Environmental management at the global level: the...

Environmental management at the global level: the governance

challenge

Katherine Richardson, ProfessorCenter for Macroecology Evolution and ClimateLeader of the Sustainability Science CenterUniversity of Copenhagen

Professor Katherine Richardson www.sustainability.ku.dk

2014

2100?


Science CANNOT

• Provide proof

• (= we will never have 100% certainty)

Science CAN:

• Observe (enoughObservationer can lead to fact)

• ”Explain” (i.e. find the most likely explanation for the observations)

What is the role of the UN Climate Panel IPCC here?


IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

• Consists of 3 workinggroups

• Does not make new observations (does not do research)!

• ”Assessment” – provides a resume of all existingobservations (reportedin the scientific peer reviewed literature)

• ”lowest commondenominator”


What do the observations show?

• Much variability in air temperature but

• That the last 3 decades are the warmest on record

From IPCC AR5 WG1 Sept. 2013


That warming is ”patchy” :



That rainfall patterns have changed:



AND that

• Arctic sea ice is reduced• The ocean is warming• Sea level is rising• The ocean is being acidified

Ocean acidificationChallenge to marine biodiversity and ability of oceans to function as sink of CO2

• Southern Ocean and Arctic ocean projected to become corrosive to aragonite by 2030-2060

Turley et al 2006

The ”other” CO2 problem!


From R. Buddemeier, based on Kleypas et al. 1999Figure 4.12 In Steffen et al 2004: Global Change and the Earth System, a planet under pressure. Springer


”> 95% certain that humans are causingglobal climate change”

How does the IPCC explainthese observations?

It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human‐induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period


Charles Darwin: 1809‐1882

•On the Origin of Species (1859)Challenged the contemporary(religious based) understanding of the Human‐Earth Relationship and the contemporary economicparadigm.

•Over 150 years later, potential US Presidential candidates arediscussing whether Darwin’sconclusions should be taught in schools!


Steffen et al. 2004

The changinghuman

enterprise, from 1750

to 2000

Note the start of the’Great Acceleration’around 1950, when

many activities beganor accelerated sharply

Steffen et al 2004


Steffen et al. 2004

Responses of the Earth System to the accelerating human enterprise.

Root cause = demand for resources and servicesapproaching supply!

”Business as usual is dead!” Lord Nicholas Stern, 2009Steffen et al 2004

Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for

humanity in the Anthropocene (Nature,

461 : 472 – 475, Sept 24 -2009)

Dias 16

Enhedens navn

Sted og dato

Nitr

ogen

flo

w

Ocean

acidity?

50-60

70-80

Latest data

90-00

Pre-Ind.

?

??

?


For the first time in human history, the demand for some essential natural resources and services

is beginning to exceed supply

• ”Environment” can no longer be regarded as being distinct from societies (economic) interests (natural resources = currency)

• Future human development can only be based on more efficient resource use and/or the development of alternatives for resources where supply cannot meet demand.


18

The greatest challenge of the 21st century:

Acknowledging that the planet’s resources are limitedAND the development of (governance) mechanisms to share these resources among9 billion people

Environmental management at the global level: the...

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