Day 1 in Copenhagen

As we descended out of the clouds into Copenhagen airport, the bright yellow sail of a small boat in the harbor demanded End Climate Change Here!! A recently-erected 30 foot sculpture of three emaciated African women stands in a field across from the conference center, the figures’ large cloth headscarves being thrashed by the strong winds blowing off the Baltic. Coca-cola sponsored billboards proclaim "HopenHagen." There is a palpable sense of urgency and promise here as the delegates began assembling for the UN Climate change conference.

The long line we stood in to obtain our credentials was marked particularly by its youthfulness (many of the delegates appearing to be in their 20s and 30s) and broad international diversity. Among the many hundreds of non-governmental observers, press, and official ‘parties’ to the convention around us, I saw a young man in his traditional Sami (Lapp reindeer herding) clothing, several people from sub-Saharan Africa, an International Brotherhood Worker from the U.S.... conversations in most any language you can imagine were taking place. It brought home to me just how deeply the issue of climate change is resonating in all parts of the globe, and has so many implications for so many people. The presence of many young people makes clear that the generations now coming of age have a disproportionate stake in the decisions being made here, and they are out in force to ensure that policy makers recognize that it is they who will have to deal with the consequences of the choices made today.

Trends and events

Last week before leaving Columbia I read a newspaper article about drought in the southwestern U.S. One of the points made in the article was that the drought, lack of rainfall and depletion of soil moisture, people had been experiencing over the last few months was caused by global warming. While forecasts of future conditions in the American southwest certainly indicate warming temperatures and a greater propensity for periodic drought, it is a bit misleading to attribute conditions people experience over a short time period to global warming. It is the difference between trends and events.

Climatology is the systematic examination of long-term trends or patterns that develop in atmospheric conditions over time. It is not exactly the same as the instantaneous or short-term mechanics of atmospheric behavior which are the focus of meteorology. Weather is event driven while climate is trend driven. Because of this distinction, there is a certain level of statistical uncertainty (noise) built into the description of climate and climate changes.

We are all familiar with similar everyday phenomenon based on probability. In baseball a batting average represents the statistical probability that a player will get a hit when he (or she) steps into the batters box to face a pitcher. Batting average does not determine what the outcome of any single event (each at-bat) will be; it simply describes the likelihood of what will happen based on previous at-bats. Each at-bat contributes information that is then used to calculate a new average. Each at-bat is a single event and the average is a statistical means of describing the group as a whole.

Patterns and trends can also be detected in these data. Over the course of a single season a typical player experiences slumps and hot streaks, each one pulling the batting average in one direction or another. If the slump or hot streak is short-lived, over a few games perhaps, then the resulting influence it will have on the players’ batting average will be minor. A prolonged hitting streak however, can generate a significant upwards trend in the average.

People unconsciously engage in complex forms of pattern detection all the time without realizing what it is we are doing. Georges Seurat painted “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” in the pointillist tradition. Up close, the painting looks like a random series of colored dots scattered all over. As you begin to step backwards in order to see the entire canvas the dots coalesce into recognizable shapes and figures. Up close you see dots – singular events. From a distance you see the patterns that develop from the totality of the dots taken together – spatial trends.

As the weather turns cold, listen for people scoffing at the idea that the climate can be warming when it feels so cold. But this misunderstands the statistical basis for climate. Like batting average, climate is based on examining the cumulative record of individual weather events. A predicted change in climate means that certain weather events are expected to become more likely, more probable, more frequent. It is a change in patterns, not individual events.

Arrival in Copenhagen

Our first day in Copenhagen has been interesting so far. We still haven't checked into our hotel and have been on a plane full of Nobel laureates headed to Stockholm, Sweden for the awards ceremonies there this week, we saw an impromptu lecture on the negotiations from Jonathan Pershing - lead negotiator for the U.S. government, and are now stuck inside the Bella Center with the UN security refusing to allow us to leave because of a "security incident" outside. No one is taking it seriously as a real risk so no worries...right now it is just inconvenient.

Moving the goalposts

The Copenhagen Diagnosis was recently released to update the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment of the scientific basis of climate change. It compiles strong evidence that the changes documented in prior research summaries (increasing global land and sea temperatures, loss of polar ice) are continuing apace, or in many cases, accelerating.

Prominent among these findings is the fact that fossil fuel-based CO2 emissions are about 40% higher than in 1990, essentially following the business-as-usual scenario of continued increase. China and other developing nations have been a significant component of this acceleration, but many industrialized nations, such as the U.S. and Australia, have also significantly contributed.

By rejecting any action on emissions over the two decades since the Rio Summit, the U.S. has made prospects of catching up to initial targets from negotiations like Rio and Kyoto (should the nation ever take this goal seriously) increasingly difficult. The Kyoto Protocol called for the U.S. to reduce its emissions 7% from the 1990 baseline - by 2012. Instead (following US rejection of the Kyoto Protocol) emissions increased by about 17% between 1990 and 2007. The proposal President Obama announced he would bring to Copenhagen is to reduce U.S. emissions 17% from 2005 levels - by 2020. This works out to about only 5% below 1990 levels – almost a decade later than the Kyoto target.

Undoubtedly the two decades between Rio and Copenhagen will be seen as squandered time in retrospect, with future emissions cutbacks incredibly severe (Draconian?) to keep warming from crossing dangerous thresholds. This figure from the Copenhagen Diagnosis makes the game of delay and catch up we are playing quite clear:



Figure 22. Examples of global emission pathways where cumulative CO2 emissions equal 750 Gt during the time period 2010-2050 (1 Gt CO2 = 3.67 Gt C). At this level, there is a 67% probability of limiting global warming to a maximum of 2°C. The graph shows that the later the peak in emissions is reached, the steeper their subsequent reduction has to be. The figure shows variants of a global emissions scenario with different peak years: 2011 (green), 2015 (blue) and 2020 (red). In order to achieve compliance with these curves, maximum annual reduction rates of 3.7 % (green), 5.3 % (blue) or 9.0 % (red) would be required (relative to 2008). (Source: German Advisory Council on Global Change; WBGU 2009).

Character assasination comes to climatology

When you can’t win an argument on its merits, smear your opponent with half-truths. The political tricks honed by luminaries such as Richard Nixon, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove have made their way into global warming science, as climatologist Phil Jones has stepped down from his position at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit over hacked emails.

While manufactured scandals seem to be standard operating procedure in the political arena (recall the recent resignation of White House Green Jobs advisor Van Jones after being targeted by the Fox TV network) its spillover into science is worrisome, if not entirely unsurprising. As global warming science poses an increasingly powerful threat to the powers of business-as-usual, those involved in its conduct are now apparently fair game.

On Thinner Ice

Seasonal snowpack and glacial meltwaters from the Himalayan Plateau, often referred to as the water tower of Asia, supply fresh water to over 2 billion people in Asia. Snow and ice from the metaphorical roof of the world feeds every major river system in the region: the Indus, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Huang He (Yellow). The Asia Society has released a short video (8 minutes long) entitled On Thinner Ice which uses repeat photography from the filmmaker David Breashears to document the retreat of some of the glaciers surrounding Mt. Everest.

It highlights the very real challenge of managing water resources in a changing world. At the same time population in these river basins is rapidly increasing and generating greater demand for fresh water, the glaciers supplying much of this water have been receding at unprecedented rates in recent decades. In a report published last year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that “67 per cent of the nearly 34,000 square km (12,124 square mi) of Himalayan glaciers are reported to be receding.”

This combination of increasing demand and decreasing supply is expected to lead to regional water shortages, compromised water quality and stream sedimentation throughout the region. While the mechanics of high-altitude/low latitude warming, glacial recession, seasonal snowmelt, and the timing of monsoonal rains can describe the variability of water supplies, the real impacts of these systemic changes cannot be calculated until the political, social, and economic pressures of a growing population with few resources to spare are accounted for.

This is vulnerability. As changing environmental conditions collide with social and economic pressures, some populations around the world will be more vulnerable and at risk than others.

On to Copenhagen

On December 7th, 192 nations will convene in Copenhagen, Denmark as the culmination of a process that officially began in 1992. The meeting name “COP 15” is shorthand for the 15th meeting of the ”Conference of Parties” to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The agreement was ratified by 192 nations. The U.S. took the lead by being the first industrialized country to ratify a treaty on climate change when Pres. George H.W. Bush signed the agreement on October 13, 1992.

At the time, there was wide agreement that multiple threats posed by changing climatic conditions could truly only be addressed by international cooperation with developed countries taking the lead. As described by the UN: “The Convention on Climate Change sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. It recognizes that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.”

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 as an attempt to implementing meaningful restrictions on the most obvious industrial drivers of a changing climate, greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane. While the 1992 UNFCCC encouraged party nations to stabilize or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, countries signing onto the Kyoto Protocol committed to making these changes. While the U.S. in 1992 was the first industrialized nation to ratify the UNFCCC, it was the only major industrialized nation never to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Despite the many shortcomings of the Kyoto Protocol, it was widely seen as only an interim agreement with the culmination of this long-negotiation process to come in the 2009 Copenhagen meetings. Yet, on the verge of Copenhagen there is a dissonance between the insistent warnings of climate scientists about the dangers of climate change and the intransigence of critical nations such as the U.S., China and India to agree on any meaningful means to address these problems.

As representatives of the Association of American Geographers, we will have the opportunity to sit in on the deliberations over the next few weeks in Copenhagen. It is our intent not only to report back what we see and hear but also to discuss some of the science and policy issues being debated at these meetings and how they might affect the U.S., our home institutions, and research in Geography. It is our sincere hope that this site initiates productive and civil conversation and debate and in that spirit, we look forward to your comments and thoughts on our posts. Whatever results from the Copenhagen meetings, in the end it is sure to influence environmental politics, management and the ways in which we all perceive and interact with the world around us.