Global Climatic Change: the Difficulties of Assessing Impacts

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, initiated in 1988, is complete, was debated at the Second World Climate Conference in November, 1990 and was subsequentty submitted to the United Nations General Assembly. IPCC: (i) asserted the reality of humanity's disturbance of the natural climate system; (ii) demanded studies to improve our knowledge of processes vulnerable to climatic changes: and (iii) called for policy responses to mitigate and adapt to these changes. Two fundamental issues are: how will global climatic change affect natural resources and human population and how will the impetus towards policy responses, particularly greenhouse gas emission reduction treaties, affect industry, the economy and trade? A necessary first step in the highly desirable and geographical aspiration of striving to link numerical climate modelling to the predictions of socioeconomic systems is increased awareness and improved understanding of current physical and social models. In this paper I review the status of numerical climatic modelling especially as it pertains to scenarios of the effects of human-enhanced greenhouse warming. These projections are of futures which are themselves the result of socio-economic predictions. Development of appropriate adaptive strategies depends crucially upon improved simulation of the continental near-surface climate and on improved spatial resolution of climate models by at least two orders of magnitude. Such increased resolution is likely to demand a thousandfold increase in computing power. The physical results of global climatic change are likely to be less significant than the social and economic effects resulting from international agreements on emission reduction Recent shifts in international research and policy responses place today's studies of global climatic change firmly at the focus of human-environment interactions and hence at the core of modern geography.     

Businesses, Green Groups and The Media: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Climate Change Debate

The lion's share of media and governmental commentary on the recent Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP-6) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has focused on rifts between the EU and the 'Umbrella Group' of countries, including the United States, Canada and Japan, and has led many observers to speculate that intergovernmental negotiations on climate change may have irretrievably broken down. Limiting the focus solely to political difficulties with specific issues, however, emphasizes only part of the story and takes no account of the complex context in which the international negotiations are embedded. This approach does not give sufficient credit to the growing momentum gathering outside the negotiating halls. This article examines recent and rapid changes in attitude and awareness among non-governmental groups-including business and industry, environmental groups and the media-on the issue of global climate change, and the impact these changes have had on the negotiating process and the overall climate change debate. Together these groups provide encouraging signs of a shift in public opinion and ample proof that the failure of the talks in The Hague does not signal the end of the road.     

Triggers for Late Twentieth Century Reform of Australian Coastal Management

This paper identifies four triggers that underpinned the late 20th century reform of coastal management in Australia. These have operated across federal, state and local levels of government. The triggers are global environmental change, sustainable development, integrated resource management, and community awareness of management issues and participation in decision making. This reform has been driven by international and national forces. A number of inquiries into coastal management in Australia culminated in the production of a national coastal policy in 1995. This has led to fundamental changes in coastal management and to the recognition of the inevitability of changes in coastal systems. Federal policies and programs are being translated into action at the state and local government levels through a variety of funding mechanisms and programs. These involve capacity building, a memorandum of understanding between all levels of government, an enhanced role for state advisory or co‐ordinating bodies, and an increased role for public participation.     

The Canary in the Coalmine: Australian Ski Resorts and their Response to Climate Change

The Australian ski industry represents a ‘canary in the coalmine’. Globally, it is one of the first and most visibly impacted industries by the risk of climate change. This study explores the perceptions of people associated with the operations of ski resorts in south‐eastern Australia. It was hypothesised that ski resorts, given the value of their assets, would anticipate and respond to the threat of climate change. The responses demonstrate how representatives of the Australian ski industry perceive climate change issues, and the measures that are being taken to address this issue at particular resorts. These responses provide insights into how other firms and industries might respond to the biophysical impacts of climate change. Using in‐depth interviews, the study compares the perceptions and responses of resort managers and government representatives with those from previous studies. The analysis draws on and improves the model of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its development as a policy framework for adaptation. The major findings of this study are that a physical meltdown may not lead to a financial meltdown, that business responses to climate changes are more varied than has been represented in the literature to date and that the tension between competing firms on the one hand and industry cooperation on the other strongly influences the types of response that may develop.     

Canadian geopolitical culture: Climate change and sustainability

Considering recent formulations of geopolitical culture in combination with concerns that environmental change be included in contemporary geopolitical analysis, this paper examines the implicit geopolitical formulations in recent Canadian federal political discourse both in Stephen Harper's Conservative government and the subsequent Liberal administration. Contrasting earth system science ideas about global transformations with Canadian nationalist rhetoric concerning petroleum production and notions of unlimited resource extraction as parts of national identity sharply highlights the contours of Canadian identity. If sustainability is to be taken seriously, the official nationalist formulation will have to be drastically changed, but as the widespread rejection of the LEAP manifesto suggests, such ideas of a sustainable mode of globalization have yet to substantially influence Canadian political discourse, despite the rhetorical support offered to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau.     

Education for what? Shaping the field of climate change education with children and young people as co-researchers

ABSTRACT

Children and young people are often positioned as the next generation of leaders in whom the public imagines or expects to overcome the legacies of climate and environmental inaction. Increasingly analyses of progress in environmental education independently identify the need for researchers and teachers to ‘listen to children’s voices’. In this paper we argue that climate change education presents a significant platform not only for youth voices, but also for a genuine activation of children’s political agency in schools, universities, and the public domain. In so doing, we draw upon the government funded project Climate Change?+?Me, which has involved working with 135 children and young people from across Northern NSW, Australia as co-researchers investigating young people’s voices in climate change. We conclude that climate change education can open up an entirely new field of educational experience and inquiry when it is inclusive of and led by young people.     

Australia's national climate: learning to adapt?

Pride in Australia's extreme climate has long been a part of Australia's national identity. Today, climate continues to be enrolled in a range of nationalistic projects, including the (re)development of climate science and other responses to climate change. In this paper, we outline some of the contours of the ‘Australian national climate’, claims to know it, and four idealised responses to it: bounce back, dismissal, endurance, and migration. We argue that the deeply cultural framing of climate in Australia—in particular, Australians' emphasis on the climate's inherent variability and unknowability, and their own historical adaptability—is being exploited by the federal government and hampering climate change mitigation nationally.     

Mitigating Global Climate Change: Why Are Some Countries More Committed Than Others?

This article analyzes factors affecting countries' commitment to mitigating global climate change within the scope of existing international institutions. The commitment level is operationalized as an ordinal variable ranging from an agreement with the international institutions (signature and ratification of the Framework Convention on Climate Change) to the actual implementation of the internationally negotiated modes of behavior (enactment of domestic environmental policies). A theoretical model of governments' decisionmaking is presented and tested for 91 countries at different levels of economic development with different domestic institutions. A given national government selects its commitment level depending on its incentives and ability to affect global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). An ordered logistic regression model is employed to analyze the factors affecting the levels of national commitment. Empirical analysis suggests that national commitment is significantly affected by the national government's incentives and the ability to affect the global level of GHG emissions, impacted more by the incentives than by the ability, and not affected by the aggregate levels of economic benefits.     

Perceptions of Risk among Households in Two Australian Coastal Communities

There is limited knowledge of risk perceptions in coastal communities despite their vulnerability to a range of risks including the impacts of climate change. A survey of 400 households in two Australian coastal communities, combined with semi‐structured interviews, provides insight into household perceptions of the relative importance of climatic and non‐climatic risks and the subsequent risk priorities that may inform household adaptive action. In contrast to previous research, the results demonstrated that geographic location and household characteristics might not affect perceptions of vulnerability to environmental hazards. However, past experience was a significant influence, raising the priority of environmental concerns. Overall, the results highlight the priority concerns of coastal households (from finance, to health and environment) and suggest to increase the profile of climate issues in coastal communities climate change strategies need to better demonstrate links between climate vulnerability and other household concerns. Furthermore, promoting generic capacities in isolation from understanding the context in which households construe climate risks is unlikely to yield the changes required to decrease the vulnerability of coastal communities.     

Grüne Infrastruktur –

Due to climate change, but also because of the demographic change and financial constraints in many municipalities, the future of cities is a currently much-discussed topic. Conflicts over land-use are inevitable: As densification is an essential principle in growing cities, the pressure on open (green) spaces rises. Climate Change and water-management as well as mobility-issues and air-quality confront municipalities with new challenges, in terms of open space planning and greenery in the city. It is necessary to save the existing green in these days of budget-shortage and other priorities in communities. Municipalities have to raise new strategies to strengthen the awareness of the value of green in public and in the local business.     

Improving Coastal Vulnerability Assessment Methodologies for Integrated Coastal Zone Management: an Approach from South Australia

The global concern about human-induced climatic change and its potential effect on sea-level has dominated the debate on coastal vulnerability, particularly since a common assessment methodology was developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1991. There have been numerous attempts to use or adapt this methodology but the focus has remained on sea-level rise as the single most important issue for coastal vulnerability. This paper presents a revised and more holistic coastal vulnerability assessment methodology which incorporates spatial and temporal scales relevant to the predicted impacts of climatic change and current human-induced hazards. Three studies in contrasting coastal environments of South Australia demonstrate that there are significant regional variations in sea-level response, human-induced hazards and local planning issues and that these may present a greater immediate threat than the possibility of sea-level rise.     

Burning Libraries: A Community Response

ABSTRACT

The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen a growing recognition that widespread impacts of climate change (erosion, sea level rise, wildfires, warming soil temperatures) are rapidly destroying archaeological sites and permanently wiping out millennia of cultural heritage and important scientific data on a global scale. This paper provides a brief overview of the efforts of the international archaeological community and its allies to organise a broad and coordinated response to this widespread and urgent threat to our basic record by mobilising at the local, national and international level. The work of the archaeological professional societies has supplemented a growing host of initiatives on multiple scales by national and local governmental agencies, regional research teams, local and Indigenous heritage groups and the international global change scientific community. This paper provides some reflections on the Society for American Archaeology’s Climate Change Strategies and the Archaeological Record team effort from 2015 to 2018, some links to more contacts and resources and some suggestions for future directions.     

Cochabamba and climate anthropology (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Following the collapse of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009, Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia, called for a World People's Conference on Climate Change. 35,000 people attended the conference in Cochabamba in April determined to keep climate politics on the global agenda. Nancy Lindisfarne writes about the growth of this international social movement with a keen eye to how anthropologists, and the discipline of anthropology as a whole, are responding practically and theoretically to the social consequences of climate change.     

The Changing Value of Australian Tropical Rivers

Until recently the objectives of tropical river management were narrowly construed: the development imperative drove resource policy. During recent decades, community attitudes to river and water management have changed considerably and the national program of water reform, the National Water Initiative, is accelerating alterations to the way that water is used, managed and priced. A broader range of values and imperatives is now influencing water resource management policy. Not least is the concern over the ecological impacts and economic inefficiencies of the large‐scale hydrological schemes that once excited the public's imagination. This paper reports on a recent study of social and economic values of tropical rivers conducted by the authors for an Australian statutory research and development corporation. The study shows that the values associated with tropical rivers have changed and diversified over time with growing societal awareness of the contribution made by unregulated, healthy river systems to human wellbeing and cultural identity. As a consequence of substantial social change, tropical river management must now contend with a more complex array of societal values and water management objectives.     

Skiing Less Often in a Warmer World: Attitudes of Tourists to Climate Change in an Australian Ski Resort

Climate change will affect tourism destinations that are dependent on natural resources, such as snow. Currently there is limited research into attitudes, intentions and actual visitation patterns of skiers in response to reduced snow cover. Therefore the awareness of, and attitudes towards, climate change of 351 ski tourists were assessed in the largest ski resort in Australia in 2007, repeating a survey conducted in 1996. Ninety percent of skiers in 2007 would ski less often in Australian resorts if the next five years had low natural snow, up from 75% of skiers surveyed in 1996: 69% would ski less often, 5% would give up and 16% would ski at the same levels but overseas. Nearly all skiers thought that climate change would affect the ski industry (87% compared with 78% in 1996), and that this would occur sooner than in the 1996 survey. Visitation in a poor snow year (2006, +0.85°C average annual temperature, 54% less natural snow) was −13.6% of the long-term average, indicating poor natural snow resulted in decreased visitation, despite extensive use of snow making. The implications of changes in climate conditions and tourist attitudes for Australian ski resorts are assessed including for snow making and summer tourism.     

Managing the interlocking climate and resource challenges

Energy security, climate change and food and water concerns are posing serious challenges to the management of international relations in an already turbulent world. These new developments—and the corresponding risk management strategies—will change the calculus of interests, powers and strategies for all actors, with significant impacts on the global political economy. Climate change action (such as targets for emissions reductions) will challenge the existing power structures, with the transition to a low-carbon economy creating new winners and losers in the global economy. Today, there is a fresh appreciation about the consequences of bad policy choices. Comparisons have been drawn between the fallout in the global financial system and the kind of risks that unmitigated climate change may bring. Even though the pressure on some resources may have eased since the onset of the global economic downturn in 2008, it is unlikely that the longer term trajectory has been reversed. This calls for renewed understanding and appreciation of the magnitude of risks foreseen. Multiple public goods need to be generated from the same production systems or sectors. In the context of climate change, international cooperation offers the only option that can best serve even narrowly defined national interests. Ensuring human security and peaceful relations among states in the decades to come will require short-term common action within the framework of long-term strategizing and visionary leadership as well as concerted efforts to deal head-on with worst case scenarios in our forecasting and policy planning.     

Local Democracy and Local Government Efficiency: The Case of Elected Executives in Australian Local Government

In the international context it has been argued that institutional reform to leadership in local government can improve the sector in terms of both its democratic legitimacy and its operational efficiency. In Australia, despite two decades of far-reaching reform processes across state government jurisdictions, focused heavily on structural change, local government still faces daunting problems, yet the potential of reform to political leadership as a method of alleviating these problems has not been fully explored. This paper thus examines the applicability of alternative leadership models to Australian local government, in particular the elected executive model which characterises some American and European local government systems. We argue that the introduction of elected executives could prove problematic in terms of accountability and representation in Australian local government.     

Concerning values: what underlies public polarisation about climate change?

Climate change is a partisan issue, with increasingly politically polarised responses, particularly in Anglophone countries. While politics clearly have a role in determining attitudes to climate science and policy, understanding the human values that underlie attitudes offers advantages over a focus on political differences. This study examines public concern about climate change in Hobart, the state capital of Tasmania, Australia. Hobart is a microcosm of polarisation about environmental issues due to its long history of conflict over natural resource use. Using a survey of 522 citizens of Hobart, the research examines the values underlying concern and unconcern about climate change. Applying an innovative analysis of human values to this area of research, I have found that, in the Tasmanian context, the unconcerned may be categorised into two groups with opposing values: people who prioritise national security, social order, and tradition; and people who value freedom of choice and the ability to make their own decisions. High levels of climate change concern are associated strongly with care for nature, suggesting that climate change is seen primarily as a threat to the environment, rather than to humanity. In this article, I argue that understanding the values underlying divergent interpretations of the threat of climate change is essential to resolving deadlock in political discourse. The work draws lessons for re‐engaging the unconcerned in inclusive conversations about climate change through narratives addressing a broader range of values.     

Local Control Wasting Away

Municipal solid waste management and planning traditionally have been regarded as the responsibility of local government. However, the legal climate surrounding solid waste management has become more constrained, placing local government at the mercy of the private waste management industry, and eroding the effectiveness of local waste planning efforts. This article provides an overview of recent court decisions impacting local government solid waste management. It also discusses current congressional activity relating to interstate waste transport and flow control, and assesses the potential effects of such legislation on public solid waste management and on privatization issues raised by critics of local control.