GlobalInternational Geosphere-Biosphere Programme ChangeIssue 74 ❚ Winter 2009

Global CO2 budget Planetary Variations and trends A vision for 2050 The future could boundaries be bright Nine identified Cimate-change index A new tool for the Three crossed public and policymakers

www.igbp.net Earth-system science for a sustainable planet Contents Global Change  Issue 74  Winter 2009 regulars Cover image Maintaining the long-term environmental stability of the Holocene, some 3 Editorial experts suggest, will require respecting nine interlinked planetary boundaries that define a “safe operating space” for humanity. As the dials on the image 4 IGBP News depict, we have already overstepped three of the boundaries.

10 Global Change News cover story 8 A planet on the edge What are the key boundaries that have kept our planet’s climate stable for 11,000 years? 14 Features 14 Climate change in a nutshell Can the complexities of the Earth system be condensed down to a single number like the FTSE or Dow Jones indices? 16 A vision for our planet By 2050, everyone will have access to adequate food, clothing, housing, and clean water. This is the dream. Read how to make 36 it a reality. 8 20 Tracking China’s urban emissions A first estimate of China’s urban energy use.

24 Have we reached peak CO2? If CO2 is seen as a non-renewable resource, then the answer is yes.

28 Closing the global budget for CO2 The global financial crisis probably explains the modest 2% growth in emissions in 2008 compared with 2007. 20 32 Where sinking land meets rising water Five hundred million people call deltas their home. Their home is sinking. 36 Climate services for all? The World Climate Conference laid out a framework for climate services on the time and space scales needed by society. Will it deliver? Welcome to Global Change, the new magazine from the International 40 Getting a handle on ecosystem services Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. Global Change is based on our Identifying and valuing ecosystem services has proved difficult. old newsletter, which has had a long and successful history. With the Here land-use scientists discuss new ways of valuing land. new magazine, we want to broaden our appeal and reach a wider audience. It will be distributed to researchers, policymakers, funders, journalists, pressure groups and others. Global Change primarily publishes articles If you have an idea for a feature article or reporting science from within the extensive news, email Science Editor Ninad Bondre This first issue is timed to coincide with the Copenhagen climate IGBP network. [email protected] talks: many of the articles focus on recent carbon-cycle research. Of Published by: course, IGBP research goes much wider than climate change, and this IGBP Secretariat, Box 50005, SE-104 05, Editor: Ninad Bondre Stockholm, SWEDEN [email protected] will be reported in coming issues. We sincerely hope that you enjoy To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your Director of Communications: Owen Gaffney our magazine, and we look forward to your feedback. details email: [email protected] [email protected] Printed by Bergs Grafiska, Sweden Graphic designer: Hilarie Cutler Owen Gaffney ISSN 0284-5865 [email protected] Director of Communications Circulation: 10, 000 copies [email protected]

2 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Editorial Sybil Seitzinger, Executive Director, IGBP

LL attention is vironmental change. on Copenha- In the last 20 years, Agen. The basis IGBP scientists have of the talks are, of demonstrated that course, the Inter- humans are the main governmental Panel driver of global en- on Climate Change vironmental change. (IPCC) assessments Is there an ad- and the UN’s Subsidi- equate system, like ary Body for Scientific IPCC, to assess the and Technological state of knowledge Advice. We are asked of all of the planet’s to supply our lat- key natural cycles, est research findings to both processes. how they are linked and how society IPCC and IGBP began just over 20 is affecting them? Key areas in need years ago. Since then, climate has of synthesis include the global nitro- moved close to the top of the interna- gen cycle, megacities and the coastal tional political agenda and IPCC has zone, environmental change and the adapted to meet the needs of govern- needs of least developed nations, land ments. Indeed, IPCC is now seen as a cover and climate, aerosols and others. gold standard for evidence-based policy. IGBP’s new integration, synthesis The Swedish researcher, Bert Bolin, a and exploration initiative (page 5), ini- key architect of both IPCC and IGBP, set tially in ten policy-relevant areas, aims up programmes like IGBP and the World to bring together many disciplines Climate Research Programme to coordi- in a truly integrated way to reduce nate research internationally, and IPCC uncertainty in the areas highlighted to assess it. But, IGBP was established above. This, we hope, will contribute in recognition that climate change is to a baseline for international research part of a larger challenge – global en- and policy in the coming decade. ❚

Is there an adequate system to assess the state of knowledge of all key “natural cycles?

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 3 IGBP news

Global nitrogen assessment needed urgently Humanity’s colossal effect “But our understanding of on the global carbon cycle the nitrogen cycle in rela- grabs all the headlines. In tion to climate is poor. We many ways, our effect on the are not even sure if nitrogen global nitrogen cycle is as big fertilisation leads to long- if not bigger. Now scientists term carbon sequestration in say nitrogen management on forests,” says Erisman, who a global scale is essential if we is based at the Netherland’s Humans have radically altered the global nitrogen cycle.

are serious about curbing cli- Energy Research Centre. Credit: Istockphoto mate change. This is the mes- During the last few decades, production. sored by IGBP, the US State sage from the International the global increase in reactive All predictions are that Department, the UK’s Depart- Nitrogen Initiative’s (INI) side nitrogen from human sources changing diets towards more ment for Environment, Food event at COP-15 in December. – largely fertiliser manufac- meat and food production and Rural Affairs, the Dutch Event co-organiser Professor ture – has far outstripped particularly in developing Ministry of the Environment, Jan Willem Erisman says, “Ni- natural production, on land countries will lead to more Housing and Spatial Plan- trogen has effects other than at least. Since the 1960s, the reactive nitrogen in circula- ning and others, highlights climate: biodiversity loss, rate of increase has acceler- tion. But the nitrogen cycle is the urgent need for a global human health, ecosystem ated sharply and since the yet to be adequately brought nitrogen assessment. eutrophication and water 1980s the anthropogenic into climate models. INI is co-sponsored by IGBP. pollution for example.” production exceeded natural The INI side event, spon- www.initrogen.org

What might have led to the interglacial variability? Initial On the move findings seem to implicate IGBP SEcretariat changes in parameters such as Ninad Bondre joined IGBP the atmospheric concentrations as science editor in October. of carbon dioxide. For exam- Until recently, Ninad was ple, interglacials prior to about based in London as an associ- 400,000 years ago, which were ate editor of Nature Geoscience. generally cooler as compared to He replaces Suzanne Nash, those occurring later, were char- who was IGBP's interim infor- acterised by lower atmospheric mation officer. carbon dioxide levels. The maximum sea level dur- From 1 January 2010 ing the penultimate interglacial IGBP Scientific Committee Between ice ages Researchers led by Chronis was several metres higher than members The oscillation between Tzedakis of the University of that today, and has been linked Incoming: Ray Bradley and ice ages and interglacials, the Leeds, UK surveyed recent to melting of the Greenland Jean Palutikof relatively warm intervals of progress in understanding and Antarctic ice sheets. This Outgoing: Mark Stafford Smith time separating ice ages, has interglacials. The group, part scenario is rather similar to that and Steven Running been a persistent feature of of IGBP’s Past Global Changes predicted to occur during the Earth’s climate since about project, compiled existing coming centuries, as atmos- IGBP project’s Scientific Steering Committee chairs three million years ago. palaeoclimate data – such as pheric CO2 concentrations Ice core records dating ice volume inferred from the peak. So, a better handle on the Incoming: IGAC co-chair back 800,000 years show how oxygen isotopic composition controls on past interglacials Paul Monks interglacials differed widely in recorded by an ice core from may hold the key to predicting Outgoing: Kathy Law terms of their duration as well Antarctica – to record the char- how exactly the most recent as climate. Given that intergla- acteristics of interglacials. interglacial that we are living Incoming: ILEAPS co-chair cials are broadly governed by “The occurrence of intergla- in will respond to the impact of Markku Kulmala predictable cyclical changes cials with differing characteris- humans. Outgoing: Meinrat Andreae in astronomical variables such tics is an intriguing aspect of the Tzedakis P C, Raynaud D, as the tilt of Earth’s rotational ice ages that raises fundamental McManus J F, Berger A, Brovkin Incoming: IMBER chair axis, a mystery remains as to questions about the Earth’s V, Kiefer T (2009) Nature Geo- Eileen Hoffman the cause of this variability. climate”, say the researchers. science, 2:751-755. Outgoing: Julie Hall

4 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Ocean acidification colleagues, which summarises Among the principles summary published key scientific results and the identified at the workshop is to Scientists are calling for a outcome of the discussions. The encourage the greater “south- global observations network authors emphasise that human south” collaboration between to monitor ocean acidification. activities have increased the Africa, South America and This is one of the key recom- acidity of oceans, and that its ill south Asia. IPCC working- mendations from a summary effects on life in the oceans are group two co-chair Chris Field for policymakers on ocean likely to be felt within the com- said, “South-south networks acidification based on the out- ing decades. The third sympo- are invaluable to IPCC.” comes of the Monaco sympo- sium is planned for 2012. For IPCC wants to encourage sium on the Oceans in a High copies of the summary email: greater participation from

CO2 World. [email protected] authors from developing coun- Nine thousand copies of the www.ocean-acidification.net tries. Each country has an IPCC Planetary English language version of the focal point that nominates conference summary have been distrib- experts from his or her coun- to be announced uted to 74 nations. Demand A call for increased try, but nominations are not A call to host a major plan- has exceeded expectations and south-south received from all countries. etary conference in 2012 focusing the summary has already been collaboration The workshop called for on solutions led to proposals reprinted. The summary will A much stronger network of ways to improve the publica- from six countries. now be translated into French researchers in the southern hem- tion success rate of developing- The conference, entitled Planet and Spanish, other languages isphere would be “invaluable” country researchers in interna- Under Pressure: new knowledge, are also being planned. to the Intergovernmental Panel tional journals. Two possible new solutions, hopes to attract The publication was writ- in Climate Change, according to reasons for poor success rates 2500 world-leading global- ten and produced by the a workshop on climate impacts, are lack of confidence and the change experts. It will be a key co-sponsors of the symposium, adaptation and vulnerability in language barrier: English is gathering of the global-change the ScientificC ommission on the developing world. rarely an author’s first lan- research community in the after- Oceanic Research, IGBP, the The workshop, convened by guage. Richard Klein from math of the Copenhagen climate International Oceanographic IGBP chair Carlos Nobre, was the Stockholm Environment negotiations. Commission and the Interna- sponsored by IPCC and IGBP. Institute discussed his plan The initiative, led by IGBP, will tional Atomic Energy Agency. It brought over 80 researchers, to develop week-long writing be co-sponsored by other major The conference also produced predominantly from develop- workshops in developing coun- international programmes. The another publication, a short ing countries, to São Paulo, tries to overcome these barriers. successful host nation will be article in the journal Oceanog- Brazil to outline effective ways The next workshop will be announced shortly. raphy by James C. Orr and to translate research into action. held in Australia in 2010.

Ten areas identified for major international synthesis integration topics with input environmental change and Coastal megacities under the microscope. from IPCC, the World Climate sustainable development: Research Programme, the the needs of least developed International Human Dimen- countries; the role of land sions Programme on Global cover and land use in modu- Environmental Change, lating climate; aerosols; and DIVERSITAS and others. finally, supporting adaptation The full list under consid- responses to climate change

Credit: Istockphoto eration is: geoengineering; (this final topic remains provi- A global nitrogen assess- policy in the next decade, the role of changing nutrient sional at this stage). ment, coastal megacites and will bring together econo- loads in coastal zones and the All nine IGBP core projects geoengineering are three of mists, ecologists, oceanogra- open ocean in an increased and four joint projects will ten areas in the pipeline for a phers, atmospheric physicists CO2 world; a global nitrogen contribute to the process. major international integra- and many other disciplines assessment and future out- Products will include reports, tion, synthesis and explora- to synthesise current knowl- look; Earth-system resilience review papers, briefings, tion exercise led by IGBP. edge, identify gaps and and prediction; Earth-system summaries for policymakers The initiative, which will reduce uncertainties. impacts from changes in and online resources. contribute to a baseline for IGBP’s scientific committee the cryosphere; megacities Consultation opens 1 January international research and has developed the first ten and coastal zones; global 2010. www.igbp.net

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 5 IGBP news IGBP diary

Human impacts Kingdom over the past two cen- densely populated countries. 2009 on ecosystems turies, such practices tend to rely This finding is “counterintui- December Human societies alter the on extensive inputs of fossil fuels tive in light of results indicating 7-19. COP-15 side event. productivity of natural ecosys- and fertilisers. This suggests that industrialised countries IGBP co-sponsors a side event tems in myriad ways, be it by that the burden of maintaining increasingly rely on raw mate- on changes to the nitrogen clearing forests to grow crops relatively stable ecosystems may rials from developing nations”, cycle hosted by the US State or by expanding grasslands to be borne by other components of say the researchers. The flow Department. Copenhagen, Denmark. provide fodder for livestock. In the Earth system. of carbon associated with such a series of articles in press with Karl-Heinz Erb and col- trade in biomass is significant 7-13. Deltas: vulnerability the journal Ecological Economics, leagues analyse the ecological compared to major global and coastal management scientists associated with IGBP’s impacts of the global trade in carbon flows, for example, the conference, LOICZ. Global Land Project elucidate biomass products. They elabo- amount of carbon released by Chennai, India. the complex linkages between rate on how ecological effects industrial processes. social and ecological systems. of consumption in one part Future work of this kind is 2010 More efficient agricultural of the world are often felt far expected to help evaluate the February practices can limit the human away. This is because nations ecological impacts and sus- 10-12. IGBP’s International impact on ecosystems in spite of with low population densities tainability of socio- economic Project Office meeting. increasing populations. But as – which include some of the policies such as the reliance on Stockholm, Sweden. discussed in Annabella Musel’s most industrial nations such biofuels. study of the human modifica- as the United States – tend to Ecological Economics 69 (2): March 16-17. Adaptation to climate tion of ecosystems in the United satisfy the biomass needs of 250-334. change in the Maghreb. IGBP National Committee of Tackle climate and air quality simultaneously, Morocco. Casablanca. say researchers 16-19. IGBP Scientific Committee meeting plus The benefits of simultane- one-day science symposium. ously tackling air quality and Grenoble, France. climate change in megacities are too great to ignore, say May US and Chinese researchers 10-13. AIMES Earth-System Science: Climate, Global working on IGBP's Interna- Change and People open tional Global Atmospheric science conference. Chemistry project. Credit: Morguefile Edinburgh, UK. David Parrish from the particularly respiratory and evidence from theses cities National Oceanic and Atmos- cardiovascular problems due shows it is “efficient and June pheric Administration and to air pollution. ultimately cost effective 5-8. PAGES regional workshop Tong Zhu from Peking Uni- City traffic is responsible for megacities to introduce and scientific steering versity argue in Science that for high concentrations of vehicle emissions controls” as committee meeting, some of the first megacities surface-level ozone and part of the growth of cities, Nagoya, Japan. like Los Angeles could teach particulates – small parti- long before pollution reaches July other megacities how to cles. Both are lung irritants harmful levels. The bottom 11-16. Eleventh IGAC reduce pollution. and affect climate. Control line is, paying to avoid the conference (with CACGP). Over half of the world’s strategies in Los Angeles led problem is cheaper than solv- Halifax, Canada. population lives in cities. to lower ozone levels, but it ing it. Nineteen cities have popula- took three decades. Ozone Zhu, IGAC’s co-chair, is lead- September tions greater than ten million peaked later in Mexico City ing an effort to generate an 13-17. LOICZ congress on risk making them megacities. By and likely never reached “IGAC Assessment on Impacts and management of current 2025, eight more cities will LA levels, before declining of Megacities on Air Quality and future storm surges. likely join their ranks. rapidly. Recently, Beijing and Climate”. IGBP is produc- Hamburg, Germany. ing a synthesis of research This concentration of authorities have aggressively 13-15. PAGES global monsoon people has potential ben- clamped down on emissions on megacities and coastal symposium. Shanghai, China. efits – more energy efficient from cars and trucks, even zones (see page 5) and has a buildings and transport banning trucks from the city fast-track initiative on air-sea October systems, for example. But during the day to improve interactions around meg- 17-19. Global Land Project’s population density is linked poor air quality. acities. Both initiatives will first open science conference. closely to poor health, Parrish and Zhu say that involve IGAC researchers. Phoenix, Arizona, US.

6 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Black carbon assessment underway An assessment report on the role of black carbon in climate is being led by IGBP's

International Global Atmos- Credit: Morguefile pheric Chemistry project along with the World Climate Amazon destined to become savannah? Research Programme’s SPARC The Amazon forest is in threats of deforestation the large-scale deforesta- project (Stratospheric Process- danger of turning into a and a warming climate. The tion itself could prevent the es and their Role in Climate). grassland if deforestation results suggest that a loss re-establishment of the Black carbon – soot – has a and global warming contin- of about 40% of the forest forest”, say the researchers, warming effect on the planet. ue unmitigated, suggests a area and regional warming highlighting the positive The dark-coloured small par- review of the anthropogenic to the tune of 3-4°C could feedback between changes ticles, from vehicle emissions impact on this important push the forest beyond a in climate and modifications and industry, absorb heat. It is ecosystem. The forest acts as point of no return – that is, to forest ecosystems. thought that black carbon on a vast reserve of carbon, and to becoming an ecosystem Increasing levels of atmos- Arctic snow has contributed to thereby plays a potentially dominated by grasses rather pheric carbon dioxide and a larger than expected warm- crucial role in regulating than trees. The forest has expected higher rainfall in ing in the region. local and regional climate. already shrunk by 15% dur- the region could lead to The assessment, part of the The review, conducted ing the past four decades, more growth and increase Atmospheric Chemistry and by IGBP chair Carlos No- while temperature has risen the forest’s longevity, but Climate Initiative, will have key bre and Laura de Simone by about a quarter of a gauging their precise impact players in the US, Europe, China Borma from the National degree per decade. Current awaits the results of ad- and India. The report could be Institute for Space Research, estimates suggest that the vanced models. ready by summer 2010. São Paulo, Brazil, sought forest will lose a further Nobre C and Borma L (2009) to evaluate the capacity 25% of its original area by Current Opinion in Envi- of the Amazon forest to the year 2050. “Regional ronmental Sustainaibility, defend itself from the twin climate changes induced by 1:28-36.

expanding the Integrated Ma- To pollute or not to pollute rine Biogeochemistry and Eco- Aerosols – tiny fluid Almut Arneth and colleagues systems (IMBER) project. The droplets or solid particles (including iLEAPS chair Farewell to GLOBEC details of this plan are outlined suspended in air – are respon- Markku Kulmala) mention that One of IGBP’s most high profile in a supplement to the IMBER sible for pollution, and much although “the jury is out, the and successful programmes, science plan to be published effort has thus been invested in studies available to date mostly the Global Ocean Ecosystem before the end of 2009. controlling their atmospheric suggest that air pollution con- Dynamics project (GLOBEC), GLOBEC activities have been concentration. But certain trol will accelerate warming in chaired by Ian Perry, finishes supported in numerous coun- aerosols (sulphate aerosols, the coming decades”. in 2009. A book synthesising tries around the world, and those for example) also hinder the To pollute or not to pollute ten years of GLOBEC research, funding agencies are thanked for penetration of sunlight through seems to be the rather bizarre Marine Ecosystems and Global their role in its success. In par- the atmosphere, thereby lead- dilemma posed by the com- Change (Barange et al., Oxford ticular, the US National Science ing to cooling. Reducing their plex effect that aerosols have University Press, 2010) will be Foundation and the UK Natural concentrations may ironically on Earth’s climate and human published in 2010. Environment Research Council. facilitate global warming. So wellbeing. Aerosol emissions “GLOBEC has been an The UK’s Plymouth Marine are aerosols good or bad for will obviously need to be outstanding success”, said Laboratory successfully hosted Earth’s climate? controlled to minimise pollu- IGBP executive director Sybil the international project office, In a short piece published tion, but Arneth and colleagues Seitzinger. The project brought under the direction of Manuel in Science, scientists associated suggest that cuts in greenhouse together the global scientific Barange. GLOBEC is sponsored with IGBP’s Integrated Land gas emissions will need to be community to understand the by IGBP, the ScientificC ommit- Ecosystem-Atmosphere Proc- higher to compensate for the complex dynamic interactions tee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) esses Study (iLEAPS) under- warming effects of reducing between ocean physics, climate, and the Intergovernmental Ocea- score the need for unravelling atmospheric aerosols. fishing and ecosystems. nographic Commission (IOC). the influence of aerosols on Arneth A, Unger N, Kulmala IGBP will continue to build See next issue for a feature on climate processes. Surveying M, Andreae M O (2009) Science, on the success of GLOBEC by GLOBEC science. the results of recent work, 326:672-673.

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 7 Global-change programme news EVENTS Europe dominates Human development index Alternative index (corrected 2009 alternative (2007) for per capita CO2 emissions) December quality-of-life index 1 Norway 1 Switzerland 7-19. UN Climate Change 2 Australia 2 Sweden Conference COP-15. SWITZERLAND TOPS a quality- 3 Iceland 3 France Copenhagen, Denmark. of-life index that includes, for 4 Canada 4 Iceland the first time, an indication of a 5 Ireland 5 New Zealand 14-18. AGU Fall Meeting. 6 Netherlands 6 Norway country’s global environmental San Francisco, US. impact, or global responsibility. 7 Sweden 7 Portugal 8 France 8 Italy The index, based on the UN’s 9 Switzerland 9 Spain 2010 Human Development Index 10 Japan 10 Austria February (HDI), adds a country’s carbon 22-23. Greenhouse gases in emissions into the mix. This new Mongolia, human development (and having contributed) the the Earth system: setting the approach considered the top is closely intertwined with the most to global warming, the agenda in 2030. Royal Society, 40 emitters of carbon dioxide, health of the environment and a developed countries that fell London, UK. and shows how some countries’ concern for the quality of life of farthest are having the largest high standard of living comes at others. When the UN released impact on the livelihoods 22-26. Ocean sciences an environmental price. Com- this year’s HDI, Togtokh felt the of those in other countries, meeting. Portland, Oregon. pared with the 2009 HDI index, index lacked an important com- particularly in the developing (ASLO, AGU, TOS) published in October, the US, ponent that would capture this. world – the countries most March Australia and Canada perform “Some developed countries affected by climate change. 16-19. State of the Arctic particularly poorly, dropping in have high index values, but poor “The index seems an effective conference. Miami, Florida. rank from 12 to 39, 2 to 37 and carbon footprints. The index tool for reflecting a country’s (ARCUS, ISAC, DAMOCLES) 4 to 36, respectively. European must be corrected,” said the quality of life, while respecting countries tend to fare better in land-use specialist and vice chair the quality of life of others,” April the new system. of the Mongolian global environ- reflects Togtokh. 7-8. ICSU Geo-Unions. Since the 1990s, the HDI has mental-change committee. In addition to the GDP, the re- Paris, France. been an immediate and iconic When Togtokh added cent Human Development Index 21-23. Continents under country-by-country snapshot carbon dioxide emissions per includes two additional parame- climate change conference. of wellbeing, standard of living capita to the index, the effect ters: a health indicator, longevity, German Foreign Office, and quality of life. But, argues was immediate and inform- and education indicators, literacy Humboldt-Universität zu Professor Chuluun Togtokh ing (see table). One could and the number of children in Berlin, Germany. from the National University of argue that by contributing education. Togtokh added CO2 emissions. He believes with his 26-29. PICES Climate change index, the new leaders, Swit- effects on fish and fisheries: Elinor Ostrom wins Nobel zerland and Sweden, are prime forecasting impacts, assessing ecosystem responses, and examples for developed coun- economics prize evaluating management tries to show that it is possible to strategies. Sendai, Japan. The Nobel prize for econom- keep human development high ics was awarded to a former and reduce emissions. “Given 12-13. International member of the International the importance of equity at the symposium on coastal zones Human Dimensions Pro- Copenhagen climate negotia- and climate change. Monash gramme’s scientific committee, tions, the index provides a clear Unversity, Elinor Ostrom. Ostrom is the indicator of which countries are Victoria, Australia. (APN) first woman to win the prize taking their global responsibility since it was founded in 1968, May seriously,” he added. 17-21. Air-water gas transfer and the fifth woman to win But Pep Canadell from the conference. a Nobel award this year – a Global Carbon Project points out Kyoto, Japan. (JSPS, SOLAS) Nobel record. that while some countries’ The award was given jointly domestic emissions are encour- June to Ostrom and Oliver Wil- aging, the index does not take 8-10. International Polar Year liamson for their analyses of into account a country’s emis- (IPY) Conference. economic governance. The sions due to imported goods Oslo, Norway. Royal Swedish Academy of made in countries such as China. 13-18. Goldschmidt 2010 Sciences said Ostrom’s work Togtokh accepts this is an issue - Earth, energy and the demonstrated how common that needs addressing – he says environment. Knoxville, property can be successfully the new index will develop over Tennessee, US. managed by groups using it.

okrantz/Azote time – but believes it does not L J. J. distract from its overall value.

8 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Integrated ocean observing system Planetary management project takes off needed Barack Obama and col- More than 600 participants leagues will need help from 36 nations met in Venice keeping the planet’s vital in October for the OceanObs systems stable under the twin conference, co-sponsored by pressures of economic and IGBP. population growth. In Decem- The conference resulted in ber, the International Human the statement that “Despite Dimensions Programme on the profound importance of Global Environmental Change marine information to meet launched a planetary manage- the needs of our societies, the ment initiative – the Earth resources necessary to observe, System Governance project – assess and forecast global ma- in Amsterdam to find ways to rine conditions are fragile and do just that. insufficient.” The group wants The ten-year scheme will all governments to commit investigate integrated govern- to international coordination ance systems, from local to of global biogeochemical and global,“that ensure the sus- biological observations. tainable development of the “The global ocean observ- coupled socio-ecological sys- ing system right now is almost tem the Earth has become”. purely physical. There are car- Planetary ecologist? www.earthsystemgovernance.org bon measurements and ocean White House photo colour from which we can derive some biological data, but there are very few biogeo- Health and New vision for consideration include increas- chemical or biological meas- climate change international ing knowledge of the coupled urements,” said co-organiser, Health policies need Earth-system science human-environment system Julie Hall, executive officer of to gear up to respond to the and developing natural and IGBP project IMBER (Inte- modifications in disease pat- social observation systems grated Marine Biogeochemistry terns triggered by a changing needed to manage the Earth and Ecosystem Research). climate, says a scientist affili- system. “This conference showed ated with the Intergovernmen- From mid December until a clear willingness from the tal Panel on Climate Change. mid February the wider physical, biogeochemical and Kristie Ebi of the Carnegie community can comment on biological communities to Institution for Science, USA the draft report from Septem- work together for an integrated points out that existing health- ber’s meeting. Following this ocean observing system,” care strategies assume a stable consultation, the next key added Hall. climate regime. The scale of global change milestone is a programme co- Using the incidence of ma- and the need for closer integra- sponsors’ meeting in mid 2010. laria in Africa as an example, tion between disciplines has www.icsu-visioning.org Ebi discusses how seemingly prompted the International minor changes in temperature Council for Science to develop or precipitation may open a new vision for Earth-system International up new breeding grounds science. ICSU (IGBP’s parent climate research for mosquitoes, while at the body) and the International So- plan published same time reducing the risk of cial Science Council launched The World Climate other regions to this infec- an online consultation in the Research Programme has pub- tious disease. Ebi recommends summer followed by an expert lished its implementation plan that models used for estimat- meeting in September at- for 2010 to 2013. The plan out- ing malaria risks incorporate tended by IGBP chair, Carlos lines interdisciplinary research predictions regarding local/ Nobre. and modelling initiatives, a regional climate change. The visioning process will focus on regional climate as- Ebi K (2009) Current Opinion outline key research ques- sessments and climate informa- in Environmental Sustainability, tions and how to address tion for decision-makers.

Clara Natoli 1:107-110. them. Grand challenges under www.wcrp.wmo.int

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 9 Feature Cover story a planet

Maintainingon the planet’s the stable climate would seem likeed a good idea. Scientistsg havee now identified what they think are the nine Earth systems that do just that. But it looks like we have already crossed three of the boundaries that keep us a safe distance from dangerous thresholds.

n September, Johan Rockström of these parameters beyond several years. Nine of the paper’s from the Stockholm Resilience the narrow range required to authors are closely linked to IGBP, ICentre and colleagues pub- remain in a similar stable state. including two former executive lished an article in the journal But how far can we push before directors, Kevin Noone and Will Nature entitled ‘A safe operating we subject ourselves to a cata- Steffen and a former vice chair, space for humanity’. strophic shift on a global scale? Paul Crutzen. IGBP’s executive Rockström argued that our Without humans, the planet’s director Sybil Seitzinger and civilisation has thrived on envi- climate would likely stay in this chair Carlos Nobre have also ronmental stability: as long as stable state for a few thousand been involved in discussions and society knew what was coming years before slipping into the workshops. Rockström asked up it could plan for the future. next ice age. This now looks scientists from many disciplines This easy predictability allowed unlikely. When you look at the – climatologists, ecologists, ocea- agriculture to develop then problem from this point of view, nographers, land-use specialists, flourish. This helped the global says Rockström and colleagues, hydrologists and others – “which population to swell to six billion it becomes apparent that the Earth-system processes must we people. And it has enabled us to Holocene climate is the desired be stewards of to remain within tame our environment. We make state for society and the economy. the desired state?” the environment work for us on a The experts identified just global scale. In short, we rely on Stepping out nine boundaries: climate change, environmental stability to support But we are moving outside of the biodiversity loss, interference our society and the economy. Holocene envelope. In an aston- with the nitrogen and phospho- The best available evidence ishingly short period – 250 years rus cycles, stratospheric ozone says this stability, which we know – civilisation has generated the depletion, ocean acidification, has lasted 11,000 years, is now capacity to rock the global Earth global freshwater use, change in jeopardy. During this stable system in a way it has not been in land use, chemical pollution period – the Holocene – a range of pushed for millions of years. Does and atmospheric aerosol loading. globally-important biogeochemical our society have the mechanisms The boundaries are interlinked parameters fluctuated within a nar- to rein this in? Not yet, but the and the authors suggest we row band. In the distant past, large starting point must be to establish have overstepped three of them: shifts in some of these parameters what the Holocene’s boundaries atmospheric carbon dioxide con- have been associated with plane- We have are, where their limits lie, and centration, biodiversity loss and tary-scale environmental change. overstepped then to estimate how close we are the nitrogen cycle. We are close to Now, our own burgeoning three to those limits. the boundaries of a further three: civilisation is overwhelmingly The planetary-boundaries land use, fresh water and ocean responsible for pushing some boundaries. concept has been gestating for acidification.

10 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 The inner circle represents Rockström et al. (2009) Nature the safe operating space for the key planetary systems. The red wedges indicate the best estimate of the current situation. Three boundaries have already been crossed: climate change, the nitrogen a planet cycle and biodiversity loss. on the edge Credit: Istockphoto

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 11 Feature Cover story

argues William Schlesinger from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York. Schlesinger also says the cap on phospho- rus is too lenient. “If we cross a threshold for phosphorus that leads to deep-oceanic anoxia, we risk a truly dire situation.” I C O C E The land-use boundary – no R C T A N A more than 15 percent of the global ice-free land surface should be converted to cropland – has also come under fire.S tephen Bass from the International Institute for Environment and Development in London suggests a limit on soil Two types of boundary are identified. On the left is a boundary marking the safe limit to avoid crossing a threshold in the degradation or soil loss would be Earth system that would cause, for example, ice-sheet collapse. On the right, there is no known threshold but crossing the boundary will lead to large-scale effects of serious global concern. a more useful boundary because Rockström et al. (2009) Nature there is a big difference between intensive and more sustainable Early days boundary at the lower edge of farming techniques. But Rock- The nine boundaries and their the uncertainty level around this ström et al. argue that land-use suggested limits define a “safe threshold,” says Rockström. change can trigger rapid continen- operating space for humanity”. The Nature feature concludes, tal-scale changes. For example, The authors stress that this work “The evidence so far suggests IGBP chair Carlos Nobre and col- is still preliminary, some of the that, as long as thresholds are not leagues believe there is strong evi- thresholds need closer investiga- crossed, humanity has the free- dence that as more of the Amazon tion to improve estimates, and dom to pursue long-term social rainforest is turned over to cul- two, aerosols and chemical pollu- and economic development.” tivation and grazing, eventually tion, have no limits yet imposed. But the conclusion drawn from a threshold will be crossed that There is simply too little informa- the longer paper in Ecology and transforms the basin to semi-arid tion to make estimates. Society, upon which the Nature savannah (see news page 7). This The estimates for seven of the paper is based, is bleaker. The would likely have consequences boundaries are possible because complexities and interconnected- for the Earth’s climate system. So, of the tremendous effort by the ness of the dynamic Earth system perhaps soil degradation should international research commu- makes it remarkably resilient to be an additional boundary. nity over the last few decades to external pressure, even the mas- Setting the climate boundary understand the planet’s biogeo- sive pressure we now exert. But at 350 parts per million CO2 is chemical cycles and how these this is lulling us into a false sense arguably the most contentious. cycles have changed throughout of security. “Incremental change Myles Allen from the University of Earth’s history. can lead to the unexpected Oxford argued in Nature, and at a One upshot of this research is crossing of thresholds that drive recent IGBP/Royal Swedish Acad- the knowledge that the planet’s the Earth system, or significant emy of Sciences Stockholm sym- response to major changes is non- sub-systems, abruptly into states posium, that this boundary misses linear. Take glaciers, for example. deleterious or even catastrophic the point. CO2 should be viewed As atmospheric carbon dioxide to human well-being.” as a non-renewable resource. To levels increase they react in a avoid dangerous climate change relatively limited way for a long Some critics we should stop emitting carbon to time before reaching a threshold, The idea of interlinked boundaries the atmosphere once we reach one then they can melt rapidly. The when framing the planetary-scale trillion tonnes. Michael Raupach exact position of a threshold is If you are challenges facing humanity is an from the Global Carbon Project extremely difficult, if not impos- heading for an interesting and powerful concept points out on page 24 that, if this sible, to pinpoint. So, a planetary abyss wearing that changes how policymakers is the limit, we have just passed boundary is the safe level, based can address the problem. But it is peak CO2. on the best available evidence, a blindfold, not without its critics. The annual freshwater con- beyond which you don’t want you should stop Setting boundaries for policy- sumption boundary of 4000 cubic to transgress for fear of crossing makers can allow potentially kilometres could well be too high. the threshold. “We have put this the car. indefinite slow degradation, More consensus is needed on

12 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Human development and Glacial-interglacial cycling extinction rates, set at ten species per million per year. And the chemical pollution boundary may prove impossible to figure out – there are up to 100,000 chemicals on the global market. While researchers have been critical of the detail, the bounda- ries concept has had a positive reception, particularly regarding consequences for policy. Bass says, the “paper has profound implications for future govern- Young and Steffen (2009) ance systems.” He argues it offers PLANETARY BOUNDARIES some of the wiring needed to link Pre- global and national economic Proposed Current Earth-system process Parameters boundary status industrial governance with governance of value natural resources. (i) Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration 350 387 280 (parts per million by volume) Inadequate Climate change (ii) Change in radiative forcing 1 1.5 0 governance (watts per metre squared) In recent years, the environ- Extinction rate (numberC of speciesO C Eper million mental science community at all Rate of biodiversity C T I A N 10 >100 0.1-1 species perA year)R levels has been asked to make its Nitrogen cycle outputs more policy relevant. An Amount of N removed from the atmosphere (part of a boundary with the 2 35 121 0 upshot of this, for example, has for human use (millions of tonnes per year) phosphorus cycle) been a major drive on climate- Phosphorus cycle change research focused on Quantity of P flowing into the oceans (part of a boundary with 11 8.5–9.5 -1 (millions of tonnes per year) local-to-regional space scales and the nitrogen cycle) timescales of days to decades. Statospheric ozone depletion Concentration of ozone (Dobson unit) 276 283 290 Policy, it is believed, works more Global mean saturation state of aragonite in effectively at these scales. Ocean acidification 2.75 2.90 3.44 surface sea water But the boundaries concept appears, on the face of it, to take Consumption of freshwater by humans Global freshwater use 3 4000 2600 415 us back to the global. The authors (km per year) Percentage of global land cover converted to say current governance systems Change in land use 15 11.7 low are often oblivious to or lack a cropland mandate to act on planetary risks, Overall particulate concentration in the atmos- Atmospheric aerosol loading to be determined despite evidence that pressures phere, on a regional basis on biophysical processes of the Earth systems are accelerating. For example, amount emitted to or concentra- If the planetary-boundaries tion of persistent organic pollutants, plastics, endocrine disrupters, heavy metals and nuclear concept proves sound – further Chemical pollution to be determined waste in the global environment, or the effects analysis from a larger community on ecosystem and functioning of the Earth is required – it throws down the system gauntlet to policymakers. The paper suggests in no uncertain Boundaries for processes in red have been crossed. Data source: Rockström et al. (2009) Nature terms that governance systems are inadequate to address the Conference in Geneva in August Further information www.nature.com/news/specials/ scale of the problem, not just that we have our foot on the accel- planetaryboundaries/index.html at a planetary level, but also at erator and we are heading for an regional and local scales. This is abyss. At the IGBP symposium in Video why the planetary boundaries September, Rockström responded Johan Rockström’s presentation concept may prove so attractive: that if you are heading for an at the IGBP-KVA symposium governments prefer dealing with abyss wearing a blindfold, you Governments Planet Under Pressure ❚ www.igbp.net boundaries than uncertainties. should stop the car. prefer dealing UN Secretary-General Ban Johan Rockström Ki-moon told the World Climate Written by Owen Gaffney. with boundaries. www.stockholmresilience.org

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 13 Feature Climate change in a nutshell Can the complexity of the Earth’s climate be distilled down to a single number like an economic index? The IGBP climate-change index does just that and it seems effective at exposing underlying trends.

herever you are in the distilled down to a single number. a response to these concerns. world this scene will be But such a number could be use- Why those four metrics? Steven Wfamiliar. You are watch- ful. Many of the key parameters Running from the University of ing the news on TV. Towards the – temperature, sea level, Arctic Montana says, "The iconic Mauna end of the bulletin, before the sea-ice extent – vary naturally Loa atmospheric CO2 concen- weather, the newsreader says "and each year. The underlying trend is tration was obvious. Global air now it’s time to go to the markets". not always so clear to the casual temperature is already widely Then some numbers flash up on observer. An index could expose reported at the end of each cal- the screen. It could be the Dow the underlying trend and visually endar year, so that was a logical Jones index, the FTSE, the Nikkei, indicate if climate change is accel- choice too. the DAX or the Hang Seng. erating or slowing. This is the idea "We needed an oceanic measure Whichever one it is, the message behind the IGBP climate-change and chose sea-level rise because is instant and clear: the economy index. It works like the famous the impact is global and of high is growing, it is shrinking, or it is economic indicators and gives public interest. Growing con- stable. And you get a visual clue the press, the public and policy- cern about the rate of loss of as to the rate of change too. makers a visual summary of the summer sea ice in the Arctic led Economic indices like the Dow trajectory of climate change. us to choose this metric. This Jones are extremely powerful The index brings together the parameter broadly represents the communications tools. The single key parameters from the atmos- Earth system and it is interesting number, distilled from perhaps phere, ocean and cryosphere: that the summer sea ice extent is hundreds of sources, combines a atmospheric carbon dioxide levels shrinking much faster than mod- wealth of underlying information. – the main driver of change – glo- els predicted five, ten years ago." The underlying data are essential bal surface temperature, sea-level In the future, other variables to professionals in the field, but rise and summer Arctic sea- ice could be added. "We did not iden- they are an unnecessary distrac- extent. In doing so the index pro- tify any good land surface vari- tion to most others. The media vides a compelling snapshot of able, because no good standard stops at the index, only delving which direction we are heading, exists," says Running. "But some deeper when the markets crash and how fast. day we may have annual albedo or soar: most people are not inter- The idea came about when or land-cover change." ested in the detail. several IGBP scientists, including Economic theorists argue how Steven Running, former IGBP Number crunching inaccurate these economic indi- director Kevin Noone, Kathy The index displays yearly change. ces are for predicting economic Hibbard, Mark Stafford Smith, So even though sea ice is reduc- trends, but nevertheless the IGBP executive director Sybil ing and the other parameters are press, the public, policymakers Seitzinger, Peter Cox, Suzi Kerr increasing the index shows that and economists follow them and Pierre Friedlingsten, real- every year, we are moving rap- daily. They are easy to digest, ised that the way various global idly away from a nominal 1990 and give a simple thumbs up/ datasets are reported throughout level – chosen because 1990 is the thumbs down assessment of The index the year is confusing. It is unco- baseline for emissions reductions economic trends. ordinated, there is a variety of under the Kyoto Protocol. Given the incredible complex- removes natural unfamiliar units, and natural vari- Each parameter is normalised ity and interannual variability of variability ability sometimes masks a trend. between -100 and +100. Zero is the Earth’s climate, you might extremely The press and public are not clear no annual change. One hundred reasonably argue there is no about the scale of the changes sci- is the maximum-recorded annual way this overall trend could be effectively. entists are witnessing. The index is change since 1980. The param-

14 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 IGBP CLIMATE-CHANGE INDEX Global-change trends for the public and policymakers SEA LEVEL (millimetres) 150 600 2010 130 Cumulative annual change +33 (normalised annually 110 between -100 and +100) +29

90 +43 500 70 I C O C E C T A N +15 A R 50 +28 2005 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2009

Source: Church and White global mean sea-level reconstruction (CSIRO), +34 ATMOSPHERIC CO2 using data from the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level, Proudman (parts per million by volume) Oceanographic Laboratory, Natural Environment Research Council 400 390 +19 GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE +7 380 (degrees C) +15 14.8° +37 370 2000 14.7° 360 14.6° +35 300 14.5° 350 +47 -6 14.4° 340 14.3° 330 14.2° +21 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2009 +10 -25 14.1° +34 +14 Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Mauna Loa 200 1995 14.0° 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2009 +18 ARCTIC SEA-ICE COVER Northern hemisphere summer sea-ice minimum Source: NASA +33 1990 The IGBP climate-change index (millions of square kilometres) combines the four key metrics that 8.0 help unravel what is happening to +31 Rising index the planet: temperature, carbon dioxide levels, sea level and Arctic sea ice. The index A shift away from a 100 +5 7.0 relatively stable climate +8 combines annual changes in each of these +9 +39 directly-measured parameters. Each year’s change is 1985 added to the previous year. Natural variability 6.0 Falling index +37 -19 A shift towards a sometimes obscures general trends in these metrics. relatively stable climate By drawing together the four metrics as a single 5.0 +24 figure, the IGBP climate-change index exposes the

0 underlying trend. 1980 4.0 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2009 Developed by the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme Source: NOAA

eters are added together and index removes natural variability as WWF and schools. It will be averaged. This gives the index for extremely effectively." The index available on the IGBP home page the year. The value for each year shows that, since 1980, the rate of and as a PowerPoint slide, and is added to that of the previous annual change is steadily increas- Economic we will ensure easy access to the year because we are talking about ing. The index decreased in value underlying data. cumulative change. for just three years in the 30-year indices like Requests have also come in Running says, "Some of us period: 1982, 1992 and 1996. the Dow Jones to backdate the index 100 years, thought we’d need a five-year There is growing international maybe even 1000 years or more. rolling average to help dampen interest in the index. IGBP will are extremely Probably the first development, fluctuations and to elucidate publish it annually and promote powerful though, will be an index on ❚ core trends. But when we first it to policymakers, govern- communications extreme events. produced the index it was obvi- ment departments, the public, ous this was unnecessary: the the media, organisations such tools. Written by Owen Gaffney

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 15 Feature

just under 800 million. By 1950, it hit 2.5 billion. In July 2008, we reached 6.7 billion. Now, nearly half of the land surface has been transformed by direct human action. More nitrogen is now fixed synthetically for fertilisers and through burning fossil fuels than is fixed naturally in terrestrial eco- systems. Between 1970 and 1997, the global consumption of energy increased 84 percent. In the last 150 years, we have exhausted 40 percent of the known oil reserves, which took several hundred mil- lion years to generate. Humans appropriate more than half of all accessible fresh water, Tired of hearing the planet is going to hell in a handcart? and are depleting underground With concerted planetary management, and a strong vision, water resources rapidly. Nearly one quarter of recognised marine the future could be bright – for everyone, says Jill Jäger. fisheries are overexploited.A bout 44 percent more are at their limit of exploitation. The global economy and n 2050, the nine billion people oceans is falling. Coral reefs are human behaviour are driving living on Earth have found a recovering. Fish stocks are thriv- massive changes on a planetary Iway to manage the planetary ing. Global biodiversity loss has scale. Our analysis of the state system effectively. Hunger and stopped accelerating. of the planet in 2010 presents poverty have been eliminated. Is any of this really possible? a picture of overuse of natural Everyone has access to adequate How can our complex social and resources, environmental degra- food, clothing, housing, health- economic systems interact with a dation at local, regional and glo- care, education, energy, clean complex planetary system under- bal scales and weak governance. water and sanitation. Under-fives going rapid change to create a There is no one-size-fits-all no longer die from preventable future we all want? solution to the variety of prob- disease or endure heavy-metal In October 2008, as part of an lems listed above. The world is a exposure. The elderly do not die IGBP Fast Track Initiative, a group diverse place. From coral reefs, to from cold or heat exposure. of economists, sociologists, histo- fisheries, to forest management, In 2050, everyone participates rians, ecologists, climatologists, to agriculture, rangeland and fully in society and has equal oceanographers, biogeochemists, rural and urban environments, opportunities. Human health biologists, chemists and others society has so far responded is no longer considered outside met in Lund on the southern tip of through partial solutions to spe- of the health of the ecosystems Sweden to draw up a vision for the cific problems without a system- in which people live. Ecologi- planet in 2050. What you have just atic and careful consideration of cal awareness is an integral part read is the beginning of that vision. impacts or effectiveness. People of the education system. People But how to get from here to there? depend on the natural world, but respond effectively to social and integrated solutions that acknowl- environmental hazards and socie- The planet in 2010 edge the innate coupling between ties care and provide for the most Before thinking about the 2050 people and the environment have vulnerable amongst them. vision, we took stock of where we been rare. The economic system has are today. While people often talk shifted from “growth”-oriented about massive changes since the The vision for 2050 to “development”-oriented. Car- start of the industrial revolution Let’s return to the vision for bon dioxide management is under in 1750, the pace of change in the 2050 before exploring how to get control. Energy efficiency is the Hunger and last 50 years, the last two genera- there. The Lund workshop went norm. The few remaining rainfor- poverty have tions, is truly unprecedented. beyond thinking of the environ- ests have been preserved as global At the start of the industrial ment and how society exerts pres- lungs and sinks. The acidity of the been eliminated. revolution the population was sure on it. The meeting identified

16 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 In 2050 everyone has access to adequate education, food, clothing, housing, healthcare, energy, clean water and sanitation. Credit: Istockphoto

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 17 Feature

well-being of all of the popula- tion. The citizens enjoy better health. Food and water security as well as personal security have improved. Urban areas provide opportunities for living, caring, working, recreation and commu- nication. The pressures of urban areas on the Earth system have been considerably reduced. The pathways from 2010 to 2050 No one denied the vision for 2050 was ambitious. Achieving it required concerted action and change along five pathways: governance, the global economy, knowledge and education, creativ- ity, and value and belief systems. The governance pathway involved recognising and empow- ering people as citizens and strengthening cosmopolitanism. It peace, non-violence, democracy, United Nations population now universal access to modern was recognised that global issues social justice and global equity as projections, indicating low, energy services to meet basic had to be addressed through the defining values of societies. medium, and high range needs brought about by new tech- new forms of democracy based In 2050, the dignity of people and estimates. nology and changes in lifestyles. on acknowledging the universal integrity of nature underpin deci- In 2050, society has struck a rights of global citizens. Govern- sion-making at all levels. Trans- balance between humans’ needs ance transitions were supported parency, accountability, openness, for fresh water and nature’s own by creating a shared normative inclusiveness and participation needs, through an integrated framework that included a well- are the defining characteristics land and water governance and established human rights frame- of governance processes so that management approach. At the work, international environmental policies are effective and coher- same time, air pollution in cities law and policy, and a consensus ent across levels and sectors. The has fallen although there are still on desired objectives for environ- decision-making process itself is hotspots of poor air quality. ment and human well-being. characterised by mutual learn- The oceans have received Institutions and governance ing (science and education have far more recognition in global processes were made to recognise considerable roles), cooperation environment governance and citizenship, responsibility and and dialogue. the acidification trend of the equitable opportunity. Citizenship The new economic system val- 20th and early 21st centuries has took on a global, in addition to a ues all the diverse kinds of capital been reversed. On land, the few national, meaning. A fundamen- and wealth (social, human, cul- remaining rainforests, in the Ama- tal shift away from adversarial tural, biological, social, infrastruc- zon, the Congo and in South-east systems to consensus-building tural and physical) as the core Asia, are preserved. Forest sys- through dialogue was central in assets of society. The indicators tems worldwide are managed to making governance transitions. used to track progress in develop- increase their capacity to perform Along the global economy ment have expanded greatly and Our analysis as global carbon sinks. pathway, the new development include qualitative and quantita- In 2050, approximately two- model was based clearly on tive measures of all these types of presents a thirds of the world’s population the goal of development not as capital. picture of lives in cities and towns. From a economic development but as Revolutionary transforma- global perspective there is a more improvement in human well- tions of our energy system – from environmental balanced distribution of small, being in line with sustainable fossil-fuelled to carbon-neutral degradation medium and large urban areas. development. The new model – have taken place, in parallel and weak The cities and towns of 2050 have focused on sufficiency of material with aggressive improvements creative, vibrant and diversified consumption, whereby consum- in energy efficiency. There is governance. economies that contribute to the ers considered their needs rather

18 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 than their wants, so controlling material consumption. Rather than measuring progress by GDP, the new model used measures of improvement in human well- being and environmental and social sustainability. A central strategy in the knowl- edge and education pathway was the conscious promotion of a set of values that placed central importance on care for the lives During the workshop and experiences of people, other in Lund, southern species and the ecosystems in Sweden, delegates which they live. The educational visited sustainable system was transformed to ensure developments in a balance of building values and the surrounding developing every person’s intel- region, Västra lectual, emotional, social, physi- Hamnen (Western cal, artistic, creative and spiritual Harbour), a leading potentials. international example of sustainable city The creativity pathway built on development and the changing patterns of behaviour ecologically designed and new forms of media already Augustenborg. visible in the early 21st century, such as the increasing use of the internet. These provided oppor- tunities for greatly expanding the positive role of creative expres- from satisfactory. Their vision The results of the Planet in 2050 sions for societal change. This for 2050 is truly ambitious and workshop will be published in a celebration of creativity in all its sets a goal that should provide a book entitled The Planet in 2050 - diverse forms became a tool in focus for discussion by society. The Lund Discourse of the Future. the intercultural communication. The pathways to the vision are The workshop was an International The focus on creativity, and the equally ambitious and demon- Geosphere-Biosphere Programme associated attention this gives to strate the kinds of deep structural fast-track initiative. inner well-being, helped to rede- change that will be necessary. Sponsors fine notions of success, moving Achieving an equitable and sus- it from material wealth to a more tainable future will require strong City of Lund inclusive approach of fulfilment leadership supported by and even City of Malmö related to spiritual and moral pushed by a society that is fully Earth System Science Partnership values as well. aware of the need for change (ESSP) Simply giving people facts about and willing to accept some of European Science Foundation the speed of global change alone the inevitable trade-offs. There Heinz does not always convince them to are small examples of the kinds International Geosphere-Biosphere change behaviour. Change comes of transition that are needed to Programme about by aligning new ideas with achieve the 2050 vision already International Institute for Industrial people’s core beliefs and values. being implemented. These must Environmental Economics at Lund By 2050, religious organisations be nurtured, copied and strength- University (IIIEE) became strong voices for a shift ened through learning from The economic LMK industri towards an ecological, well-being experience until they become the Lund University culture and so making a significant mainstream. ❚ system has Mossagården values contribution in shaping the shifted from National Center for Atmospheric and beliefs pathway . Jill Jäger is an independent “growth”- Research (NCAR) scholar in Vienna, Austria. She Natural Environment Research Back to reality was executive director of the oriented to Council’s QUEST programme The workshop participants International Human Dimen- “development”- (Quantifying and Understanding the demonstrated clearly that the sions Programme between 1999 Earth System) state of the planet in 2010 is far and 2002. oriented. Region Skåne

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 19 Feature

need real photograph of shanghai

hina is now the number one First, what did you discover emitter of carbon dioxide, about China’s urban energy use? Caccording to the Global We found that 84 percent of Tracking Carbon Project. Its 1.3 billion peo- China’s commercial energy use ple contribute five percent of the is from urban areas, and China’s world’s gross domestic product 35 largest cities contribute 40

and 15 percent of global primary percent of its CO2 emissions. China’s energy demand. But because Throughout the 1990s it looks of a heavy reliance on coal, this like China made rapid progress equates to 19 percent of global in reducing the carbon intensity carbon dioxide emissions. of its economy. But, alarmingly, urban All indicators suggest these progress has either slowed or statistics, alongside rapid eco- reversed recently. nomic growth, are rising sharply and show no sign of slowing. Across the 35 largest cities, did emissions The challenge of controlling any patterns emerge? these emissions starts with an Yes. Three groups emerged. accurate knowledge of where Cities like Beijing, Shanghai, China’s vast cities are hungry for they are coming from. Shobhakar Guangzhou and Fuzhou have energy. Shobhakar Dhakal Dhakal, an energy expert and adopted a relatively low-energy one of the two executive direc- consumption but high economic discusses emissions with Owen tors of the Global Carbon Project, output model. These cities are Gaffney. has made the first estimate of close to China’s coast, the climate China’s urban energy use in is warmer and service industries close collaboration with the tend to dominate. International Energy Agency. Cities like Xining, Yinchuan,

20 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Dawn over Shanghai Credit: Istockphoto

Guiyang, Hohhot and Urumqi are I thought natural gas would with energy security, and, at a farther inland, cooler and contain play a larger role than it does. local level, to control air pollu- more energy-intensive indus- Beijing and Chongqing have tion. However, these will improve tries. These are the big emitters. increased their natural gas infra- carbon performance in general. They are basically less developed structure. It forms 4.9 percent Given the speed of economic than the coastal regions. These and 8.2 percent of their energy growth, Chinese cities fail to cities will be flashpoints of ten- systems, respectively. But Shang- reduce emissions in all key sec- sion when it comes to reducing hai and other cities have not really tors: commercial, household and emissions. The third group falls improved their share of natural gas transport systems. between these two models. significantly. I conclude the shift to cleaner fuels is not significant How can China start reducing How quickly have coastal cities and it has not contributed to the its emissions? moved to a less carbon-intense dampening of CO2 growth despite In the past, even very senior energy model? the perceived impression that the government officials of what was For Beijing, between 1985 and role of natural gas is expanding SEPA (now Ministry of the Envi- 2006 coal’s share of emissions rapidly in Chinese cities. ronment) openly complained that declined from 58 percent to 26 cities compete with each other to percent. In Shanghai and Tianjin Increasing urbanisation is a attract direct foreign investment this was 51 percent to 18 percent, national priority in China. and are paying very little atten- and 61 percent to 33 percent, Does China have a wish to 84 percent of tion to the environment. Cities respectively. These are rapid tran- reduce emissions? are not serious about reducing sitions. But this treats electricity China has put a great deal of China’s emissions as of yet. as a separate source of emissions. effort into energy security. Lots commercial National government really When you count electricity, which of China’s efforts at energy energy use is needs to provide some compre- mostly comes from coal, such efficiency are not to do with hensive guidelines for improv- transitions are slower. climate change, they are to do from urban areas. ing the carbon performance of

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 21 Feature

Contribution of various fuel types in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2006.

Key indicators and estimated energy and CO2 of China’s 35 largest cities, 2006 China 35 cities 35 cities’contribution

Total population, million 1314 237 18% Gross Regional Product (marketprice), billion US $ 2719 1109 41% Total commercial energy consumption, million TJ 65.7 26.2 40% Per capita commercial energy consumption, MJ/person (registered permanent population) 50,000 110,771 2.2 times more Per capita GDP/GRP, US $/person (registered permanent population) 2068 4681 2.3 timesmore

CO2 emissions (commercial energy-related), million tonnes 5645 2259 40%

Per capita CO2 emissions (commercial energy-related), tonnes/person 4.30 9.54 2.2 times more Sources: Calculated from base data of China Statistical Yearbook (2007) and China Energy Statistical Yearbook (2007). urban development. They need have done for energy security and number of licence plates issued to provide incentives for cities to air pollution. each year. To register a car you optimise urban energy efficiency. Beijing is perhaps a less indus- have to bid in an auction for The urban planning, building and trial city compared with Shang- a restricted number of licence transport sectors need to grow hai. But it is also more highly plates. But there is a lot of pres- in a more integrated way, so the motor dependent. A great benefit sure to abolish it. total energy demand for the city of the Beijing Olympics was that is reduced. it extended the subway system Are there any underlying I think an initial step is an and improved other public patterns going on in these cities? overarching national system pro- transport modes such as regular Yes, there is some sort of struc- viding comprehensive guidance bus services, Bus Rapid Transit tural shift happening. If you look to cities. This is weak right now. systems and integrated transport at the manufacturing sector, its

Second is to get numbers right. planning. The policy initiatives share of CO2 emissions is going City energy and carbon account- aimed at reducing the supply down, but the transport sector is ing are not done by cities, and and demand of private motor- going up. Motor vehicles are on basic information for cities other ised transportation are, however, the rampage. People are getting then big ones is obscure. Proper weaker. One such weak policy rich. They have more money in accounting, scenario analyses and I see is parking supply and cost their pockets and they are all identifying alternative low-carbon which could have much stronger buying cars. pathways are key. potentials. Road pricing, similar These cities will to Singapore and London, could Is there an ideal model they Beijing’s emissions from be flashpoints yield good results. could follow? transport have seen a Shanghai’s transport emissions I think one city cannot be a full sevenfold increase between of tension shot up tremendously in the same model to another given that 1985 and 2006? What is being when it comes period, despite much stronger all cities are different social, done to address this? to reducing control over vehicle ownership political, cultural, geographi- Basically little has been done. and use in the city. The Shanghai cal, economic and infrastructure Whatever they have done they emissions. authorities have restricted the settings. However, big Chinese

22 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 cities should be able to look at rapid, it is inevitable that the the Tokyo model for public trans- urban contribution will increas- portation and mixed land uses. ingly determine China’s energy

The way the public transport has use and CO2 emissions for the been developed in Tokyo is quite next few decades. China needs a amazing. It is so good no one comprehensive national strategy thinks about using the car. for integrated planning for urban development and energy effi- How does your analysis ciency. This is especially impor- of Chinese urban areas, tant because urban development particularly megacities led by individual cities in China (population greater than ten has been rampant with little million), compare with the rest thought for environmental con- of the world? siderations and climate-change We have shown that the larger mitigation. cities have a disproportionate influence onC hina’s economy You are involved in a high-level and energy use. While they house policy advisory body providing just 18 percent of the population, information straight to the they produce 41 percent of GDP Chinese government. Are you optimistic about change? and contribute 40 percent of CO2 emissions (in 2006). This counters Yes, I am part of a task force on the argument that larger cities energy efficiency and urban are getting unfair attention. The What are the key steps China Dr Shobhakar Dhakal is development (China Council for needs to take? executive director of Global opposite in fact, we show that Carbon Project’s Tsukuba International Cooperation for large cities should be the primary Reduce reliance on coal and International Office, based Environment and Development). target for improving energy secu- move to new technology, such as near Tokyo, and leads the I have also closely communicated rity and climate-change mitiga- clean coal technology and carbon Global Carbon Project’s with many Chinese colleagues Urban and Regional Carbon tion to start with. sequestration from power plants, Management (URCM) Initiative, in this area for several years and, Our work on four megacities, if coal cannot be avoided in the set up in 2005. He also works if my sample is not biased, most Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and medium term. But the second closely with ICSU’s other of my Chinese colleagues are Chongqing, revealed a number important aspect is to try to global environmental change very optimistic. Reducing CO programmes such as the 2 of interesting facts. Energy address the city as a place where International Human Dimensions emissions is one tough issue but I use and CO2 emissions have carbon optimisation can be done. Programme, and contributes to see strong prospects and willing- increased several-fold in the last In China, everything is looked at several global assessments. ness to dampen the growth rate two decades, with the industrial from the national perspective and of emissions. I am happy to see sector contributing the most. a very much sectoral perspective. a positive mood in the scholarly While we show that the average So not much thought is going community. Commitment in per capita urban energy use of into how to optimise the urban political negotiations is another China is small, in the case of the system as a whole, and how they matter altogether. megacities, it is huge. In Beijing can develop low-carbon cities. My take on Chinese policymak- it is 11.9 tons per registered Those kinds of approaches are not ers is that they want to address person a year, Shanghai is 16.7 being discussed as much as they the climate issue sincerely. But tons and Tianjin, 12.4 tons. These should be. it is difficult for them to commit figures are well above other key But our analysis showed that, and express this openly for fear of cities. Tokyo is 5.9 tons, Greater in 2006, the urban contribution to being pushed into a corner in the London 6.9 tons, New York 7.1 China’s total commercial energy face of international pressure. The tons. The common wisdom that use was 84 percent (similar for need for economic growth is hard per capita emissions of develop- energy-related CO2 emissions). My take to deny and balancing it with ing countries are far smaller than Given such a high contribution, climate concerns is something developed countries does not the ratio between urban and on Chinese we need for humanity’s quest for seem to hold true for megacities rural contributions is huge: 6.8. policymakers is survival. ❚ at least. I must also mention that Similarly, the ratio of urban to comparing cities is a complex national per capita commercial that they want More information issue – they can be compared energy use is 1.9. Since the per to address the Urban energy use and carbon emis- with multiple viewpoints and capita energy use in highly climate issue sions from cities in China and policy multiple definitions of carbon urbanised cities is rising and the implication, Energy Policy. Shobhakar responsibilities. rate of urbanisation itself is itself sincerely. Dhakal 2009.

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 23 Feature

Have we reachedP eak 2 Emitting a total of no more than one trillion tonnes of carbonC to the O? atmosphere will give humanity a 50 percent chance of keeping global warming to 2˚C above preindustrial temperatures. If this is the goal, we have just passed peak CO2, says Michael Raupach.

erhaps half a million years ported by technologies dependent and water, signalling the transi- ago, in the midst of the on concentrated energy from the tion from the Holocene to the Pclimatic turmoil of the combustion of detrital carbon. Anthropocene*. glacial cycles, a primate species Changes were further acceler- At this time – the peak of in Africa learned a new trick: the ated by another critical discovery: human supremacy over its planet use of fire. This species, destined energy could be derived not only – the dependence of humanity to become humankind, began to from the carbon in wood but on fossil fuels suddenly exposes derive energy from the control- also from a much older source, a pair of vulnerabilities. First, led combustion of wood, peat the huge reserves of fossilised the supply of natural resources is and other detrital carbon left over carbon laid down hundreds of limited: among the fossil fuels, oil from the cycling of the carbon- millions of years earlier as coal, and gas are the most vulnerable. based biosphere all around it. oil and gas. This ancient detrital Second, the planet has a limited The ability to use fire would carbon provided much more capacity to metabolise the waste come to give its discoverers a concentrated energy than wood, products from human activities unique evolutionary advantage: catalysing yet further forms of without suffering damage – a energy no longer had to be used organisation which rapidly flow- major threat being climate change as it was gathered or stored within ered into industry and advanced induced by the build-up in the

the body of the gatherer. It could technology. atmosphere of CO2 from fossil-fuel be stockpiled, concentrated and By exploiting this exogenous burning and land clearing. These used as a transformative agent. energy, the human species has two “finite-Earth” vulnerabilities The full potential of this come to dominate its planet. Its respectively impose constraints discovery was not realised until numbers have swelled to billions, on the inputs to and the outputs an 11,000-year period of relative its agriculture has transformed from human activities. Humans warmth and calm in the glacial ecosystems, and its appetite for can consume a limited amount of climate cycles (the Holocene), Astonishingly natural resources, including fos- natural resources and produce a when humankind developed sil fuels, has become insatiable. limited amount of waste. agriculture and started to form quickly, we are Human activities are now at such towns and cities, supporting spe- now confronted a scale that they significantly Peak oil cialisation. New economic, social by finite-Earth modify the climate, ecosystems A widely used approach for and cultural modes of organisa- and the Earth’s great natural assessing the first vulnerability – tion became possible – all sup- vulnerabilities. cycles of carbon, nutrients, energy resource limitation – is the “Hub-

24 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 CO2? If we are to limit climate change,

then CO2 emissions are effectively a non-renewable resource. Credit: Istockphoto

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 25 Feature

bert curve”. In 1956, the Ameri- tain) reserve of unconventional Myles Allen from the University can geoscientist M. King Hubbert resources, including shale oils, of Oxford and colleagues used predicted that oil extraction in the tar sands and methane hydrates, several models to estimate that US would peak in the early 1970s which collectively may contain the peak warming above prein- and then begin to decline. over 1000 GtC. Hence the world dustrial temperatures would be At the time, not many geolo- probably has a total fossil-fuel limited to 2oC with a 50 percent gists believed Hubbert, prefer- resource of over 2500 GtC, of probability of success if cumula- ring to think of oil as a resource which about 320 GtC have been tive CO2 emissions, which we will so great that it would last into used. Of the three major con- call Q, are capped at 1000 GtC some distant future. But Hub- ventional resources (coal, oil and (a trillion tonnes of carbon). bert was proved correct, and his gas), oil is the one for which peak Larger caps, Q = 1500 GtC and theory is now widely applied to production is being reached first. Q = 2000 GtC, would keep peak predict reserves of non-renewable It would seem from these warming below about 2.6 and resources such as oil, gas and coal figures that the world has a large 3.2oC, respectively, likewise with a in specified areas or for the planet endowment of fossil fuels, enough 50 percent probability of success. as a whole. to last for centuries. However, the The capped quota Q is the total

The basic idea, of which there second finite-Earth vulnerabil- cumulative CO2 emission since are many variants, is that the ity, the limit on output, imposes the start of the Industrial Revo- extraction rate of a non-renew- another critical constraint. lution (around 1750) to the far able resource follows a roughly future. Hence, CO2 emissions – bell-shaped curve. Extraction Peak CO2 like fossil fuels themselves – are a starts slowly as the resource is The problem of avoiding dan- non-renewable resource. discovered, accelerates to a peak gerous climate change has long A temperature rise of 2oC is as exploitation of the resource been framed as one of stabilis- often identified as the point at increases, and then declines as ing CO2 and other greenhouse which the risk of “dangerous” cli- the resource is depleted and gas concentrations at particular mate change becomes significant further discovery and extraction levels such as 550, 450 or even (a concept necessarily involving become progressively more dif- 350 parts per million (ppm) a value judgement). Therefore, ficult. This means that the point CO2 equivalent (a concentration Q = 1000 GtC is the cap on CO2 at which half of the total resource measure including CO2 and other emissions required to give a 50 is consumed coincides approxi- anthropogenic greenhouse gases percent probability of avoiding mately with the point at which according to their contributions “dangerous” climate change. production is greatest. to global warming). However, The 50 percent probability Estimates of the Earth’s fossil several recent papers, including caveat is very important because fuel resources vary widely. In two in Nature (Allen et al. 2009, there are great uncertainties in 2008, the World Energy Out- doi:10.1038/nature08019; Mein- the prediction of future climate look of the International Energy shausen et al. 2009, doi:10.1038/ change in response to a given Agency put the ultimately recov- nature08017) have proposed greenhouse gas emission trajec- erable resource for oil at about a different and in many ways tory. These arise from the dif- 410 Gigatonnes (GtC, one billion preferable view, in which the ficulty in quantifying the reinforc- tonnes of carbon), including pro- mitigation challenge is framed ing feedbacks in the Earth system duction to date (130 GtC), proven as that of putting a cap on total associated (for example) with reserves (140 GtC) and estimated cumulative CO2 emissions since decreasing snow and ice cover, unproven and undiscovered the start of the industrial revolu- release of additional greenhouse reserves (140 GtC). For conven- tion. This means that if human- gases from natural pools which tional gas, the ultimately recover- Peak warming kind is to limit climate change, are vulnerable under climate able resource is estimated as about then CO2 emissions are effec- change (such as the carbon 217 GtC, of which 28 GtC has been above tively a non-renewable resource. presently locked in permafrost), used. The ultimately recoverable preindustrial A small long-term continuing and a decrease in the fraction of resource for coal is much larger, emission may possible in the far CO2 taken up by land and ocean probably over 1000 GtC, includ- temperatures future, perhaps 10 percent or less carbon sinks. These sinks now ing 165 GtC of past production, would be of current emissions, but this is so absorb over 50 percent of all CO2 620 GtC of proven reserves and a o tiny that a cap on cumulative CO2 emitted by human activities, but conservative estimate of undis- limited to 2 C if emissions provides a robust guide will absorb less in future if emis- covered reserves. cumulative CO2 to the requirements for avoiding sions continue to grow rapidly. These conventional fossil fuel emissions are dangerous climate change. The uncertainties imply that if resources are supplemented What is the “safe” quota for we want a higher probability of by a large (though very uncer- kept to 1000 GtC. cumulative CO2 emissions? staying below a nominated peak

26 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 CUMULATIVE CARBON EMISSIONS (area under curves)

C T I C O C E A N A R

Past and future cumulative carbon emissions (area under curves) including emissions trajectories based on setting cumulative human emissions quotas of between 1000 and 3000 tons of carbon for combined emissions from fossil fuels and land use change. warming, then the cap Q must will run out, imposing a hard outputs from human activities. be lower. For example, to stay constraint on their use, whereas Of the two, the output vulnera- below 2oC peak warming with the cap Q associated with peak bility is the more acute. We have

70 percent rather than 50 percent CO2 is the result of a value reached peak CO2 – a cumula- probability, Q must be 800 GtC judgement by humankind about tive emission of 500 GtC – before rather than 1000 GtC. the degree of climate protec- reaching peak oil, and long tion that it wishes to give to before exhausting half of the total Avoiding the global climate commons. If fossil-fuel reserve of 2500 GtC or catastrophe this value judgment is made more. To allow the input limit

Cumulative CO2 emissions to differently – by changing either to determine future fossil-fuel date are about 520 GtC (320 from the maximum warming to be consumption is to invite climate fossil fuels and 200 from land- allowed or the risk level that is catastrophe. ❚ use change). So, we’ve used up tolerated – then a different cap more than half of the 1000 GtC Q will result, as in the example Dr Mike Raupach is co-chair allowance. The halfway mark (a trajectories in the figure. Unlike of the Global Carbon Project, an cumulative emission of 500 GtC) the limit on the use of a finite Earth System Science Partner- was passed around 2006. In this resource, which is inexorable, ship (ESSP) project, and leads sense, the world has just passed the cap Q must be decided with The 50 percent the Continental Biogeochemi- “peak CO2” if it is to avoid a long lead time because techni- cal Cycles Research Team at dangerous climate change. The cal, institutional and cultural probability CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric halfway point in use of the global inertias prevent emissions trajec- caveat is Research, Canberra, Australia. CO2 emission quota Q also cor- tories from changing rapidly. IGBP is one of the four interna- responds approximately with the From the time that our distant important tional programmes that comprise point at which emissions must forebears discovered fire until a because there the ESSP. peak and thereafter decline, as in few decades ago, the finiteness the red curve in the figure. of our planet was not a consid- are great *Anthropocene: a term first There is an important differ- eration. Astonishingly quickly, uncertainties in coined by Nobel laureate Paul ence between peak CO2 and we are now confronted by finite- predicting future Crutzen. Crutzen first used the peak oil. Non-renewable natural Earth vulnerabilities arising term in print in IGBP’s newsletter resources such as oil and coal from both the inputs to and the climate change. (No. 41, 2000).

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 27 Feature Closing the global budget for CO Accurate global knowledge of where carbon is coming from 2 and where it is going is essential to put in place international emissions reductions strategies. Corinne Le Quéré explains how the Global Carbon Project is contributing.

arbon dioxide (CO2) has the uncertainty in CO2 emissions reactions and biological productiv- been increasing in the themselves. Full accounting of ity in the ocean. All models were Catmosphere since the 18th CO2 emissions is a necessity if we forced by increasing atmospheric century as a side effect of indus- are to monitor the transition from CO2 and the meteorological condi- trialisation. At first, the main a CO2-intensive to a low CO2 tions corresponding to the time culprit was large-scale deforesta- economy. Unaccounted CO2 emis- period of study. To minimise the tion for agricultural conversion. sions open the door to all kinds of errors, we used the mean of all During the 20th century, energy abuses, from inaccurate account- models and estimated error using from fossil fuels became widely ing and declaration of countries’ model spread. used and now accounts for over emissions to misleading demands

80 percent of the global CO2 for carbon credits associated with Missing pieces emissions. All together, 500-550 Clean Development Mechanisms What were we looking for? The gigatonnes of carbon (GtC) in and geoengineering options. study compared estimated global

the form of CO2 will have been Can we quantify the global CO2 CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel emitted to the atmosphere before sinks to such accuracy? To answer use and land-use change with the

2010. Yet, the increase of CO2 in this question, we (Le Quéré et al. annual sum of our best estimate the atmosphere is less than half of 2009) have put together a glo- of CO2 increase in the atmos- the CO2 emitted. Can we account bal CO2 budget of all the major phere, ocean and land during for the remaining CO2? sources and sinks of CO2 for every this period (Figure 2). Of course, The available scientific knowl- year from 1959 to 2008 (Figure 1). in theory the undulations of the edge tells us that the two large The aim is to provide information two lines on the graph should be carbon reservoirs – the terres- on the year-to-year changes in all identical, but they are not: emis-

trial biosphere and the oceans aspects of the global CO2 budget, sions grew steadily but there is – have taken up the excess CO2 and to identify the drivers of vari- considerable annual variability in approximately equal propor- ability and trends. We used eco- in the estimated CO2 stored in tions. However these CO2 “sinks” nomic data to estimate CO2 emis- the atmosphere, ocean and land. are not fixed, in fact they are sions from fossil-fuel combustion So current knowledge does not

highly variable and respond to and land-use change. Atmospheric account for all emitted CO2 . elevated atmospheric CO2 levels In the past CO2 was measured directly from Known problems in the CO2 and changes in the climate. To a network of around 100 stations. budget explain most of the decade, CO2 account fully for all the CO2 emissions We quantified the evolution of the mismatch. For instance, in the emitted, we need to know the land and ocean CO2 sinks with 1970s, it seems there was more size of the land and ocean CO2 increased at a the help of models. All models additional CO2 in the system than sinks and their evolution in time. rate of 3.4% included key processes like plant emissions indicate. We know that And we need to know this with productivity and respiration on La Niña-like conditions led to an accuracy that is higher than per year. land and circulation, chemical unusual cool, wet conditions pre-

28 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 2% The global financial crisis probably explains the modest 2% growth in emissions in 2008 compared with 2007. Emissions in 2008 were 29% above 2000 levels and 41% above 1990 levels. 3.4% Emissions increased at a rate of 3.4% per year between 2000 and 2008 compared with 1% per year in the 1990s. 12% In the UK, within-country emissions dropped 5% from 1992 to 2004, but consumption-based emissions grew 12%. 17% In the US, within-county emissions grew 6% from 1997 to 2004 but consumption-based emissions grew 17%.

50%In China, 50% of the growth in emissions between 2002 and 2005 was due to the production of goods and services consumed in other countries.

Source: Le Quéré et al. (2009) Nature Geoscience Credit: Istockphoto

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 29 Feature

Global CO2 budget for 1990-2000 (blue) and 2000-2008 (red) (GtC per year). Emissions from fossil-fuel and land- use change are based on economic and deforestation statistics. Atmospheric CO2 growth is measured directly. The land and ocean CO2 sinks are estimated using observations for 1990-2000

(Denman et al. IPCC 2007). For 2000-2008, the ocean CO2 sink is estimated using an average of several models, while the land CO2 sink is estimated from the balance of the other terms.

vailing in the tropics throughout missing CO2 in the early 1990s. Weakening sinks the 1970s causing more carbon Excess CO2 in The land models did not account One interesting result coming to move to the land sink. The the late 1990s for the increase in available light out of this analysis was that the models overestimated the land- in the vegetation canopy from trends in accounted CO2 matched CO2 uptake in response to these could in part enhanced diffusion during and well the trends in emitted CO2 conditions. be a signature after the eruption. – both rising at the same rate. Similarly, the massive Mount Finally, the excess CO2 of the This suggests that the processes Pinatubo volcanic eruption in of political late 1990s appears to be partly a represented in the models, such 1991, which affected climate glo- incentives to signature of political incentives as the timescale of penetration of bally by injecting large volumes clear land in to clear land in Indonesia that CO2 in the ocean and the turnover of small particles into the upper took advantage of the ongoing time of soil carbon, are correct to atmosphere, helps explain the Indonesia. drought conditions. a first order. We can use informa-

30 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 tion on the trends to keep track of the partitioning of the emitted CO2 emissions

CO2 between the atmosphere and the sinks. In particular, the fraction of the total CO2 emissions that remained in the atmosphere – the airborne fraction – is a good indicator of the capacity of the land and ocean sinks to absorb C T I C O C E A N excess CO2 from the atmosphere. A R If the sinks weaken, more CO2 will remain in the atmosphere and amplify global warming. Our analysis of the trend in airborne fraction from this global

CO2 budget shows a likely posi- tive trend of 0.3 percent per year, with a 90 percent probability the trend is above background vari- ability and additional uncertainty due to poorly quantified land-use

CO2 emissions. The models repro- duce such a trend and suggest Black line: annual cumulative CO2 emissions from human activities (fossil-fuel combustion, cement production and land- use change). Red line: accounted CO (the sum of the atmospheric CO growth, and the land and ocean CO sinks. Some it is a response of the land and 2 2 2 differences between the black and red curves are due to known problems in the CO2 budget, particularly associated with the ocean sinks to climate variability response of land plants to climate variability. and climate change for the past 50 years. If the model results are correct in how they represent the variability in the CO2 fluxes. in CO2 emissions will be closely processes that reproduced past We could achieve further scrutinised in the future. There trends, this supports the existence improvements if the sinks could would be enormous benefits to of a positive feedback between be quantified directly from obser- society if the world’s scientific climate and the carbon cycle that vations. For the ocean, this may community pulls its expertise was predicted by many carbon- be possible with increased data together to provide information cycle models. coverage and improved analysis to account for all the CO2 emitted The range of model results is tools. There is little prospect of to the atmosphere. This could representative of the uncertainty estimating the land CO2 sink assist a peaceful transition to a in the known processes. The directly, and thus it will always different economy, but also pro- range of results is smaller than the have to rely on models. Model vide an early warning of how the uncertainty in emissions, which validation in this context becomes natural carbon cycle responds to supports the possibility that full crucial as it ensures the quality of CO , climate and other environ- 2 ❚ accounting of emitted CO2 is pos- the model estimates. mental changes. sible, even with existing models. Professor Corinne Le However, to reach such a state Economic slump Quéré is co-chair of the Global requires major improvements in In the past decade, CO emis- 2 Carbon Project and a researcher models’ year-to-year estimation sions increased at a rate of three at the British Antarctic Survey of CO sinks. percent per year. The emissions 2 and the University of East Anglia, The land models could be are projected to decrease in 2009 UK. The Global Carbon Project improved right away by includ- in response to the global eco- is an IGBP joint project with ing the known missing processes. nomic downturn. However this DIVERSITAS, the International The land and ocean models could decrease should only bring the Human Dimensions Programme also be improved further if the global emissions down to their Between 1959 and the World Climate Research mismatch with observations can 2007 levels. The key to decreasing and 2008, 43% Programme. be constrained not only globally, global emissions in the long term www.globalcarbonproject.org/ but also spatially. Regional infor- is to decouple energy use from of each year's More information mation is available from direct wealth. With the large reorganisa- CO2 emissions measurements in the ocean, and tion of the world’s energy system Le Quéré C et al. (2009) Trends in the remained in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. from inverse methods that pro- that is required to stabilise CO2 in vide information on the regional the atmosphere, the global change atmosphere. Nature Geoscience doi:10.1038/ngeo689.

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 31 Feature Where sinking land meets rising water eological Survey G .S. .S. U Photo credit:

Five hundred million people living on the and thread together into several Joaquin River Delta have been distributaries that eventually lead draining peat soils on the delta’s world’s deltas now face the twin threats to the San Francisco Bay. Deltas islands to grow crops that prefer of subsidence and rising sea levels. are the connection between river dry roots, such as corn. Expos- drainage basins and the world’s ing the soils to air converts Christina Reed reports from the edge. oceans. They are inherently influ- the peat into a giant buffet for enced by both of these physical aerobic microbes that rapidly idden along the edge of domains as well as by the 500 start decomposing the organ- a cornfield and behind a million people who live in these ics. Wind and rain further erode Hthree-metre-tall thicket highly productive, ecologically the old peat. As a result, much of cattails and tubular stalks of rich systems, according to a recent of the land along the delta now a plant called tules, the telltale report from IGBP’s Land-Ocean sits six metres below sea level. signs of a crawdad feast are scat- Interactions in the Coastal Zone Over the last 150 years, the delta tered over a wooden plank that project (LOICZ). Deltas are one of in some parts has sunk two to stretches across a dark pond. A LOICZ’s top priorities. five centimetres a year.A grid thin layer of chartreuse-coloured “We are developing plans to of levees keeps the rivers from milfoil blankets part of the marsh. marshal our respective scientific flooding the land. But as the land The shading that the vegetation communities to work together continues to sink the pressure on provides has a dramatic effect on and better understand the scale the levees increases, and breaks the pond’s temperature. Despite and function of deltas,” write in the system lead to floods. the Californian summer heat, the three leading academics in the The most recent case of failure shallow water (0.3m) is cool to the report’s prologue, James Syvitski, occurred on 3 June 2004, on a touch. A family of otters has found the executive director of the Com- stretch of the levee where the this wetland, situated on an island munity Surface Dynamics Mod- farmland on the opposite side of in the Sacramento-San Joaquin eling System (CSDMS), LOICZ the levee wall was three metres River Delta, a perfect spot for Deltas are executive officerH artwig Kremer lower than the river’s surface. lunchtime meals. and Janos Bogardi, executive The wetland the otters found Whereas most deltas around dangerous, officer of an IGBP joint project, is part of a pilot project that the world are coastal features, though highly the Global Water System Project scientists with the US Geological California’s largest delta is found sought after, (GWSP). Survey started in the in the early far inland, where the San Joaquin For more than a century, 1990s with the intent of reducing and Sacramento Rivers merge places to live. farmers in the Sacramento-San the rate of subsidence. The pre-

32 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 liminary study was designed to the USGS California Water Science The fresh what the scientists are now call- assess the use of various wetland Center. During their experiment ing “carbon farming” on a larger types to mitigate subsidence of they discovered that the new peat water behind scale is currently on hold. organic substrates in the delta. soils were storing much of the the levees In July 2008, the California “This is based on the idea carbon that the plants were taking is delivered Department of Water Resources that anaerobic decomposition out of the atmosphere during their awarded USGS and UC Davis a is slower than aerobic decom- growing phase. “We didn’t realise to 23 million three-year $12.3 million research position, so decomposition, or you could store so much carbon so Californians. grant to “take the concept of loss of the underlying organic quickly,” Miller says. carbon-capture farming to full substrates, would be slower The reason, she explains, is scale in a scientifically and envi- in wetlands than in drained California’s long growing season. ronmentally sound way”. But soils,” says biogeochemist Robin “I don’t think you could do this in state budget cuts this year have Miller who has led the USGS Minnesota,” she adds. The winters left the project in limbo. “There research on the project for the there are too long. “Our plants is no funding for the cur- last 12 years. The experimen- start growing in February and rent wetland, or for the larger tal wetlands are located on don’t die until November; they are wetland that is supposed to be two seven-acre test plots on taking up carbon dioxide for all established on Twitchell,” Miller Twitchell Island, which is about but two months of the year.” says. The previous annual costs 40 miles south of Sacramento. When they do die and start to support the pilot project’s Between 1997 and 2005 the wet- forming fresh organic peat soils, research in the wetlands and lands gained more than 25 cm in the slow decomposition, Miller surrounding drained fields elevation. “The rates of accumu- estimates, produces less than five had ranged from about $0.4-1 lation are coming as a surprise to percent methane – another form million per year over 11 years, everyone – including ourselves,” of carbon and also an important from 1997 to 2008. Miller says. greenhouse gas. In other words, If peat soils drained of water an estimated 95 percent of the car- and eroded through exposure to Carbon trap bon that the plants take up during wind and rain can grow back in But that’s not all. “We are see- their growing phase is stored each California, and trap carbon in the ing, in addition to subsidence year. But the funding to accurately process with minimum release reversal, huge net greenhouse measure methane and other of additional greenhouse gases, gas benefits,” says Roger Fujii, greenhouse gases released during then the restoration of marshes in Bay-Delta programme chief for the decomposition phase and test the area could potentially relieve eological Survey G .S. .S. U Photo credit:

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 33 Feature

the stress on the levee system as well as combat climate change. Such a solution, the scientists hope, may even be economically beneficial to local farmers. Sinking fast oddard Space Flight Center In deltas around the world, the G land is sinking faster than sea level is rising. For the most part the reason for the sinking is because dams and levees prevent the annual load of river sediment from reaching what are now low- land areas. The peat soils in Cali- fornia, however, are not starved of sediment, but rather starved of water. In other words, Califor- nia’s peat soils, while somewhat NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid ResponseTeam, This pair of images shows fooding in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley region inland unique, give us good insights into of San Francisco Bay. The image on the left was captured on 10 December 2005, while the workings of a delta. the image on the right was captured on 4 January 2006, just days after the severe storms So how applicable are the passed through. insights gained from the Cali- fornia project to other deltas? It turns out that the draining of and early 1970s, had subsided 3.7 experienced severe flooding dur- wetlands is common to other metres during the 20th century, ing the past decade, “resulting deltas too. As the LOICZ report with 81 percent of the subsid- in the temporary submergence mentions: “Draining wetlands ence attributed to the gas mining. of 260,000 km2 ”. They estimate can cause soil organic matter oxi- Groundwater withdrawal from that at the current projections dation and increase subsidence the Chao Phraya Delta in Thai- for sea-level rise, the surface of rates far above geologic subsid- land is causing the land to sink 50 delta land vulnerable to flood- ence rates. There have been to 150 mm per year. ing could increase by 50 percent enhanced rates of subsidence in Nurturing organic soils is not in the future. Of the deltas they the Rhine and Sacramento deltas a likely solution for these areas. surveyed they found that most are because of soil oxidation.” In the Po Delta the levees are “sinking at rates many times faster In the 20 September issue of upwards of 12 to 15 metres above than global sea level is rising”. Nature Geoscience the same edi- the lowlands, higher than the In order of increasing risk they tors of the LOICZ report, Irina rooftops of the houses that have identified three categories of Overeem and Syvitski, along been developed on the agricul- deltas: those that have reduced with other colleagues at the Uni- tural land. The percentage of peat sediment accumulation that can versity of Colorado in Boulder, in the delta is minimal, roughly no longer keep up with local sea- published a survey of 33 deltas three to four percent, says level rise (including Brahmani, around the world. They con- Annamaria Correggiati of the Isti- Godavari, Indus, Mahanadi, cluded that globally most deltas tuto di Scienze Marine-Consiglio Parana and Vistula); those that are vulnerable to flooding as “a Nazionale delle Ricerche Sede di have reduced sediment accumu- result of sediment compaction Bologna. There is an experimental lation plus accelerated compac- from the removal of oil, gas, and effort to reduce subsidence by tion of their sediments, which water from the delta’s underlying pumping water back into the sub- combined are overwhelming the sediments, the trapping of sedi- strate during natural-gas capture, effects of global sea-level rise ment in reservoirs upstream, and but this she says is “very experi- (including Ganges, Irrawaddy, floodplain engineering in com- mental and very new”. As for the Magdalena, Mekong, Mississippi, bination with rising global sea In deltas around Chao Phrya Delta, it was never Niger and Tigris); and finally level”. They did not include the peat. “Chao Phrya is all shrimp those with virtually no sediment Sacramento-San Joaquin River the world, the farms, and presently these are accumulation and/or very high Delta or the Rhine Delta in their land is sinking replacing the mangrove forests,” compaction (for example Chao study. But they found that Italy’s faster than sea Syvitski says. Phraya, Colorado, Krishna, Nile, Po Delta, where people mined Syvitski’s team found 85 percent Pearl, Po, Rhone, Sao Francisco, methane gas during the 1960s level is rising. of the deltas they surveyed had Tone, Yangtze and Yellow).

34 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Creaking levees From the wetland on Twitchell Island, the levee looks like a long, flat hill. It is only by driv- ing up on top of the levee that the expansive Sacramento River is visible on the other side. A sealion in middle of the river barks loudly on a buoy. Miller explains the growing strain on the levee system by compar- ing the weight of the water on the river side of the levee with the weight of the air on the lower, farmed side of the levee. eological Survey

“If I have a bucket of water in G .S. .S. my hand it’s heavy. For every U centimetre higher the water level rises or every foot lower the land sinks, that’s added water weight Photo credit: Robin Miller has been studying the Sacramento Delta for the past twelve years. the levee has to hold,” she says. The difference in the height of the levee and the low-lying ground coupled by the weight of the water behind the levee is a with fluxes of water, sediment rate “morphological models that universal risk among deltas. But and nutrients. Consequently, del- predict natural delta dynamics as Sacramento-San Joaquin River tas are highly productive, ecologi- a function of changing processes, Delta has another risk factor that cally rich systems and have been combined with GIS tools that help other deltas don’t usually have to attractive areas for settlement of exploring socioeconomic sce- worry about: earthquakes. “The humans from the earliest civi- narios. Risk mapping would then worst case scenario is if this levee lisations. Deltas are immensely include a variety of parameters breaks during an earthquake and important for food production like risk of flooding due to river the water rushes across the farm- and aquaculture.” In the Nature floods, risk associated with tsuna- lands and takes out the levee on Geoscience survey, Syvitski and mis and hurricanes, risk of accel- the other side,” Miller says. Fol- colleagues report that: “In 2007– erated subsidence, risk of habitat lowing the disaster that happened 08 alone, the following deltas loss for threatened species”. ❚ during Hurricane Katrina in New experienced substantial flooding: Orleans, she says these levees are Ganges, Mekong, Irrawaddy, Christina Reed is a science now potentially the worst in the Chao Phraya, Brahmani, Maha- writer. country. The fresh water behind nadi, Krishna and Godavari, with the levees is delivered to 23 mil- more than 100,000 lives lost and More information lion Californians. “Should salt more than a million habitants Overeem I & Syvitski J P M (2009) water flow back into the pumps displaced.” Syvitski considers Dynamics and vulnerability of delta it might take up to two years to subsidence a considerable threat. systems. LOICZ Reports & Studies 35. flush out the salt water again,” This is reflected also in the GKSS Research Center, Geesthacht. she says. She is echoing the LOICZ report’s call for a “multi- estimate the late Marc Reisner disciplinary, problem-driven The CSDMS Integration Facility based proposed in his 2003 article that approach with experts from the in Boulder, Colorado, is a “virtual home was posthumously published, fields of engineering, ecology, for a diverse community of experts, ‘A Dangerous Place: California's geography and human dimen- presently from 22 countries and 135 Unsettling Fate.’ sions,” to address the “urgent institutions, who foster and promote the needs of our world deltas and We didn’t modelling of Earth-surface processes.” Danger zone their vulnerabilities, resilience Deltas are indeed a dangerous, and risks”. realise you The Global Water System Project, GWSP, though highly sought after, place They conclude that the technol- could store so is a joint project of the Earth System to live. As the LOICZ report ogy envisioned for an integrated much carbon so Science Partnership committed to analys- explains, “Both the river and the framework for delta research ing the effects of global change on the ocean nourish the delta system and management will incorpo- quickly. planet’s water system.

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 35 Feature Climate services for all? Climate services is an idea that has been foating around for some years. Has its time arrived? At the World Climate Conference, aid agencies, water resource managers and farmers certainly hoped so.

assan Mahmud, the quietly- ter intrusion in low-lying areas mate Change in 1992. It also led spoken Bangladeshi Minister could cause a 40 percent reduc- to the establishment of the Global Hof State for Foreign Affairs, tion in grain production. Climate Climate Observing System. knows more than most about the change is exacerbating the risk of But, while the IPCC has risks posed by climate change. disaster.” helped translate the work of At the Third World Climate Mahmud was not there to WCRP, IGBP and many other Conference in Geneva he rattled complain about his country’s research programmes into user- off a stream of statistics that com- lot. Bangladesh is working hard friendly assessments primarily bine to make Bangladesh arguably to adapt, and climate research is for national and international the country most vulnerable to helping. The minister discussed policymakers, there has been rapid environmental change. With an effective typhoon warning significantly less progress in a population of 150 million, Bang- system now in place, based on translating the research into ladesh has the highest population 116 community radio stations. products useful to water manage- density in the world. On average, He emphasised the need to work ment experts, farmers, the health 1000 people cram each square across scales to develop effective sector, the insurance industry, aid kilometre. adaptation measures. Research agencies and the like, particularly The burgeoning population centred on regional and global on shorter timescales and at local live on the world’s largest delta. scales needs to be interpreted and regional levels. This low-lying land, squeezed at the local scale of towns and between the Himalayas to the cities if it is to be of any use. This Out of control north and the Bay of Bengal to point was to come up repeatedly The third World Climate Con- the south, makes severe hardship, throughout the conference, the ference, organised by the UN’s largely caused by monsoon floods third of its kind in 30 years. World Meteorological Organiza- and typhoons, inevitable. Up to The first WorldC limate Confer- tion, aimed to rectify this defi- one third of land is under water ence, in 1979, led to the World Cli- ciency. The conference was called for part of the year. The name mate Programme (which includes to create what is being called a Bangladesh – meaning Country of Schemes that the World Climate Research Pro- “global framework for climate Bengal – is apt. gramme), and later to the Nobel services”. Secretary-General Ban “Bangladesh is a country of transfer risk prize-winning Intergovernmental Ki-moon, who had just returned disaster and natural calamity,” from poor Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from the high Arctic where he Mahmud told the 2500-strong and IGBP. The second, in 1990, had met polar researchers on the conference made up of the UN, farmers to called on governments to estab- Svalbard archipelago, was in no scientists, government depart- global financial lish a climate convention, adding mood for procrastination. “I have ments, funding bodies and aid markets are momentum to international seen the sober reality of climate agencies. efforts that resulted in the UN change with my own eyes,” he “With rising sea levels, saltwa- viable. Framework Convention on Cli- said. “Our foot is stuck on the

36 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 “Our foot is stuck on the accelerator and we are heading for an abyss,” UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon. Photo courtesy ofWorld the Meteorological Organization

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 37 Feature

accelerator and we are heading for an abyss.” Delegates from over 150 nations promptly agreed the proposal. The new climate service will provide information and pre- dictions on the time and space scales needed by society. Major advances in the science over the last 30 years means reliable seasonal and decadal climate predictions are no longer a pipe dream but a realistic proposition. This will allow, for the first time, key sectors to adapt and prepare vulnerable areas. It looks likely the new frame- work will have four components: observation and modelling; research and prediction; a climate services information system tak- ing data and results from the first two; and finally, a front end to translate and interpret the infor- mation for the various sectors – governments, agriculture, water, health, energy, conservation, aid agencies. This will be the “User Interface Programme”.

The third part, the climate Team and L services information system, will focus on what all the various sectors need and feed this informa- tion to the research programmes. The two-way flow of information allows it then to take data from the programmes and interpret it for particular industries or locations.

The first component – obser- Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS MODIS true-color image of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta. vation and modelling – is well established, according to Deliang Chen, executive director of the International Council for Science. national, regional and global aid agencies and other sectors But it is recognised they need bol- observational networks and brought home the point again stering. Indeed, one of the five key information-management sys- and again: the research com- recommendations coming from tems for climate. munity often shoves out masses the conference was stronger links Second, better climate model- of data onto loading docks and between WCRP, IGBP and the ling and prediction capabilities, expects others to cart it off and other global-change programmes. achieved by focusing interna- make sense of it. There is a need for a full Earth- tional research on seasonal-to- systems approach with more decadal timescales. Third, better Cross roads integration between international Climate services provision for climate services Madleen Helmer from the programmes. Scientists also called nationally. This inevitably means International Federation of Red for greater access to the world’s is an idea many more discussions between Cross and Red Crescent Societies most powerful computers. that has been researchers and the organisations summed up her frustration. She The architects of the new gestating for that will use the service. explained how her team spent framework seek several out- But this is not without its chal- weeks poring over satellite data comes. First, strengthened local, some time. lenges. During the conference before abandoning the work

38 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Bangladesh farmers. He claimed the climate is a country science community is “sitting on a of disaster treasure that will allow the global trading of risk”. and natural New schemes designed to calamity. transfer the risk from poor farm- ers to global financial markets are proving viable. A pilot scheme, set up in India in 2003, is spread- ing throughout the world. So far, more than two million policies have been sold in India alone. “We need good historical data, good real-time data and weather stations close to farmers.” The insurance industry particu- larly likes such schemes because they remove “moral hazard”, its term for fraud. “If there is a third party – a reli- able weather station, for exam- ple – we have a guarantee that a claim is genuine.” The fact that the conference brought so many sectors together with the research community made it a valuable step forward in genuine engagement. The same points were often made day after day – emphasising the need for more dialogue. US backing The head of the US delegation, Dr Jane Lubchenko, said, “Imagine farmers able to determine what to plant and where, based on drought forecasts three to five Credit: Istockphoto years out. Imagine city planners Children from a shanty town in the suburbs of Dhaka surrounded by highly polluted water. and water resource managers able to ensure water for drinking, energy production, agriculture unable to find useful data. Helmer says seasonal forecasts, and many other uses. Imagine “We need to go to where the though, are what they need des- public health officials being knowledge is. And where this perately. Plus a way of getting ready for, or even able to avoid, knowledge is, is not a traditional information to people who may outbreaks of malaria.” partner for the Red Cross and live in a place that sees one bus Lubchenko, who also heads the Red Crescent.” a day. National Oceanic and Atmos- Walter Baethgen from the “We want a permanent dia- pheric Administration, added, International Research Institute logue between the knowledge “The concept of climate services is for Climate and Society reiter- centres and those that can use an idea that has been gestating for ated the point. “If I break my that knowledge.” The new service some time. Today marks the day leg playing football and need an hopes to provide such a dialogue. that climate services was born.” X-ray, I don’t want to be told my For Mahmud and 150 million bone reflects 40 percent of the Trading in risk Bangladeshis the news comes not X-rays and absorbs 60 percent Ulrich Hess from the UN’s World a moment too soon. ❚ and that an anomaly has been Food Programme described new noticed.” climate-related initiatives for Written by Owen Gaffney,

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 39 Feature Getting a handle on ecosystem services

Ecosystems provide society ociety needs a much clearer Alps and the vagaries of drought idea of the services ecosys- and livestock markets on land with valuable services such as Stems provide for us. Land- management in Australia. It turns use change is perhaps the biggest out that some of the key factors food, clean water, fresh air and human impact of all on terrestrial governing ecosystem functioning ecosystems. For this reason global were both unexpected and surpris- energy. They protect us from environmental-change researchers ing. interested in land use are no longer According to Professor B L foods, droughts and disease, and limiting their view to ecosystems Turner II, the editor of the PNAS alone. They are adding human collection, the papers show give us healthy soils and cycle systems into the mix, and calling “where land-change science it “land systems” – the coupled is going”. The environmental nutrients. The idea of ecosystem socio-environmental and terrestrial geographer, who recently moved system that includes land use, land to Arizona State University from services is being adopted in some cover and ecosystems. Clark University, says the authors The results of this line of think- were “trying to demonstrate… areas. But, says Naomi Lubick, ing are already attracting attention. that there’s a series of large com- In 2009, a collection of six related plex problems, integrated prob- is there an effective way of papers published in Proceedings lems, in which the whole cannot valuing these services? of the National Academy of Sciences be understood without the cou- (PNAS) was awarded the Sustaina- pled pieces”. But can one method bility Science Award of the Ecologi- assess the value of an ecosystem cal Society of America. The papers, and predict how land-use change co-authored by researchers associ- will devalue ecosystem services? ated with an IGBP joint project, the Global Land Programme (GLP), First step dealt with wide-ranging challenges The simple answer is no. Depend- from urban sprawl in the United ing where on the planet you live, States to improving the quality human land use and ecosystem of animal feedstock in the French change might lead to the intru-

40 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Credit: Istockphoto

sion of seawater into groundwater York City. De Sherbinin says, – considering ownership, politics on coastal agricultural lands as “MEA was very important: and impacts on humans and by farmers pump more fresh water its framework and approach humans – land-change science during droughts; severe and rapid to understanding ecosystems adds humans to the landscape as soil erosion in clear-cut forests, changed the perspective from ‘we another integral component, along whether in Brazil or Indonesia, need to protect biodiversity’ to with plants, animals, soil, water with impacts on carbon dioxide in ‘look, there are all these services and more, Turner emphasises. the atmosphere; loss of endemic provided’.” Turner adds that it’s not as sim- species in fields turned to home Because of this sea change ple as demonstrating that humans lots in suburban United States; or in thinking about ecosystems, suffer once a service is degraded, forced migration because of rising de Sherbinin continues, “now “There’s no correlation, at least in sea levels. everybody talks about ecosys- the short run, between the mate- All of these scenarios come back tems services” when addressing rial well-being of society and dete- to ecosystem services and the sustainability issues – no longer rioration of [ecosystem] services.” perceived value of a landscape to “protecting just flora and fauna”. And that means that land-use humans and how they use it. science must show the connections The growing importance of Modelling the between an ecosystem and how it ecosystems services over the past world affects human outcomes. decade was recognised by the Valuing ecosystem services was “You want to ask the ques- Millennium Ecosystem Assess- a profound development, says tion: what are trade-offs between ment (MEA) published in 2005, Turner, but economists still strug- ecosystem services? That means which played a seminal role in gle to put dollar values to services you understand [that system]”, shifting attitudes toward model- like wetlands water purification, Turner says. “The human element ling human impacts and land the aesthetic beauty of a forest or Valuing is so strong, it is already taking uses, says Alexander de Sher- carbon dioxide storage in peat to away value and structure of the binin, a senior research associate prevent climate change (though ecosystem system.” He lists some of the at CIESIN (Center for Interna- carbon is now easier to evaluate services was myriad questions that need to be tional Earth Science Information because of market trading). And a profound asked: What are the systems out Network), at the Earth Institute while political ecology has come at there? How are they coupled? at Columbia University in New these issues from the human side development. What does that mean for human

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 41 Feature

consumption, social equality and her colleagues are now working to where some researchers think other human issues? apply the modelling tree to local these inclusive land-use models ecosystems in Argentina, and she that integrate humans could be Thinking small has heard that other researchers quite useful. “Climate change In the French Alps, for example, are interested in using it as far is sort of a matrix that sits over where alpine pastures feed cattle afield asA ustralia. the whole thing,” says Steve over the summer, researchers “Why is this an improve- Carpenter of the University of find that the presence of certain ment?” Díaz asks. “Before, people Wisconsin-Madison, who has plants with tender leaves and were simply studying statistical co-authored research with Díaz. high nitrogen content make all relationships… between services “When we think about configur- the difference in weight increase and diversity with just a number ing landscapes, we have to think for the livestock. Professor Sandra of species. It didn’t tell you much about a very long time horizon of Díaz of the Universidad Nacional as to how [an ecosystem] was directionally changing climate.” de Córdoba (Argentina) and her functioning or what you could do Some landscapes will be very colleagues created a two-stage to preserve it.” vulnerable to climate change, decision tree that let them test She emphasises that the team’s while others will not. For exam- each plant species’ traits weighed model is “completely useless ple, in a region where evapotran- against variables such as soil type, if you don’t know a minimum spiration will increase, water climate, and other non-biological number of things about a sys- stress will be greater for both conditions, all in the service of pro- tem”, from the influence of soil people and other living organ- viding feed for grazing, soil fertil- texture to the range and variety of isms there. One solution would be ity, or other community-valued species in a place. Modelling of all to manage a landscape so that it endpoints. these components over different absorbs water, “or create a water- In the first steps, researchers test timescales can show changes in bank in that area”, Carpenter says. the effects on ecosystem proper- time or single snapshots, depend- Climate change also leads to a ties of core drivers individually: ing on the data available. second big issue: the allocation of non-biological factors like rain and While the model (which land to mitigate climate effects. elevation, traits that are distrib- received the Cozzarelli Prize in “Carbon storage is a prime uted across the community and 2007 for “exceptional contribu- example there… but under many then averaged to get a weighted tions to the scientific disciplines scenarios, future land storage [of value, and particular species and represented by the National carbon] is going to diminish,” their impacts on an ecosystem. The Academy of Sciences”, Class VI Carpenter points out, as forests second stage takes the combined Applied Biological, Agricultural, disappear and soils degrade, for possible effects of these factors and Environmental Sciences) was example. that are statistically significant and purely biological, Díaz says she is “Nowadays, it’s really, really tests them together, looking for working on “trying to link it up hard to talk about climate change the best predictive model of what with ecosystem services as defined and land-use change separately,” might happen, when, say, one spe- not by scientists, but by the local comments Díaz. “Both influence cies is removed from a foodweb. stakeholders. The concept of eco- each other, [with] changes in “Using our method, we realised system services is so rich, and so climate triggered by land use, and the most important factor in socially dependent, that we need the other way around.” Ideally, weight increase in livestock is the to get into the details: different she continues, her team’s local presence of certain plants with habitats, different peoples… it’s model might lead to insights into tender leaves and high nitrogen really ecosystem specific.” which plants will have the right content,” says Díaz, and to keep “There are all these analytical climate tolerance for a region. And that particular service, a land issues we still haven’t been able if a key species disappears, “then manager in this alpine setting to solve,” Turner notes, but Díaz you can anticipate [that and] start would have to make sure to keep and her colleagues’ contribution looking for another legume as plant species that fit the bill. But is “one step on the biophysical close as possible to the one before a landscape could be poised to side. The next step is to translate with wider climate tolerance.” give very different services – from It’s really, really to human outcomes.” But Díaz emphasises that her birdwatching to carbon sequestra- hard to talk team’s model works at the local tion to water retention. Depend- Changing climate scale, from patches to landscapes, ing on the services people care about climate One of the biggest challenges and it’s difficult to scale up. about, the team’s system could change and facing humans and their land-use Climate models, on the other help determine which components land-use change choices is shifts in global climate, hand, do best at large scales, and of the ecosystem most strongly which are already intrinsically regional climate assessments are influence those services. Díaz and separately. difficult to model. A nd this is less certain.

42 ❚ Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 Credit: Istockphoto "Using our method, we realised the most important factor for weight increase in Alpine cattle is the presence of certain plants with tender leaves and a high nitrogen content."

Management now, so it’s not entirely pie-in-the- More information troubles sky that these issues won’t come The Ecological Society of America “There’s a notion out there that forward,” he says. But while “we granted the 2009 Sustainability we’ll be able to manage huge have the tools… land isn’t man- Science Award to a special feature tracts of land for carbon, for aged that way generally.” on land-change science, ‘Evolution water… for all sorts of things. Díaz says that the emerging of urban sprawl’, which appeared My own take is more sceptical,” land-system discipline, some- in the journal Proceedings of the comments de Sherbinin. He ticks times referred to as “coupled National Academy of Sciences, 26 off classic examples that have human-environmental systems” December 2007. worked, such as the Catskills or “coupled social ecological watershed that supplies water systems”, is interdisciplinary, but Turner B L II, Lambin E F, Reenberg A. for New York City and China’s researchers need to remember: Land Change Science Special Feature: afforestation efforts to prevent there is “no distinction between The emergence of land change science future devastating floods on the the human and the environ- Everybody now for global environmental change and Yangtze River. ment, nor should there be”. Díaz sustainability. PNAS 2007 104:20666- De Sherbinin also mentions concludes: “Part of our failure to talks about 20671; published online before print California’s steps to require manage the land in a better way ecosystem 19 December 2007, doi:10.1073/ developers to consider carbon so far is a lack of realisation that pnas.0704119104 sequestration before building, as we have to approach the system services when buildings replace forest, peat or interdisciplinarily”. ❚ addressing B.L. Turner II is on the scientific steering other ecosystems that lock away sustainability committee of the Global Land Project, greenhouse gases. “It’s a reality – Naomi Lubick is a freelance co-sponsored by IGBP and the Interna- they basically have to address this science writer. issues. tional Human Dimensions Programme.

Global Change ❚ Issue 74 ❚ Winter 2009 ❚ 43 Join the IGBP network www.igbp.net

IGBP Synthesis, integration core projects and exploration Analysis, Integration and Geoengineering Modelling of the Earth System (AIMES) The role of changing nutrient loads in coastal Global Ocean Ecosystem zones and the open ocean

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IGBP focuses the international research community on the planet’s key biogeochemical processes – the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, water, phosphorus, IGBP is an ICSU global and sulphur cycles. Our work includes understanding and predicting how these environmental-change programme. cycles are changing and the impact of human activities on them.