Climate Change GSSS 2010 Debate

Climate Change Debate Notes (as of Jul 16)

Other Critical Issues - Air pollution Conflict Education Diseases Global warming Malnutrition and hunger Sanitation and water Subsidies and trade barriers Terrorism Women and development

Climate change is the number one global problem.

Arguments – Pro:

• Not acting climate change nullifies our efforts in solving other problems • Aggravates many of the other problems, e.g. conflicts, mass migration • Climate change is happening now and is real; most urgent of the problems; necessary transformation needs time, we need to start now, delaying action makes mitigation more costly • Co-benefits: air pollution, energy security • Effectiveness, feasibility, already on the political agenda, heads of state at Copenhagen

Rebuttal: • Can be addressed as a universal problem; a lot of bottom-up action, evidence that tragedy can be overcome, first-mover advantage • Uncertainty; risks higher – catastrophic climate change, low probability-extreme impacts events

Arguments – Contra

• Solving climate change will not solve other problems • By solving other problems we will address climate change (adaptation, impacts) • (What is REDD doing for other problems) • Climate change co-opts funding for other problems

Choreography

Moderator: Dana
Media: Debate_jackman_v4.doc

Maria Pro-Climate1: 1) Climate change is real and exist, IPCC consensus, consequences of climate change already today, risk of climate change in the future; describe catastrophic impacts; Sure other problems exist -> nullifying + aggravating (exacerbating) other problems; 2) most urgent of the problems; necessary transformation needs time, we need to start now, delaying action makes mitigation more costly

Christian Con-Climate1: a) 1. We agree on a number of points, mainly that climate change is real and needs to be addressed. Also, we agree that the inevitable changes extreme climate events which we will be facing will likely result in increased food and water scarcity and conflict. However, most would agree that we have already passed points of no return. There are numerous climate mitigation impacts which can be tackled with economic savings - what we lack is political consensus. We need climate funds diverted to human capacity building to help create more resilient communities. 2. However, there are a number of critical issues today which are causing death and suffering for millions of people, and which will not be directly OR indirectly addressed through climate change mitigation or popular approaches regarding climate adaptation. a. Achieve universal primary education b. 1.1 billion lack access to adequate water, 1.6 billion lack access to electricity, 1 million/yr die from AIDS, 1 million from malaria,1.8 million children/yr die from diarrhea, half of all children in the world are in poverty, 121 million children out of education – how will addressing climate change alleviate these problems? 3. Prioritizing these development issues, many of which are in the Millennium Development Goals, and focusing political and economic resources today towards these will result in communities better able to adapt to the inevitable consequences which we are already set to face, due to climate change. These communities are already suffering from poverty – and will be less able to cope as environmental conditions worsen. The most realistic path towards increasing their chances for adapting under degrading env. conditions would be to focus on aiding human/institutional development (MDG) – and can not risk transferring scarce capital towards solely towards carbon mitigation.

Veronika Pro-Climate2: a) address second point first: people in the future not necessarily richer than today, growth is not a given, history has shown times of long-lasting stagnation; risk of high impact/catastrophic events, e.g. shut-down of major ocean currents, dieback of Amazon rainforest, even if you are very rich, you can’t make up for these consequences b) Climate affects all facets of society, list co-benefits, air pollution, energy security; health (indoor air pollution)

Carolina Con-Climate2: Co-benefits don’t play out, REDD, it would be cheaper and more effective to address the problem directly

Tao Pro-Climate3: a) By including projects into climate regime (emission trading) - new source of money; the goal is not the problem, bureaucracy might have failed, humans are imperfect, b) climate change high up on the political agenda,

Mary we need to address climate change, yes, but we also cannot do so at the expense of concomitant emphasis on increasing the resilience of SES to global change, which includes a changing climate, but also critical phenomena like declining ecosystems, globalization, and urbanization.

i fear that there major pitfalls will accompany addressing the world’s problems solely through the lens of climate change. if we do not address complex, or wicked, problems holistically, there is a very real possibility that we will construct one-sided policies rife with negative externalities.

just to illustrate this, think of food systems. if we just seek to seek to reduce carbon emissions associated with food production, we may do so at the expense of small farmers and the resilience of food systems. perhaps, for example, we could minimize the carbon emissions associated with growing apples by only growing them in NZ, but in doing so, we could expose ourselves to a drastic loss of resilience – what if an apple disease swept through NZ? – not to mention the loss of rich socio-cultural aspects of apple production and the possible conversion of farmland to subdivisions.

one more example illustrates the need for a holistic approach to fostering resilient SES. in recent years, concern about climate change in the US resulted in subsidies for ethanol production. as a result, farmers in US stopped farming soy to farm ethanol corn. this led to an increase in soy farming in the Amazon rainforest, and via deforestation, potentially a net sum loss for the climate. this example illustrates that often adverse side effects result from focusing and shaping policies around only one problem.

to conclude, we must take a holistic tack at developing resilient social-ecological systems on this planet. climate change is a very critical problem, but it is just one of many problems facing humanity. it would be a tragedy to focus only on solving climate change at the expense of working for solutions to the real problem, which lies in the unsustainable use of global resources, including but not limited to the atmosphere.