Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Future of managing global environmental change

So can we reverse the impacts of global environmental change?

Since the first post of this blog, I have attempted to explore different management strategies proposed or implemented (already) against the global environmental change impacts across the world. Ranging from global cooperation efforts - on the road of positive future since the Paris Agreement - , hardcore geoengineering technologies that could rapidly alter the Earth's system particularly related to the CO2 emissions, to global conservation works agreed by the IUCN member parties. 

     Although all of those methods have potential to improve or even reverse current Earth system to pre-industrial state, lot of questions remain unanswered; whether such techniques will be cost-effective, how long will it take to show 'significant' result on Earth, will humans be able to cancel the implementation in the future if the results are detrimental to Earth? 

Another way of managing global climate change impacts: Conservation

Global Conservation Works

I have explored various strategies aiming to mitigate or adapt for global warming in previous posts, and it came to my mind that conservation is one of the most important strategies in coping with serious climate change impacts as well; 

     With over 1,000 government and civil society members participating, first global conservation priorities have been set at the The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress that took place at Honolulu, Hawaii in September, 2016. The targets include promoting nature-based solutions to climate change, biodiversity conservation in renewable energy development and restricting illegal trade in endangered species (IUCN, 2016). 

The IUCN RedList - Listing of different levels of species status (Source: IUCN RedList). 


      The members of IUCN defined nature-based solutions, as 'actions that protect  manage ecosystems, while effectively addressing societal challenges, such as food and water security, climate change, disaster risk reduction, human health and economic well-being(IUCN, 2016). This concept is agreed to be achieved with association to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Also, IUCN members agreed to focus on encouraging the renewable energy implement for energy efficiency that takes biodiversity conservation into account. Moreover, some of the members suggested raising greater efforts on minimising the offshore renewable energy impacts on marine species. 


     It was interesting to read about how conservation works can be an act responding to climate change, as well as caring for the side-effects of renewable energy implementation that is often regarded as 'flawless' strategy in terms of environmental damage. 

Monday, January 9, 2017

Results of COP22 at Marrakech

COP22 Results 

As mentioned in the previous post, COP22 was successfully held at Marrakech, Morocco between 7th and 18th of November 2016. Prior to the opening of COP22, it was expected to focus on the implementation of the Paris Agreement (PA) - getting the 'details' of PA - since it is the first meeting after the PA that set out the 'overarching goals and framework for international climate action' (Yeo, 2016 - Climate Brief).  



"We will move ahead" - a photo of observers and participants outside the Marrakech conference (Source: UNFCCC Flikr). 

     Negotiators from about 200 countries have gathered in Marrakech to set out the detailed blueprint of PA into action, while US election happened at the same time. The major outcomes of the COP22 are as follows:

1) Three year process for PA implementation - COP22 participating countries have agreed to complete setting the detailed plan for PA (e.g. outlining what kind of documents and workshops will be needed) by 2018, with a review of progress in 2017 (Yeo, 2016 - Climate Brief).  Thus, COP22 'tied up' the loose ends left in the last COP/PA, accelerating the international efforts to make the 2 degrees-promise. 

2) Adaptation Fund - One of the last-minute debates during the COP22 was over the Adaptation Fund, a body established to serve the Kyoto Protocol happened in 1997, on an issue whether it should be moved over to PA implementation. Compared to the new climate finance initiative established for PA, the Green Climate Fund (aiming to achieve US$10 billion), Adaptation Fund is a rather small-size finance resource but some of the recipients favour them "because of its readiness to support small projects" (Climate Home, 2016). At the end, the participants agreed to discuss this issue again and conclude by March 2017. 

3) Finance - There was a strong urge - particularly from developing nations - on "scaling up the financial contribution towards the pre-agreed 'US$100bn per year by 2020' goal" during the conference, but there was no new financial pledges made during the COP22. Instead, donors including Germany, UK and the US stumped up US$50 million contribution to help developing countries enhance their carbon accounting (Climate Home, 2016). Yet, such plans were a drop from the US$100bn a year goal, which has been promised by more developed countries to achieve by 2020. Many of the developing countries continue to emphasise their major concerns over persistent shortage in money to develop plans for adaptation to the global warming impacts, "which are hitting the poorest hardest" (Climate Home, 2016). 

4) Carbon emission targets - Countries agreed to reinforce existing plans on national emission targets, with some nations promising to review their contributions by 2020. Also, the US, Germany, Mexico and Canada agreed on urging towards serious strategies for greater emission reductions by mid-century (World Resources Institute, 2016).
     Notably, Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) partnership was launched in COP22, brining 33 nations and 9 international institutions "to help countries achieve their national climate commitments and ensure financial and technical assistance is delivered as efficiently as possible" (NDC Partnership support unit, 2016). 

5) Loss and Damage - Unresolved debates on compensation for loss and damage caused by climate change were discussed during COP22. Countries agreed on forming a framework, which provides the basis for the next five years of talks solemnly on Loss and Damage issues (Climate Home, 2016). Despite such result, some negotiators from small island developing states and least developed countries complained about lack of progress in loss and damage compensation, highlighting the urgent suffering in their nations due to pollutions and emissions exerted by developed countries. 

Overall, COP22 accentuated the growing acknowledgement among 200 countries across the world that achieving their (national) sustainable development will not be possible without addressing the problems of climate change. As Paula Caballero, the Global Director of Climate Program at World Resources Institute states (2016), "the continued well-being of our economies and societies demands urgent action towards a zero-carbon, climate resilient world" and it is very promising to see such progress in international action during the recent COP. Moreover, the following two years will be very crucial in PA implementation globally; it is worth to keep an eye on the updates on the progress!


Thursday, January 5, 2017

Impacts of climate change on health - an African case study

Climate change and the health outcomes  

A 2-yr project led by Kathryn Grace examined the relationship between precipitation, temperature and birth weight in 19 African countries and utilized climate data with extensive health data dating from 1986 to 2010, focusing on the climate change and its effect on birth weight in the study region. The outcome of the study indicated that the pregnant woman’s exposure to reduced precipitation and an increased number of very hot days indeed result in lower birth weight (Grace et al., 2015). Also, the empirical model used in the study allowed the effect of weather factors to vary by the major food production strategy in a given region, mother's education, wealth level of the household and birth season; to further investigate if vulnerability of certain populations are greater than others to unexpected weather changes. This allowed to came up with results that 'climate does indeed impact birth weight and at a level comparable to the impact of increasing education of women or electricity status of a household in some cases (Grace et al., 2015). 

     It was interesting to read about how climate change can lead to specific health outcomes such as lower birth weight, although such climate-induced health impacts may vary across countries and regions under diverse socioeconomic environments and levels of climate change intensity. Also, this study leaves a question on what kind of management strategies - whether it being mitigation or adaption method - would be effective for solving such health issues related with climate change.  More to think about!

Debates on Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) approaches

Debates related to CDR

Many scholars project that although it may not show rapid consequences compared to other approaches like solar geoengineering, with intensive efforts of CDR implementation over the long-term (e.g. several decades) it is expected to significantly reduce the level of atmospheric CO2 concentrations (Caldeira et al., 2013). Also, the scale of carbon removal capacity is huge - if implemented successfully - as shown in the geological reservoirs and oceans; geological reservoirs have the capacity to store several thousand Pg C (Metz et al., 2005) and oceans also expected to store few thousand Pg C in dissolved inorganic carbon forms for centuries (Caldeira et al., 2005 in Metz et al., 2005). 

Concerns on CDR 
Despite impacts of carbon removal from atmosphere in extensive scale is expected from CDR implementation, there are serious concerns raised and is ongoing debate in the academic discourses: 

     1. Cost efficiency of CDR is still questionable - it will be very costly if CDR is implemented in grand scale (i.e. national level) while the effects on the Earth's system are expected to come relatively slow in time. It is highly likely that there will be no or little appreciable influence on global climate for decades after the implementation, so the impacts such as rapid reduction of global surface temperature will not be shown directly. Thus, it is still on debate whether CDR implementation will be 'cost-effective'.

     2. Concerns over physical leakage of carbon from the storage (e.g. geological sinks) are raised as well. Among various CDR methods, carbon capture and storage considered to uptake most of the atmospheric carbon (in expected quantity) and issues on  'permanence' of such carbon storages remain questionable. Some studies suggest that the temporary carbon storage may be equivalent to a delayed release of carbon back in the earth's system (Herzog et al., 2013). Particularly, carbon storage in land (e.g. terrestrial biosphere) has a possibility of leakage since future land-use change or other unexpected factors like fire may lead to release of stored carbon back to atmosphere (Caldeira et al., 2013).

     3. Some scientists postulates that the impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions won't be solved even though CDR is implemented in scale, since the anthropogenic CO2 stored in the ocean and land are in great amount and they also need to be removed as well when it outgasses back to the atmosphere in near future (Cao and Caldeira, 2010). 
     For instance, Cao and Caldeira (2010) modelled a climate-carbon system response to a 'instantaneous removal of all anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere', using an Earth system model. The results revealed that the one-time removal of 100% excess atmospheric CO2 offsets less than 50% of the warming (in temperature) experiencing at the removal time (Cao and Caldeira, 2010). This implies that both anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere and carbon stored in ocean and land should be removed as well to achieve appreciable decrease in temperature and CO2 concentrations. 
     Additionally, a study by Kirschbaum (2006) illustrates that despite the short-term reduction in atmospheric CO2 concentrations may be attained by carbon capture and storage, this may lead to other effects that could lower the concentration gradient between the atmosphere and carbon reservoirs including the oceans; the rate of CO2 removal from the atmosphere can be reduced as a result of this. Hence, if carbons are released in the future from such temporary carbon reservoirs/storages, the subsequent atmospheric CO2 concentrations can be higher than 'without temporary carbon storage' (Kirschbaum, 2006). 


Apart from the points illustrated above, there are also arguments on environmental and health problems related to specific CDR approaches, such as enhancing weathering, as shown the diagram below:


A diagram briefly explaining about the advantages and concerns on enhanced weathering as one of the CDR method (Source: Mooney, 2016 in The Washington Post). 

Among various arguments worrying about the CDR implementation, the issue of 'permanence' in carbon storage appealed very crucial to me. Assume that the international community implement a grand-scale carbon capture and storage project and pushed into the deep geological reservoir in near future. What would happen if such storage starts to leak back to the atmosphere? how can we be sure whether the leakage will happen or not in the future? do we have the appropriate technology to stop the leakage or turn back to the state before the carbon storage implementation? Lots of questions to be asked and remain unresolved.. 

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)

Geoengineering II - Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) 

Another popular geoengineering method is Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), which targets to remove the Greenhouse gases (GHGs) concentrations in the atmosphere. Particularly, CDR aims to remove excess CO2 from atmosphere and various carbon stores in land biosphere, ocean and deep geological reservoirs since it has high possibility of reversing the anthropogenic impacts posed on earth by excessive CO2 emissions. 


Different approaches in CDR (Caldeira et al., 2013
1) Afforestation of previously non-forested land and reforestation of land that had been previously altered from forest to other uses. This approach not only aims to change the surface albedo using tree canopies, but also to increase carbon storage as well (Caldeira et al., 2013). 

2) Biomass energy with CO2 sequestration (BECS) refers to capturing CO2 in the atmosphere from electric power plants, fueled with biomass energy, and stores it underground for a long-term storage site such as deep geologic formation or deep ocean (Metz et al., 2005). A diagram below shows example sites than can used to store CO2;



A diagram showing various options for CO2 storage (from Cook, 1999 in Metz et al., 2005). 

First engineered injection of CO2 into the underground geological formation site was launched in Texas, USA, in early 1970s. It was part of the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects and by the late 1990s further research projects have been embarked in many other locations 
(Metz et al., 2005). If such 'permanent' store of carbon underground is successful, some suggests that it is possible to achieve even negative emissions (Caldeira et al., 2013). 


3) Land-based accelerated weathering is the approach to intentionally accelerate the natural chemical weathering reactions, which remove current anthropogenic CO2 emissions from atmosphere or transfer them to the oceans. Normally, natural weathering only removes in the rate of 0.1 Pg C annually from atmosphere but through various intentional methods this process can be occur at faster rate, helping to reduce the existing anthropogenic emissions. One of the methods accelerating the weathering reaction are using silicate minerals like olivine, which could be spread on farmland or forestland extensively to store some of the atmospheric CO2 as a carbonate mineral component (Schuiling and Krijgsman, 2006). 

4) Ocean-based enhanced weathering proposes various methods to enhance the ocean's ability to absorb (additional) CO2. One of the ways involve heating the carbonate minerals such as limestone to produce lime and add them to the oceans to increase the alkaline property, thus improve the ability of ocean to uptake atmospheric CO2 (Caldeira et al., 2013). Also, carbonate minerals can just be directly released into the oceans (Harvey, 2008) or reacted with concentrated CO2 captured at power plants to produce bicarbonate solution, then released to the oceans (Rau, 2008). 

5) Ocean fertilization approach is somewhat similar to the ocean-based weathering, since it proposes to add nutrients to the ocean to increase the planktonic productivity that can positively affect the CO2 removal; greater uptake of atmospheric CO2 by ocean and increase in the downward flux of CO2 out of the near-surface layers of the ocean (Caldeira et al., 2013). 

6) Direct capture from air aims to apply chemical processes to separate CO2 from rest of atmosphere, which then transported and used for commercial purposes (Caldeira et al., 2013) or stored underground as mentioned in BECS section. Three major methods are suggested for CO2 capture, including post-combustion, oxy-fuel combustion and pre-combustion systems. Although it could result in massive uptake of CO2 emissions from atmosphere, challenges of health, safety and environmental risks as well as the legal issues still exist in debate (Metz et al., 2005)



Next post will explore about the concerns raised in CDR implementation. 

   

Friday, December 9, 2016

Concerns related to SRM

Despite potential positive effects from SRM, there are also several concerns suggested by many studies. 

Controversies over stratospheric aerosol injection
One of the widely discussed concerns include the side effects of stratospheric aerosol injection. 

Impacts on regional climate
The idea of stratospheric aerosol injection has been initiated after analysing the effects of major volcanic eruptions such as Mt. Pinatubo eruption (1991), which cooled down the earth's temperature globally for few years without significant adverse impacts. However, later studies investigated that actually, there were major adverse effects following the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, suggested by Trenberth and Dai (2007): 
     After examining precipitation and streamflow records between 1950 and 2004, the study indicated that there has been a 'substantial decrease in precipitation over land and a record decrease in runoff and river discharge into the ocean' between October 1991 and September 1992 (Trenberth and Dai, 2007). Furthermore, it is also suggested that drought may arise as an adverse effect of geoengineering application. 

Confining the geoengineering region
Even if it is possible to control the exact amounts of aerosols injecting into the atmosphere - preferably less than amounts injected by volcanic eruptions - some questions still remain for answers; for example, is it possible to 'geoengineer' the isolated regions such as the Arctic and will the application be confined there? (Robock, 2008) Also, will the engineers and scientists be able to predict all the (adverse) effects beforehand while the question of confined geoengineering is unresolved? The adverse impacts of stratospheric aerosol injection may or may not be worse than predicted, but current simulations using different climate models reveal reduced precipitation over wide regions leading to the possibility of drought. 

Ozone depletion
Some scientists propose a threat of ozone depletion from stratospheric aerosol injection, since aerosol particles can serve as a surface for chemical reactions that may destroy the ozone layer of the Earth (Robock, 2008). If this happens, devastating effects on crops and natural flora will be massive. 

Yet, potential of SRM exerting positive influence also exists
However, other studies such as Modak and Bala (2014) signify that aerosol injection with different latitudinal distribution may be effective in reducing the impacts of climate change and global warming, although uncertainties in the process of injection/ transportation itself and particle size evolution over time exist. 


Even though there are lots of concerns raised for different SRM approaches, stratospheric aerosol injection seems to receive greater attention than others. It seems to me that further studies on adverse effects should continue to be researched, since it is better to know all the possible side effects that could happen before the actual application of SRM technologies; preventing before it cannot be reversed.