stakeholders to build

resilience at the most appropriate scale.Unfortunately, many bilateral aid agenciesand multilateral development banks do notrecognize the importance of local authoritiesin this process and fail to provide adequatesupport to increase local competence andwillingness to act. Redressing this situationwould provide a substantial boost to build-ing urban resilience.32

Recent activities in Durban, one of SouthAfrica’s largest cities, illustrate the practicalways that forward-thinking urban institu-tions can help cities become more resilient toclimate change. The Environmental Man-agement Department in eThekwini Munici-pality (an expansion of what was DurbanMunicipality) initiated a Climate ProtectionProgramme in 2004. This has included build-ing an understanding of global and regionalclimate change science and then translatingthat into the implications of climate changefor Durban. The city developed a HeadlineClimate Change Adaptation Strategy to high-light how key sectors should begin respond-ing to unavoidable climate change. Mostimportant, the municipality has incorporatedclimate change into long-term city planningto address the vulnerability of key sectorssuch as health, water and sanitation, coastalinfrastructure, disaster management, and bio-diversity. Adaptation strategies of this typeyield few obvious short-term benefits butwill generate greater rewards as the effects ofclimate change are increasingly felt.33

The city of Manizales in Colombia hasalso taken steps to build resilience, particularlyby not letting rapidly growing low-incomepopulations settle on dangerous sites. Itspopulation was growing rapidly, with high lev-els of spontaneous settlement in areas at riskfrom floods and landslides. Local authori-ties, universities, NGOs, and communitiesworked together to develop programs aimednot only at reducing risk but also at improv-

In a warmer world, water supply challenges willrequire new ways of thinking about resiliencethat go beyond the engineering of pipes andditches to new nonstructural land managementapproaches that work with nature to protectthe quality and quantity of the resource. Amongthe pioneers of such new thinking was NewYork City, which in the early 1990s rejected aproposal to build more water filtration plants infavor of buying and protecting forested land wellbeyond city lines in the upstream watershed ofthe Hudson River.Having a forested watershed may not

guarantee more water flow; trees, after all,transpire vast amounts of water into theatmosphere. But the soils that healthy forestsdevelop tend to ensure water filtration, as wellas to filter out sediment and impurities fromwater that flows into rivers. The spongelikeforest soil, the product of high carbon contentin combination with healthy microbial commu-nities as leaves and other tree litter decay, alsoholds water and thus moderates the extremesof stream flow—which could temper thewater-flow extremes that follow the meltingof mountain glaciers.Some communities are building new institu-

tions rather than water infrastructure in hopesof reducing their vulnerability to hydrologicalextremes. One such community is Quito, thecapital of Ecuador. Set in a bowl-shaped basinin the northern Andes, Quito receives most ofits water from mountain grasslands that havelong been considered virtual water factoriesbecause of their capacity to turn the meltingsnow and the cold, humid air above glaciersinto stream flows that make their way intothe metropolis.As human activities strained the water sup-

ply from these grasslands at the end of the lastcentury, however, Quito began investing in aninnovative public-private partnership to protectand manage the grassland-covered watershedsabove the city. The QuitoWatershedProtection Fund (known as FONAG, from itsname in Spanish) is funded through a 1.25-per-

cent tax on municipal water in the metropoli-tan area, supplemented by payments by electri-cal utilities and donations from private waterusers. A diversity of outside donors, bothdomestic and international, have contributed aswell. The money raised finances the conserva-tion and protection of the grasslands, wetlands,and upstream forests and natural areas.FONAG finances predominantly long-term

activities—community park rangers forprotected areas, reforestation, environmentaleducation, outreach and training, and hydrology.Some short-term interventions or projects,such as sustainable production activities andhandcrafts, are also supported in order toensure innovative approaches and promotecontinuous learning and improvement. Withassets of $5.5 million, FONAG had a budget in2008 of $2.9 million.One of the Fund’s challenges is that hydro-

logical science and information have yet tocatch up to the need to work with nature insupplying metropolitan water. River systemsare a complex product of physiology, hydrology,biology, and human demands. Data are onlybeginning to come in that can demonstrate thecost-effectiveness of FONAG’s efforts. Trainedhuman resources in the new field are scarce,and institutional capacity is in its infancy. Thereis no certainty that taking preventive measurestoday will ameliorate the impacts of future cli-mate change.Despite these challenges, other cities in

Ecuador and in neighboring Colombia and Peruare beginning to replicate the FONAG modelof public-private partnerships that aim to con-serve clean and abundant water supplies. Thedays when water resources were assumed tobe both renewable and “always there” are fad-ing, especially as dwindling glaciers remindthose who depend on high-mountain waterthat yesterday’s climate is no guarantee oftomorrow’s.

—Marta Echavarria, Ecodecisiòn


Box 5–1. ProtectingWatersheds to Build Urban Resilience

Building Resilience



Building Resilience



with climate change, and the adaptation costsfaced by households and communities. Tak-ing these into account, Oxfam recently putthe figure at over $50 billion annually.36

Currently, funding for adaptation fallswoefully short of these figures. There aretwo main avenues for financing resilience indeveloping countries: formal climate changefinancing mechanisms under the UnitedNations Framework Convention on ClimateChange (UNFCCC) and various nationalmechanisms for official development assis-tance (ODA).

Funding for adaptation under theUNFCCC is currently disseminated throughfour funding streams: the Least DevelopedCountries Fund (LDCF), established to helpdeveloping countries prepare and implementNational Adaptation Programmes of Action;the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF),intended to support a number of climatechange activities such as mitigation and tech-nology transfer, but with adaptation as a toppriority; the Global Environment Facility(GEF) Trust Fund’s Strategic Priority forAdaptation (SPA), which pilots operationalapproaches to adaptation; and the AdaptationFund (AF), which under the Kyoto Protocolis intended to help developing countries carryout “concrete” adaptation activities.37

The LDCF, SCCF, and Trust Fund are rel-atively small funds based on voluntary pledgesand contributions from donors. All three aremanaged by the GEF, the primary financialmechanism used by the UNFCCC. TheLDCF and SCCF only amount to around$114 million in received allocations. TheGEF Trust Fund SPA contains $50 million tosupport adaptation pilot projects. The Adap-tation Fund of the Kyoto Protocol is financedby a 2-percent levy on transactions in theClean Development Mechanism (CDM), themarket-based initiative under the protocolthat allows countries with greenhouse gas

ing the living standards of the poor. Between1990 and 1992, some 2,320 dwelling unitswere built for people in the lowest-incomegroups, reducing the number of householdsin high-risk zones by 63 percent and allow-ing 360 hectares of land to be reforested aseco-parks with strong environmental educa-tion components.34

Unfortunately, actions of this type are notwidespread and are particularly rare in small-and medium-sized cities. Where cities andurban institutions have addressed climatechange issues, this has usually been from theperspective of mitigation, which involves lim-iting GHG emissions, particularly carbondioxide and methane, to reduce further cli-mate change. Adaptation is far more com-plicated to measure, resolve, and bring about.On a more positive note, however, many ofthe strategies to build urban resilience to cli-mate change also represent good practice forurban development more generally. More-responsive local governments, improved infra-structure, and better systems for disasterpreparedness are all key for improving thequality of life for urban residents more gen-erally, as well as for building resilience.35

Financing ResilienceOne major constraint on building more-resilient local and national institutions hasbeen the limited funds available. The costs ofadapting to climate change are huge: whileaccurate calculations are difficult, the WorldBank estimates the amount at between $10billion and $40 billion annually for “climate-proofing” investments in developing coun-tries. This estimate has been criticized,however, for failing to take into account sev-eral additional factors, such as climate-proof-ing existing supplies of natural and physicalcapital where no new investment was planned,financing new investments specifically to deal

reduction targets to generate emission “cred-its” from projects that offset emissions indeveloping countries and produce sustain-able development benefits. The AdaptationFund has the potential to generate by far thelargest amount of funds for adaptation; therevenue generated from the CDM levy aloneis projected to be between $160 million and$950 million. There is also talk of applying thelevy to international air travel, which couldgenerate $4–10 billion annually.38

The funds managed by the GEF havebeen heavily criticized for failing to meetthe needs of vulnerable developing coun-tries. These nations have expressed concernover difficulties in getting funds for adapta-tion through the GEF due to burdensomecriteria for reporting, additionality, and co-financing, which most vulnerable developingcountries simply do not have the capacity tomeet. In addition, while international adap-tation efforts have delivered some informa-tion, resources, and capacity buildingsupport, they have yet to facilitate significanton-the-ground implementation, technologydevelopment or access, or the establishmentof robust national institutions to carry theadaptation agenda forward.39

The Adaptation Fund is the most promis-ing financing vehicle, not only because it hasthe potential to generate the greatest amountof money but also because of its unique gov-ernance structure, decided upon at the Con-ference of the Parties to the UNFCCC inBali in 2007. The fund is not managed by theGEF. It has its own independent board withrepresentation from the five U.N. regions aswell as special seats for least developed coun-tries and small island developing states. TheGEF provides secretariat services on an interimbasis. Further, countries can make submis-sions for funding directly to the AdaptationFund as opposed to going through desig-nated implementing agencies (as is the case

with the GEF funds), and governments canalso designate their own implementing agen-cies (such as NGOs) to make funding sub-missions. It is hoped that this governancestructure will minimize problems of accessi-bility and increase the effectiveness of climatechange financing for adaptation. In addition,the fund is designed to fund concrete adap-tation action on the ground, which has thepotential to contribute significantly to build-ing resilience. However, funding through theAdaptation Fund is not yet operational, andeven when it is it will still fall short of meet-ing the full finance costs of adaptation.

A second option for funding resiliencebuilding is through existing ODA financing.Given the close relationship between devel-opment objectives and building climatechange resilience, funding adaptation thisway might appear to make sense: sustainabledevelopment reduces vulnerability to climatechange, while resilience-building activitiesoften contribute to the broader goals ofsustainable development. Reaching the Mil-lennium Development Goals, for example—reducing poverty, improving living conditionsin urban and rural settlements, providinggeneral education and health services, andproviding access to financing, markets, andtechnologies—will improve the livelihoodsof the most vulnerable and in turn improvetheir resilience regarding climate change. Arecent analysis of ODA activities reported bymembers of the Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development found thatmore than 60 percent of development assis-tance could be relevant to building adaptivecapacity and facilitating adaptation. To date,bilateral programs have committed more than$110 million to more than 50 adaptationprojects in 29 countries.40

Although ODA contributions can com-plement UNFCCC actions on adaptation,they cannot be seen as a means of “plugging



Building Resilience

the gap” in adaptation financing. Funda-mentally, the responsibility for helping themost vulnerable countries cope with theimpacts of climate change ought to be inaddition to existing aid commitments. Indus-trial-country financing for adaptation shouldbe based on the “polluter pays principle,”which attributes the costs of pollution abate-ment to polluters without subsidy, pointingtoward responsibility-based rather than bur-den-based criteria. As highlighted by Oxfam,ActionAid, and many other NGOs advocat-ing for greater UNFCCC funding for adap-tation, these monies should not be donatedto poor countries as “aid” but are owed ascompensation from high-emissions coun-tries to those that are most vulnerable tothe impacts of climate change. So althoughthere is clearly a role for development insti-tutions in enhancing adaptive capacity,responsibility for adaptation does not liewith these institutions, particularly when itmay compete with other development objec-tives in partner countries.41

At the same time, however, there is cer-tainly room for complementarities. TheUNFCCC explicitly provides support foradaptation to climate change rather than cli-matic variability. In climate negotiations, thedistinction is important, informing politicalquestions regarding costs and burden sharing.Yet building resilience through developmentcan address a much broader range of factorscontributing to vulnerability on the groundthan targeted climate change interventionsalone. Further, development assistance caninvest in capacity building in partner countriesin order to facilitate UNFCCC-financed activ-ities. For example, donors are well positionedto strengthen national capacity, while devel-opment practitioners and disaster risk reduc-tion practitioners have a wealth of experiencein dealing with reducing vulnerability to cli-mate hazards and extremes at local, subna-

tional, and national scales.42ODA can therefore be used to add value

to the formal UNFCCCmechanisms throughdevelopment that contributes to resilience.But regardless of development investments inresilience building, funding through theUNFCCC must be scaled up significantly,and existing funding needs to be more acces-sible, in order to come close to meeting thehuge challenge of building climate changeresilience in vulnerable developing countries.

At the country level, there is a need tothink carefully about the delivery mecha-nisms for this funding. Experience with adap-tation funding under the UNFCCC hasshown that national institutional responsi-bilities for adaptation are unclear and some-times competing. With the proliferation ofbilateral, multidonor, and convention funds,it is vital to avoid duplication of efforts andto ensure consistency in approach.43

One solution that is currently being pilotedin Bangladesh is the development of a coun-try-owned multidonor trust fund to receiveall funding for adaptation from differentnational and multilateral climate changefunds. This fund was launched in London inSeptember 2008 and will consist of contri-butions from the Bangladeshi, British, Dan-ish, and Dutch governments as well as fromthe World Bank. It is hoped that this frame-work will significantly reduce transaction costsfor global and bilateral funds and could pavethe way for large flows of money in the future,while ensuring proper institutional structures,governance, management, and targeting of



Building Resilience

The responsibility for helping themost vulnerable countries copewith the impacts of climate changeought to be in addition to existingaid commitments.

funds at the national level. The scale andscope of the fund are currently under dis-cussion, but it is hoped that the fund wouldbe accessible to government agencies, NGOs,and the private companies that design andimplement climate change mitigation andadaptation projects.44

It is also important that the institutions andagencies that channel funds to vulnerablepeople on the ground are given careful con-sideration. The role of government institu-tions is clearly vital, and mainstreamingadaptation through existing national, sec-toral, and local development plans is one wayto build the resilience of government insti-tutions and services, and, by extension, ofthe people who use them. However, this isnot always appropriate—for example, underweak governments or in situations wherelocal government capacity and accountabilityare flawed. In such circumstances, buildingresilience through NGOs and private insti-tutions may be more appropriate.

Early NGO efforts to enhance resilience ofvulnerable communities have proved promis-ing, but they have also been limited in scaleand scope where they have not been closelylinked to and supported by governmentalplans and institutions. Another avenue that isreceiving increasing attention is the privatesector, particularly in relation to technologytransfer and insurance schemes. One exampleis index-based insurance, still in the formativestages, which is intended to facilitate adapta-tion by farmers by discouraging risk-aversebehavior. Crops are insured against weatherpatterns rather than crop losses, which alsoreduces perverse incentives to underproduce.

The social enterprise BASIX has been pilot-ing an index-based insurance program inIndia, which initially has grown from 230customers to around 12,000 in 2006–07.However, an early review of this programshows that it has not fulfilled expectations for

encouraging adaptive strategies of poor andvulnerable farmers. One reason is the high costof the product (5–12 percent of the valueinsured), which reduces the coverage thatclients can afford. The vast majority of clientsinsure only their inputs, not the projectedvalue of their crops. Coverage is thereforenot sufficient to encourage risk-taking. Fur-ther, reinsurers are increasing prices on thesepolicies because of growing climate changeconcerns, putting the product even further outof the reach of many potential customers.45

The private sector may produce someoptions for financing resilience building, butthese have so far been shown to be limited,particularly for enabling adaptation by themost vulnerable. Therefore attention is cur-rently best focused on improving the capac-ity of existing local institutions that haveknowledge and a history of working with themost vulnerable, in order to lessen gapsbetween local and national processes and toensure that financial resources reach thosewho can use them best. This requires theinvolvement of local groups and civil societyorganizations with the knowledge and capac-ity to act, as well as a willingness among gov-ernments to work with lower-income groups.46

Linking Mitigationand Adaptation

Although this chapter has focused onresponding to the impacts of climate change,mitigation is another response strategy that isboth necessary and urgent to ensure long-term resilience. As Tom Wilbanks and col-leagues note, “if mitigation can be successfulin keeping impacts at a lower level, adaptationcan be successful in coping with more of theresulting impacts”. Until recently, mitigationand adaptation have been considered sepa-rately in climate change science and policy.Mitigation has been treated as an issue for



Building Resilience

industrial countries, which carry the greatestresponsibility for climate change, while adap-tation is seen as a priority for developingcountries, where the capacity to mitigate islow and vulnerability is high.47

But in order to maximize global resilienceagainst climate change, any post-Kyotoarrangements will have to engage developingcountries in the mitigation agenda. And mit-igation strategies that offset carbon in devel-oping countries through carbon tradingmechanisms such as the CDM and the vol-untary carbon market have the potential tobring sustainable development benefits, whichcan contribute to climate change adaptationand resilience. Taking this further, attentionhas recently started to focus on exploringsynergies between mitigation and adaptation,to see if they can be achieved together, con-tributing to both short-term local and long-term global resilience.48

Linking mitigation and adaptation at thenational and sectoral level is problematic,because the needed actions and policiesinvolve different sectors. Mitigation actionstend to focus on transport, industry, andenergy, while adaptation decisionmakers usu-ally focus on the most immediately vulnera-ble sectors such as agriculture, land use,forestry, and coastal zone management. Thereis some potential for overlap at the sectorallevel, however: for example, adaptation poli-cies on agriculture, land use, and forestryhave implications for carbon dioxide seques-tration and avoided methane emissions.49

Achieving synergies between mitigationand adaptation strategies is most fruitful atthe project level, where the activities arelinked in very specific ways. In Dhaka, forinstance, a CDM mitigation project usesorganic waste to produce compost. Thisreduces methane emissions by divertingorganic waste from landfills (where anaero-bic processes occur that generate higher lev-

els of methane) to a composting plant (whereaerobic processes occur).50

This mitigation project has clear potentialfor contributing to climate change resiliencein rural areas. The impacts of climate changewill include agroecosystem stresses indrought-prone areas in Bangladesh. Thus,enhancing soil organic matter contentthrough organic manure to increase themoisture retention and fertility of soil bothreduces the vulnerability to drought andincreases the carbon sequestration rates ofcrops. Linking mitigation and adaptation inthis way contributes to both long-term andshort-term ecological and social resilience.The composting projects contribute toglobal resilience by reducing GHG emis-sions directly through preventing the gen-eration of methane and indirectly throughcontributing to the carbon sequestrationcapabilities of crops. They also build localresilience through soil improvement indrought-prone areas, as poverty is exacer-bated when climate change reduces the flowsof ecosystem services.51

An integrated approach could thereforego some way toward bridging the gapbetween the development and adaptation pri-orities of developing countries and the needfor mitigation at the global level. In addi-tion, this will increase the relevance of miti-gation for the most vulnerable developingcountries, moving beyond the perception ofmitigation as only an issue for industrialnations and helping to engage even the poor-est developing countries in global mitigationefforts. Building resilience requires climatechange response measures that bring togetherintegrated climate change, development, andresource management concepts to build adap-tive capacity. Linking mitigation at the projectlevel is one way of achieving such an inte-grated approach, to build local and globalresilience now and for the future.52



Building Resilience

Bouncing Forwardto Greater Resilience

Low- and middle-income countries—and par-ticularly their poorest inhabitants—are at thefrontline of climate change. The political dif-ficulties in drawing attention to their plight andthe practical difficulties of measuring increasesin resilience present serious challenges.

As discussed at the beginning of this chap-ter, building resilience to climate change is notonly about ensuring that individuals, com-munities, and nations can maintain their cur-rent situation. It is also about improvingliving standards in a way that does not worsenthe problems of climate change. When billionsof people around the world lack adequatewater supplies, building resilience involvesextending the provision of water and sanita-tion. When millions of children die of pre-ventable diseases each year, building resiliencemeans improving child mortality figures rather

than merely preventing them from increasing.Rather than thinking about resilience as“bouncing back” from shocks and stresses, itis perhaps more useful to think of it as“bouncing forward” to a state where shocksand stresses can be dealt with more efficientlyand successfully and with less damage to indi-vidual lives and livelihoods.

Bouncing forward will require new com-mitments from influential actors at a varietyof scales, including NGOs, local and nationalgovernments, and international bodies. Thegood news is that building resilience to cli-mate change will also help address many ofthe environmental, health, and developmentalchallenges facing the world today. And asthe farmers in Njoro Division in Kenya, theclimate scientists in Mali’s DirectionNationale de La Météorologie, and the plan-ners in Durban have all shown, practicalactions to support human ingenuity can yieldimpressive results.



Building Resilience


The atmosphere is kind. It takes the carbondioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping green-house gases that humans create and dispersesthem equally all over the world. But that isalso its cruelty. The accumulation of thesewaste gases over the decades, disproportion-ately from industrial countries but increasinglyfrom some rapidly developing ones, is over-whelming the planet’s energy balance andheating up its surface. This accumulationmust end, but how that will happen is hardto imagine. The mechanisms needed mustengage all humanity in ways that are mani-festly fair to all.

Saving the global climate and protectingecosystems in a warming world must becomea national interest for each of nearly 200 sov-ereign states. Negotiating a successful treatythat achieves this will be a diplomatic featunlike any in history, given the stark inequal-ities in per capita emissions levels andincome—and all the harder given that solv-ing the climate problem will likely requiresome real sacrifice.

This is nothing like war, in which military

might defeats the enemy and dictates thepeace. Rather it is an emergency with long-term risks comparable to world war butrequiring the surrender of no one and thecooperation of all. An economically anddemographically diverse world of 6.7 bil-lion people reaches for more energy, food,mobility, and creature comforts even as itenters the early stages of human-drivenwarming. And that world grows by 78 mil-lion people each year.1

In a tragedy of the commons as big as alloutdoors, each country benefits directly fromactions within its borders that release green-house gases, but the emissions themselvesdissipate into thin air and spread their impactsglobally. The atmosphere recognizes no bor-ders and considers no molecule an illegalimmigrant. And there is an added twist ofinequity to this commons: the people leastresponsible for loading the air with heat-trap-ping gases tend also to be the ones most vul-nerable to the impacts of the warming nowbeginning. (See Box 6–1.)2

Defying the natural imbalance of national

C H A P T E R 6

Robert Engelman

Sealing the Dealto Save the Climate

and global interests, many countries—espe-cially those of the European Union (EU)and, impressively, China—have been actingin recent years to slow the growth of theiremissions. Representatives of most of theworld’s governments have been meetingregularly since the late 1980s to craft waysin which all countries can agree to stopchanging the planet’s climate. Mostnations—although not the historically largestemitter, the United States—ratified an inter-national climate agreement termed theKyoto Protocol, which went into force in2005. The agreement requires industrial-country signatories to control emissions ofcarbon dioxide and five other key green-house gases to levels somewhat below (or ina few cases somewhat above) those recordedin 1990.3

WhatWill It Cost?The requirements to control greenhousegases have economically benefited some devel-oping countries that signed the Kyoto Pro-tocol but are not obligated by it to cut theirown emissions. And they probably have meantthe avoidance of some emissions that wouldhave occurred. By official count, trading in2006 and 2007 in emerging worldwide car-bon markets—a novel mechanism that hasarisen from international climate agree-ments—will prevent an estimated 1.5 billiontons of CO2-equivalent emissions. This is lessthan 2 percent of global emissions in thosetwo years—not enough to noticeably slow thewarming in progress, but possibly a start.4

In working toward the Kyoto goals, about$19.5 billion moved from industrial to devel-



Sealing the Deal to Save the Climate

Many scientists expect that poor countries withlittle responsibility for today’s climate instabilitywill be hit hard by climate change.This asymme-try of circumstance prompts a pressing question:Can climate treaties be built on strong principlesof fairness?

In truth, equity already plays a role, albeit alimited one, in climate agreements.The KyotoProtocol, for example, is based on the principle of“common but differentiated responsibilities,”which recognizes different obligations for partiesin different economic and emissions positions.And the Kyoto negotiating positions of manycountries—from France and Iran to Brazil andEstonia—incorporated specific equity dimensions.

But fairness concerns are likely to assume ahigher profile in future climate negotiations asthe demands of climate stabilization becomemore burdensome.Two nagging questions in par-ticular have equity at their core: How shouldrights to emit greenhouse gases be allocated?And who should bear the costs of emissionsreductions and adaptation to climate change?

A broad range of answers is given to these

questions—each grounded in one or moreclimate equity principles. On emissions rights, forexample, two very different principles are oftencited by proponents of allocation schemes:• The Egalitarian Principle states that every per-son worldwide should have the same emissionallowance.This principle gives populous coun-tries the greatest number of emissions rights.India, for example, with 3.8 times as manypeople as the United States, would be entitledto 3.8 times the emissions allowance availableto the United States.

• The Sovereignty Principle argues that all nationsshould reduce their emissions by the same per-centage amount. Large emitters would makelarge absolute reductions of greenhouse gases,while low-volume emitters would make smallerabsolute reductions.Thus under an agreementto reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by, say,10 percent, the United States would cut outputby some 579 million tons of CO2, while Indiawould reduce its emissions by 141 million tons.

Two other principles are often invoked todetermine the economic burden of curbing

Box 6–1. Equity and the Response to a Changing Climate

oping countries during those two years.(This figure, while impressive, is less than afifth as much as the money transferred annu-ally from industrial countries in develop-ment assistance—$107 billion in 2005—andis dwarfed by the remittances that immi-grants send to their home countries, whichtotaled $300 billion in 2006). These pay-ments have come through the Kyoto Pro-tocol’s Clean Development Mechanism(CDM), designed to reward industrialnations for emissions reductions they effec-tively purchase from developing countries bysponsoring energy development projectsthat are less emissions-intensive than wouldhave been constructed otherwise.5

A worldwide network of carbon marketsworth $64 billion in 2007 has developed,with $50 billion of that moving through the

European Union’s Emissions TradingScheme. Both these numbers are more thandouble their values in the previous year. Offi-cially they imply the retirement, avoidance,or other offsetting of 3.0 billion tons ofCO2-equivalent emissions. As with otherhigh-finance instruments, however, emis-sions credits are often held and resold mul-tiple times, so the emissions avoidance thatunderlies many credits might not becomereal for years.6

One little-noted source of greenhouseemissions reductions is an international envi-ronmental agreement not directly related toclimate change: the Montreal Protocol,which went into force in 1989. Countriesagreed to phase out the production of gasesthat eat away the atmospheric ozone shield-ing the world from hazardous levels of the




climate change for different nations:• The Polluter Pays Principle asserts that climate-related economic burdens should be borne bynations according to their contribution ofgreenhouse gases over the years. Since 1950the United States has emitted about 10 timesas much CO2 as India; using this historical base-line suggests that the U.S. bill for dealing withclimate costs should be about 10 times greaterthan India’s. (The difference would be greaterstill if the baseline were set at 1750, roughly thestart of the Industrial Revolution.)

• The Ability to Pay Principle argues that theburden should be borne by nations accordingto their level of wealth. If gross domestic prod-uct figures are used to determine how mucheach country pays, the U.S. responsibility wouldbe some 12 times greater than that of India.

A 2006 survey of climate negotiators from abroad range of nations revealed that the vastmajority believe equity considerations should fig-ure in climate negotiations.The survey found arelatively high degree of support for the PolluterPays and the Ability to Pay Principles, and a rela-

tively low degree of support for the SovereigntyPrinciple, consistent with a general sense in theinternational community that wealthy historicalemitters should pay more and poor countriesshould pay less.

In the end, agreement on emissionsallocations may require a mixture of differentprinciples. Some analysts, for example, see egali-tarianism as a desirable long-term equity goal,with other principles used to transition to anegalitarian outcome.

These four equity principles address only thedistributional dimension of climate equityconcerns. Other principles are used to assess theequity of outcomes (how fair is the result of cli-mate negotiations?) and of process (how fair isthe procedure by which deals are negotiated?).The result is a thicket of principles, oftenconflicting, that will compete for policymakers’attention as climate negotiations unfold in theyears ahead.

—Gary Gardner


Box 6–1. continued

sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Since these gasespowerfully add to the warming of Earth’ssurface, phasing them out offers a doublebenefit. Some of the gases now moving intoproduction to replace those that depleteozone also trap heat, however. So the finalimpact of the Montreal Protocol on climatedepends to a large extent on future produc-tion levels of these newer greenhouse gases.

All this said, greenhouse gas emissionshave been rising significantly—and, in recentyears, at an accelerating pace—despite ongo-ing diplomatic efforts and the growth of amarket designed to reduce CO2 emissions.The leading economy in this greenhouseemissions boom is now China, the world’smost populous and economically dynamiccountry. The government there has givenpriority to the development of renewableenergy and has committed to reducing thecarbon-dioxide intensity of its economy. Yetcoal-reliant China has singlehandedlyaccounted for two thirds of the world’sgrowth in carbon dioxide emissions fromelectric power generation since 2000. This isprobably the best example of one of theproblems that most hinders a global climatesolution. The United States and other indus-trial countries account for an estimated 76percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from1850 to 2002. But developing countries—with their more rapidly growing populationand economies—will drive the bulk of thebuildup expected in the future.7

Vast tracts of new forests and a conversionof most of the world’s farms to practices thatallow soil to capture and store atmosphericcarbon could remove some of the buildup ofcarbon dioxide. (See Chapter 3.) As climatechange raises the risk of forest fires anddroughts, however, it will be hard to be cer-tain that carbon stays securely locked away infarms and forests. Such approaches nonethe-less offer one exit strategy for the CO2 already

in the atmosphere. But they need to be paidfor by the wealthier countries that are respon-sible for most past emissions. And to pre-vent as many future emissions as possible,the world’s wealthier countries will need tofinance much or even most of the reductionsneeded in poorer countries—whether thesereductions come from avoiding deforesta-tion and land degradation or constructingwind turbines rather than coal-fired powerplants—as well as those achieved within theirown borders.

The $19.5 billion provided in 2006 and2007 by a few industrial countries for emis-sions reductions in a few developing countrieshelps blaze a path toward the reductions theworld needs. But the path must very soonbecome—to use an inappropriate metaphor—a multilane highway. And this highway awaitsconstruction, even as industrial countriesthemselves need to invest massively to boostenergy efficiency at home, shift from fossilfuels, and develop climate-friendly ways toproduce food, goods, and services.8

Among the most respected estimators ofthe total global costs of this transition isNicholas Stern of the London School of Eco-nomics and Political Science, who pegs theneeded spending at 2 percent of gross globalproduct for decades to come. That worksout to more than $1 trillion a year—a daunt-ing figure, but smaller than the $1.5 trillionthat oil consumers send annually to oil pro-ducers, and much less than the $4.1 trillionthe world spends on health. These compar-isons help put in perspective the public rela-tions challenge of financing a truly significantreduction of climate change risk. Yes, improv-ing energy efficiency and shifting from fossilfuels helps countries deal with high energyprices, avoid pollution, and build energy inde-pendence. But based on current experience,these motivations fall far short of what will beneeded to really “save the climate.” Will most




people come to see reducing that risk as com-parable in importance to their own need forgood health?9

Without more insistent public outcriesabout the risks climate change poses, thatwill not happen soon—maybe not untilimpacts are much more severe and the processis all the harder to stop. In that future, theworld may face the real and incalculable long-term costs of past inaction and think wistfullyabout lost opportunities to invest in emissionsprevention. Still, the upfront costs of effectiveprevention today seem huge, with uncertainbenefits. And the size of the needed financ-ing is only one among many obstacles toarriving at a workable world climate pact.

WhoWill Emit?Given the challenges, it is not surprising thatthe current negotiating process on climatechange is forbidding in its complexity and farfrom any certainty of success. Even on finan-cial issues that many governments take moreseriously than climate change, negotiationssometimes founder. In July 2007 a round ofworld trade talks that had continued for sevenyears suddenly collapsed in unbridgeable dis-agreement, with no prospect they would startup again anytime soon.10

But the round of intergovernmental climatetalks now in progress under the auspices of theUnited Nations is the only game on the planetlikely to lead to cuts in global emissions on thescale needed. It deserves public attention andpolitical support despite the seemingly impen-etrable raft of proposed mechanisms and thetortuous frustrations of working toward anagreement. Given the past resistance of theU.S. government to any international actionor commitments on emissions reductions, thenew president taking office in January 2009has an important opportunity. He can demon-strate the leadership the world needs to work

out an effective agreement to save not just theglobal climate but perhaps human civiliza-tion itself, in negotiations that will culminatein Copenhagen in late November 2009.

No one knows how much the world canwarm above preindustrial levels before thechanges become truly catastrophic. But somescientific assessments and their acceptanceby the European Union, the U.N. Develop-ment Programme, and others suggests thatthe risk of climate catastrophe approachesan intolerable level if the world’s averagetemperature fails to stay within 2 degreesCelsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of the prein-dustrial global average. This is about 1.2degrees Celsius above the current averagetemperature. Significant climate risks maylurk even in more-modest temperatureincreases, especially if they are sustained overtime. (See Chapter 2.) Most of that possiblesafety valve of 1.2 degrees may literallyalready be baked into the world’s existing sys-tem, however, continuing to drive morestorms, droughts, and sea level rise even ifemissions ended immediately. The window ofavoiding potential climate catastrophe is thusclosing quickly.11

Humanity needs eventually to shrink netgreenhouse gas emissions to zero, with flowsout of the atmosphere balancing flows in.And since the biosphere cannot infinitelyabsorb these gases out of the atmosphere, inorder to avoid continued human-induced cli-mate change the world presumably mustsomeday have negligible emissions of green-house gases. Yet all combustion releases heat-trapping CO2 into the air. All molecules ofmore than two atoms—from water vapor tomethane to the polyatomic industrial gasesused in refrigerators and air conditioners—trapEarth’s solar heat before it escapes into spaceand send it back down to the surface. Mostpeople would consider a zero-emission soci-ety impossible if it were not essential to a rea-




sonable hope that civilization will continue.Suppose the world collectively decided to

allow 500 billion more tons of CO2-equiva-lent emissions before reaching that zero-emissions point. If the world then fairlyallocated those precious remaining tons, whowould get what? Who would do the allocat-ing, who would enforce it, and how?

Since the vast majority of greenhouse gasemissions now come from the countries andregions that are demographic and economicgiants—the United States, the EU, Russia,and Japan among industrial countries andChina, India, and Brazil among developingones—the early participation of these coun-tries in a global atmospheric stabilization pro-gram is essential. Over the long term,however, there is no alternative to engagingall countries in a global climate alliance.Absolving smaller or less economically sig-nificant ones from the task would risk the evo-lution of a two-tiered world that wouldinevitably draw greenhouse-gas-intensivedevelopment and possibly even people to theexcluded countries. That could not work forlong. And besides, all countries and all peo-ple have a right and a need to participate indeciding how to resolve this crisis.

Lessons Learned,Time LostThe upward trends in greenhouse gas emis-sions over the last two decades trace tracks oflost time. More than two decades have passedsince prominent climate scientists first begancalling news media and public attention to thegrowing urgency of the problem. While thesignature of human-induced warming is nowclearer than it was then, the basic science andthe riskiness of stuffing ever more heat-trap-ping gases into the atmosphere has never beenin doubt among the world’s leading scientists.

In the late 1980s, the world experienceda test run for the climate talks to come, as

nations negotiated and then ratified theVienna Convention for the Protection of theOzone Layer and then its subsidiary, theMontreal Protocol on Substances thatDeplete the Ozone Layer. With the backingof President Ronald Reagan and most of theworld’s major producers of the regulatedgases, the protocol provided a system bywhich industrial countries phased out theozone-depleting gases quickly.12

Though rarely recalled today, the MontrealProtocol offers lessons for the climate nego-tiations of 2009. The U.S. government andchemical manufacturers strongly supportedthe phaseout of ozone-depleting gases. Theagreement allowed developing countries alater timetable and established a global fundto funnel them needed financing from indus-trial countries. The fund to date has spent$2.3 billion. The agreement defined the divid-ing line between the two groups by per capitaproduction and consumption. Although theclimate problem is far larger and more com-plex than ozone depletion, each of the ele-ments that help this treaty succeed couldcontribute to an effective climate agreement.13

By 1994, most of the world’s nations,including the United States, had ratified andput into force the United Nations Frame-work Convention on Climate Change, firstagreed to at the United Nations Confer-ence on Environment and Development in1992. That treaty expressed two key princi-ples that have guided global climate negoti-ations ever since. First, humanity should“achieve…stabilization of greenhouse gasconcentrations in the atmosphere at a levelthat would prevent dangerous anthropogenic[human-induced] interference with the cli-mate system.” Second, countries shouldrespond “in accordance with their commonbut differentiated responsibilities and respec-tive capabilities and their social and eco-nomic conditions.” In short, stop climate




change before it is too late, and expect thelongest-running and worst climate offend-ers—the wealthier and more industrializedcountries—to step up to the head of the lineto fix the problem.14

Three years later, most of the world’snations agreed in Kyoto, Japan, to the pro-tocol to the climate change convention. (Indiplomacy, protocols are supplements oramendments to existing conventions; eithermay be called a treaty.) The Kyoto Protocolaimed to drive down the greenhouse gas emis-sions of industrial countries as a first step inwhat was planned to be a two-phase processcomparable to that of the Montreal Protocol.15

In negotiating the agreement, industrialcountries volunteered emission targets in2012 based on a percentage of what eachcountry’s emissions had been in 1990. Thesetargets—averaging a 5-percent emissionsreduction among participating countries—were originally intended to be achieved byactual emissions cuts in those countries. Toease fears that such cuts might be too oner-ous and expensive, however, more flexiblemechanisms were allowed—and thesequickly became the favored approaches tocompliance.16

Under the terms of the Protocol, partici-pating industrial countries can trade unneededemission allotments among themselves orwork together jointly on projects that promiseto cut emissions in any other participatingindustrial country. (These cuts, called JointImplementation, are done within the Euro-pean Union and in formerly communist coun-tries like Russia and the Ukraine, where agingand energy-inefficient capital equipment canbe improved at a relatively low cost.) Or theycan invest in projects that achieve the neededreductions in developing countries throughthe Clean Development Mechanism, whichthen can sell those reductions as carbon cred-its to the investing country.

The CDM is the only inducement foremissions reductions in developing countries.For understandable reasons, purchasers ofthe emissions credits it offers have been drawnmostly to large-scale projects in countriescapable of offering such opportunities. Prac-tically speaking, this means a heavy tilt towardChina, India, and a handful of other Asianpowers, with little activity in Latin America orsub-Saharan Africa. On top of that, criticshave noted that the CDM has producedwindfall profits for some investors while fail-ing so far to take much of a bite out of globalgreenhouse gas emissions. These problems arenow well recognized, however, and any newclimate agreement is likely to reform thismechanism so that it covers many more emis-sions-saving activities and reaches many morecountries. Or perhaps negotiators will craftnew approaches altogether to encourage emis-sions reductions in developing countries thatindustrial ones will pay for.17

Like all treaties, the protocol is binding,but penalties for unachieved emissions reduc-tions were deferred into an unknown future.Those who fail to comply must face propor-tionally greater emissions-reduction obliga-tions following the first “commitment period”from 2008 to 2012. But those obligations andany later commitment period, of course,remain to be negotiated. Some countries,especially in Europe, with its matureeconomies and generally stable populations,are on track to meet their commitments.Others are experiencing emissions growththat will make the objective much harder.Environmentalists are suing the governmentof Canada, for example, in an effort to get




Though rarely recalled today, theMontreal Protocol offers lessons forthe climate negotiations of 2009.

2009 is the most promising year for realaction since ratification of the climate con-vention in 1994.20

Although some emissions have undoubt-edly been avoided, none of the scientificand diplomatic efforts on climate has had anobvious impact on the overall global increasein carbon dioxide emissions. (See Figure6–1.) Although less well documented, thestory is similar for other gases and for car-bon dioxide from deforestation and landdegradation.21

There is, however, a real victory for whichboth the Montreal and Kyoto Protocolsdeserve thanks. Atmospheric concentrationsof greenhouse gases would have grown evenfaster had neither treaty gone into effect.New international institutions and financialinstruments designed to reduce global emis-sions are riding gingerly forward on trainingwheels. Chief among the Kyoto Protocol’saccomplishments is the remarkable emer-gence of carbon markets described earlier,which has as its valued commodity, in effect,

it to take its Kyotopromises more seri-ously.18

The idea that indus-trial countries wouldmove first on climatechange was firmlyrooted in principlesaccepted in the Mon-treal Protocol and theFramework Conventionon Climate Change.But the Kyoto Proto-col’s perceived “freeride” for developingcountries—some ofthem now becomingmajor emitters—pro-vided a rationale for theUnited States to rejectthe protocol after initially signing it. Thecountry’s substantial emissions were thus leftunfettered. U.S. ratification would have beenfar from easy anyway. Even before U.S. dele-gates in Kyoto signed the new document,back in Washington the Senate voted 95–0 tooppose its ratification on the grounds it wouldhurt the U.S. economy and leave developingcountries, without comparable commitments,at an unfair economic advantage.19

At the time, U.S. emissions were tops inthe world. China, rapidly industrializing andwith four times the U.S. population of 305million, has since overtaken the United Statesin CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustionand cement production. But it will be manyyears before any nation approaches the UnitedStates in cumulative greenhouse gas emis-sions. The country’s unwillingness to committo emissions reductions despite this fact isundoubtedly the greatest single obstacle tointernational action on the problem. Yet witha new president in office already havingdeclared his willingness to limit emissions,

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Billi

onT

ons

Car

bon

Dio

xide

Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change forms(1988); Montreal Protocolgoes into effect (1989)

Kyoto Protocoladopted (1997;went into forcein 2005)

FrameworkConventionon ClimateChange (1994)

Source: Global Carbon Project

Figure 6–1. Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions, All Sources,1959–2007

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40







trading. And states, provinces, and cities inthe United States and other industrial nationsare experimenting with their own Kyoto-style emissions-reducing mechanisms andcommitments. The province of BritishColumbia and the city of Boulder in Col-orado are taxing carbon, returning the rev-enue to residents through reductions in othertaxes. A carbon-trading exchange in Chicagodeals with voluntary but binding commit-ments from a range of companies, commu-nities, and organizations. In September 2008,six northeastern states in the United Statessponsored a regional auction of carbon diox-ide emission rights for the power genera-tion sector. New South Wales in Australiasince 2003 has been requiring utilities tooffset any emissions that occur beyond reg-ulated limits. Although these subnationalefforts exclude transportation and othergreenhouse emissions and the cost of emis-sions are generally low (little more than $3per ton of carbon in the U.S. example), it isworth noting that jurisdictions are workingto reduce their emissions with no certainty ofglobal or national mechanisms to rewardsuch early efforts.24

In December 2007, climate negotiatorsagreed at a major conference in Bali, Indone-sia, on a plan and timetable for workingtoward a protocol to succeed Kyoto when itsfirst commitment period ends in 2012. Oneresolution of the Bali Action Plan was to con-tinue the focus of global climate negotia-tions on four main areas:• mitigation, a term covering efforts to

reduce emissions below what they wouldotherwise be, especially through energyefficiency and a transition to low-carbonenergy production, as well as avoidingdeforestation in developing countries;

• adaptation to the climate change that isalready on the way, bringing rising sea lev-els and more-severe weather patterns;

bad things—carbon dioxide emissions—thatare not happening. Global emissions levelshave nonetheless so far responded more to thevagaries of the global economy than to diplo-macy. The world needs much more effectivemechanisms for reversing course in green-house gas emissions as rapidly and dramati-cally as possible, beginning now.22

State of PlaySeemingly undaunted by these challenges,today’s climate negotiators are building on themixed outcomes of the Kyoto Protocol tocraft a strategy for moving forward. Despitethe absence of the United States, parties to theprotocol continue to strengthen its provi-sions and have committed to improving andexpanding the carbon trading, Clean Devel-opment Mechanism, and other emissions-reducing tools to which it gave birth. TheCDM and its governing board, for example,already are moving to shift toward ongoingprograms of emissions reductions in a diver-sity of developing countries.

The European Union, for its part, is mod-ifying its ambitious Emissions TradingScheme. This is a cap and trade approach inwhich total industrial emissions (amountingto about 45 percent of CO2 emissions in theEU) are restricted, the limited emissions areallocated among companies, and unused allo-cations can be traded for whatever the mar-ket will bear. The system has drawn outragefrom environmentalists and consumersbecause of its free allocations of emissionsamong electric utilities and industries, whichprovided windfall profits to companies as thevalue of carbon credits rose. Architects ofthe system have promised to shift to one ofauctioning allocations, with any revenue to beused for climate or other public benefits.23

Japan, Canada, and New Zealand alsoparticipate in Kyoto Protocol–based carbon

• technology transfer from industrial todeveloping countries to facilitate and helppay for these efforts in countries that oth-erwise may not be able to afford them, orin some cases transfers between developingcountries; and

• financing for poorer countries provided bywealthier ones and potentially a pool of allnations, for the three activities agreed upon.

Some analysts of the state of play add to thislist “vision,” an overarching statement aboutwhat the negotiations are designed to achieveand how they will do so.25

The conference also clarified that majordepartures from the overall architecture of theclimate change convention and the KyotoProtocol were unlikely. Thus the major divi-sion of responsibilities to act between indus-trial and developing countries would remain.

Yet the Bali Action Plan also for the firsttime expressed the objective that all par-ties—indeed, all human beings—will reduceemissions. Given how much variation existsin emissions and development within eachgroup, some proposals aired at Bali envisionbreaking the two groups into subcategories—at least in terms of the commitments theywould be asked to make. These could dis-tinguish former communist states in EasternEurope from wealthier industrial countries,for instance, or rapidly industrializing or oil-producing developing nations from those ofsub-Saharan Africa. Such subgroups mighthave their own differentiated responsibili-ties and timetables.

One way or another, the Bali conferencereiterated, poorer and less industrialized coun-

tries are not likely to move as soon as wealth-ier and more industrialized ones must in com-mitting to emissions cuts or takingresponsibility for the financing needed whenthey do make such cuts. Conferees at a fol-low-up workshop in Bangkok supported con-tinuation of the market-based carbon tradingmechanisms of Kyoto, such as the CDM,while pledging to refine them to improvetheir reach and effectiveness. Those decisionssignaled to the world’s business leaders, notedYvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N.secretariat administering the climate negoti-ations, that “long-term certainty [will] guidetheir investments over the coming years.”26

Knowing a new U.S. president would takeoffice in January 2009, the negotiators fast-tracked the issues of financing and technol-ogy transfer for a climate conference inPoznan, Poland, in December 2008 andsaved most details of the more crucial and dif-ficult issues of mitigation and adaptation forCopenhagen in late 2009. When the U.S. del-egation in Bali blocked consensus on theimperative for emissions caps in industrialcountries, the negotiators regrouped andinstead established a working group toaddress critical issue areas prior to Copen-hagen. (Such working groups often do thetime-consuming brainstorming and bargain-ing needed to pave the way for negotiatingconferences.) The Bali Action Plan madeclear to governments and to global capitalmarkets that the basic Kyoto approach ofsetting binding national emissions targetswould move forward, but with more stringenttargets and longer timelines, that the inter-national carbon market would be expanded,and that the controversial Clean DevelopmentMechanism would be reviewed and modified.

Some concepts moved forward in evolu-tionary leaps at Bali. More engagement in thecarbon market from developing countriesseemed likely after a reiterated commitment




The Bali Action Plan for the firsttime expressed the objective thatall parties—indeed, all humanbeings—will reduce emissions.




to financing climate change adaptation activ-ities through a 2-percent levy on CDM trans-actions. Discussion moved forward on theidea of emissions cuts negotiated withinimportant industrial sectors—electric utili-ties, steel and aluminum production, avia-tion, shipping, or even land transportation.Helped by governments, companies in thesesectors would pledge an overall emissionscap for their industry and then work togetheracross national borders to invest in and securethe needed reductions where they could beachieved most cheaply—most often, proba-bly, in less wealthy countries, where the indus-trial infrastructure is less modern and efficient.By May 2008, China indicated its interest inthis approach—a breakthrough from thedeveloping country with by far the largestindustrial sectors.27

The sector concept, while controversialbecause it could undermine more compre-hensive emissions reduction strategies, isappealing on several fronts. Almost all globalgreenhouse gas emissions can be categorizedby sector (although some fit into more thanone sector). About a fifth of all emissionscan be attributed to the production processesof specific industries, such as chemicals,cement, and iron and steel. A cap and tradeapproach within such sectors could thus pro-duce significant emissions savings while fun-neling private investment into the industrialcapital stock of developing countries.28

In many sectors, a small handful of coun-tries are responsible for the majority of emis-sions, reducing the number of actors andsimplifying the mechanism’s structure. Andsectoral agreements and mechanisms can pro-vide important guidance for the more com-prehensive and ambitious cap and tradeapproaches likely to form the basis of long-term efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions. Although the details of such agreementsremain to be worked out, there is enough

support for the idea that a sectoral approachseems a plausible candidate as an element ina future protocol.

The development that provided the mostexcitement at Bali was a new willingness bydeveloping countries to consider reductionsin the destruction of forests and land degra-dation if these could be financed by industrialcountries. Again, the details remain to beworked out. The most contentious questionis whether to allow such reductions to com-pete with reductions in fossil fuel emissions ininternational carbon markets. But the poten-tial for synergistic benefits is obvious. Anestimated 23 percent of all global carbondioxide emissions come from deforestationand other changes in land use, a proportionjust a bit larger than the CO2 emissions of theUnited States or China (which account forabout 20 percent of the world total each).Reducing the emissions associated with theseactivities would directly contribute to thepreservation of forest-based biodiversity,reductions in soil erosion, and reductions inlandslides and flooding in mountain com-munities. (See Chapter 3.) The need forreductions in fossil fuel and comparable indus-trial emissions would nonetheless remain.29

New DirectionsIn the Bali discussions and in the monthsthat followed, central themes emerged orgained momentum. Outside of the UnitedStates, most countries appeared to support atimetable under which industrial countriesfocus in the years after 2012 on “hard” emis-sions caps, which have been made easier toattain through carbon trading mechanismssuch as the strengthened Clean DevelopmentMechanism. The 2007 report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change sug-gested that in order to have a reasonablechance of permanently restraining global

warming to no more than 2.4 degrees Celsius(4.3 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustriallevels. As noted earlier, some scientists believethis is too high a threshold, but even by thisstandard the world must reduce its CO2equivalent emissions by 50–85 percent of2000 levels by the middle of this century.30

To make that possible, industrial coun-tries would need to slash their own emis-sions by 25–40 percent by 2020. TheEuropean Union has committed to 20 per-cent cuts from a 1990 emissions base by thatyear, while saying it would aim for a 30-per-cent cut if joined in comparable efforts by theUnited States and other industrial powers.(The lack of consensus that the EU commit-ment reflects about what year to use as abasis for future reductions is just one of thecomplicating factors in acting globally on cli-mate change.) Such commitments are crucial,because it is these rather than internationaltreaties per se that will lead to real emissionsreductions through the legislation that coun-tries enact—with the European Union’s emis-sions trading scheme the best model of thisdynamic.31

The U.S. Congress, despite the Senate’srefusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, brieflyconsidered legislation in 2008 that wouldhave capped a significant proportion of U.S.carbon dioxide emissions while rewardingdeveloping countries for reducing green-house gas emissions from deforestation andland degradation. Many U.S. climate activistsfound the proposed legislation flawed, but itsconsideration was a sign that the UnitedStates will someday enact emissions-reducinglaws, especially as a new administration putsits stamp on U.S. policy. (Both major presi-dential candidates in 2008 supported a U.S.commitment to emissions reductions, withcap and trade mechanisms the preferredapproach.)32

At whatever point industrial countries

make binding commitments, rapidly devel-oping countries such as China, India, andBrazil will find themselves under pressure todeclare their own pledges—though perhapswith a few years’ allowance before taking spe-cific actions. “Commitment” is a difficultword for most developing countries to use,given their proportionally smaller responsi-bility for filling the atmosphere with heat-trap-ping gases. By taking on “no lose” objectives,at least to slow the growth of greenhousegas emissions, developing countries canengage in the global process. They mightpledge to reduce the “carbon intensity” ofeach unit of economic activity, as China has.Such efforts can defuse accusations fromwealthier countries that the poorer ones areincreasing their emissions rapidly but face noobligations whatsoever.

The ideal mechanisms for developing coun-tries would offer strong incentives, with financ-ing provided mostly by wealthy countries,eventually perhaps backed by modest prodding“sticks” such as trade restrictions or finance“carrots.” And, as described further later, oneconcept worth exploring is for developingcountries to contribute climate-related financ-ing in proportion to their well-off popula-tions, above certain generous thresholds.

Some analysts speak hopefully, borrowinga phrase from the U.S.-led occupation ofIraq, of a “coalition of the willing,” implyinga voluntary approach to emissions reductionseven by industrial countries. Developingcountries and environmental organizations,however, tend to see the voluntary approachin wealthy countries as too little, too late.Long-time major emitters that decline topush down their emissions as rapidly as pos-sible will need to “lose” something, beyondthe respect of other countries and unspecifiedfuture penalties along the lines described inthe Kyoto Protocol, given how critical theseemissions reductions are. But what those




“sticks” would be remains to be debated.33

On the positive side, an obvious syn-chronicity between emissions cuts and newsources of financing arises in the concept ofcap and trade—if countries auction the allo-cation of emissions rights. Those auctions,supplemented possibly by revenue from aparallel carbon tax, could raise substantialrevenue, which could then be directed towardboth domestic and foreign efforts to reduceemissions further and to adapt to ongoing cli-mate change.

Meanwhile, critical questions await dis-cussion at the 2009 Copenhagen meetingand the working conferences leading up to it.How is climate change adaptation defined, forexample? How is the concept separate fromoverall economic development, which cer-tainly would help countries better adapt to allenvironmental change, including climatechange? How can developing countries beassured that funding provided specifically fortheir climate change adaptation efforts is notsimply subtracted from existing developmentassistance? And what specific investments andactivities will truly enable countries to improvetheir resilience to the possibly devastatingimpacts of human-induced global warming?

The questions are equally challenging onthe issue of technology transfer. Most tech-nology transfer is a business matter. Willingsellers of a new technology find willing buy-ers who can afford it. But technology thatfacilitates reduction of greenhouse gas emis-sions is a different matter altogether. Clearly,affordability should not be an obstacle if thetechnology serves the global good of emis-sions reductions.

Just as clearly, inventors and others needincentives to innovate. Someone will needto fund technology transfers, and a balancewill need to be struck on such critical issuesas patent law and intellectual property rightsto secure the widest dissemination of useful

technologies at the lowest possible costs.Progress made on such questions in distrib-uting anti-retroviral drugs to treatHIV/AIDS in developing countries offershopeful signs, and innovative climate-relatedtechnology deployment mechanisms are nowthe subject of negotiations ahead of theCopenhagen conference.

Near the end of 2008, formal country andregional proposals began to emerge that wereaimed at both the reduction of greenhousegas emissions and the financing of adaptationto inevitable climate change. (See Box 6–2.)Academics and nongovernmental organiza-tions (NGOs) were putting forward ideas aswell, and an even greater number and varietywill emerge in the months leading up toCopenhagen.34

Recognition of the importance of adapta-tion financing is growing rapidly, even amongclimate activists who once saw attention tothis issue as a distraction from the needed pre-ventive measures to stop climate change. Thereason for this shift is sobering: there is noavoiding significant and damaging impactsfrom the greenhouse gases already in theatmosphere, and the poorest and least respon-sible will fare the worst. They will need muchhelp. The just solution to this dilemma isthat historic emitters must not just help butmust compensate those who suffer throughlittle or no fault of their own. Turning thisobvious principle into actual financing instru-ments and real money, however, is anothermatter.

The Real DealTo step onto an emissions path likely to offersome safety, humanity needs to cap and thenstart shrinking global emissions within justover a decade, however much the worldgrows demographically and economically.Every country will need to do its part. But




what is each country’s part? That is whatnegotiators must decide—and keep decidingas both the global climate and the world’snations evolve. And negotiators must weighthe relative importance of past, present, andfuture emissions in assigning responsibilityfor the problem. They must also decide howto weigh the economic capacity of each coun-try when asking for commitments to act.

Well-verified data on emissions is criticallyimportant—where they come from, how theyinfluence atmospheric concentrations ofgreenhouse gases, what sinks remove green-

house gases from the air, and how securelythey do so. The emerging currency for thenegotiations is carbon dioxide equivalence,but as yet there are no databases that carefullytrack emissions from all nations using thismeasure. It will take effort to produce anauthoritative database. But until that is accom-plished, how can the world’s countries beassured that their collective emissions reduc-tion efforts are succeeding?

The Kyoto Protocol addresses the six mostimportant greenhouse gases and gas cate-gories—carbon dioxide, the number one




Government proposals for financing climatechange programs that could be included in a newprotocol to the Framework Convention on Cli-mate Change began emerging after the Bali Con-ference of the Parties in late 2007.

China and the Group of 77 (G-77, a U.N coali-tion of developing countries, now with 130 mem-bers) propose a financial mechanism that wouldlink private and public funding sources to thespending needs of governments, in order toreduce potential fragmentation in financingrelated to climate change needs. A governingboard with equal representation from developingand industrial nations would determine howmuch funding would be allocated for programs onadaptation, mitigation, and technology transfer.

Funding would be additional to current officialdevelopment assistance (which generally consistsof direct grants and comparable support to pro-mote economic development in developing coun-tries). The majority of funds would come fromindustrial nations and would be offered as grantsrather than loans.The level of funding would beset at 0.5–1 percent of the gross national productof industrial countries as a group.

In addition, China and the G-77 propose aseparate technology transfer financing mechanismcalled the Multilateral ClimateTechnology Fund.This would finance activities in developing coun-tries related to clean energy technology research,

development, diffusion, and transfer. The fundwould operate under the Conference of the Par-ties to the climate change treaty.

Mexico proposes a ComprehensiveWorldClimate Change Fund, which would include miti-gation, adaptation, and technology transfer activi-ties. All countries—industrial and developing—would contribute to this fund.Withdrawalswould be limited to countries that contributeand would be determined by a formula based oncurrent GHG emissions, population, and grossdomestic product.

In its initial phase, the ComprehensiveWorldClimate Change Fund would aim to mobilize andspend no less than $10 billion a year. Mechanismsthat could mobilize financial resources includeauctioning permits in domestic cap and tradesystems in industrial countries and taxing airtravel. Mexico proposes that part of the fund beset aside for the benefit of the poorest coun-tries, as they will be most affected by climatechange. Governance of the fund would be trans-parent and inclusive: all countries would have anequal voice in the governing structure.

Switzerland proposes a funding scheme forclimate adaptation based on a global carbontax of $2 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted, inaccordance with “common but differentiatedresponsibilities,” a phrase that harks back to theclimate change convention. Countries emitting

Box 6–2.Government Proposals for Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation,andTechnologyTransfer

offender, released during numerous humanactivities; methane, released by agricultureand from landfills and leaky natural gas pipes;nitrous oxide, released in agriculture pro-duction; sulfur hexafluoride, used in elec-tricity production; hydrofluorocarbons,which replaced chlorofluorocarbons in cool-ing and refrigeration; and perfluorocarbons,used in medical applications. Many otherindustrial gases that trap atmospheric heatremain outside of any negotiated frameworkand are not currently even monitored. Somehave quite high global warming potentials

molecule per molecule, but all are now sothinly distributed in the atmosphere thatthey collectively make relatively insignificantcontributions to global warming in compar-ison to the main regulated gases. This couldchange, however, as production of any ofthese gases grows.

A new protocol to specify what will followthe Kyoto first commitment period couldengage all countries in a globally transparenteffort to monitor emissions of as many sig-nificant greenhouse gases as possible.Financed primarily by industrial countries,




less than 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide per personper year would be exempt from the tax. Esti-mated overall revenues from the funding schemewould be $48.5 billion annually. Of that, $18.4 bil-lion would be for a Multilateral Adaptation Fund.Revenues collected in each country from a globalcarbon tax would be paid into the fund based onits level of economic development. High-incomecountries would pay 60 percent of their revenuesto the fund. Medium-income countries would pay30 percent, and low-income countries would pay15 percent.

India proposes a New Global Fund for Adap-tation. Industrial nations would contribute 0.3–1percent of their gross domestic product and themonies would be especially used for adaptationactivities in developing countries.The fund wouldbe financed by both private and public sources.

South Africa, representing a coalition of Africangovernments called theAfrica Group, proposesscaling up adaptation funding by more than 100times what is now available. Financial resourceswould be beyond existing funds under the UnitedNations Convention.TheAfrica Group proposesthat a work program on adaptation be based onan assessment of its costs for developing coun-tries, and the group would facilitate the imple-mentation of adaptation strategies and programsthrough financing and capacity building.

In terms of adaptation financing, the Euro-pean Union would focus on expanding the global

carbon market, leveraging private investmentflows, and making financing predictable andtimed to the needs of developing countries. Inaddition, the EU strategy would considerauctioning emissions allowances, introducingtaxes on aviation and shipping, and instituting aglobal tax on CO2 emissions.

Norway proposes that adaptation needsunder the climate convention be met throughauctioning a share of “assigned amount units”—portions of allowed emissions—of all industrialcountries. Companies in countries obliged to capnational emissions could buy these certificatesto help them reach their emissions targets.Revenues from a system of auctioning emissionallowances in the shipping sector would fundadaptation activities in developing countries.

Under a proposal by Brazil, industrial coun-tries would finance a new Clean DevelopmentFund that would aim to finance the costs of cli-mate adaptation for developing countries. Brazilproposes that adaptation funding be increasedconsiderably and focus on building the capacityof developing countries to translate climateadaptation information into actions, designatingnational and regional centers of vulnerability, andmapping climate vulnerability in light of nationaleconomic and social indicators.

—Ambika Chawla


Box 6–2. continued

the effort could capture the imagination ofyoung people concerned about the globalclimate they will inherit, and it could stimu-late education and scientific advancement allover the world.

As these efforts proceed, the world willneed to evolve beyond the antiquated andoverly simplistic division of all countries intothe categories “industrial” and “developing”that has characterized climate negotiationssince the drafting of the Framework Con-vention in the early 1990s. A relic of thepost-colonial landscape that took shape afterWorld War II, this bifurcation fails to capturethe wide diversity of responsibility (past andcurrent emissions, including on a per capitabasis) and capability (national and per capitaincome and wealth) of the world’s nearly200 nations. In particular, it fails to distin-guish rapidly industrializing countries such asChina and India from those more slowlydeveloping countries that are still far fromcontributing substantially to Earth’s green-house gas buildup.

Dealing with global climate change in aworld of nations will require industrial andrapidly industrializing countries to cap theirgreenhouse gas emissions within the nextdecade—and then to steadily reduce the totalstoward zero. Even poorer countries wouldeventually need to follow. But how manynational leaders will agree to an emissionsallotment that allows their citizens a loweraverage level of emissions than those of othercountries—especially if those countries earliercontributed much more to the atmosphere’stotal greenhouse gas load?

Many observers who peer far enough intothe future of global climate regulation haveacknowledged that ultimately either climateemissions will need to be roughly equal on aper capita basis or countries that emit morethan the global per capita average will needto compensate those that emit less. Nicholas

Stern has acknowledged that annual “globalaverage per capita emissions...will—as a mat-ter of basic arithmetic—need to be aroundtwo tons by 2050,” based on a world popu-lation of 9 billion by then and using carbondioxide equivalence as his measurement unit.“This figure is so low that there is little scopefor any large group to depart significantlyabove or below it.”35

The leaders of India and Germany calledattention in the summer of 2007 to theimportance of per capita emissions parity—orat least fairness. Both suggested that a new cli-mate pact allow emissions from developingcountries to rise until they converged withthose of industrial countries (which wouldpresumably be decreasing rapidly), at whichpoint both groups of countries could reducetheir per capita emissions in tandem. “Whatkind of measure do we use to create a justworld?” German Chancellor Angela Merkelasked.36

Moreover, given the historically greaterresponsibility of industrial countries for mostof the buildup of greenhouse gases in theatmosphere, could even a true convergence offuture per capita emission levels constitute“full payment” to the less wealthy countriesfor a changed climate? In 1997, Brazil pro-posed a plan by which country responsibilitiesto address climate change were made pro-portional to their historical contribution to theproblem. The idea made no headway on theinternational stage. In 2005, researchers at theWorld Resources Institute revisited the sug-gestion and concluded that assigning historicresponsibility depends significantly on thestarting date of the history selected. Globaldata would not support a definitive compar-ison for periods earlier than 1990, theresearchers added, as that is when systematicnational emissions monitoring began.37

Most analysts who follow the process wouldargue that a climate agreement based on either




per capita emissions allocations or historicalcumulative emissions is unlikely to emergefrom the Copenhagen conference. Not onlywould industrial countries understandablyfear the implications for them, but even somedeveloping countries have reason to worrythey would join the ranks of the “high emit-ters” if the per capita emission dividing linewere set low enough to force radical emissionsreductions. The urgency of rapidly slashingemissions will need to become much moreobvious to many more people before suchapproaches can be taken seriously.

Over the long term, as Nicholas Stern rec-ognized, there is no real alternative to con-vergence on roughly equal per capitaemissions at very low levels. Zero net emis-sions globally at some point in the futurewill, of course, mean zero net emissions perperson. So it becomes all the more critical tokeep thinking about how this convergencecould eventually come to be—and, if possi-ble, to help the process along.

Equity and theEnd of Emissions

We have choices to make. Bringing green-house gas emissions down to a fraction of cur-rent levels will take an ongoing worldwideeffort that engages all nations and touches alllives. We can fail to slash emissions, or fail evento try. We can try risky geoengineeringschemes or simply hope to brave the heatand storms to come. Or we can adopt a pos-itive attitude about preventing future emis-sions and adapting collectively to past ones,and we can get to work.

We live in exciting times and can rise to theoccasion. We have handed ourselves a prob-lem we can solve only by learning new waysto live and to cooperate for a common goal.It could be a good thing. But by any measurethe 10 months leading up to the Copen-

hagen negotiations on the next climate agree-ment offer one last opening—any other 10months might come too late—to seal a dealthat can save the global climate for the nextcentury and beyond.

One proposal gaining attention in advanceof Copenhagen sets out to integrate emissionsreductions and climate change adaptationwith a “right to sustainable development.”Called Greenhouse Development Rights andjointly developed by a U.S. group, EcoEquity,and the Stockholm Environment Institute,the concept is designed to share in fair waysthe burden of cutting greenhouse gas emis-sions while shielding the poor from potentiallyhigh costs. It would base climate-relatedobligations on a national Responsibility andCapacity Indicator. Responsibility wouldreflect each country’s contribution to the cli-mate problem and be defined in terms ofcumulative per capita greenhouse gas emis-sions from a specific date, perhaps 1990.Capacity would reflect each country’s abilityto help deal with the climate problem with-out sacrificing necessities and be defined interms of national income.38

The indicator index combines these twopillars of the climate convention with a sim-ple but critical adjustment: income below a“development threshold” of $7,500 percapita does not count in the calculation ofcapacity, and emissions corresponding toconsumption below that income threshold donot count in the calculation of responsibility.This figure, the proposal developers note, ismodestly higher than a global poverty line,to reflect a level of welfare that is beyondbasic needs, though well short of today’slevels of “affluent” consumption.39

The Greenhouse Development Rightsframework thereby accommodates develop-ing countries’ claim that their developmentand poverty eradication must trump solvingthe climate problem. But it does so in a




nuanced way. It assesses capacity and respon-sibility at the level of individuals, in a mannerthat takes explicit account of the unequaldistribution of income within countries. Itthus confronts a key obstacle to negotiatingan agreement that few other proposals evenacknowledge: many reasonably wealthy andhigh-emitting individuals live in poor coun-tries. Their income above $7,500 per personper year would count in assessing each coun-try’s capacity to respond to climate change.

This graduated approach to climate-change-related obligations eliminates theneed for a simplistic division of the worldinto industrial and developing countries.While it deviates from a division of the world’scountries established in the Framework Con-vention on Climate Change and fortified insubsequent negotiations, it also takes thenegotiations beyond one of the key stum-bling blocks. After all, there is no reason whyliving in a country with an average income atthe poverty level should excuse wealthy andhigh-emitting people from curtailing theiremissions and contributing toward climatechange adaptation efforts.

The nuanced treatment of countries’ realdifferences, and the focus on a right to devel-opment and the principles of capacity andresponsibility, may prove the ultimate strengthof this and similar future approaches. Requir-ing developing countries to take on com-mitments only in proportion to theresponsibilities and capacities of their wealthyand high-emitting populations offers thepotential for a compromise that a diversity ofcountries could eventually endorse.

In practical terms, the emissions cutsneeded to avoid a warming in the range of 2degrees Celsius or more would be so radicalthat under the Greenhouse DevelopmentRights proposal the world’s wealthier coun-tries and individuals would have to financeemissions reductions in low-income coun-

tries long after the emissions in industrialnations bottomed out near zero. Will thewealthy and fortunate ever take on such oblig-ations to save the world’s climate? As theproposal’s authors note, if they won’t, noone else will.

Taking on such obligations will be morelikely if wealthier countries and a climate pactitself can ease and make economically attrac-tive a rapid transition to energy efficiency andrenewable sources. There are plenty of attrac-tive options governments and private-sectorinvestors can move forward aggressively andimmediately—especially improvements inenergy efficiency and electrical power gener-ation through wind, solar energy, and geo-thermal energy. (See Chapter 4.) People donot really want carbon-based power per se,after all; what they want is power itself, whetherat the flip of a light switch or the turn of a keyin the ignition of the family car.

One promising mechanism to kick-startthis shift, at least in the electricity productionsector, is a concept known as feed-in tariffs orrenewable energy payments. Already morethan 40 nations, states, and provinces haveenacted feed-in laws. These generally guar-antee anyone who produces electricity withrenewable sources priority access to the elec-tricity grid and long-term premium paymentsfor their electricity, thus reducing the inse-curity of investment in renewable sourcesand technologies. Another approach, evensimpler, is to root out and close off all gov-ernment incentives that boost combustionof carbon-based fuels and other greenhouse-gas-intense activities. In the 1990s, a WorldBank report estimated that such subsidiescost taxpayers an estimated $210 billion ayear and prompted 7 percent of all globalCO2 emissions.40

An idea that still waits to be more promi-nently touted is the concept of “shadow car-bon pricing.” Ideally, a climate agreement




should contribute to a uniform high and ris-ing global price for carbon dioxide that wouldboth discourage release of the gases into theair and raise revenues for adaptation and fur-ther emissions reductions. But until theworld’s nations are ready for such a step,institutions from the World Bank to NGOsshould pick a number—any number, almost—to define an imaginary or shadow price for aton of the gas. Then the shadow carbon costof any activity, from building a power plantto driving a gas-guzzler to the local conve-nience store, could be calculated and publi-cized. The point? Simply to educate the publicabout how deeply greenhouse gas emissionsare embedded in daily living and the globaleconomy and to prepare the way for eventualreal costs applied to these emissions.

As human-induced climate changebecomes increasingly palpable everywhere,people in all walks of life will grow weary ofunfulfilled promises to reduce greenhousegases at the margins. With enough publicpressure, nations may find ways to push eachother into action commensurate to the threat.In today’s globalized society, few countriescan manage without free trade, but tradeshould be freest among the nations thatjointly commit to act forcefully to save the cli-mate. The task is doable; of all the hundredsof scientists presenting diverse opinions on theclimate problem, no prominent one has spo-ken up to say it is already too late to act.

The world needs to prepare to work coop-eratively to adapt for serious and disruptive cli-mate change beyond what has already beenseen—while still preventing potentially cata-clysmic changes. The approach may combineboth cap and trade mechanisms, within andamong countries and industrial sectors, anddomestically focused carbon taxes. The lattermay be refunded to people as dividends,thereby softening the regressive nature ofthe tax and building a constituency for the

needed global anti-carbon price tilt. Alsoneeded, even in an era of higher prices on car-bon, may be some old-fashioned regulationof energy and industry practices where suchgovernmental nudges can make an impor-tant difference at low cost.

There is nothing inherently incompatibleabout applying all three of these diverseapproaches—cap and trade, carbon taxes,and regulation—to the task of wringing car-bon dioxide and other greenhouse gases outof the growing global economy. Nor is thereany reason that industrial countries shouldnot take on the lion’s share of the load inhelping developing countries reduce boththeir emissions and their vulnerability tohuman-induced climate change—with anunderstanding that wealthy people in devel-oping countries have special responsibilitiesas well and that eventually economic devel-opment will both empower and obligatemost of the world to radically reduce green-house gas emissions.

Perhaps this will turn into a world of for-tified nations dealing individually with awarming climate and rising seas as best asthey can while defending themselves againstdesperate neighbors. But as Hurricane Kat-rina in 2005 and the heat wave that killedthousands in France two years earlier demon-strate, the wealthiest nations are quite vul-nerable to extreme weather events. Ultimately,to reduce climate risk the world will need towork toward a negotiated framework basedon the equal right of all people to use the




Ideally, a climate agreement shouldcontribute to a uniform high and risingglobal price for carbon dioxide thatwould discourage release of the gasesand raise revenues for adaptation andfurther emissions reductions.

common atmosphere while advancing them-selves economically. Even in the near term, theclimate negotiating process could inspire—perhaps among a coalition of NGOs—devel-opment of a metric similar to shadow carbonpricing that builds an ongoing tally of whouses what “atmospheric space” on a per capitabasis for a future allocation process thatremains to be imagined.

This approach could be called “no loss—for the present—but no promises about thefuture.” Simply by raising public awarenessthat everyone will need some day to con-tribute financing in proportion to excessiveemissions today, and by developing anaccounting system to illustrate and measurethe growing burden of future payments, itmay be possible to stimulate new pressure toshift away from carbon-based energies andcreate new innovations in carbon trading.That is just one unconventional idea to helpunravel the post–Kyoto Protocol negotia-tions puzzle. There will be many more.

It helps that shifting away from fossil fuelswill also mean shifting away from their risingcosts as demand outstrips shrinking suppliesas well as shifting away from the immense

human and environmental costs of coal min-ing (and mining accidents), oil drilling, oilspills, and air pollution and the respiratoryproblems it causes. It helps, too, that some ofthe most abundant renewable energyresources—intense sun and high winds—canbe found in developing countries.

In addressing the climate change thathumans are causing, people may learn lessonsto help them face the many other problemsthat stem from humanity’s growing presenceand appetite on a resource-constrained planet.While Earth and its envelope of air are fixed,there are no known limitations on the socialsphere. In the century to come, people maywell have to retreat from rising seas, to recy-cle most wastewater, to restore and cultivateravaged soils, and to build cities that can sur-vive brutal storms.

But if we act soon, shrewdly and with acommitment to fairness for all, there maystill be time to keep nature and ourselvesintact and even thriving despite the changeswe will see. We may step safely into a man-ageably warming world, with a new appreci-ation of our common humanity and whatwe can accomplish together.





At the heart of climate change is the green-house effect, in which molecules of variousgases trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere andkeep it warm enough to support life. Carbondioxide and other “greenhouse gases”(GHGs) are an important part of Earth’s

Climate Change ReferenceGuide and GlossaryAlice McKeown and Gary Gardner

natural cycles, but human activities are boost-ing their concentrations in the atmosphereto dangerous levels. The result is risingglobal temperatures and an unstable climatethat threatens humans, economies, andecosystems.

Sources of Climate Change

Greenhouse Gas Generated by

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Fossil fuel combustion,land clearing foragriculture

Methane (CH4) Livestock production,extraction of fossilfuels, rice cultivation,biomass burning, land-fills, sewage

Nitrous Oxide (N2O) Industrial processes,fertilizer use, landclearing

Hydrofluoro- Leakage from refriger-carbons ators, aerosols, air(HFCs) conditioners

F gases Perfluoro- Aluminum production,carbons semiconductor industry

Sulfur Hexa- Electrical insulation,fluoride (SF6) magnesium smelting

Global Emissions of Greenhouse Gases

The primary human-generated greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (fluo-ride gases), and nitrous oxide. Greenhouse gases are only one source of climate change; aerosols such asblack carbon and land use changes such as deforestation also affect warming.1

Share of Global Emissions, in CarbonDioxide Equivalent, 2004

CO2 from fossilfuel use (56.6%)

CO2 fromdeforestation,biomassdecay, etc.(17.3%)

CH4 (14.3%)

N2O (7.9%)F-gases (1.1%)

Other CO2

(2.8%)

Source: IPCC



Climate Change Reference Guide and Glossary

Source Sample Emission-generating Activities

Energy Supply Generation of primaryenergy supplies, chieflyfrom fossil fuels; produc-tion of fuels for electricity,transportation, and heat;includes extraction andrefining

Industry Production of metals, pulpand paper, cement, andchemical production

Forestry Deforestation, decomposi-tion of biomass thatremains after logging

Agriculture Crop and livestockproduction

Transport Travel by car, plane, train,or ship

Residential and Heating, cooling, andCommercial Buildings electricity

Waste Landfills, incineration,wastewater

Greenhouse Gas Sources, by Sector

Greenhouse gases come from a broad range of human activities, including energy use, changes in land use(such as deforestation), and agriculture.2

Emissions by Sector, in CarbonDioxide Equivalent, 2004

Waste andwastewater

(2.8%)

Energy supply(25.9%)

Industry(19.4%)

Forestry(17.4%)

Agriculture(13.5%)

Transport(13.1%)

Buildings(7.9%)

Source: IPCC




The Carbon Cycle

Measuring Climate Change

Fossil fuel burning andcement production

6.4 GtC

Land usechanges1.6 GtC

Land sinks2.6 GtC

Ocean sinks2.2 GtC

AB

SOR

PTIO

N

AB

SOR

PTIO

N

EMIS

SIO

NS

EMIS

SIO

NS

Net increase to the atmosphere = 3.2 GtC

Annual change in billions of tons of carbon (GtC)

0

42

68

101214161820222426283032343638

˚C ˚F

32

39.235.6

42.846.450.053.657.260.864.468.071.675.278.882.486.089.693.296.8

100.4

TemperatureConversion

Changes to globaltemperature causedby climate change areusually measured indegrees Celsius. Onedegree Celsius is equal to1.8 degrees Fahrenheit—meaning that a 2-degreeCelsius rise is 3.6degrees Fahrenheit.Actual temperaturereadings in the differentscales are easilycompared when placedside by side.

Carbon flows among land, sea, and the atmosphere. But human activities since the mid-eighteenth centuryhave changed carbon flows in ways that have lasting implications for the climate. This graphic depictschanges to global carbon flows in the 1990s relative to the preindustrial state.3




Indicator Carbon Carbon Dioxide Carbon Dioxide Equivalent

Molecular One atom of carbon. One atom of carbon and A measurement, not amakeup two atoms of oxygen. chemical element, so no

molecular formula.

Symbol C CO2 CO2eq or CO2e

Description Carbon cycles among A gaseous form of carbon, A unit of measurement thatland, sea, air, and CO2 is the breath people allows the global warmingbiological systems and exhale, the fizz in soda—and contribution of greenhouseis the building block part of the exhaust from gases to be compared withof many but not all burning fossil fuels. Most each other, even if they havegreenhouse gases. human carbon emissions a different molecular makeup.

are in the form of CO2.

Calculation One ton of carbon = Not typically converted Quantity of a greenhouse3.67 tons of carbon to other units. Measured gas multiplied by its globaldioxide. as emissions and as a warming potential.

concentration in theatmosphere.

Carbon,Carbon Dioxide, and Carbon Dioxide Equivalents

Carbon, the basis of life on Earth, is at the center of the climate crisis. Carbon is found in solid, liquid, andgaseous form. CO2 is the most prevalent of human-generated greenhouse gases. CO2 is so dominant thatall other greenhouse gases are evaluated in terms of their equivalency to CO2.

Greenhouse Gas GlobalWarmingPotential

Carbon Dioxide 1

Methane 25

Nitrous Oxide 298

Hydrofluorocarbons 124 – 14,800

Perfluorocarbons 7,390 – 12,200

Sulfur Hexafluoride 22,800

GlobalWarming Potential of Selected Greenhouse Gases

Global warming potential (GWP) expresses a gas’sheat-trapping power relative to carbon dioxide overa particular time period (thisTable uses the common100-year frame).GWP allows observers to comparethe contributions to climate change made by variousgreenhouse gases that have different warming effectsand life spans.A methane molecule, for example, has25 times the warming potential of a carbon dioxidemolecule, and some gases are hundreds orthousands of times more powerful.4




Top 10 CO2-Emitting Nations,Total and Per Person, 2005

National emissions levels vary greatly. Among the top 10 emitters, the United States generates 12 timesmore CO2 than Italy does.The 10 leading emitters generate many more times the emissions of most devel-oping countries, although emissions in those countries are rising rapidly and could soon overtake the annualemissions in industrial countries.The top 10 emitting nations also exhibit a broad range of emissions perperson.Wealthy countries tend to emit more carbon dioxide per person than poor countries do.5

Canad

aChin

aInd

ia

German

yIta

lyJap

anRu

ssia

Kore

a

United

United

Mill

ion

tons

ofC

O2

Source: CDIAC

Tons

ofC

O2

perperson

0

1000

3000

5000

6000

4000

2000

0

1

3

5

6

4

2

Total EmissionsEmissions Per Person

States

Kingd

omSo

uth

Top 10 CO2-Emitting Nations’ Share of Global CO2 Emissions, 1950–2005

Over time, early industri-alizing nations typicallyhave emitted morecarbon dioxide to theatmosphere than nationsthat industrialized later.6

Source: DLR

UnitedSta

tes

Russi

a

Canad

aChin

aInd

ia

German

ySo

uthKo

rea

Italy

United

Kingd

omJapan

Perc

ent

5

10

25

30

15

20

0

Source: CDIAC




Average GlobalTemperature at Earth’s Surface, 1880–2007

Average globaltemperature increasedby 0.74 degrees Celsiusbetween 1906 and 2005.The IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change(IPCC) predicts anadditional rise of 1.8–4.0degrees Celsius thiscentury, depending onhow much and howsoon greenhouse gasemissions are curbed.8

1880 1906 1932 1958 1984 2010

Deg

rees

Cel

sius

13.2

13.6

14.0

14.4

14.8Source: GISS

Consequences of Greenhouse Gas Buildup

Concentration of CO2 in Earth’sAtmosphere, 1744–2007

Since the mid-eighteenthcentury fossil fuel use andcement production havereleased billions of tons ofCO2 to the atmosphere.Carbon dioxide levels inthe atmosphere before theIndustrial Revolution weresome 280 parts per million(ppm). By 2007, levels hadreached 384 ppm—a 37-percent increase.7

1740 1770 1800 1830 1860 1890 1920 1950 1980 2010

Part

spe

rm

illio

n

Ice coremeasurements

Atmosphericmeasurements

Source: Neftal et al., Etheridge et al., NOAA

270

290

310

330

350

370

390




ClimateTipping Elements

Scientists believe that several “climate tipping elements” could destabilize the planet’s climate by setting offchain reactions—“positive feedbacks”—that accelerate other climate changes. Once a tipping element istriggered by crossing a threshold or tipping point, there is no turning back even if all greenhouse gas emis-sions were to end. Some tipping elements, such as the loss of Arctic summer sea ice, may be triggeredwithin the next decade if climate change continues at the same rate. Others—the collapse of the Atlanticocean current, for instance—are thought to be many decades away.10

Ranking Year

1 2005

2 1998

3 2002

4 2003

5 2007

6 2006

7 2004

8 2001

9 1997

10 1995

Direct temperature readingsdating back to the nineteenthcentury show that the last 10years had 8 of the 10 warmestyears on record.9

The 10WarmestYears on Record, 1880–2007

Tipping Element Expected Consequences

Loss of Arctic summer sea ice Higher average global temperatures and changes to ecosystems

Melting of Greenland ice sheet Global sea level rise up to 7 meters and higher average globaltemperatures

Collapse ofWest Antarctic ice sheet Global sea level rise up to 5 meters and higher average globaltemperatures

Collapse of the Atlantic ocean current Disruptions to Gulf Stream and changes to weather patterns

Increase in El Niño events Changes to weather patterns, including increased droughts,especially in Southeast Asia

Dieback of boreal forest Severe changes to boreal forest ecosystems

Dieback of Amazon forest Massive extinctions and decreased rainfall

Changes to the Indian summer monsoon Widespread drought and changes to weather patterns

Changes to the Sahara/ Sahel and the Changes to weather patterns, including potential greening ofWest African monsoon the Sahara/Sahel—one of the few positive tipping elements




LATINAMERICA• Glacier melt declinethreatens freshwatersupplies for drinking,agriculture production,and electricity

• Replacement of tropicalforests by savannas andmassive extinctions intropical areas

• Lower crop andlivestock yields fromdesertification andsalinization as well asdeclining fish production

System orCondition Changes

FreshWater • Increased droughts• Increased heavy precipitationevents and flooding• Decreased drinking and fresh-water supplies and availability• Glacier melt decline• Increased salinization offreshwater sources

Ecosystems • Massive extinctions• Animal and plant migration• Increased wildfires,flooding, and drought• Decreased forest coverage,expanding arid lands, and othersimilar changes• Ocean acidification and coralreef bleaching• Spread of exotic, invasiveplants and animals

Food and • Reduced crop yieldsAgriculture • Shifting growing zones

• Increasing hunger andmalnutrition• Declining fish yields

Health • Increased deaths due to floods,heat waves, storms, fires, anddrought• Changes in the distribution ofcertain infectious diseases,including malaria• Increased cardiorespiratorydiseases• Increased disease spread fromcontaminated and polluteddrinking water supplies• Increased diarrheal disease• Increased malnutrition

Coasts • Increased coastal flooding,especially in low-lying islandsand heavily populated deltaregions• Increased soil erosion• Increased intensity andstrength of tropical storms

Expected Impacts of an Unstable Climate

NORTHAMERICA• Reduced snowpack andsummer flows inWest

• Greater fire risk andmore areas burned

• Growing risk of deathsfrom heat waves




Climate changes are already occurring today and willcontinue to accelerate as greenhouse gas concentrationsrise over time.While climate change is global, the impactsare felt differently from region to region.11

AFRICA• 75–250 million peoplewithout access tofresh water by 2020

• Severe reductionsin crop yields andfisheries production

• Heavily populateddelta regions at riskfrom flooding

ASIA• 1 billion people atrisk from decreasingfreshwater supplies

AUSTRALIA ANDNEW ZEALAND• Widespread lack of accessto fresh water

• Significant loss of biodiversity,including Great Barrier Reef

• Heavily populated coastalregions at risk from floodingand strong storms

EUROPE• Coastal flooding, morefrequent inland flash floods,and mountain glacier melt

• Widespread extinctionsand species loss

• Declining crop productionin the South with potentialincreases in the North

• Growing risk of deathsfrom heat waves, especiallyin Central, Southern, andEastern regions

SOUTHAND EASTASIA• Rising mortality from diarrhealdisease and potential massivespreading of cholera

• Heavily populated regions atrisk from flooding




Potential Stabilization Points Details

Global temperature increase According to the IPCC, the risks and threats of climate change increaseof 2 degrees Celsius dramatically when global temperature rises more than 2 degrees Celsius

(3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Government leaders and nongovernmentalorganizations have embraced 2 degrees as the maximum rise allowableif the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided.

Global greenhouse gas Reduction needed to limit global temperature rise to 2–3 degreesreductions of 15–20 percent Celsius, according to the IPCC.This goal suggests that carbon dioxidebelow baseline levels within concentrations must peak by 2015–20 and then fall. Many policymakersthe next 10–20 years use a variation of this number to set guidelines for action.

Atmospheric CO2 at 350 ppm NASA climate scientist James Hansen and his colleagues argue thatmany global warming tipping points have already been passed. Althoughcurrent concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere exceed 380 parts permillion, these scientists believe that atmospheric concentrations need todrop to 350 ppm or lower as soon as possible.

Atmospheric CO2 at U.K. economist Nicholas Stern advises that the uppermost stabilization450–550 ppm levels for atmospheric concentrations of CO2 should not exceed

450–550 parts per million in order to avoid global economic collapse.Based on climate models, this stabilization point takes into accountpredictions about technological developments and the time needed forwidespread action.

Avoiding Dangerous Effects of Climate Change

Scientists talk about several potential climate stabilization levels that could help minimize the negativeeffects of climate change. Policymakers rally around these different stabilization points, using them todevelop policies to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. But not everyone agrees on the same stabilizationpoints, and recent studies indicate that the levels may need to be lower than once believed.12




United Nations Framework JUNE Rio de JaneiroConvention on Climate 1992 Earth SummitChange adopted

Kyoto Protocol DECEMBER Kyoto Meetingadopted to control 1997greenhouse gas emissionsthrough 2012

Kyoto Protocol FEBRUARYenters into force 2005

The Bali Road Map and DECEMBER Bali MeetingAction Plan outline the 2007steps needed to reach anew international climatetreaty by the end of 2009

Groundwork for the 2008 Meetings innew agreement Bangkok, Bonn,

Accra, and Poznan

2009 Meetings

Target date for agreement DECEMBER Copenhagen Meetingon a new international 2009climate treaty

Additional Information

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: www.ipcc.ch

United Nations Environment Programme: www.unep.org/themes/climatechange

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: www.unfccc.int

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center: cdiac.ornl.gov/faq.html

The Diplomatic Road to CopenhagenFifteen years after international climate negotiations began at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and 10 yearsafter the Kyoto Protocol was completed, the Bali Road Map and Action Plan outlined the steps neededto reach a new, post-Kyoto climate treaty in Copenhagen by the end of 2009. Beyond 2009, internationalnegotiations on climate will likely continue in order to set new emission reduction targets, adapt toscientific advances, and adjust to a changing climate.




Anthropogenic emissions: Greenhouse gasemissions that are caused by human activities.Also includes emissions of GHG precursorsand aerosols.

Atmospheric concentration: Ameasure usedby climate scientists to register the level ofgreenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.Atmospheric concentration is most oftenmeasured in parts per million of carbon diox-ide and can be tracked over time to under-stand trends and make projections.

Baseline: A level or year against which sub-sequent greenhouse gas emission levels andconcentrations are measured, especially inthe context of emission reductions. For exam-ple, the Kyoto Protocol calls for 5-percentreductions in human-caused greenhouse gasesbelow 1990 levels (the baseline) by the2008–12 period.

Black carbon: Soot and other aerosol parti-cles that come from the incomplete com-bustion of fossil fuels. Black carbon increasesatmospheric warming by lowering the reflec-tivity of snow, clouds, and other surfaces andby absorbing heat from the sun. Some sci-entists believe that black carbon plays a largerole in climate change and that reducing itmay be one of the best opportunities to slowclimate change in the short run.

Cap and trade: An approach to limitinggreenhouse gas emissions that sets a maxi-mum emissions level (a cap) for a region ornation and that requires participating emittersto obtain permits to pollute. Companies orgovernmental jurisdictions with extra pollu-tion permits can sell or trade them to partieswhose permits are insufficient to cover theirfull emissions.

Adaptation:Changes in policies and practicesdesigned to deal with climate threats andrisks. Adaptation can refer to changes thatprotect livelihoods, prevent loss of lives, orprotect economic assets and the environ-ment. Examples include changing agricul-tural crops to deal with changing seasons andweather patterns, increasing water conserva-tion to deal with changing rainfall levels, anddeveloping medicines and preventive behav-iors to deal with spreading diseases.

Additionality: Emissions reductions thatare greater than would have occurred undera business-as-usual scenario. For example,in order for emission credits to be awarded,projects under the Clean DevelopmentMechanism and Joint Implementation mustshow that any emissions reductions are inaddition to what would have occurred with-out the project. Additionality can also beused to describe other added benefits fromthe projects, including funding, investment,and technology.

Annex countries: Groups of nations (forexample, Annex 1 or Annex B) with differentobligations under international climate agree-ments. Under the U.N. Framework Conven-tion on Climate Change, Annex 1 countriesinclude industrial countries and economies intransition that agreed to reduce their green-house gas emissions to 1990 levels collectively.Annex 2 countries are industrial countries thatcommitted to help developing countries byproviding them with technology, financialassistance, and other resources. Annex B coun-tries have assigned emission reduction targetsunder the Kyoto Protocol. The category non-Annex 1 includes countries that are the mostvulnerable to climate change. Some countriesare included in more than one Annex.

Glossary: 38 KeyTerms for Understanding Climate Change




for consumers, or other initiatives.

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): Amechanism under the Kyoto Protocol thatallows industrial countries to meet their emis-sion reduction targets by investing in low- orno-emission projects in developing nations.The CDM also aims to stimulate investmentin developing countries.

Conference of the Parties (COP): Regularmeetings of governments that have signed aninternational treaty to discuss its status andpossible revision. The fifteenth COP of theUNFCCC will be held in Copenhagen 30November – 11 December 2009.

Emission Reduction Unit (ERU): Onemetric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent thatis reduced or sequestered. Under the CleanDevelopment Mechanism, industrial countriesearn certified emission reduction units (CERs)for projects in developing countries that canbe applied toward their national reduction tar-gets. Countries can also earn emission reduc-tion units under the Joint Implementationmechanism.

Emission trading: A market approach toreducing greenhouse gas emissions. Tradingallows parties that emit less than their allowedemissions to trade or sell excess pollutioncredits to other parties that emit more thanthey are allowed. The European Union Emis-sions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) is a manda-tory emission trading scheme currently inplace; the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX)is a voluntary trading program.

Forcing: Changes to the climate system thatare caused by natural (volcanic eruptions, forexample) or human-caused (such as green-house gas emissions) factors. Scientifically,radiative forcing measures changes to the

Carbon capture and storage (CCS): Aprocess in which carbon dioxide is separatedand captured during energy production orindustrial processes and subsequently stored(often by pumping it underground) ratherthan released into the atmosphere. Alsoknown as carbon capture and sequestration.

Carbon dioxide (CO2): The most wide-spread greenhouse gas. CO2 is released tothe atmosphere through natural and humanactivities, including fossil fuel and biomassburning, industrial processes, and changesto land use, among others.

Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq): A unitof measurement used to compare the climateeffects of all greenhouse gases to each other.CO2eq is calculated by multiplying the quan-tity of a greenhouse gas by its global warm-ing potential.

Carbon dioxide intensity and carbon diox-ide per capita: Alternatives to total emis-sions for measuring a nation’s greenhousegas emissions. Carbon intensity measuresemissions per unit of gross domestic product.CO2 per capita measures emissions per per-son. Both measures can be used to look atemission differences between nations. Forexample, while China has recently taken thelead in total greenhouse gas emissions, itsper capita emissions level is far lower than thatin most industrial countries.

Carbon tax: A tax levied on carbon dioxideemissions that aims to reduce the totalamount of greenhouse gas emissions by set-ting a price on pollution. A carbon tax can beused independently or in conjunction withother emissions controls such as a carboncap. The tax generates revenue that can beused to underwrite further emissions reduc-tions, technology development, cost relief

natural energy balance of Earth’s atmospherethat affect surface temperature. So namedbecause it measures incoming solar radiationagainst outgoing thermal radiation, radiativeforcing is expressed as a rate of energy changein watts per square meter. Human-causedforcing factors like greenhouse gases have apositive radiative forcing and cause surfacetemperature to heat. Other such factors,including some aerosols, have a negativeradiative forcing and cause surface tempera-ture to cool.

Global warming potential (GWP): A mea-surement of the relative strength and potencyof a greenhouse gas as well as its projected lifespan in the atmosphere. GWP is based on car-bon dioxide, the most common greenhousegas, and allows comparisons among differentgreenhouse gases.

Greenhouse development rights: Withinthe context of climate change obligations,the principle that all societies have a funda-mental right to reduce poverty, achieve foodsecurity, increase literacy and education rates,and pursue other development goals. Societiesor countries below a certain income level areexcluded from greenhouse gas emissionreduction scenarios and are expected to con-centrate their resources on raising their stan-dard of living rather than lowering emissions.

Greenhouse gases (GHGs): Atmosphericgases that cause climate change by trappingheat from the sun in Earth’s atmosphere—that is, produce the greenhouse effect. Themost common greenhouse gases are carbondioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, andwater vapor.

Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC): The international scien-tific body established by the World Meteo-

rological Organization and the U.N. Envi-ronment Programme in 1988 to provide anobjective and neutral source of informationon climate change. The IPCC releases peri-odic assessment reports that are reviewedand approved by experts and governments.

Joint Implementation (JI): An initiative ofthe Kyoto Protocol that allows industrialcountries to earn emission reduction credits byinvesting in reduction projects in other indus-trial countries. JI is related to the Clean Devel-opmentMechanism, which involves reductionprojects in developing countries. Many JIprojects are located in Eastern Europe.

Kyoto Protocol: A binding agreement thatrequires 37 countries and the European Com-munity to reduce their human-caused green-house gas emissions 5 percent collectivelyfrom 1990 levels in the period 2008–12. Itwas adopted in 1997 under the U.N. Frame-work Convention on Climate Change and laysout specific steps countries must take to com-ply. More than 180 countries have signedthe protocol, which entered into force on16 February 2005.

Land use, land use change, and forestry(LULUCF): Land use is the set of activitiesthat occur on any given parcel of land, suchas grazing, forestry, or urban living. Changesto land use such as converting forestland toagriculture can release significant amountsof greenhouse gases. These activities are con-sidered during climate negotiations and whenplanning emission reductions.

Mean sea level: The average global sea levelover time. Mean sea level eliminates varia-tions due to tides, waves, and other distur-bances. Sea level is affected by the shape ofocean basins, changes in water quantity, andchanges in water density. Climate change is




expected to raise sea level by increasing glac-ier melts and sea temperatures.

Mitigation: Policies and behaviors designedto reduce greenhouse gases and increase car-bon sinks.

Models, predictions, and pathways: Toolsfor analyzing alternative climate futures. Sci-entists use climate and atmospheric model-ing to understand how the climate worksand how greenhouse gas concentrations andother triggers lead to climate change. Mod-els help scientists make predictions aboutclimate changes resulting from biological,physical, and chemical variables such asgreenhouse gas emissions and land usechanges. Emission pathway scenarios aredeveloped to understand what emission lim-its are needed to meet climate stabilizationpoints, such as avoiding a 2-degree rise insurface temperature.

Parts per million (ppm): A ratio-based mea-sure of the concentration of greenhouse gasesin the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is usuallymeasured in parts per million; in 2007 theatmospheric concentration of carbon dioxidepassed 384 ppm, an increase of more than100 ppm since 1750. Other less widespreadgreenhouse gases may be measured in partsper billion or parts per trillion.

Peak date: The year that atmospheric con-centrations of greenhouse gases must stopgrowing and begin declining if a given targetconcentration is to be achieved.

Reducing emissions from deforestationand degradation (REDD): A policy thataims to reduce greenhouse gas emissionsfrom deforestation and forest degradation. Inprinciple, REDD provides financial incen-tives for countries to maintain and preserve

forestlands as carbon sinks rather than cuttingthem down. In December 2007, climatechange negotiators in Bali agreed to con-sider including REDD as part of a new climatechange agreement.

Resilience: The ability of natural or humansystems to survive in the face of great change.To be resilient, a system must be able toadapt to changing circumstances and developnew ways to thrive. In ecological terms,resilience has been used to describe the abil-ity of natural systems to return to equilibriumafter adapting to changes. In climate change,resilience can also convey the capacity andability of society to make necessary adapta-tions to a changing world—and not neces-sarily structures that will carry forward thestatus quo. In this perspective, resilienceaffords an opportunity to make systemicchanges during adaptation, such as address-ing social inequalities.

Sink: An activity, mechanism, or process thatremoves greenhouse gases, their precursors,or other small aerosols from the atmosphere.Removals typically occur in forests (whichremove carbon dioxide from the atmosphereduring photosynthesis), soils, and oceans.

Stabilization: The point at which the cli-mate is stable and not undergoing addi-tional systemic changes. Often discussed ascarbon dioxide stabilization and measured asconcentration of carbon dioxide in theatmosphere.

Surface temperature (global): An estimateof the average surface air temperature acrossthe globe. When estimating climate changeover time, only abnormal changes to themean surface temperature—not daily, sea-sonal, or other common variations—aremeasured. Global surface temperature is




most commonly expressed as a combina-tion of land and sea temperature.

Technology transfer: The flow of knowl-edge, equipment, and resources among stake-holders that helps countries, communities,firms, or other entities adapt to or mitigate cli-mate change.

UNFCCC:United Nations Framework Con-vention on Climate Change. Adopted on 9May 1992 and signed at the Rio de JaneiroEarth Summit, the convention establishedgeneral principles to stabilize greenhouse gasconcentrations and prevent dangerous

human-caused interference with the climatesystem. The treaty includes requirementssuch as preparing national inventories ofGHG emissions and a commitment to reduceemissions to 1990 levels. The convention hasnearly universal membership, with more than190 signatory countries.

Vulnerability: The degree to which anecosystem or society faces survival risks dueto adverse climate changes. Vulnerabilityincludes susceptibility as well as the ability toadapt. The level of vulnerability determineswhether an ecosystem or society can beresilient in the face of climate change.




state of the world 2009: into a warming world (state of the world)

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