EMISSIONS

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Water Policy 2009
Adaptation and Water Policyunder climate change
Ing. Martin Dockal, PhD.Prof. Ing. Zdenek Kos,
DrSc.
Czech Technical University in Prague Faculty
of Civil Engineering, Dept.of
Irrigation Drainage and Landscape Engineering
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Introduction

• Flash news in TV, on the Web
• Catastrophic events like the major floods, heat
  waves and forest fires in Europe, as well as the
  disastrous hurricanes in the USA and draughts in
  Australia

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Introduction - Cont.
The growing worldwide exposure to natural
catastrophes has become very evident in recent
years
National Geographic

• Over the last two decades, the world has
  experienced a clear increase in the number, scale
  and economic impact of such events.
• The scale and frequency of natural catastrophic
  events are likely to increase

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World under the change

• Depending on the locality ? consequences are
  different

GEOPHYSICAL FLUID DYNAMICS LAB. NOAA
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World under the change

• Consequences are different
• ? Increasing global air und sea surface
  temperatures,
• ? Rising global average sea level,
• ? Widespread melting of snow and ice,
• ? Extreme weather events likelihood
• ? Increase of losses due to extreme weather
  events precipitation and temperature patterns,
• ? Increased costs of coastal protection and
  land-use relocation
• ? Damage to coast and coral riffs
• ? Land degradation and wildfires
• ? Losses in agriculture (area affected by
  droughts),
• ? Soil erosion, flash floods, landslides,
  mudslides,
• ? Heavy precipitation events

STOP ! We know it causes?
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Basic question ?

• Question IS NOT TECHNICAL (How to protect the
  Danube basin)
• ? intelligent and competent people will find the
  solution
• even ECONMICAL (Who will pay it?)
• ? priority? we have enough money for military
  experiments and space exploring (in the
  necessity, we will have founds!)
• The most important is
• Are we able to change the trend of the recent
  decades?
• Two strategies ? ADAPTATION
• ? MITIGATION
• Question for the policymakers

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IPCC (says YES)

• The answer is clear (?)
• According to the reports of IPCC (UN
  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) namely
  the Fourth Report AR4 published during the year
  2008 the influence of mankind activities namely
  burning of fossil fuel are the main reason of
  climate change.
• The reaction of politicians was straightforward
  it is necessary to mitigate the climate change by
  reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG
  emissions).

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GHG Theory

• The requirement for reduction of emissions of GHG
  seems as a quite reasonable solution of the
  situation climate change and global warming
  problems.
• However, now some scientists deny such
  straightforward relation between concentrations
  of GHG (namely CO2) and temperature.
• They claim that in proxy data from the past 650
  000 years at first the temperature starts to
  increase and then! the concentration of CO2!
  (with different time lag 200-800 years)

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M. Leroux, B. Lombork (No)

• Marcel Leroux even does a question mark to his
  investigation of temperature increase as a result
  of CO2 increase and concludes Greenhouse effect
  does not control the evolution of temperature
  Such statement if proven would have very
  important impact on mitigation policy!
• Prof. B. Lomborg in his famous book Cool it
  claim, that reduction of emissions of fossil fuel
  will cost much more then direct adaptation
  actions (like adaptation in water resources
  management and other sectors).
• He is a perfect statistician and every sentence
  that is written in his book is based on a
  statistical analysis!!!

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Messages for policymakers

• Progress requires the policymaker's activity
• The Open Letter of one hundred of scientists to
  the general secretary Ban Kimon of UN on the
  climatic conference in Bali criticized the way of
  interpretation of the results of many scientists
  by IPCC with preference of one hypothesis of the
  role of GHG in the atmosphere and global warming.
• The Report of the House of Lords in UK (Selected
  Committee on Economic Affairs The Economics of
  Climate Change) declare, that global warming
  will continue even under the worldwide actions
  (like promised by EU of G8).
• The work of IPCC is also criticized
  (underestimation of positive effects of climate
  change in results of AR4)

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Main idea of introduction

• The problem of climate change and its causes has
  not been definitely solved by the reports of
  IPCC.
• It is still a scientific problem and the
  political reaction to it should consider this
  fact!
• technical and economical solutions can succeed!

In such a situation of uncertainty Water
management has mighty tools checked already in
reality scenarios risky analysis
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Climate change scenarios

• Predictions of climate change vary from
  relatively slow step-by-step changes of climate
  to revolutionary possibilities with instability
  and wars. (e.g. Schwarz and Randall)
• IPCC investigated this problem and offered six
  main scenarios of the human society development,
  (IPCC SRES) namely A1B, A1T, A2, B1, and B2.
• The scenarios are the basis for prediction of the
  GHG concentration (co called post-SRES), derived
  by different climatic models. Using these
  scenarios and climatic models the prediction of
  temperature till 2100 ranges from 1,1C
  temperature increase to 6,4 C increase with a
  majority between 1,8 4,0 C increase.
• Further analysis is necessary to achieve more
  precise
• estimation.

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Stern Report
Despite this situation some scientist like N.
Stern force the politicians to immediately start
actions as he and others recommend applying the
so-called precautionary principle. He claims that
postponing might be very expensive. Other
scientists like B. Lomborg (and president of the
Czech Republic V. Klaus) recommend postponing
adaptation and mitigation actions (expensive
reduction of GHG emissions) as future generations
will be far richer and their technology will be
more developed to deal with the problems of
climate change.
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Water Policy Implications

• Can a recommendation for water policy be derived
  under such different attitudes to the problem of
  climate change?
• YES, IT CAN! (and it will be summarized in the
  conclusion part)

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Politicians Reaction COPs

• The majority of politicians agree in their
  proclamations on the necessity to reduce the
  emissions of CO2.
• The slogan of EU in 2020 20 reduction and in
  2050 - 50 is a clear and ambitious! example.
• However, in the negotiations of COPs (Conferences
  of UNFCCC) it comes out, that the transition of
  these proclamations into real commitments is a
  very difficult process!

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Financial Crisis CC

• Experts fear the financial crisis will discourage
  governments worldwide from turning to taxpayers
  for assistance in climate-change efforts.
• On the other hand the ecologists claim that the
  "unprecedented" financial crisis (no matter how
  severe) - will be short-lived and should not
  stand in the way of global action on climate
  change!
• Many economists warn that each percent of
  reduction may result in a very expensive
  reduction of GDP with transfer of production from
  Europe to the third world like China and India.
• The result for water policy is to stay on the
  ground and do the win-win actions that
  will assist to water management in each situation
  - small changes of climate or big ones.

And now, It is the time for the direct
solution time for Prof.Zdenek Kos and
GEOINGENEERING
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Risk management and geoengineering

• Planning of economic development under the risk
  of climate change and its impacts is a typical
  risky situation. Why not to apply the methods of
  risk management to find the most critical parts
  and situations of the economic and environmental
  systems and concentrate on solving of these
  situations.
• Of course, the solutions require adequate
  technical measures to be at hand in the time of
  the necessity of their application. The proposal
  for such measures exists, and it is not new.
• Even in 1965 on president of the USA Johnson's
  desk there was a report "Restoring the Quality
  of Our Environment"- that recommended to raise
  the albedo, reflectivity, of the Earth to
  counterbalance the effect of CO2 increase.

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Albedo change

• Such a change in albedo could be reached by
  splitting of some material (aluminum powder of
  sulfates) in the upper part of atmosphere
  stratosphere.
• This method was lately called geoengineering the
  worldwide engineering action to govern the
  climate system.

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P. Crutzen

• The modern debate on geoengineering was started
  by Paul Crutzen, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize
  in chemistry for his ozone hole work.
• The prestigious journal Climate Change devoted
  an entire issue to the subject. The Journal
  Climatic Change published many articles on this
  topic.
• The original Crutzens proposal is to pump
  sunlight reflecting sulfur particles into the
  atmosphere. Weve had several experiences with
  the cooling effect of atmospheric sulfur.
• In 1815, the eruption of Mount Tambora caused the
  year without summer. In 1991, Mount Pinatubo
  spewed forth enough sulfur to cool the Earth
  about one degree for several years. Thats about
  equal to the planetary warming weve experienced
  over the past 100 years.

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Aluminum powder

• Other ideas include placing aluminum-powder into
  stratosphere, detuning airplane engines so jets
  fly dirtier and emit more carbon soot (the
  sunscreen proposal), and spraying seawater into
  clouds to increase the albedo effect.
• All of these proposals would cool the planet
  without any reduction in CO2 emissions.

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Geoing is fast

• Proponents dont believe geoengineering will
  solve all the problems.
• Rather, it is a valuable method of risk
  management when all other methods fail to stop
  immediately for instance the rapid increase in
  the sea level. It buys time while we develop and
  deploy alternative fuels and figure out
  acceptable policies to reduce or stabilize
  atmospheric CO2.
• Effect of geoengineering is counted in months
  rather that decades.

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Geoing who operates?

• Geoengineering will receive ever more attention
  from scientists and policy makers, as the hidden
  costs of schemes like the Kyoto Protocol become
  obvious.
• These costs are probably too high for politicians
  to bear, namely facing the economical crisis.
• Of course, we can geoengineer the climate - but
  this raises important questions. Who sets the
  thermostat?
• Do residents of small islands turn the dial,
  since a future rise in sea level could submerge
  their homes? Or do the Russians in Siberia?
• They might prefer some moderate warming to
  increase agriculture in Siberia and provide
  ice-free ports.

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Geoing long way to realize

• Geoengineering approach will be probably
  successful, popular, and cheap.
• However, what will the situation if the
  implications if environmentalists, rejecting
  technological fixes will fight this?
• They will risk condemnation for opposing
  pragmatic solutions to climate change.
• Dealing responsibly with our changing climate
  requires a portfolio of strategies, probably
  including geoengineering.
• However, it will be a long way from the
  recommendation of scientists like Crutzen to the
  portfolio of politicians.

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Impact of climate change on water policy

• The two basic methods to deal with the impacts of
  climate change we already mentioned - mitigation
  and adaptation.
• While mitigation is in general out of scope of
  water policy (excepting water power plant
  preference with no emissions of GHG to thermal
  power plants) the main method in water policy is
  adaptation.
• However the question might be adaptation to which
  station of the climate system moderate or severe
  change of climate. The answer is relatively easy
  adaptation to unexpected situations (IIASA 1980
  Expect unexpected).
• In water policy it is a very rare the case of an
  over-designed project. Water policy projects are
  typically multi-objective and if one objective is
  not fully justified at this moment the other can
  stand in his place.
• The resulting requirement is plan and
  construct robust systems.

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Adaptation and mitigation in Water Policy in
the CR

• Adaptation and mitigation in Water Policy in
  the Czech Republic
• For solving the climate change problems, we have
  many tools related with water management and
  water policy.
• In general, two basic ways of the climatic change
  problem-solving are known. Mitigation (involves
  actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to
  enhance sinks aimed at reducing the extent of
  global warming - Aquatic plants and bank
  vegetation support).
• The adaptive arrangements are taken for minimize
  the negative consequences of CC.
• For water management in the Czech Republic we
  could mention such as microclimate benefits,
  water (drinking, irrigation, industry) supply
  safety, ... Not only the technical arrangements
  in the catchments, but also the educational
  training, operation plans and legislation support
  are necessary.

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Water Policy and Adaptive IWRM

• Water Policy and Adaptive Integrated Water
  Resources Management (IWRM)
• Integrated water resources management (IWRM) was
  defined as a process, which promotes the
  coordinated development and management of water,
  land and related resources in order to maximize
  the resultant economic and social welfare in an
  equitable manner without compromising the
  sustainability of vital ecosystems.
• This resulted in the human dimension and
  stakeholder involvement being identified as an
  integral part of water management.
• The adaptive approach is based on the hypothesis
  that IWRM cannot be realized unless current water
  management regimes undergo a transition towards
  more adaptive integrated water management
  (AIWRM).

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AIWRM

• AIWRM can more generally be defined as a
  systematic process for continually improving
  management policies and practices by learning
  from the outcomes of implemented management
  strategies.
• New water policy focuses on the transition of
  current water management regimes to adaptive
  water management where adaptive management is
  aimed at integrated system design.

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Conclusion

• Adaptation in water policy is an integral and
  preferable method of adaptive integrated water
  resource management (AIWRM).
• Very important claim of water policy using
  adaptive integrated water resource management is
  Plan and design robust systems.
• The starting point in water policy should be the
  accomplishment of the win-win and no regret
  actions, i.e. actions that need be realized in al
  cases regardless of climate change.
• The problem of inadequate adaptation capacity can
  be solved by the modern technology like
  geoengineering.

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Good bye, questions, answers

• Thank you for your attention,
• Make yourself conformable
• and . go playing golf
• (but mind the irrigation demands of this
  pleasure! ?)
• Time for Your questions

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References

• Climate Change 2007 Climate Change Impacts,
  Adaptation and Vulnerability, Summary for
  Policymakers, Working Group II Contribution to
  the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
  Fourth Assessment Report , IPCC Secretariat,
  Geneva 2007.
• Crutzen, P. J.,2002 Geology of Mankind The
  Anthoropocene, Nature, 415, , s.23
• Crutzen, P.J.2006 Albedo Enhancement by
  Stratospheric Sulfur Injections A Contribution
  to Resolve a Policy Dilemma?, Climatic Change 77
  s. 211219
• Flanery,T.,2007 Meníme podnebí. Minulost a
  budoucnost klimatických zmen (Weather Makers), 1.
  vyd. Nakladatelství Dokorán, Praha
• Govindasamy, B. Caldeira,K. Duffy, P. B.2003
  Geoengineering Earth's radiation balance to
  mitigate climate change from a quadrupling of C02
  , Elsevier, Global and Planetary Change, 37 , s.
  157168
• Keith, D. W., 2000 Geoengineering, Encyclopedia
  of Global Change, 2, , s. 155
• Kos,Z. Koková, R.,2007 Zmena klimatu a
  inenýrská opatrení v rámci celé planety. CSKI,
  Krajinné inenýství 2007,s. 85-94
• Leroux, M.,2005 . Global Warming - Myth Or
  Reality?. Springer praxis. p. 510.
• Schwartz, P. Randall, D., 2003 An Abrupt
  Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for
  United States National Security, October 2003,
  Pentagon.