puranen

Today, May 4th, the full IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report was released. Earlier this year, a summary of the report aimed for policy maker was made public, which among other things concluded that the global warming to at least 90 percent certainty is caused by human activity. A 90 precent certainty is a very strong statement in scientific terms and the report should put an end to the debate whether global warming is induced by humans or due to natural variations alone.

Naturally, there are still great uncertainties due to the extreme complexity of the climate of earth and hence predicting future warming is difficult. However, the first part of the report predicts a global increase of the temperature during the next 100 years to be in the range of 2-5 degrees C (app. 4-10 F). The actual warming will depend greatly on the extent on different feedback mechanism which are quite poorly understood. For example, it is known that less ice and snow on the surface of earth will allow our planet to absorb more heat from the sun rather than reflecting radiation back into space. Another similar mechanism that has the potential to further increase the warming is the release of methane gas, another contributor to global warming, from what today is frozen tundra. A major concern is that mechanisms of these kinds, which extents are not well understood today, will cause a bolting global warming leading to dramatically changed conditions on earth.

I have not yet familiarized myself with the most recent report and its conclusion. I believe the most important aspect of the report will be to see how the panel has estimated the economical impacts of reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide. The economical growth experienced in the developed world since the eve of industrialization was triggered and is still largely sustained by an abundance of cheep fossil fuels. It will be crucial that the wealthy part of the world takes a lead in building an economy independent of fossil fuels, even if it will be associated with some additional transitional costs. If the wealthy partof the world choose not to strive towards a carbon neutral economy, the developing world will understandably feel free of responsibility as well.

There are several different strategies used by people objecting taking action towards global warming, at least actions that will have some economic costs associated with it. Now, the strategy of entirely denying global warming, which has been widely used in the past, no longer should carry any credibility. Instead, I am noticing several strategies which all have the same purpose: Convincing people that we can fight global warming without any economical costs and without altering the way we live our lives. One example is the over-belief in science and technology demonstrated by many politicians, including governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and the Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Their message is that we do not need to make any major changes in our lifestyles; rather technology is going to solve the problems for us. Not only is technology going to save us, but also the technology is largely going to be funded by private corporations.

There are some serious flaws in the reasoning of the technotopians. Although human kind has reached tremendous technical and scientific achievements, which has lead to improved standard of living for a majority of the people on earth (and that way indirectly caused global warming), technology alone is often ineffective without political commitment. For decades, the world has known the science and medicine to reduce child mortality in extremely poor regions of earth. Nevertheless, in 2005 UNICEF estimated that as many as 29 million children under the age of five died of conditions that are easily prevented and cured. Even with the technology known, implementing it is a completely different issue. Corporations simply do not have any economical incentives to reduce extreme poverty, and there is no reason to blame them since corporations are mainly driven by profit. However, when governments fail to take their moral responsibility, as in the case of extreme poverty and child mortality, the consequences can be disastrous (I recomend www.globalissues.org for more information and background).

I believe that markets are going to be crucial in developing a sustainable development on earth. However, markets do not always have a great sense of responsibility, nor do corporation necessarily have sufficient knowledge. Ultimately, governments need to provide corporations with incentives, as well as knowledge when needed, to encourage more climate friendly practices.

Governmental influences do create inefficiencies in the economy, that is well known. However, there are ways to minimize them. In the case of carbon dioxide emissions, the carbon credit system implemented in the European Union constitutes a good example of a policy which reduces emission and minimizes inefficiencies. By trading carbon credits, which entitles companies to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide, investments aimed at reducing emissions are being allocated to sites where they are most efficient. The carbon credit system has not been running for long and certainly contains flaws still. Yet, I believe market solutions such as the carbon credit systems will be of great importance in the future. In defense of both Schwarzenegger and Reinfeldt, I ought to say that they both are proponents of carbon credits.

There is one kind of critics of climate friendly policies which truly scare me. It is the people who say that there is nothing we can do to stop climate change. They believe that we should just keep on doing what we have been doing since the costs of changing is to great. Further they argue that whatever efforts are made in the developed world are going to be offset by the economic boom in many parts of the developing world. These people are scary because they admit that we may be running into a disaster, but they choose to do nothing. In this case, I believe that even if a crash is inevitable, it is better to hit the brakes rather then the accelerator, because crashing in 120 km/h is a lot worse than in 30 km/h.

It is true that countries such as China and India easily can offset any efforts made by nations in the rest of the world if they do not adapt policies aiming at reducing emissions. The fact that sustainable development requires everyone's cooperation is exactly the reason why international treaties are so important. With everyone playing under the same rules in terms of emission, no country will get a comparative advantage over another. Regarding the cost of changing our economy to an a more sustainable kind, it has been estimated by several studies, including the Stern Review for the British Governments, that the cost of changing our economy today is substantially lower than suffering from future consequences of severe global warming. Even in absolute terms, the loss in growth as a result from sustainable policies aiming at stabalizing the global warming is estimated to be in the order of fractions of a procent.

The least thing we should do is to loose hope, because the day we start believing that global warming is unstoppable and choose not to act, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

 

This is an article I wrote in response to the debate on global warmning in Collegiate Times, the daily student newspaper at Virginia Tech. The article was published in February 2007.

To begin with, let's state some facts. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is an organization formed by World Meteorological Organization United Nations Environment Programme in 1988. In the most recent report, which will be published later this year after six years of work, more than 800 leading climate scientists and some 2500 expert reviewers have contributed to the most comprehensive report on climate change up to date. So far, only the summary has been released in order to offer an overview of the findings. In contradiction to what was stated in "Global Warming in the spotlight", the summary is written by participating scientists, not bureaucrats. The Fraser Institute, which recently released a document criticizing the IPCC report and its conclusions, is not a scientific institute, but a right-wing Canada based think tank receiving funds from several corporations, including Exxon Mobile. The scientists of the Fraser institute consists of a mixed group of people where some have connections to various fossil fuel corporations and others are not even working in fields related to climatology (for more information and references, see www.desmogblog.com). Adding that the think tank American Enterprise Institute, as recently disclosed by the British newspaper The Guardian, offers a $10 000 reward for any scientists criticizing the IPCC report, should leave no doubts who should be considered more credible; the over 800 scientists behind the IPCC report or the 61 authors of the document by the Fraser Institute.

One common misunderstanding is that IPCC is not open to deviating views. In fact, one of the strengths of the IPCC reports are that they tend to be on the conservative side and are carefully formulated to express the least common denominator in the research community. Another misapprehension of the IPCC report is that it does not discuss natural explanation such as increased intensity of the sun radiation. As a matter of fact, variations in the sun activity as well the orbit of earth are discussed, but dismissed as explanations of the recent global warming.

The IPCC report summary, which can be found at www.ipcc.ch, states that the global warming measured over the last century to at least 90 percent certainty is induced by human activity where emission of carbon dioxide is the most significant contributor. It predicts a global warming ranging from app. 4 to 10 F if the current trend of increasing emissions continues. On a planet already under stress due to a growing population and an ever-increasing extraction of natural resources, a raise of the temperature of such magnitude will impose very severe consequences.

Instead of arguing about an issue already settled within the scientific community as well as outside the U.S, collective actions to decrease human impact needs to be taken immediately. As one of only two nations, the U.S has not signed the Kyoto agreement which maps out a route for decreasing emissions. As the country with the highest emission, both in total terms and per capita, an agreement without the U.S lacks the strength it would need. Equally important, the ignorance of the U.S, gives signals to raising industry nations such as China and India that climate change need not to be taken seriously.

It is not too late to take action on climate change. The IPCC summary shortly discusses different scenarios depending on how future emission will develop. In the thorough "Stern Review" written for the British government, renowned economist Sir Nicholas Stern shows that the cost of acting today is substantially lower than suffering severe future consequences of a passive climate policy. Sustainable development, of which Global warming is one aspect, is not called the greatest challenge of our time for no reason. Despite the difficulties, the least we owe future generations is to try our best.

Arvid Puranen

Senior, Mathematics