Hdr 20072008 Presentation[1]

The 21st Centuryclimate challenge

“One generation plants a tree; the next generation gets the shade.”

Chinese Proverb

“You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack.

What is missing is the courage to understand what we know

and to draw conclusions.”Sven Lindqvist

• The world has less than a decade to avoid dangerous climate change that could bring unprecedented human development reversals

• Climate change is a threat to humanity as a whole. But it is the poor, a constituency with no responsibility for the ecological debt we are running up, who face the most immediate and most severe human costs

• The Human Development Report 2007/2008 calls for a ‘twin track’ approach that combines stringent mitigation to limit 21st Century warming to less than 2 degree centigrade, with strengthened international cooperation on adaptation

• The forthcoming conference of the parties in Bali is a unique opportunity to put the interests of the world’s poor and future generations at the heart of climate change negotiations

The 21st Century climate challenge

Three distinctive characteristics:

– It is cumulative

– The effects are irreversible – Large time lags – today’s

emissions are tomorrow’s problems

– It is global

Rising CO2 emissions are pushing up stocks & increasing temperatures

• In the past 100 years the earth has warmed 0.70C

• Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are increasing at 1.9 ppm each year. It reached 379 ppm in 2005

• Between 2000 and 2005 an average of 26 Gt of CO2 was releases into the atmosphere each year

The Global carbon account

• Defining dangerous – keeping within 2°C

• Establishing a 21st Century carbon budget

• Defining a sustainable emission’s pathway

• The problem of inertia– the case for adaptation

The 21st Century carbonbudget is set at 1,456 Gt CO2

to avoid dangerous climate change

The 21st Century carbon budget is set for early expiry

Charting a course away dangerous climate change

The sustainable emissions pathway is as follows

– The world – cuts of 50 percent by 2050 with a peak by 2020

– Developed countries – cuts of 80 percent by 2050

– Developing countries – cuts of 20 percent by 2050

with respect to 1990

Halving emissions by 2050 could avoid dangerous climate change

Some people walk more lightly than others

• The UK (population 60 million) emits more CO2 than Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan and Vietnam (total population 472 million)

• The state of Texas (population 23 million) has a deeper footprint than the whole sub-Saharan Africa (720 million people)

• The 19 million people living in New York have a deeper footprint than the 766 million people living in the 50 least developed countries

The distribution of current emissions points to an inverse relationship between climate

change vulnerability and responsibility

How many planets?

• The 21st century carbon budget amounts to 1,456 Gt or around 14.5 Gt CO2 per year

• Total CO2 emissions in 2004 stood at 29 Gt

• If every person living in the developing world would have the same carbon footprint than an average person in the US or Canada, we would need the equivalent to nine planets to absorb the CO2

Climate shocks:risk and vulnerability

in an unequal world

“The countries most vulnerable are least able to protect themselves. They also contribute least to the global emissions of greenhouse

gases. Without action they will pay a high price for the actions of others.”

Kofi Annan

“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and

it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.”

Nelson Mandela

Risk and vulnerability

• Climate risk is an external fact of life for the entire world

• Vulnerability is a measure of capacity to manage climate hazards without suffering a long-term potentially irreversible loss of well-being.

• The state of human development shapes the process by which risk is converted into vulnerability

Disaster risk is skewed tpwards developing countries

• 1 in 19 people are affected in developing countries

• The corresponding number is 1 in 1,500 in OECD countries

A risk differential of 79

The human development backdrop

• Poverty, child mortality and malnutrition

– There are still around 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day.

– Around 28 percent of children in LDCs are underweight or stunted.

– Only 32 countries (of 147) are on track to achieve the MDG on child mortality

• Inequality

– More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening

– Underlying inequalities act as a barrier for early recovery after shocks

Low human development traps

The potential human costs of climate change have been understated

• Climate related risks force people into downward spirals of disadvantage that undermine future oppurtunities

• In Ethiopia, childre exposed to a drought in early childhood are 36 percent more likely to be malnourished five years later – a figure that translates into 2 million additional cases of child maknutrition

• Indian women born during a drought or a flood in the 1970s were 19 percent less likely to ever attend primary school

Five human development tipping points

Reduced agricultural productivity

Heightened water insecurity

Increased exposure to extreme weather events

Collapse of ecosystems

Increased health risks

Climate change will hurt developing country agriculture

Heightened water insecurity – glacial melting

• Glacial melting posses threats to more than 40 percent of the world’s population.

• In the arid cost of Peru, 80 percent of fresh water originates from glacial melt.

• The flow of the Indus, could decline as much as 70 percent

• In Central Asia, losses of glacial melt into Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers could restrict water for irrigation and hydroelectric power

Extreme weather events

• The number of additional people experiencing coastal flooding could range from 134 to 332 million for a 3o- 4o increase in temperature.

• Tropical storms could raise the figure to 371 million by the end of the 21st century

• Possible consequences of one meter rise in sea level

– In Lower Egypt, 6 million people displaced and 4,500 kms2 of farmland flooded

– In Vietnam, 22 million people displaced– In Bangladesh, 18 percent of land area could be

inundated affecting 11 percent of the population – In the Maldives, more than 80 percent of land area is

less than 1 meter above sea level

Avoiding dangerous climate change:

strategies for mitigation

“We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”

Albert Einstein

“Speed is irrelevant if you are going in the wrong direction.”

Mahatma Gandhi

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

Helen Keller

Avoiding dangerous climate change – strategies for mitigation

• Setting mitigation targets: current problems

• Pricing carbon: the role of markets

• The role of public policy: regulation and research & development

Problems setting emission reduction targets

• Insufficient ambition

• Insufficient urgency

• Inaccurate indicators

• Inadequate sectoral coverage

• Inconsistent base years

Targets are de-linked from policies

Pricing carbon emissions

• Market failure: Polluters do not suffer the worse consequences of their own pollution

• Immediate challenge: to push the price of carbon to a level consistent with the sustainable emissions pathway

• Ways to do it: taxation and cap-and-trade and trade

Where should the price of carbon be set?

How should the price be generated?

– Under carbon taxation emitters are required to pay for each tone of CO2 they produce

– Under cap-and-trade, the government sets an overall emissions cap and issues tradable allowances to allow business the “right to emit”

Taxation versus cap-and-trade

The relative merits of taxation and cap-and-trade

• Administration

• Price predictability

• Revenue mobilization

The differences can be exaggerated

The critical role of regulation and

government action

• The energy mix

• The residential sector

• Vehicle emission standards

• R&D and deployment of low carbon technologies

The Energy Mix

• Currently energy mix is dominated by fossil fuels

• Renewable energy is not competitive with coal-fired power – price of carbon and incentives for predicable markets can play a role

– Germany’ Renewable Sources Act – fix price for 20 years

– Spain – wind power satisfies around 8 percent of total electricity demand. In 2005 saved 19 million t CO2 emissions

– Denmark – tax breaks on capital investments. In two decades wind has increased the share in electricity generation to 20 percent

Residential Sector

• Low cost mitigation

• In OECD residential accounts for 35-40 percent of national CO2 emissions

• Appliances alone produce roughly 12 percent

• Policies on building and appliances could save up to 29 percent emissions (3.9 Gt CO2) by 2020 equivalent to three times current emissions of India

• Average European household could save 200 to 1000 Euros annually through energy efficiency

• The best efficiency standards of electrical appliances could save 322 million t CO2 by 2010 equivalent to 100 million cars off the road (all cars from Canada, France and Germany)

Vehicle Emission Standards

• Personal transportation is the largest consumer of oil

• In OECD the automobile sector accounts for about 30 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions

• Improvements in the United States regulatory standards would represent cuttings equivalent to France’s total emissions

Increased coal efficiency could cut CO2 emissions

Adapting to the inevitable: national action and

international cooperation

“If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.”

Montesquieu

• By mid-2007, actual multilateral financing delivered through UNFCCC amounted to US$ 26 million

• This is equivalent to one week spending in floods defences in the UK

• Amounts are not the only problem. Timing and fulfillment of pledges present further limitations

Towards adaptation apartheid? Developed country investments dwarf

adaptation funds

Investing in adaptation up to 2015

Additional financing needs for climate proofing infrastructure and building resilience are estimated to be at least 86 billion by 2015- Climate proofing infrastructure- Social protection- Strengthening disaster response

The Human Development Report underscores that:

• The poor are suffering and will suffer more with climate change. They are at greatest risk to face human development reversals leading to low human development traps.

• Climate change is an urgent matter. We need to act now.

• Both mitigation and adaptation are needed to truly fight climate change and the threats it poses to humanity.

• Rich countries must cut emissions by 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

• International cooperation on finance and technology transfer is needed. The report argues for the creation of a Climate Change Mitigation Facility.

• Extreme inequalities in adaptation capacity exist. International cooperation has been slow to materialize. Adaptation plans needs need to be part of wider strategies of poverty alleviation.

The HDR 2007/2008 will be launched 27 November

2007

http://hdr.undp.org