What can be done about climate change?

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a body of scientists, climate experts and governments that has been working on primarily understanding the accuracy and verifiability of climate change over the past few decades. A second goal is to understand the impacts of climate change on communities, citizens and countries. Finally, their role is to understand the timelines and reversibility of climate change, and how should communities, citizens and governments prepare for these changes.

A task force within IPCC is responsible for understanding how calculation of green house gas emissions should be done, and how should one correctly calculate removal of green house gases from the atmosphere.

The IPCC in it's 2022 meeting has assessed that the goal of limiting global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius cannot be achieved. In fact it's likely that we may even reach 2 to 2.5 degrees of warming of the planet.

This is an unprecedented situation. For the last 10,000 years, which is the bulk of the recorded history of human civilization, climate has been relatively stable. Forecast changes of average global temperatures by 1.5 to 2.5 degrees will cause unprecedented changes to all human communities around the world.

This blog will examine the actual impact of these changes and if and how some of these impacts can be mitigated. A second part is when these changes are unavoidable then how communities can prepare for these changes.

Impacts of a 1.5 degrees rise in temperature

The impact of a 1.5 degree rise in the average temperature of the planet will be based on where one is on the planet and also how vulnerable that part of the planet is. Several areas will also now experience more drought and dry conditions on account of rising temperatures. 

Scientists now agree that for most locations on the planet, it will mean a rise in temperature as well as a rise in amount and intensity of rainfall or snowfall in that area. This will mean increase in flooding in many parts of the world. Another impact will be increase in mean sea level and therefore more coastal flooding. Melting of ice cover in the arctic would also mean higher sea levels. With temperature moving from 1.5 degrees to 2 degrees could mean moving from 1 ice-free Arctic summer per century to 1 ice-free Arctic summer per decade. Many island communities could disappear with greater increase in rise of mean sea levels.

Rising temperatures of water will mean more algal blooms, acidification of water which will also mean threat to fish populations and impact on livelihood of coastal communities. The loss of species will also impact land based ecosystems and will pose the threat of extinction of many species.

In addition rising temperatures would mean greater threat of forest fires around the world, a fact that already can be seen in the past few years all around the world.

What can individuals do?

Like was seen in the covid epidemic of 2020-2021, almost everything to manage and contain the looming disaster is in the hands of normal people. In the coming posts, we will examine some of these areas and initiatives that normal people like you and me can do to affect change and prepare for adversity.

The Logic of Failure

 "The Logic of Failure" is an interesting book by Dietrich Dorner that examines cases where seemingly competent people make errors in judgement and decisions when underlying system is complex and multi-faceted. In such cases, variables may be interconnected in complex ways often made up of multiple feedback loops. Add to it time delays between action and reaction along each feedback loop and people get gob-smacked by outcomes that they did not foresee.

While the author's premise is based on Systems Theory, and numerous authors and experts have written treatises on it, what makes the book interesting is the vantage point from which the book is written. Rather than a passive observer or an academic, the book looks at a complex situation from the perspective of an active participant whose actions are likely to impact the outcomes observed in the system.

The approach then suggested is how one should conduct themselves in such situations. The author proposes a 5 step process in how one should go about conducting themselves in such a situation.

1. Formulate clear goals
2. Formulate models and gather information
3. Prediction and Interpolation
4. Planning of actions, decision making and execution of actions
5. Review of effects of actions and review of strategy

By iterating on each of the above steps constantly and at short regular intervals, the author claims that participants can avoid failures and ensure successful outcomes. The above message is further illustrated through a series of experiments where decision makers of different skill and experience level are taken through simulations where they make multiple decisions along the way. Successful participants learn from their decisions and constantly adjust their decisions based on what they learn, where as unsuccessful participants usually learn poorly from their early decisions and instead find themselves in deeper and deeper trouble.

Winter is coming, or is it?

 Where ever you see in the media, the talk of impending inflation is being discussed. US Federal Reserve has promised that they will try to counter inflation by raising interest rates to at least 4% or higher for next little while.

Most Economic forecasters are predicting slowdown in China and Europe due to the property markets in the first case, and due to energy crises precipitated by the war in Europe and resulting increase in natural gas prices for most west European countries.

With this backdrop, economists are also saying that there is a good chance that US will not get too impacted by the slowdown in Europe. This is because US is mostly energy self-sufficient and its economy though over-heated does not seem to be showing signs of impending recession.

The contrary view could be 

a) US and Canada will not remain unscathed and will also suffer a recession

b) Europe itself will be able to avoid a recession.

Let's see both these scenarios one by one.

Scenario A: US will also enter a recession

This is a possibility that cannot be ruled out, as United States while self-sufficient in food and energy is still the 2nd largest goods exporter, as well as the world's largest services exporter. While Canada is the biggest buyer of US goods (almost 18% in 2019), almost 25-30% goods are bought by European Union, UK and China. 

On the services side as well, European Union, UK and China together bought 30% of US Services exports, which itself forms 35% of the total US exports. 

Depending on the severity of recession in Europe and China, its likely that some of the impacts will be felt in the US as well.

If this happens, the sectors that will get impacted the most will be high tech, since in my naive understanding, most US exports will be high technology.

Scenario B: Europe avoids a recession

The only way this can happen is if Europe finds alternative ways to deal with its looming energy crisis. That seems increasingly difficult to pull off. If the recession proves inevitable, then it will invariably be the European manufacturing that may get affected by energy shortages. It is likely also the sector that drives the reduced demand for US goods and services exports.

Conclusion

Unless Europe finds a way to keep its industries running during the winter, it is inevitable that the downturn in Europe will spread to United States. The optimism in the US in avoiding the recession may be misplaced, and the increase in interest rates to cool down the economy in US and Canada may turn out to be premature.