Adaptation, Vulnerability and Integrated Risk Assessment

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Adaptation, Vulnerability and Integrated Risk
Assessment
Asia Pacific Network for Global Change
Research Symposium on Global Change
Research March 23, Canberra

• Roger N. Jones

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Risk

• Can be broadly defined as the likelihood of an
  adverse event or outcome
• How does this relate to Article 2 of the UNFCCC?

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Article 2 UNFCCC

• Aims to prevent dangerous
• anthropogenic climate change
• by stabilising greenhouse gas emissions,
• thus allowing
• Ecosystems to adapt naturally
• Food security to be maintained
• Sustainable development to proceed

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What is dangerous climate change?

• This is a value judgement best assessed by
  policymakers, stakeholders and the community.
  Research can help with problem definition,
  plausibility and likelihood of various aspects
• Global thresholds of criticality grounded ice
  sheet melts, N. Hemisphere flips to cold
  conditions, Amazon wilts and burns in heat and
  drought
• Local thresholds of criticality any activity
  where impacts become non-viable with no
  reasonable substitute or the harm caused exceeds
  given levels of tolerance

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Attaching likelihood

• What is the likelihood of exceeding given levels
  of criticality without risk management?
• What type and level of management is needed to
  reduce these risks?
• These questions can be assessed on a range of
  scales

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Risk management

• Mitigation reduces climate hazards
• Adaptation reduces the consequences for a given
  level of climate-related hazard
• Adaptation may act to
• reduce harm,
• take advantage of benefits, and
• modify ongoing change processes

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Linking climate to adaptation over time
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Measuring the ability to cope
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Coping under climate change
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Four pillars of climate risk analysis

• Most systems affected by climate variability have
  evolved to cope with that variability to some
  extent
• Climate change will mainly be felt as changes to
  climate variability and extremes.
• Without adaptation, damages will increase with
  successively higher levels of global warming
• Critical thresholds occurring at low levels of
  global warming and sea level rise are much more
  likely to be exceeded than those occurring at
  higher levels

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Bleaching thresholds
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Simulated historical bleaching events at Magnetic
Island
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Mortality threshold
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Bleaching severity
Bleaching level Impact Recovery
Bleaching Loss of color lt1 year
0.5C Some mortality (e.g. 1998, 2002) 1-3 years
1.0C Widespread mortality (transplant experiments) 3-? years
1.5C Not experienced but worse Longer
2.0C Not experienced but even worse Longer
2.5C Not experienced catastrophic? Decades
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Bleaching risk as a function of warming
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When is the coping range of coral reef
communities exceeded?

• Physical bleaching rates
• Ecosystem damage
• Peoples livelihoods affected (e.g. fishing,
  tourism)
• Policy objectives
• Species/ecosystem rights to exist
• Are we happy with algal mats and seaweed?

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Bioclimatic thresholds exceeded as a function of
warming
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Macquarie River Catchment

• Area 75,000 km2
• P 1000 to lt400 mm.
• Major dams Burrendong and Windamere
• Water demands irrigation agriculture Macquarie
  Marshes town supply
• Most flow from upper catchment runoff
• Most demand in the lower catchment

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Irrigation allocations and wetland inflows-
historical climate and 1996 rules
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Critical thresholdsMacquarie River Catchment

• Irrigation
• 5 consecutive years below 50 allocation of water
  right
• Wetlands
• 10 consecutive years below bird breeding events
• Both thresholds are exceeded if mean streamflow
  decreases
• by 10 under a drought-dominated climate,
• by 20 under a normal climate and
• by 30 under a flood-dominated climate

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Risk analysis resultsMacquarie 2030
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Change in risk as a function of global warming
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Metrics for measuring costs

• Monetary losses (gains)
• Loss of life
• Change in quality of life
• Species and habitat loss
• Distributional equity

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Estimating dangerous climate change

• Assumptions
• Atmospheric CO2 3541500 ppm
• Climate sensitivity 1.54.5C
• Non-CO2 forcing 0.53.5Wm-2
• Randomly sampled at uniform distribution

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Temperature at stabilisation
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Temperature at stabilisation
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Probabilities of meeting temperature targets at
given levels of CO2 stabilisation
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Estimating dangerous climate change - Take 2

• Assumptions
• Atmospheric CO2 3541000 ppm (uniform)
• Climate sensitivity Expert (Forrest et al. non
  linear)
• Non-CO2 forcing 0.53.5Wm-2 , linked to CO2 (non
  linear)
• Randomly sampled

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Temperature at stabilisation
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Temperature at stabilisation
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Adaptation and mitigation

• Adaptation increases the coping range through
  biological and social means
• Mitigation reduces the magnitude and frequency of
  greenhouse-related climate hazards
• Therefore, they are complementary, not
  interchangeable.
• They also reduce different areas of climate
  uncertainty

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Moving forward

• Adaptation
• Most suited to impacts vulnerable to current
  climate risks or small changes in climate change
  (These are the most likely to be affected)
• Cannot cope with large changes or many impacts
  (too expensive and difficult)
• Adaptation will be local and mainly shorter-term
  adjustments

• Mitigation
• Reduces climate hazards (e.g. global warming)
  progressively from the top down.
• Unlikely to prevent a certain level of climate
  change adaptation will be needed for such
  changes.
• Mitigation that presents as a cost now will
  become profitable when damages become more
  apparent and BAU for the energy system changes to
  low emission operation

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Activities most at risk

• Those where
• critical thresholds are exceeded at low levels of
  global warming,
• adaptive capacity is low and/or adaptation is
  prohibitively expensive, difficult or unknown and
  
• the consequences of exceeding those thresholds
  are judged to be serious