Climate Change blog 2. Spain Vulnerability

In my last blog I said that I hoped the government boosts the Renewable Energies. One week after, the government has decided to suspend feed-in tariff pre-allocation procedures and remove economic incentives for renewable energy… Taking into account that, has this decision considered the vulnerability of the country?

According to CVM (2010), Spain vulnerability will increase in the next decades from “moderate” to “high” due to it will suffer different multiple climate stresses. The Monitor measures effects across four main areas: Health Impact, Weather Disasters, Habitat Loss, and Economic Stress.

Figure 1. Climate Vulnerability Monitor 2010.

Source: CVM (2010).

It can be inferred that the most important vulnerability (Acute+) will be associated to populations at risk to desertification due to climate change. In fact, Spain is already having problems with the water supply and the existing stresses on water supplies run headlong into less rain and more heat brought by climate change.

On the other hand, another vulnerability index included is The Global Adaptation Index (GAI, 2012). This index summarizes a country’s Vulnerability to climate change and its Readiness to improve (GAI, 2012). Result show that Spain is located in the 23 position in the ranking because it has both low vulnerability and is ready and open for investments. Thus, the worst results are, as the CVF, in the precipitation change and the hydro power.

Figure 2. GAI results

Source: (GAI, 2012)

Finally, results obtained by the indicators and the Agriculture, Food and Environment Ministry of Spain (MARM, 2012) are the same. It forecast also that temperature rising and the rainfall decreasing will cause more vulnerability in Spain in the future. If all indicators show that vulnerability will be higher in the future, has it sense to remove the economic incentives for renewable energies?

 

References:

CVM (2010). Climate Vulnerability Monitor 2010. The state of the Climate Crisis. DARA. Climate Vulnerable Forum.

GAI, (2012). Retrieved 2/2/2012 from: http://index.gain.org/country/spain

MARM (2005). Evaluacion Preliminar de los Impactos en España por Efecto del Cambio Climatico. Ministerio de Medio Ambiente. Available in http://www.marm.es/

 

Comments Off on Climate Change blog 2. Spain Vulnerability / 02 Feb 2012 por Carlos Cerdan Infantes
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Climate Change: Poland’s Climate Vulnerability

The National Communication report has divided Poland’s vulnerability assessment into 4 groups, related to natural resources and agricultural issues. Those groups were: Agriculture (food security), coastal zones, water resources and forestry.
As far as agriculture is concerned the increase of temperature will have a positive impact in some regions and in some others a negative one. However, the difference in crops amount that will occur in the upcoming years won’t oscillate for more than a few percents. One of the big issues is the fact that Poland is characterized by dispersion and small acreage of farms. It may cause management problems.
Both analysis of coastal zones and water resources were positive claiming little change. The government is willing to implement more rigorous regulations concerning protection of key parts of rivers and the coasts and also the ones that are rich in biodiversity.
Forestry analysis also had a positive result. Poland is one of the countries, where the area of forests is growing and it will amount 30% of total area by 2025 (now it is 27%). However, the new forest lack quality and aren’t rich in biodiversity. It means that the biggest challenge is the decreasing biodiversity in polish forests.

Poland is on the 18th position in the GAIN and 6th in its vulnerability index. I believe that it has covered the main issues that were mentioned in the National Communication report. The difference is that in the GAIN an important role is played by health and infrastructure issues, which weren’t covered in the National Communication report, because they are not related to climate change. In my opinion the GAIN is much more suitable for industrialized countries. The Climate Vulnerability Monitor is based more on health impact, natural disasters, and economic stress.

 

References:
1. Fifth National Communication under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/pol_nc5.pdf
2. Climate Vulnerability Monitor 2010 http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2010/
3. Global Adaptation Index™ (look only at the Vulnerability Index)http://gain.globalai.org/

Comments Off on Climate Change: Poland’s Climate Vulnerability / 02 Feb 2012 por Piotr Adam Lubiewa-Wielezynski
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Climate Change: The Land of Fire – Will its flame shine bright for long?

The economy of Azerbaijan is heavily dependent on the oil and natural gas reserves. Considering that these reserves will decrease in the near future, the government has channeled its focus and funds towards developing its renewable energies.

The increased investment in this field is visible through its climate change adaptation ranking, bumping it up from 100 in 1995, to a respectable 78 in 2010. In fact, due to the country’s low vulnerability, Azerbaijan still has time to invest and further develop its adaptability policies.

Using the DARA Climate Vulnerability Report, we can get a quick overview of Azerbaijan’s state in Health Impact, Weather Disasters, Habitat Loss and Economic Stress, and their impacts by 2030.

The only problem is that the colored circles serve mainly as a visual tool, to give a very quick and shallow overview of the issue. The GAIN ranking does a better job of breaking down the four categories into sub-categories, and providing a visual graph chart to show any changes in these spheres from 1995 to 2010. It does a similar thing with the Readiness chart, and provides a red dot for scores that are the worst.

Seeing these red dots next to the government of Azerbaijan’s corruption and accountability categories, comes as no surprise. In fact, these are very important issues that need to be addressed before any rigorous climate adaptability progress is visible throughout the country. The reason is simple, without enough funding (and adaptability is costly) in the government, any progress that happens will be slow and inadequate. Considering that there is low vulnerability of big impacts, Azerbaijan still has time to take stronger measures against corruption, and ensure that profits from the oil and gas sector go towards bettering the country, and not the lives of people with power.

It is of no surprise that in order to get a more detailed and customized view of Azerbaijan’s adaptability to climate change, one must review the National Communication Report. This report provides an in-depth picture of the policies, studies, projects and other current or planned activities in the country that deal with climate change. Therefore, while all three resources address similar issues, to get a comprehensive understanding of the problem and of what is being done, the National Communication Reports is irreplaceable.

Overall, the GAIN and DARA are good tools for raising awareness and getting people to ask questions about their country’s climate change adaptability. Plus, with so many graphs and color circles, it is also a very entertaining way to channel people’s attention towards this critical issue.

 

Work Cited:

DARA. (2012). “Climate Vulnerability Monitor 2010: The State of the Climate Crisis.” DARA and Climate Vulnerable Forum. Accessed on February 2, 2012 from: http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2010/download-the-report/

GAIN. (2012). “Azerbaijan.” Global Adaptation Index. Accessed on February 2, 2012 from: http://index.gain.org/country/azerbaijan.

Republic of Azerbaijan. (2010).  “Second National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.” Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources. Accessed on January 26, 2012 from: http://unfccc.int/national_reports/non-annex_i_natcom/items/2979.php

Comments Off on Climate Change: The Land of Fire – Will its flame shine bright for long? / 02 Feb 2012 por Hokuma Karimova
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Climate Change blog 2. Vulnerability.

The US Climate Action report 2010, Fifth National Communication of the US under United Nations framework convention on climate change is much more informative. When accessing GHG, climate change and measures being taken to deter climate change it is best that you look to the National Communication reports because of the complexity and thoroughness. The Global Adaptation Index (GAIN) gives you a very brief summary of the country’s vulnerability to climate change. It profiles each country with a vulnerability score. The United States is in the lower right quadrant of the readiness matrix. It asserts that the United States is the 16th least vulnerable country and the 7th most ready country. This page is informative as it gives you fast facts but is not nearly as detailed as the National Communication report that outlines the circumstances, the GHG inventory with background information, policies, measures, projected future emissions, financial resources, technology transfer, research and systematic observation, education and then of course a vulnerability assessment that in more details outlines the impacts and the adaptation methods that are being implemented. The National Communication report presents the numbers that GAIN found but goes further into detail as to the who, what, where, when, how and what now. The middle man to both reports is the DARA Impact Matters assessment. It is more complex then GAIN yet not as comprehensive as the national accounts. Navigating the website also posed a challenge. When you search for your country in the climate vulnerability section you are led to articles ranging from journals, reports and personal opinions. It only accesses economic stress, habitat loss, and weather disaster and health impacts. GAIN breaks down each category into subcategories. For instance water is accessed for precipitation change, temperature change, improved sanitation facilities, water access, water disease and water use. I think Drain is more focused on developing countries because that is what is dominating the website in terms of reports, opinions and reports. I think GAIN is an excellent website for fast facts. If you want to know in detail the state of a country you should read the 400-page national communication report. It is more comprehensive; it gives you a bigger picture of what is going on. If you want to have personal opinions injected into your facts then Drain is a valuable website. I will use GAIN in the future and always rely on the full national communications report when accessing the climate vulnerability of the USA.

Comments Off on Climate Change blog 2. Vulnerability. / 02 Feb 2012 por Lauren Musiello
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Environment & Natural Resources Management: Slogan session 6.

Hazardous waste have become a part of us wether we want it or not. We have to stop its expantion before it is too late…

Comments Off on Environment & Natural Resources Management: Slogan session 6. / 01 Feb 2012 por Carlos Cerdan Infantes
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Climate change, Australia: OECD per capita bigger emitter

While it accounts for just 1.5 % of global emissions, Australia is among the most emitter country per capita, even overcoming the levels of Us citizens and occupying the unwanted leadership between OECD countries.
In order to mitigate its contribution to climate change, the government is about to launch a carbon tax from July 2012, preceding an Emission Trading Scheme expected by 2015. The objective is to decouple its growing economy from the energy intensive profile, which is explained by coal based electricity production.

Actually is we consider the share of emission by sector, Energy accounts for over 70%, equaling 416.6 Emissions Mt CO2-e in the peak year 2008 (the trend has been leveled since then due to global economic crisis).
Interesting is the fact that land use and transformation in Australia is a minor factor of impact due to the low population living in an immense continent. As economy does not require consistent further land modification, there is great margin for improvement if energy and industrial process become more efficient.

Electricity generation is by distance the mayor source of emission for the Australians, contributing to almost half of all energy emissions thanks to the vast use of fossil fuels. As displayed in the following image, black coal or also known as anthracite is the mayor source, which holds also the highest concentration of carbon. The trend shows a recent reduction in its use for generation of electricity, mostly in benefit of hydroelectricity thanks to more abundant rainfall than usual (see for instance Queensland’s floods).

Australia’s reliance on coal-fired power stations drows on the fact that the country is very rich in such resources: It is among the four bigger producers of coal in a yearly basis. In addition, the industry represents a huge share of export: government websites declare black coal production and exports increasing significantly over the past two decades, while brown coal is used internally for electricity generation and not exported, as confirmed by the images.

In addition to the high emmission of CO2 coming from the numerous and aged coal-fired plants, it is important to list methane and nitrous oxide released by agriculture activities, and overall from fugitive emissions (during estraction and transportation of fossil fuels) which alone account for 42 Mt CO2-e.
Consistent are also transport related emission which are attenuated slightly by the fact that 16% of gasoline in Australia is ethanol blended (very low proportion by the way). Considerable are also emissions of Sulfur Hexafluoride from industrial processes. Fortunately in the case of this man-made chemical substance the trend is promising as emissions in Gigagrams of CO2 equivalent have been constantly decreasing since the nineties. Its main causes of emission are leakage from electrical switchgear, magnesium smelting processes and use in semiconductor manufacture. It cover particular importance as it holds the biggest global warming potential, so that even little quantities dispersed have huge impact.

After this brief overview of the Australian emission reality, a final question arises: will a Carbon Tax be enough to convince Australians reducing the energy-intensity of its economy? Or will not it affect the trends in one of the most resource-rich country, which finally holds little global contribution to global warming?

My thoughts go toward focusing on efficiency measures which are likely to provide better results and long term competitive advantage. It makes sense to treasure resources in the most efficient and less pollutant way while promoting increasingly the transition toward a renewable and sustainable energy generation.

Comments Off on Climate change, Australia: OECD per capita bigger emitter / 01 Feb 2012 por Francesco Mazzeo
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Food Security mechanisms: making the poverty line a wall too high to cross back

After recent food crisis in 2008, particular intense in the horn of Africa, global Millennium Development goal have suffered a big setback regarding the attempt to reduce hunger by half by 2015. While many complex factors have the potential to cause a food crisis the only certainty is that the poor is becoming poorer.

The low-income portion of the population spends around 80% of its revenues in buying food. In addition (and as a paradox) the main source of income for poor people is usually food production, or agriculture.

As the proportion between what they are able to produce and what would be the necessary expenditure to sustain basic needs is negative, no matter the trends in food prices, this condition of high vulnerability experienced in least development countries brings catastrophic consequences in term of food security, if no measures are taken.

Let’s have a look at those countries hosting poorest population: among other conditions, they are usually net importers of food and lacking primary sources; They lack infrastructure development together with challenging environmental conditions; they are featured by high level of government corruption while forced to follow market rules dictated by foreign “partners” with extreme power of negotiation; they suffer from high rate of illiterates and no or little health assistance.

In such context, from a consumer point of view, high food prices for a low-income family means more income devoted to food supply so that other basic needs cannot be satisfied. Education and health care are first needs to be cut so that the situation becomes a poverty trap: while suffering from assuring food intake, people see its opportunity to improve condition of life quickly deteriorating as health and possibility of employment are affected. The vicious cycle drives poor people toward not being able to even satisfy food supply so that the number of people undernourished increase, as well as the number of people under poverty line.

When prices are low, the same standard of consumer may not face the mentioned challenges for food supply, but currently they have no possibility to reduce such vulnerability in case a shock in the price occurs: usually they cannot invest in acquiring more food supply because there is no surplus to be invested, nor facilitator to help financing or storing. Infrastructure’s lack doesn’t allow looking for a more diversified economy even if surplus is available and put constraints in achieving further needs so that the apparent beneficial circumstance is just temporary: with no improvement in resilience a small change in external factor can still drive such families under “the line”.

Reverse trend but same result for most of the families in same contexts, which depend on agricultural income as basis to sustain themselves.

If prices are high, it could seem that great possibility for prosperity are ahead. In reality, rest of people in internal markets are not able to acquire the goods. There is still the possibility to approach global markets: here they play against bigger producers, very productive and with the possibility to enjoy subsidies from their governments. It is still possible to sell goods for the small farmer here? The same lack of infrastructure described above doesn’t allow to save the surplus of production so that food is even wasted and no benefit are given by high prices. By contrast, if prices are low, the outcome is even more obvious: due to low productivity, low income and high cost of production give no margins for profit or continuance. Finally, again the number of poorer is bigger.

The simple examples treated mainly refer to two overall points:

• It is so easy to jump into the bottom pyramid while so hard either avoiding it or coming back. While to often poverty reduction is cheered around the world, the reality is that the huge gap between medium-low and very low income is increasing with more and more people falling down with no or little possibility to recover; the fact that also people in the medium levels are increasing, plus this widening gap between layers, make it misleading in the whole aggregation. Most of the poorer are joining the poorest while the rest rises leaving them behind.

 

• The key point in food security is vulnerability. How can it be reduced?  Starting from eliminating subsidies to create a real open market, invest in productivity and efficiency and long lasting practices to create a more resilient and less chemical-oriented agriculture, promote local-centered and diversified economy, promoting equality and education, and so on….

I start from this post raising awareness… as the road toward the targets of Millennium Development Goals is still long, I would like to remind people with a video most of us already know:

Pinche aquí para ver el vídeo

 

 

 

Comments Off on Food Security mechanisms: making the poverty line a wall too high to cross back / 01 Feb 2012 por Francesco Mazzeo
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Climate change, Russian Federation: vulnerability & adaptation

The figure above shows the “Climate Vulnerability” of Russia; it’s suddenly clear that the main issue comes from the “Economic Stress” (the big red circle) that it supposed to won’t be fixed even in the next 20 years.

What does it means?

Basically this figure shows how the climate change would influence the economy of the country, and as for Russia its impact is huge because the agricoltural dependency of the country very high and the sufference especially for drouhgts has a huge impact.

By this second figure it’s clear the low capability of Russia to act against the vulnerability of it’s territory; it means that the even the public sector either the private one it’s not able (or very intricate) to allocate resources and set up new projects to improve the resilience of the territory and to improve the status quo.

Moreover the trend is alarming, because as we can notice, even though between 2002-2006 the Russia has done some step forward (reaching the 67° rank) from 2007 it has drop once again to previous inefficiency rank (83° in 2009 and 82° in 2010) probably caused by the huge forest burnings and droughts that has affected those lands.

Source:

1st figure: http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2010/new-executive-summary-for-the-climate-vulnerability-monitor-2010/

2nd figure: http://gain.globalai.org/country/russian-federation

 

 

 

 

 

Comments Off on Climate change, Russian Federation: vulnerability & adaptation / 01 Feb 2012 por Luca Palma
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Environment & Natural Resource Management – Slogan group 6

When trying to reach the best solution…certify, and forget about pollution!

By: Ildikó, Javier, Laura

Comments Off on Environment & Natural Resource Management – Slogan group 6 / 31 Jan 2012 por Laura Rubio
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Climate Change: GHG Emissions in China

China is one of the most important countries in the global debate for climate change. Due to its reliance on coal and to its economic and population growth, it leads the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It released its first and only greenhouse gas inventory in 1994.

GHG Emissions China 2005

GHG emissions	7,527 metric tons CO2e
GHG emissions per capita	6 metric tons per capita (bellow world average)
GHG emissions per Gross National Income (purchasing power parities)	1,4 tons per 1000 US$ GNI

CSR Report for Congress – China´s Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Policies

According to the International Energy Agency IEA, by 2005 China was responsible for 17% of the global emissions, caused mainly by energy production (70% coal, 20% petroleum). CO2 had the largest share, and it is estimated that from 1990 to 2005 China´s total amount of CO2 emissions increased 48% (IEA).

 

The following graph shows how most of its GHG emissions are associated to capital investment and consumption (growing population and income). In the last years, exports have also represented a significant growth.

In 2005, fuel combustion accounted for 68% of the emissions (more than ¾ due to electricity & heat and for manufacturing and construction), followed by agriculture (14%) and industrial processes (10%).

China is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, but as a developing country it has no CO2 limits until 2012. In 2007 China released its National Climate Change Program, which outlines activities to mitigate GHG emissions by improving energy efficiency, diversifying its energy sources, reducing polluting emissions, and suppressing vehicle demand.

Despite of these efforts, China’s GHG emissions are expected to continue growing: the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts an average annual growth rate in Chinese CO2 emissions of 3.3% between 2005 and 2030. The main challenges affecting China’s future GHG emissions are: population growth and increasing urbanization, economic development, demand and new pattern of and consumption, technological improvement and changes in forestry and ecological preservation and construction.

 

Sources

Greenhouse Gas Emission Sources and Trends. World Resources Institute. More information: http://earthtrendsdelivered.org/taxonomy/term/64?page=2

Leggett, Jane A.; Logan. Jeffrey; Mackey, Anna. CSR Report for Congress. China´s Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Policies. September 10, 2008. More information: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34659.pdf

World carbon dioxide emissions data by country: China speeds ahead of the rest. The Guardian. More information: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-country-data-co2#data

Comments Off on Climate Change: GHG Emissions in China / 31 Jan 2012 por Laura Rubio
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