Delayed action raises costs of climate change, study says

EurActiv: An agreement by almost 200 nations to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions from 2020 will be far more costly than taking action now to tackle climate change, a new report says. Quick measures to cut emissions would give a far better chance of keeping global warming within an agreed UN limit of 2o Celsius above pre-industrial times to avert more floods, heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels.

"If you delay action by 10, 20 years you significantly reduce the chances of meeting the 2o target," said Keywan Riahi, one of the authors of the report at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.

"It was generally known that costs increase when you delay action. It was not clear how quickly they change," he told Reuters on Wednesday (2 January) of the findings in the science journal Nature Climate Change based on 500 computer-generated scenarios.

It said the timing of cuts in greenhouse gases was more important than other uncertainties - about things like how the climate system works, future energy demand, carbon prices or new energy technologies. The study indicated that an immediate global price of €15 a tonne on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, would give a roughly 60% chance of limiting warming to below 2o.

Wait until 2020 and the carbon price would have to be around €75 a tonne to retain that 60% chance, Riahi told Reuters of the study made with other experts in Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia and Germany. And a delay of action until 2030 might put the 2o limit - which some of the more pessimistic scientists say is already unattainable - completely out of reach, whatever the carbon price....

At Disneyland, the hat worn by Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," shot by Fabi1994 at de.wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Gulf swallowing Galveston faster than thought

Harvey Rice in the San Francisco Chronicle, via the AP and the Houston Chronicle: Rising sea levels are likely to cover the coastal highway on the unprotected west end of Galveston sooner than previously predicted. A 2007 study underwritten by the city of Galveston that anticipated rising sea levels would cover the highway within 60 years appears to have been overly optimistic.

The $50,000 geological hazard report was prepared for the city by geologists from the University of Texas, Rice University and Texas A&M University but then shelved. The report based its calculation on historic sea level rise and failed to include climate change. Sea levels are rising much faster than previous estimates that accounted for climate change, according to reports released in December by U.S. government scientists and in November by the World Bank.

"It's higher than the estimates they gave us five years ago," said Jim Lester, president of the Houston Advanced Research Center, whose scientists are experienced in coastal issues.

Sea-level rise may pose an even graver problem for Galveston than other coastal areas because the island is sinking at a faster rate than most other areas in the country, a condition known as subsidence. "If you assume subsidence will occur, that means sea-level rise will be even worse than in the rest of the country," said Stephen Gill, senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Aeronautics Administration, or NOAA.

Erosion and loss of protective wetlands are further eating away at the island, said Val Marmillion, managing director of America's Wetland Foundation. The island could shrink by one-third within 30 years, said Marmillion, whose organization based its conclusions on a $4.2 million study by Entergy of sea-level rise threats to the Gulf Coast....

Water in the streets of Galveston, around 1915, shot by Rex Dunbar Frazier

Playing out future flooding scenarios

Sandor Gyarmati in the Delta Optimist (British Columbia): A new video game being developed at UBC will give Delta students the chance to become city planners dealing with the implications of global warming and a rising sea level.

Future Delta 2.0 is a video game project led by Dr. Stephen Sheppard at UBC and Dr. Aleksandra Dulic of UBC-Okanagan. Having elements similar the interactive city-building game Sim City, the game will enable players to become city planners dealing with the implications of global warming and sea level rise.

"The video game is initially, at least, for high school kids," said Sheppard, director of UBC's Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP). "Working with some schools in Delta, it's very early in the life of this project. We were funded to work on a climate change video game that was to be a place-based game in Delta, so Delta people and Delta school kids would play the game and they would see places they know and recognize.

"It would also deal with other kinds of issues, including sea level rise and its effects on farming, and also how people respond in terms of community energy and renewable energy, cutting their carbon footprints and what their community would look like. It's to be a fun game that's educational for students who are studying climate change in their curriculum and in sciences classes. It would make it meaningful for them but also fun," he explained....

A blue heron in Vancouver, shot by Eugene Sit, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Climate migitation costs risk spiralling 'out of control'

Maxine Perella in edie.net: The global cost of meeting climate change targets is set to soar unless urgent action is taken, new research has warned.  According to an in-depth study from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), climate target levels will become much more difficult to achieve, and more expensive, if the problem isn't tackled soon.

It points to a lack of political will among world leaders as the biggest barrier in achieving this, with many countries reluctant to take serious steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and implement policies that could help mitigate climate change.

Social uncertainties, which relate to public awareness and can influence consumer energy demand, were also considered a significant obstacle.  Both of these were ranked of higher concern than geophysical and technological uncertainties around climate change, such as the future availability of energy supply and carbon capture systems.

This is because after a certain point, there is little chance of limiting temperature rise to below 2°C. According to IIASA energy programme leader and study co-author Keywan Riahi, the longer nations hold off from taking action, the riskier the situation will become.

"With a 20-year delay, you can throw as much money as you have at the problem, and the best outcome you can get is a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rise below two degrees," he said....

A bridge out in Watervliet, Michigan, shot by Stephanie, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

New planning tool for climate adaptation in cities

The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute: A changing climate places great pressure on society, and creates many new challenges. To make city planning easier, a planning tool has been developed to support climate adaptation of cities and regions in Europe. The European research project SUDPLAN, co-ordinated by SMHI, has developed a planning tool for climate adaptation of European cities and regions for intensive precipitation, hydrological conditions and the air environment.

“Already today we are beginning to notice climate-related problems in cities, such as flooding. As the climate changes even more, these difficulties will increase. This is why a tool is needed to facilitate planning ahead of decisions regarding investments in infrastructure, for instance, and to ensure that projects are adapted to the altered conditions we will be facing in the future,” says Lars Gidhagen, researcher in air quality at SMHI and co-ordinator of SUDPLAN.

The planning tool SUDPLAN makes information available for the period 1961-2100, from a number of climate scenarios scaled down across Europe, complete with hydrological simulations and results from an air pollution model.

“An altered climate means that cities will be exposed to new strains such as higher temperatures, more torrential rain and altered air pollution levels which affect our health. By taking into account the climate impact when planning development in relation to waterways, dimensioning surface water networks and planning traffic routes, we can already to some extent plan for good health, comfort, safety and quality of life,” Gidhagen explains.

Using the tool, city planners anywhere in Europe can themselves generate more detailed future information by entering local precipitation data, flow data from watercourses or emissions of air pollutants. The projections can use several different climate scenarios to run the same future simulation. Similarities and differences in the various scenario results produce information about the uncertainty in the conditions we can expect to face in the future. The planning tool also contains functionality for advanced visualisation, and for linking downscaled data to users’ own local models....

High water in Koblenz, shot by Holger Weinandt, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license

$1.24 billion needed to rescue Saigon from flooding

Vietnam Net Bridge: By 2070, there will be nearly 10,000 hectares, 257,000 people, 1,494 km of roads and many production facilities, industrial parks being flooded due to high tides and the sea level rise, according to a workshop assessing the risk of climate change on human health in HCM City on November 13.

At this workshop, experts said that climate change has made the appearance of diseases affecting human health. They also demonstrated that climate change affects flooding, especially in big cities like Ho Chi Minh City.  In particular, Mr. Bui Chi Nam, from the Southern Institute of Hydrometeorology and Environment showed a flooding script in Ho Chi Minh City to 2070 (excluding the impact of rain).

Nam said that flooding in Ho Chi Minh City is caused by many effects, including rain, high tides plus the rise of upstream water. Skipping the rain factor, only high tides and the sea level rise have affected the city's flooding. He said that by 2070, there will be nearly 10,000 hectares in the city to be flooded, especially in the districts of Can Gio, Nha Be, Binh Chanh, Thu Duc and District 12.

Based on research data, Nam proved that by 2070, flooding caused by high tides and sea level rise under the impact of climate change will seriously affect land use planning, water resources, infrastructure, manufacturing facilities, industrial areas and people in HCM City....

The Saigon River winding through Ho Chi Minh City, shot by nft, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licencse