Transcript Presentación de PowerPoint

st
21
The
Century
climate challenge
“One generation plants a tree;
the next generation gets the shade.”
Chinese Proverb
“You already know enough.
So do I. It is not knowledge we lack.
What is missing is the courage
to understand what we know
and to draw conclusions.”
Sven Lindqvist
•
The world has less than a decade to avoid
dangerous climate change that could bring
unprecedented human development reversals
•
Climate change is a threat to humanity as a whole.
But it is the poor, a constituency with no
responsibility for the ecological debt we are running
up, who face the most immediate and most severe
human costs
•
The Human Development Report 2007/2008 calls for
a ‘twin track’ approach that combines stringent
mitigation to limit 21st Century warming to less than
2 degree centigrade, with strengthened international
cooperation on adaptation
•
The forthcoming conference of the parties in Bali is
a unique opportunity to put the interests of the
world’s poor and future generations at the heart of
climate change negotiations
The 21st Century climate
challenge
Three distinctive characteristics:
– It is cumulative
– The effects are irreversible
– Large time lags – today’s
emissions are tomorrow’s
problems
– It is global
Rising CO2 emissions are pushing up
stocks & increasing temperatures
•
In the past 100 years
the earth has warmed
0.70C
•
Atmospheric
concentrations of CO2
are increasing at 1.9
ppm each year. It
reached 379 ppm in
2005
•
Between 2000 and 2005
an average of 26 Gt of
CO2 was releases into
the atmosphere each
year
The Global carbon
account
• Defining dangerous – keeping within
2°C
• Establishing a 21st Century carbon
budget
• Defining a sustainable emission’s
pathway
• The problem of inertia– the case for
adaptation
The 21st Century carbon
budget is set at 1,456 Gt CO2
to avoid dangerous climate
change
The 21st Century carbon budget
is set for early expiry
Charting a course away
dangerous climate change
The sustainable emissions pathway is as
follows
– The world – cuts of 50 percent by
2050 with a peak by 2020
– Developed countries – cuts of 80
percent by 2050
– Developing countries – cuts of 20
percent by 2050
with respect to 1990
Halving emissions by 2050 could
avoid dangerous climate change
Some people walk more
lightly than others
•
The UK (population 60 million)
emits more CO2 than Egypt,
Nigeria, Pakistan and Vietnam
(total population 472 million)
•
The state of Texas (population 23
million) has a deeper footprint than
the whole sub-Saharan Africa (720
million people)
•
The 19 million people living in New
York have a deeper footprint than
the 766 million people living in the
50 least developed countries
The distribution of current
emissions points to an inverse
relationship between climate
change vulnerability and
responsibility
How many planets?
• The 21st century carbon budget amounts
to around 14.5 Gt CO2 per year
• Total CO2 emissions in 2004 stood at 29
Gt
• If every person living in the developing
world would have the same carbon
footprint than an average person in the
US or Canada, we would need the
equivalent to nine planets to absorb the
CO2
Climate shocks:
risk and vulnerability
in an unequal world
“The countries most vulnerable are least able
to protect themselves. They also contribute
least to the global emissions of greenhouse
gases. Without action they will pay a high
price for the actions of others.”
Kofi Annan
“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is
not natural. It is man-made and
it can be overcome and eradicated by
the actions of human beings.”
Nelson Mandela
Risk and vulnerability
• Climate risk is an external fact of life
for the entire world
• Vulnerability is a measure of capacity
to manage climate hazards without
suffering a long-term potentially
irreversible loss of well-being.
• The state of human development
shapes the process by which risk is
converted into vulnerability
Disaster risk is skewed towards
developing countries
• 1 in 19 people are
affected in
developing countries
• The corresponding
number is 1 in 1,500
in OECD countries
A risk differential
of 79
The human development
backdrop
• Poverty, child mortality and malnutrition
– There are still around 1 billion people living on
less than a dollar a day.
– Around 28 percent of children in LDCs are
underweight or stunted.
– Only 32 countries (of 147) are on track to
achieve the MDG on child mortality
• Inequality
– More than 80 percent of the world’s population
lives in countries where income differentials are
widening
– Underlying inequalities act as a barrier for early
recovery after shocks
Low human development traps
The potential human costs of climate
change have been understated
• Climate related risks force people into
downward spirals of disadvantage that
undermine future opportunities
• In Ethiopia, children exposed to a drought in
early childhood are 36 percent more likely to
be malnourished five years later – a figure that
translates into 2 million additional cases of
child malnutrition
• Indian women born during a drought or a
flood in the 1970s were 19 percent less likely
to ever attend primary school
Five human development tipping
points
 Reduced agricultural productivity
 Heightened water insecurity
 Increased exposure to extreme
weather events
 Collapse of ecosystems
 Increased health risks
Climate change will hurt
developing country agriculture
Heightened water
insecurity – glacial melting
•
Glacial melting posses
threats to more than 40
percent of the world’s
population.
•
In the arid cost of Peru,
80 percent of fresh water
originates from glacial
melt.
•
The flow of the Indus,
could decline as much as
70 percent
•
In Central Asia, losses of
glacial melt into Amu
Darya and Syr Darya
rivers could restrict water
for irrigation and
hydroelectric power
Extreme weather events
•
The number of additional people experiencing
coastal flooding could range from 134 to 332
million for a 3o- 4o increase in temperature.
•
Tropical storms could raise the figure to 371 million
by the end of the 21st century
•
Possible consequences of one meter rise in sea
level
– In Lower Egypt, 6 million people displaced and 4,500
kms2 of farmland flooded
– In Vietnam, 22 million people displaced
– In Bangladesh, 18 percent of land area could be
inundated affecting 11 percent of the population
– In the Maldives, more than 80 percent of land area is
less than 1 meter above sea level
Avoiding dangerous
climate change:
strategies for mitigation
“We shall require a substantially new manner
of thinking if mankind is to survive.”
Albert Einstein
“Speed is irrelevant if you are going
in the wrong direction.”
Mahatma Gandhi
“Alone we can do so little;
together we can do so much.”
Helen Keller
Avoiding dangerous climate
change – strategies for mitigation
• Setting mitigation targets:
current problems
• Pricing carbon: the role of
markets
• The role of public policy:
regulation and research &
development
Problems setting emission
reduction targets
• Insufficient ambition
• Insufficient urgency
• Inaccurate indicators
• Inadequate sectoral coverage
• Inconsistent base years
Targets are de-linked from policies
Pricing carbon emissions
• Market failure: Polluters do not
suffer the worse consequences
of their own pollution
• Immediate challenge: to push the
price of carbon to a level
consistent with the sustainable
emissions pathway
• Ways to do it: taxation and capand-trade and trade
Taxation versus cap-and-trade
Where should the price of carbon be
set?
How should the price be generated?
– Under carbon taxation emitters are
required to pay for each tone of CO2 they
produce
– Under cap-and-trade, the government sets
an overall emissions cap and issues
tradable allowances to allow business the
“right to emit”
The relative merits of taxation
and cap-and-trade
• Administration
• Price predictability
• Revenue mobilization
The differences can be
exaggerated
The critical role of regulation
and
government action
• The energy mix
• The residential sector
• Vehicle emission standards
• R&D and deployment of low carbon
technologies
The Energy Mix
•
Currently energy mix is dominated by fossil fuels
•
Renewable energy is not competitive with coal-fired
power – price of carbon and incentives for
predicable markets can play a role
– Germany’ Renewable Sources Act – fix price for
20 years
– Spain – wind power satisfies around 8 percent
of total electricity demand. In 2005 saved 19
million t CO2 emissions
– Denmark – tax breaks on capital investments. In
two decades wind has increased the share in
electricity generation to 20 percent
Residential Sector
•
Low cost mitigation
•
In OECD residential accounts for 35-40 percent of
national CO2 emissions
•
Appliances alone produce roughly 12 percent
•
Policies on building and appliances could save up
to 29 percent emissions (3.9 Gt CO2) by 2020
equivalent to three times current emissions of India
•
Average European household could save 200 to
1000 Euros annually through energy efficiency
•
The best efficiency standards of electrical
appliances could save 322 million t CO2 by 2010
equivalent to 100 million cars off the road (all cars
from Canada, France and Germany)
Vehicle Emission Standards
• Personal transportation is the largest
consumer of oil
• In OECD the automobile sector accounts for
about 30 percent of total greenhouse gas
emissions
• Improvements in the United States regulatory
standards would represent cuttings equivalent
to France’s total emissions
Increased coal efficiency could
cut CO2 emissions
Adapting to the inevitable:
national action and
international cooperation
“If you are neutral in a situation of injustice,
you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“An injustice committed against
anyone is a threat to everyone.”
Montesquieu
Towards adaptation apartheid?
Developed country investments dwarf
adaptation funds
•
By mid-2007, actual
multilateral financing
delivered through
UNFCCC amounted to
US$ 26 million
•
This is equivalent to
one week spending in
floods defences in
the UK
•
Amounts are not the
only problem. Timing
and fulfillment of
pledges present
further limitations
Investing in adaptation up to
2015
Additional financing needs for climate
proofing infrastructure and building resilience
are estimated to be at least 86 billion by 2015
- Climate proofing infrastructure
- Social protection
- Strengthening disaster response
The Human Development Report
underscores that:
• The poor are suffering and will suffer more with climate change. They
are at greatest risk to face human development reversals leading to
low human development traps.
• Climate change is an urgent matter. We need to act now.
• Both mitigation and adaptation are needed to truly fight climate
change and the threats it poses to humanity.
• Rich countries must cut emissions by 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.
• International cooperation on finance and technology transfer is
needed. The report argues for the creation of a Climate Change
Mitigation Facility.
• Extreme inequalities in adaptation capacity exist. International
cooperation has been slow to materialize. Adaptation plans needs
need to be part of wider strategies of poverty alleviation.
The HDR 2007/2008 will be
launched 27 November
2007
http://hdr.undp.org