Unsustainable development 'puts humanity at risk'

25 October 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Catherine Brahic

Humans are completely living beyond their ecological means, says a major report published by the UN Environment Programme on Thursday.
The 550-page document finds the human ecological footprint is on average 21.9 hectares per person. Given the global population, however, the Earth's biological capacity is just 15.7 hectares per person.
The report is UNEP's latest on the state of the planet's health, taking five years in the making. It was put together by about 390 experts and peer-reviewed by an additional 1000.
It reviews the state of Earth's natural resources, from the atmosphere and water, to land surfaces and biodiversity. It concludes that instead of being used and maintained as a tool for the sustainable development of human populations, the environment is being sucked dry by unsustainable development.
Examples of how humans are over-exploiting natural resources to their own detriment include:
• Water – by 2025, 1.6 billion people will live in countries with absolute water scarcity; 440 million school days are already missed every year because of diarrhoeal diseases.
• Land use – modern agriculture exploits land more intensively than it has in the past. In 1987, a hectare of cropland yielded on average 1.8 tonnes of crops, today the same hectare produces 2.5 tonnes. This increased productivity comes at a cost – overexploited land is degraded and becomes less productive.
• Fish – 2.6 billion people rely on fish for more than 20% of their animal protein intake, yet as the intensity of fishing increases, the biodiversity of the ocean and the ocean's capacity to produce more fish decreases.
• Air – more than 2 million people die each year because of indoor and outdoor pollution.
Unsustainable consumption
The individual average footprint of 21.9 hectares per person estimated by UNEP, includes the areas required to produce the resources we use, as well as the areas needed to process our waste.
"About half of the footprint is accounted for by the areas that are required to absorb our greenhouse gas emissions," says Neville Ash of the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, underlying the scale of the climate change problem. "The other half is the land which produces our food, the forests which produce our timber, the oceans and rivers which produce our fish."
The inflated size of the footprint, says Ash, is partially the result of the growth of the human population. The population is currently estimated at 6.7 billion people, and is expected to reach 8 to 10 billion by 2050.
But for Ash, the main driver of the size of our footprint is our unsustainable consumption. "There is no doubt that we could sustain the current and projected population if we lived sustainably," he told New Scientist.
'Inexorable decline'
According to the report authors, energy efficiency is key to sustainability. Johan Kuylenstierna of the Stockholm Environment Institute says that the growth of greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations could be halved by 2020 simply by using existing technologies for energy efficiency.
According to Jo Alcamo, at the University of Kassel in Germany, who led the group which looked at future development for the report, open borders and free trade could also be important. In models of the future where trade between countries is made simpler, technologies that improve the sustainable use of resources are adopted more quickly.
"Much of the 'natural' capital upon which so much of the human wellbeing and economic activity depends – water, land, the air and atmosphere, biodiversity and marine resources – continue their seemingly inexorable decline," warns Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director.
"The cost of inaction and the price humanity will eventually pay is likely to dwarf the cost of swift and decisive action now."
Climate Change – Want to know more about global warming: the science, impacts and political debate? Visit our continually updated special report.
Endangered species – Learn more about the conservation battle in our comprehensive special report.
Energy and Fuels – Learn more about the looming energy crisis in our comprehensive special report.

Time emissions

Smaller businesses are not reducing their carbon emissions and taking advantage of energy savings because of a lack of time and expertise. New research published by the Carbon Trust said small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are missing out on a share of £3billion-worth of energy savings. The Carbon Trust has now launched an Energy Efficiency Loans campaign to make more businesses aware of its interest-free loans scheme. The research showed that 63% of SME senior managers and directors realised they could reduce their carbon emissions but more than two-thirds said their business had not invested in reducing emissions. A staggering 93% of respondents said their company did not measure carbon emissions - citing lack of expertise as the key barrier. Nearly a quarter of businesses believed they would only save between 1% and 4% on energy bills, when the average figure is actually 10%. Michael Rea, the Carbon Trust's chief operating officer, said: "SMEs account for around 20% of the country's overall emissions so it is essential they are supported to act on climate change. "We are significantly increasing our interest-free loans pool to help more businesses invest in new energy efficient equipment, save money and cut their carbon footprint." John Holbrow, environment and energy policy chairman for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), said: "The findings from the Carbon Trust research mirror the FSB's own research into these issues and we would agree that lack of resources and awareness remains a barrier to small businesses exploring ways to mitigate rising energy costs. "They know they have to do something but are unclear about the next steps." The Carbon Trust has committed nearly £27million to its Energy Efficiency Loans scheme this year - almost double the amount available last year. In 2006-07, the company handed out £18million to help small businesses realise annual savings of almost £7million on energy bills and 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Kate Martin

Early endgame??

Greenhouse gas emissions hit danger mark
By Michael Perry
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:05:32 GMT

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could potentially cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia's leading scientists.
Tim Flannery, a world recognized climate change scientist and Australian of the Year in 2007, said a U.N. international climate change report due in November will show that greenhouse gases have already reached a dangerous level.
Flannery said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will show that greenhouse gas in the atmosphere in mid-2005 had reached about 455 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent -- a level not expected for another 10 years.
"We thought we'd be at that threshold within about a decade," Flannery told Australian television late on Monday.
"We thought we had that much time. But the new data indicates that in about mid-2005 we crossed that threshold," he said.
"What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that could potentially cause dangerous climate change."
Flannery, from Macquarie University and author of the climate change book "The Weather Makers," said he had seen the raw data which will be in the IPCC Synthesis Report.
He said the measurement of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere included not just carbon dioxide, but also nitrous oxide, methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). All these gases were measured and then equated into potentially one gas to reach a general level.
"They're all having an impact. Probably 75 percent is carbon dioxide but the rest is that mixed bag of other gases," he said.
COLLISION COURSE
Flannery said global economic expansion, particularly in China and India, was a major factor behind the unexpected acceleration in greenhouse gas levels.
"We're still basing that economic activity on fossil fuels. You know, the metabolism of that economy is now on a collision course, clearly, with the metabolism of our planet," he said.
The report adds an urgency to international climate change talks on the Indonesian island of Bali in December, as reducing greenhouse gas emissions may no longer be enough to prevent dangerous climate change, he said.
U.N. environment ministers meet in December in Bali to start talks on a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol on curbing climate change that expires in 2012.
"We can reduce emissions as strongly as we like -- unless we can draw some of the standing stock of pollutant out of the air and into the tropical forests, we'll still face unacceptable levels of risk in 40 years time," he said.
Flannery suggested the developed world could buy "climate security" by paying villages in countries like Papua New Guinea not to log forests and to regrow forests.
"That 200 gigatonnes of carbon pollutant, the standing stock that's in the atmosphere, is there courtesy of the industrial revolution, and we're the beneficiaries of that and most of the world missed out," he said.
"So I see that as a historic debt that we owe the world. And I can't imagine a better way of paying it back than trying to help the poorest people on the planet."

Climate controversy

11 October 2007
CO2 equivalents
Filed under:
IPCC
Greenhouse gases
Climate Science— gavin @ 5:40 PM
There was a minor kerfuffle in recent days over claims by Tim Flannery (author of "The Weather Makers") that new information from the upcoming IPCC synthesis report will show that we have reached 455 ppmv CO2_equivalent 10 years ahead of schedule, with predictable implications. This is confused and incorrect, but the definitions of CO2_e, why one would use it and what the relevant level is, are all highly uncertain in many peoples' minds. So here is a quick rundown.
Definition: The CO2_equivalent level is the amount of CO2 that would be required to give the same global mean radiative forcing as the sum of a basket of other forcings. This is a way to include the effects of CH4 and N2O etc. in a simple way, particularly for people doing future impacts or cost-benefit analysis. The equivalent amount is calculated using the IPCC formula for CO2 forcing:
Total Forcing = 5.35 log(CO2_e/CO2_orig)
where CO2_orig is the 1750 concentration (278 ppmv).
Usage: There are two main ways it is used. Firstly, it is often used to group together all the forcings from the Kyoto greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O and CFCs), and secondly to group together all forcings (including ozone, sulphate aerosols, black carbon etc.). The first is simply a convenience, but the second is what matters to the planet. Many stabilisation scenarios, such as are being discussed in UNFCCC negotiations are based on stabilising total CO2_e at 450, 550 or 750 ppmv.
Magnitude The values of CO2_e (Kyoto) and CO2_e (Total) can be calculated from Figure 2.21 and Table 2.12 in the IPCC WG1 Chapter 2. The forcing for CO2, CH4 (including indirect effects), N2O and CFCs is 1.66+0.48+0.07+0.16+0.34=2.71 W/m2 (with around 0.3 W/m2 uncertainty). Using the formula above, that gives CO2_e (Kyoto) = 460 ppmv. However, including all the forcings (some of which are negative), you get a net forcing of around 1.6 W/m2, and a CO2_e (Total) of 375 ppmv with quite a wide error bar. This is, coincidently, close to the actual CO2 level.
Implications The important number is CO2_e (Total) which is around 375 ppmv. Stabilisation scenarios of 450 ppmv or 550 ppmv are therefore still within reach. Claims that we have passed the first target are simply incorrect, however, that is not to say they are easily achievable. It is even more of a stretch to state that we have all of a sudden gone past the 'dangerous' level. It is still not clear what that level is, but if you take a conventional 450 ppmv CO2_e value (which will lead to a net equilibrium warming of ~ 2 deg C above pre-industrial levels), we are still a number of years from that, and we have (probably) not yet committed ourselves to reaching it.
Finally, the IPCC synthesis report is simply a concise summary of the three separate reports that have already come out. It therefore can't be significantly different from what is already available. But this is another example where people are quoting from draft reports that they have neither properly read nor understood and for which better informed opinion is not immediately available. I wish journalists and editors would resist the temptation to jump on leaks like this (though I know it's hard). The situation is confusing enough without adding to it unintentionally.

Vote for Gore

Gore: Back to work on environment
By Jim Christie
Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:53:51 GMT


PALO ALTO, California (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, said he was getting straight back to work on the "planetary emergency" of climate change.
But he refused to answer reporters' questions on whether the award would make him change his mind and enter the U.S. presidential campaign as a Democratic candidate before the November 2008 election.
"We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing," Gore said, appearing in public nearly nine hours after the award was announced in Oslo.
Gore shared the Nobel prize with the U.N. climate panel for their work helping galvanize international action against global warming.
"It is the most dangerous challenge we've ever faced but it is also the greatest opportunity that we have ever had to make changes that we should be making for other reasons anyway," said Gore, standing with his wife, Tipper, and four Stanford University faculty members who work with the U.N. climate panel.
"This is a chance to elevate global consciousness about the challenges that we face now."
"I'm going back to work right now. This is just the beginning," Gore added, leaving the 70 journalists hanging by not taking questions.
That left unanswered a question on the minds of many in the United States after his Nobel win: would Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush, jump in to join a crowded Democratic field of candidates ahead of the presidential election next year.
Gore has made it known he is not interested, although some Democratic activists are campaigning for him to get into the race, and the Nobel award on Friday further fueled their hopes.
Gore has campaigned on climate change since leaving office in 2001 after the bruising and disputed election result that put Bush in the White House.
BUSINESS AS USUAL
Gore, who appeared somber rather than elated over the award, said, "For my part, I will be doing everything I can to try to understand how to best use the honor and recognition of this award as a way of speeding up the change in awareness and the change in urgency."
"It truly is a planetary emergency and we have to respond quickly," he said.
Gore carried on with his plans despite the life-changing announcement, attending a scheduled meeting in Palo Alto in the heart of the Silicon Valley, where innovators are eager to jump start the clean technology industry.
Stanford biology professor Chris Field said the prize "adds tremendous momentum" to work on conservation, efficiency, new technology and carbon capture and storage.
"I think we are seeing there is no single solution ... but there are great opportunities in all four areas," Field said.
Gore said in a statement earlier that he would donate all of his share of the Nobel prize winnings to the Alliance for Climate Protection -- a nonprofit group Gore founded last year to raise public awareness of climate change.
"This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis -- a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years," Gore said in his earlier written statement.
(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington)