Slide 1

Learning about climate change Thomas E. Downing Stockholm Environment Institute Oxford Integrated assessments Slide 2 Overview of issues (20 minutes) Cognitive mapping of an integrated assessment issue (30 minutes) Dangers in IA (20 minutes) Conditions of application (10 minutes) Discussion Slide 3 Introduction What have we learned from the use of Integrated Assessment Models in formulating responses to climate change? Contributor to the first regional integrated assessment; model of the economic impact of climate change Slide 4 Dangers in climate policy SustainabilityCollapseInequitable Development Slide 5 Earth System Interactions n GHG emissions n Climate n Terrestrial ecosystems n Source: MIT global change programme Slide 6 Understanding Earth Penguin trials: test the waters and see if anything is happening Lilliput principle: experimental microcosms such as Biosphere II Eagle eye: observing Earths panorama from space Minah: digital mimicry through simulation modelling After Schellnhuber, 1999, Nature Slide 7 Questions... What is an IAM? What should IAMs do? What needs to be done to improve IAMs? Slide 8 What is IA? IA is a process of stakeholder engagement that includes insight from models (IAMs) Foundations in acid rain, trade and world environment models A means to gain insight into complex environmental, economic and social interactions Slide 9 What is an IAM? Slide 10 Policy issues What is the advantage of trading greenhouse gas emissions? Climate-economic integration, regional trade How much CO2 could terrestrial ecosystems absorb? Climate-land use integration, geographic resolution What should be the priorities for adaptation? Climate-impacts integration, local-global hierarchy, autonomous adaptation Is technology the answer? Climate-society integration, innovation, geographic diffusion, market transformation Slide 11 Integration... Who participates? Which sectors? How many scales? Slide 12 IAMs IMAGE FUND DICE ICAM AIM Simulation Optimising Geographical Trade OF Targets Page EDM3 Green Miasma Rice SGM Merge3 MIT-EPPA G-Cubed CETA AS/ExM HCRA DIAM PEF PRICE SLICE Yohe ABARE Slide 13 Three examples Economic policy to abate greenhouse gas emissions Land use change and terrestrial carbon cycles Equity in climate change impacts Slide 14 Economic policy What are the impacts of GHG abatement policy: Trade Energy prices Capital costs and investment Transnational corporations Secondary effects Two studies Oxford Institute for Energy Studies G-cubed Slide 15 Fossil Fuels in a Changing Climate Impacts of the Kyoto Protocol and Developing Country Participation Ulrich Bartsch and Benito Mller Published by Oxford University Press, 2000 http://associnst.ox.ac.uk/energy Slide 16 The Oxford Model for Climate Policy Analysis (CLIMOX) Slide 17 The CLIMOX Production Structure Slide 18 'Sizing the Cake': Global CO 2 Energy Emissions (Gt CO 2 ) OIES BaU Kyoto 550A * 550ppm CO 2 concentrations = acceptable GC Target Global Target: 14.4 per cent reduction from BaU 14.4% Slide 19 Distributing the Cake: The Problem Non-Annex I Annex I 67%74% Grandfathering Per Capita Slide 20 0.25 0.75 Slide 21 Energy Emissions: Reductions and Assigned Amounts in 2020, % of BaU -60 -30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 USA JPN EUM ROE ROO EIT CHN INDANI AOE LAM ROW GLOBAL Assigned Amounts Cartel Supply Actual Reductions Emission Trading induces a global emission reduction of 5 per cent over the required target Slide 22 GC: 2020 Emission Mitigation Costs/Benefits -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 USARest of OECD JapanEUEITMENALatin America ANIChinaRoWIndia 1995 $ bn Cost of Domestic Action JI/CDM Permit Sales Surplus Permit Sales Permit Acquisition Net Mitigation Benefits/Costs (+/-) Slide 23 1995 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 USAJapan EUR-OECD EIT ChinaIndia ANI MENA LAM ROW BaU Real Income Index; GC BaUGC Real- Income-Per-Capita Index BaUGC 1995 Slide 24 Effect of international trading on permit prices, 2010, $/MTC Source: G-cubed Model, W. McKibben Slide 25 Land use Shifts in biomes Carbon storage and sequestration Methane, nitrous oxides Agroecological potential Species and biodiversity Water Health Secondary effects Slide 26 Scenarios of land use change Source: IMAGE2 Model Slide 27 Equity in impacts Notes: 1% PRTP discounting. Source: ExternE Project. Slide 28 Cognitive issue mapping Select an issue: Carbon sequestration in managed ecosystems Damage valuation of climate change impacts Others Brainstorming of elements Clustering Mapping relationships Ideas for data, models and analysis Slide 29 What should IAMs do? Economic growth Sustainable environments Social equity Slide 30 What should IAMs do? Slide 31 Dangers in IAM IA wars: My clients appreciate my model Wrong question: Ask not what you need but what I can do Anchoring: Dont trust the numbers, IAMs only provide insight Polarisation: Criticise my wife but dont mess with my model Complexity: Read the fine detail Restricted discourse: Talk the talk, walk the walk Symbolic structuration: Any model that mediates demand through prices means that you have to raise prices. Slide 32 What needs to be done? Procedures for evaluating IAMs Model representation: what is reality? Evaluating changing institutions: how will future societies evolve to cope with global change? Users and uses: how to foster insight? Slide 33 Conditions of application Model representation Natural systems Resolution and scaling Validation Decision agents Agent motivation For example: Linking resource management decisions to macro- economy and feedback from the environment Slide 34 Agents in IAM Slide 35 Conditions of application Changing institutions Societal structure Cultural norms For example: Technological innovation and diffusion Market transformation Sustainable consumption Slide 36 A relational strategy... Slide 37 Conditions of application User/policy context Stakeholder participation Hypothesis testing Verification Transparency Documentation New processes of science-policy formulation? Slide 38 Learning about climate change Integrated Assessments