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CIS oƒ HDGC
Carnegie Mellon
Help Wanted – AR4
Gary Yohe
March 3, 2004
Context
• Don’t send money.
• Not asking for CLAs or Las
• Send ideas, and work…
»Here is the State of the Process as it Begins!
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New Components - WGII
• Chapter 1 – Assessment of Observed Changes
» Methods in Detection and Attribution (first order causality)
» Larger Scale Aggregation and Attribution (second order
causality)
• Chapter 2 through 16 – Sectors and Regions
• Chapter 17 – Assessment of Adaptation Options,
Capacity, Opportunities, Constraints and Practice
» Methods and Concepts (vulnerability, resilience, etc.)
» Current Practices (risk management, variability, etc.)
» Assessing Adaptive Capacity (generic and specific, links to
development)
» Enhancing Adaptation (technologies, adaptive learning, etc.)
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More New Components in WGII
• Chapter 18 – Inter-relationship between Adaptation
and Mitigation
» Implementation and determinants of capacity
» Objectives – reducing sensitivity, exposure; dealing with risk
» Scale issues, etc.
• Chapter 19 – Key Vulnerabilities (TAR 19)
• Chapter 20 – Perspectives on Climate Change and
Sustainability
» Adaptation with multiple stresses
» Risk and hazard management
» Aggregate impacts versus sub-regional and local
» Uncertainties
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Chapters 18 & 20
• Their purpose is to address the current state of knowledge
about how the impacts of climate change and climate
variability (with and perhaps without adaptation) might
complement or impede processes of sustainable development
in the face of multiple non-climatic stressors?
• Neither will serve as executive summaries of the contribution
of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report.
Rather, they will focus attention on new knowledge since the
Third Assessment Report on the interface between climate
issues and development strategies.
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A Story Line for Their Contribution
• Fundamental results from the TAR lead to concerns
about global vulnerabilities to multiple stressors.
• A regional focus can reveal the implication of
vulnerabilities on development, access to resources
and equity.
• Paying systematic attention on the determinants of
adaptive capacity can reveal the implication of
development, access and equity on vulnerabilities.
• Current inadequacies in our ability to produce
global portraits of net impacts are profound.
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Review of pertinent material in the Third
Assessment Report
• The capacity to adapt varies considerably across
regions, countries, and socioeconomic groups. It
varies even more significantly from location to
location within regions and countries.
• Adaptations are most frequently inspired by
variability and extreme events and not by longterm secular changes.
• Least developed countries are likely to be the most
vulnerable to climate change, climate variability,
and the effects of other stressors.
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Opportunities and Challenges
The determinants of adaptive capacity correspond
well with precursors for sustainable development.
Sustainable development and adaptation to climate
change and climate variability are both constrained
by the weakest underlying determinant or
precursor.
The key to integrating climate and development
issues lies in understanding how systems cope with
climate variability and other shorter-term
stressors that impede steps toward sustainable
development.
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Recall the Determinants of
Adaptive Capacity
• Availability of adaptation options
• Availability and distribution of resources
• Stocks of human and social capital
• Ability of decision makers to
» Assume responsibility
» Process information
» Separate signal from noise
• Access to risk spreading mechanisms
• Public perception – attribution and responsibility
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Fundamental Conclusions from the
TAR - Chapter 18
• “Current knowledge of adaptation and adaptive
capacity is insufficient for reliable prediction of
adaptations; it is also insufficient for rigorous
evaluation of planned adaptation options, measures
and policies of governments” (pg 880 or WGII
Report)
• Vulnerability is a function of exposure and sensitivity;
and both can be influenced by adaptive capacity
• All of these are path dependent and site specific
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Anticipated Uncertainties, Gaps and
Knowledge Needs at the End of AR4
• Current knowledge is still insufficient for reliable
predictions of adaptations across the globe (some
regions and sectors, particularly in developed
countries, have been adequately analyzed).
• Current knowledge is still insufficient for rigorous
evaluation of planned governmental adaptations
(options, measures or policies) across the globe
(some regions and sectors, particularly in developed
countries, have been adequately analyzed).
• Current knowledge is still insufficient for sustaining
credible global portraits of impacts cum adaptation
along any given climate scenario.
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Uncertainties, Gaps and Knowledge
Needs, continued
• Global integrated assessment efforts cannot yet
adequately reflect net impacts of even gradual and
predictable climate change.
• Researchers should not necessarily tie their
analyses explicitly to global climate scenarios;
climate scenarios can inform their analyses by
framing a range of not-implausible futures.
• Looking at simultaneous vulnerability to multiple
stresses can provide insight into how adaptation
might be most efficiently mainstreamed into
programs and policies that have been designed to
alleviate problems of more immediate concern.
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Uncertainties, Gaps and Knowledge
Needs, continued
• Climate variability and extreme events become
priority problems quickly, and so it might be
possible to mainstream adaptation in these arenas
most effectively; but adequate analysis of an
adaptation problem does not necessarily translate
into adequate management.
• Current knowledge can support analyses of the
joint efficacy of mitigation (stabilization scenarios,
for example) and adaptation for some regions and
sectors.
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Some Working Hypotheses
• Countries where the effects of climate change on
development, access to resources, and equity
measures are largest tend to be the same
countries where adaptive capacity is the weakest.
• Stronger evidence now exists that developing
countries are most vulnerable to climate change,
climate variability, and other stresses because the
effects of these stresses on weak determinants of
adaptive capacity are the largest.
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Some Working Hypotheses,
continued
• Working Group II can rigorously assess the joint
the effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation for
some regions, sectors, and/or systems where
regional advantages in knowledge can be exploited.
• Working Group III should not yield to the
temptation of using scattered local and regional
estimates of climate impacts net of adaptation to
produce unsubstantiated global portraits along
specific scenarios whose regional manifestations are
fraught with enormous uncertainty and thus highly
suspect.
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A Result from the Scoping Meeting
• The synthesis of adaptation and mitigation is located
in Working Group II………
»This is the point of Chapter 18
WE NEED SOME LITERATURE TO REVIEW!
HELP WANTED
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A Perspective from the TAR
• Climate related damages that can be avoided by
mitigation are the benefits of that mitigation
• Credible calculations of the benefits of mitigation
must therefore recognize the potential that
adaptation (autonomous and planned) could reduce
damages and therefore the benefits of mitigation.
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Support for that Approach
The environmental economics literature – optimal
intervention assumes efficient evasive activity
The finance literature – calculates risk premia net of
diversifiable risk thereby assuming efficient
diversification
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More from the TAR
• Adaptation may or may not reduce damages
significantly
» SLR examples from developed coastlines (work on
the US developed coastline shows significant cost
savings from adaptation; corroboration in
subsequent global coverage by Nichols and friends)
» SLR examples from low-lying islands (Atoll states
work by Adger shows abandonment only option to
SLR, but earlier significant stress from other
sources)
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Including Adaptation can be
Critical
• It follows that adaptation cannot be ignored in any
credible calculation of the benefit side of mitigation
»It passes the Lave test (factor of two)
»But we are not sure where, when and how.
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Two Asides from Neil Adger
• What can be attributed to SLR when atoll states are
more vulnerable to extinction in the near term from
internal development paths?
• How much mitigation would be forthcoming if the COP
of the UNFCCC did not know which 5 of the 180+
members were facing extinction?
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A Potentially Unsettling
Conclusion
• Asking for estimates of the economic value of
mitigation might be wrong question.
• Thinking about mitigation in the context of a costbenefit framework might be the wrong approach
… …at least for a while… …
This is why it is good that it is in WGII
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A Risk-based Approach can
Accommodate the Synthesis
• Thinking about both mitigation and adaptation as
tools to reduce the risk of troublesome, intolerable,
etc… climate change makes them complements rather
than substitutes, and we are out of the bind of simply
cataloging “win-win” options.
• Mitigation is then a means of hedging against bad
outcomes measured, net of adaptation, in terms of
the likelihood of crossing critical thresholds.
• Adaptation is then a means by which systems can
expand their coping ranges or delay their contraction.
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The Cost Side
• The cost side of mitigation (thought of as a riskreducing tool whose outputs are measured in terms of
a vector of impacts) is one of cost-effectiveness; i.e.,
minimizing the cost of achieving certain objectives.
• The cost side of adaptation (thought of as a riskreducing tools whose outputs are measured in terms
of the likelihood of crossing thresholds) is one of
opportunity cost informed by understanding how the
determinants of adaptive capacity help or impede
adaptation.
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Decision-makers’ Context
• Their job is to assess the relative opportunity costs
of achieving specific risk reductions.
• Double causality is required to assess the
effectiveness of mitigation.
• Single causality is sufficient to assess adaptation; but
not in a synthetic approach.
• Uncertainty becomes the reason for contemplating
policy rather than the reason for contemplating
delay.
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Can Science Support this
Approach?
Will there be Literature to Assess?
• Recent MIT work (Webster, et. al., “Uncertainty
Analysis on Climate Change and Research Policy
Response”, Climatic Change, 2003) produces
distributions of temperature change associated with a
specific concentration threshold and translates that
into SLR possibilities (at least for 2100, but could
produce transcients).
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Will there be Literature?
• Recent Schneider work (See OECD Workshop on the
Benefits of Climate Policy and forthcoming special
issue of Global Environmental Change) produces
distributions of an extreme event (THC shutdown)
conditional on
»natural variables (climate sensitivity, etc…)
»policy-related variables (the discount rate in an
otherwise informed optimization exercise).
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Will there be Literature?
• Roger Jones (See OECD Workshop on the Benefits of
Climate Policy and forthcoming special issue of Global
Environmental Change) : links site specific thresholds
to adaptation and climate variables
» SLR illustration with the likelihood of crossing
critical thresholds at specific years
» Episodes of coral bleaching and mortality with the
likelihood of crossing critical ocean temperature
thresholds at specific years
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The Implicit Scheme to Gain Access
to Considerations of Mitigation
Temperature (climate variable) distributions →
Impact (vector) distributions →
Frequency of crossing critical thresholds
Adding adaptation assesses the potential of changing
the thresholds [or the correlation between
temperature (climate variable) and impact].
Contemplating mitigation tracks changes in the
temperature (climate variable) distribution
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Sea Level Rise is a Great Example –
As Usual
• Distributions of temperature change support
distributions of SLR.
• Local subsidence combines with this to produce
distributions of local SLR.
• Distributions of impacts (inundation, salt-water
intrusion, vulnerability to coastal storms, etc….)
follow from local modeling links to SLR.
• Adaptations are obvious (protect or not; set-back
rules, etc….)
• Mitigation effects distributions of temperature and
SLR trajectories.
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A Second Approach – Not
Implausible Futures
• Not-implausible futures produce ranges of impacts
across which adaptations must cope.
• The key on the adaptation side is to look for robust
responses that handle many possible futures.
• The link to mitigation follows from changes in not
implausible futures.
• The key on the mitigation side is to look at the effect
on the range or timing of futures across which
robustness might be measured.
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A New Example – Flooding in
Bangledesh
• Strzepek has calibrated a hydrologic model of the
Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers to COSMIC output to
produce trajectories of maximum monthly flow;
critical variables include
Monthly precipitation and temperature (winter months) in
highlands (determines timing and significance of snowmelt)
• Strzepek has also calibrated the likelihood of various
degrees of flooding to maximum flows
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Preliminary Results – 684
Scenarios
450000
400000
350000
Flow in 2100
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
100000
120000
140000
160000
180000
200000
220000
Flow in 2050
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Representative Scenarios
450000
400000
Flow in 2100
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
100000
120000
140000
160000
180000
200000
220000
FLow in 2050
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An Alternative View of the
Representative Scenarios
400000
Maximum Monthly Flow
350000
Scenario 1
300000
Scenario 2
250000
Scenario 3
Scenario 4
200000
Scenario 5
Scenario 6
150000
Scenario 7
100000
Scenario 8
50000
0
2000
2020
2040
2060
2080
2100
Year
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The Likelihood of Severe Flooding
Probability of an Extreme Flood (per year)
1.000
0.800
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
0.600
Scenario 4
Scenario 5
0.400
Scenario 6
Scenario 7
Scenario 8
0.200
0.000
2000
2020
2040
2060
2080
2100
Year
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The Likelihood of Moderate
Flooding
Probability of Medium Flooding (per year)
1.000
0.800
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
0.600
Scenario 4
Scenario 5
0.400
Scenario 6
Scenario 7
Scenario 8
0.200
0.000
2000
2020
2040
2060
2080
2100
Year
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Carnegie Mellon
The Likelihood of Modest Flooding
Probability of Low Flooding (per year)
1.000
0.800
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
0.600
Scenario 3
Scenario 4
Scenario 5
0.400
Scenario 6
Scenario 7
Scenario 8
0.200
0.000
2000
2020
2040
2060
2080
2100
Year
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Efficacy of Protecting Against
Modest Flooding Only
Efficacy Factor for Protecting Against Only
Modest Flooding
1.00
0.80
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
0.60
Scenario 4
Scenario 5
0.40
Scenario 6
Scenario 7
Scenario 8
0.20
0.00
2000
2020
2040
2060
2080
2100
Year
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Carnegie Mellon
Efficacy of Protecting against
Modest and Moderate Flooding
Efficacy Factor of Protecting against Both
Moderate and Modest Flooding Riverside
1.00
0.80
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
0.60
Scenario 4
Scenario 5
0.40
Scenario 6
Scenario 7
Scenario 8
0.20
0.00
2000
2020
2040
2060
2080
2100
Year
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Decrease in the Likelihood of
Modest Flooding with Moderate
Protection
Decrease in the Likelihood of Modest Flooding
1.000
0.800
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
0.600
Scenario 3
Scenario 4
Scenario 5
0.400
Scenario 6
Scenario 7
Scenario 8
0.200
0.000
2000
2020
2040
2060
2080
2100
Year
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Carnegie Mellon
Adding Mitigation
• Track the representative scenarios with mitigation
imposed to achieve some sort of stabilization target.
• Track the differences in the likelihood of flooding,
the efficacy of protection, and the necessary timing –
would protection be more effective (because peak
flows are lower) or would the timing of the benefits
change (forward or backward in time)?
• QUESTION: STABILIZE WHAT?
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Multiple Stabilization Options:
Two Examples
• Limit concentrations – temperature uncertainty
persists, particularly with 5% to 10% of the tail of
the cumulative probability distribution at 9 degrees
or more.
• Limit temperatures – produces significant uncertainty
about the cost of compliance.
• Implementation uncertainty – the ability to achieve
the target and/or effect midcourse corrections
contingent on measuring something and understanding
causality.
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In Any Case – One Way Forward
• Analysis of mitigation should focus on costeffectiveness, the ability to make mid-course
corrections, and implementation uncertainty.
• Analysis of adaptation should focus on understanding
the roles played by the various determinants of
adaptive capacity and the antecedents of robust
options.
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A Two Way Street
• Adaptation must be included in any assessment of
what may or may not be accomplished by mitigation in
terms reducing the likelihood crossing critical impact
thresholds.
• The degree to which mitigation complements
adaptation in reducing those likelihoods must be
explored with full recognition of associated
uncertainties in the outcome of mitigation.
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Carnegie Mellon