Unchartered waters: coral reefs, climate change and mass extinction

While Australian politicians and the media continue to lie or downplay the effects of human-caused climate change, Australian scientists continue to methodically pile up the evidence to the contrary. A new scientific paper has not only stated that the world’s coral reefs including the iconic Great Barrier Reef are in irreversible decline due to increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere but worse still, if these emissions are left unchecked they could cause a mass extinction event. This was the gloomy prognosis of a paper published in October’s edition Marine Pollution Bulletin. The paper says today’s co2 levels of 387 parts per million is enough to cause catastrophic mass bleaching of coral reefs given a time lag of ten years. (photo by mattk1979)

Written by ten Australian, British and Kenyan scientists, the paper entitled “The coral reef crisis: The critical importance of <350ppm CO2” states that if levels are allowed to rise to 450ppm by 2020 as the best effort proposed by the Copenhagen Accord then “reefs will be in rapid and terminal decline worldwide”. The scientists say this will be inevitable due to a synergy of mass bleaching, ocean acidification and other environmental impacts. But worse is to follow should levels reach a doomsday scenario of 600 ppm (not impossible given current unchecked rates of growth). In that case, a domino effect will occur affecting many other marine ecosystems. The paper states baldly that anthropogenic CO2 emission could trigger “the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event”.

Because reef systems have existed for 240 million years, they provide an unequalled window into the effects of climate change in geological time. Yet astonishingly scientists have found no parallel in the past with today’s conditions. “We are in unchartered waters,” say the scientists. Already 20 percent of the world’s reefs have been destroyed and another 35 percent is seriously threatened. Currently mass bleaching events are associated with El Nino weather patterns and normally occur even four to seven years. But now they are happening annually. Coral has a high dependence on light and temperature and even slight changes in either factor can cause irreversible damage.

There are no recorded instances of mass bleaching before the 1970s. Temperature-induced mass coral bleaching was first recorded in 1978 when co2 levels were 336 ppm. Given a ten year time lag, the problem probably began in 1968 or thereabouts when co2 levels first exceeded 320 ppm. By 1983, co2 levels had reached 340ppm and this was enough to cause a mass bleaching of 10 percent of the Great Barrier Reef and two-thirds of all inshore reefs. Another mass bleaching event in 1998 with CO2 levels at 365 ppm killed 16 percent of coral globally. Further events in 2002 and 2005 characterised a new phase of decline and diminishing complexity of the reefs.

The paper says by the time CO2 levels reach 450 ppm coralline algae will no longer be able calcify which will make coral brittle and subject to collapse. Reef building processes will be severely diminished or cease entirely. Rising sea levels, an increasing number of high intensity storms, impacts from fishing and deterioration of the water quality will exacerbate the effects of mass bleaching and ocean acidification.

Reefs are resilient and usually bounce back from bleaching events particularly if they are spaced many years apart. But as they become annual events and more intense, the capacity of the corals to regrow will decline. This is not helped by human factors such as water pollution and over-fishing. This reduces genetic diversity which in turn further hampers the corals’ ability to re-grow.
All the evidence suggests that reefs will be the first planetary-scale ecosystem to collapse due to rapid global warming. And while bleaching is confined to the reef, the impact acidification will be felt more widely. It could impact molluscs, crustaceans, plankton, fish, seagrass, mangroves, marine reptiles and mammals, and estuarine habitats.

The scientists say the speed at which events are happening give little time for evolution to take adaptive measures. It recommends some immediate remedial measures such as reducing the harvesting of herbaceous fish, protecting sharks and other top predators, managing water quality, and minimising “anthropogenic impact”. Given that Copenhagen failed singularly in that last task, hopes are not high the scientists hopes will be realised. “Only drastic action starting now will prevent wholesale destruction of reefs and similarly affected ecosystems,” concludes the paper. “Should humanity not be successful in preventing these threats from becoming reality, no amount of management or expenditure will save future generations from the consequences of our failed guardianship.”

Lumumba Di-Aping: the Third World's Hero of Copenhagen

Lumumba Di-Aping has made the brave call that no Australian politician has been game to make and called Prime Minister Kevin Rudd a climate sceptic. The key negotiator at Copenhagen on behalf of the G777-China group told the ABC Rudd’s message to his own people was a fabrication which “does not relate to the facts because his actions are climate change scepticism in action.” Di-Aping was pointing out the disparity between Rudd’s sayings and actions on climate change. “It's puzzling in the sense that here is a Prime Minister who actually won the elections because of his commitment to climate change,” Di-Aping said. “And within a very short period of time he changes his mind, changes his position, he start acting as if he has been converted into climate change scepticism.” (photo credit: Reuters - Jens Norgaard Larsen)

Di-Aping is essentially correct. For all Rudd’s moralising about climate change as the world’s greatest problem, he has offered very little by way of Australian action to solve it. And Lumumba Di-Aping is the right person to remind him of his responsibilities. The Sudanese diplomat is the chief negotiator for the 130 nation bloc confusingly known as the G77-China group at the Copenhagen climate change talks. He was chosen because Sudan is the current chair of the G77. Despite (or perhaps because of) Sudan’s poor international reputation since Darfur, Di-Aping is proving to be a formidable opponent of vested western interests.

It was Di-Aping who led the criticism of the Danish Text which Rudd is also intimately associated with. The draft of the text which emerged at the start of the conference last week proposed a solution to stop global temperature rises at two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The UN tried to play down the document as an “informal paper” put forward by the Danish Prime Minister. Di-Aping was having none of it and slammed the proposal. "It's an incredibly imbalanced text intended to subvert, absolutely and completely, two years of negotiations," he said. “It does not recognise the proposals and the voice of developing countries".

Once again Di-Aping had a very good point. The Danish Text was leaked to The Guardian who described it as a departure from the Kyoto Protocol principle that developed nations should bear the brunt of climate change. The Guardian said the draft handed control of climate change finance to the World Bank. More importantly it would abandon the Kyoto protocol which remains the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions. Lastly it would make funding to poor countries trying to adapt to climate change contingent on a range of actions.

But what infuriated the developing countries most about the Text was the fact it was prepared without their knowledge. It smacked of colonialism. On the first Monday of the climate change talks, Di-Aping addressed an ad hoc meeting of 100 African civil representatives and a few African parliamentarian. He began dramatically by crying, putting his head in his hands and saying “We have been asked to sign a suicide pact.” Di-Aping may well have been milking the drama but once again his analysis was spot on. He said a global temperature increase of 2 degrees meant 3.5 degrees for much of Africa. This was “certain death for Africa”, and a type of “climate fascism” imposed on the continent by high carbon emitters. He said Africa was being asked to sign on to an agreement that would allow this warming in exchange for $10 billion, and that Africa was also being asked to “celebrate” this deal. “I am absolutely convinced that what Western governments are doing is NOT acceptable to Western civil society,” he said.

On Thursday, Di-Aping made a direct call for action from US President Obama. He said it would be embarrassing for the US not to be part of a solution “to save humanity”. Di-Aping reminded his audience that the US is the world's largest emitter historically and per capita. He asked the US to join the Kyoto Protocol and take on its commitments as a developed nation. “This is a challenge that President Barack Obama needs to rise to as a Nobel Prize winner and as an advocate of a multilateral global society,” Di-Aping said. “We know he is proud to be a part of that community through his family relations in Africa.”

Frustrated by the lack of action from American and other Western negotiators, Di-Aping led the biggest gamble yet when he led the walk out of the G77-China group conference. Di-Aping explained his rationale for the walk-out with BBC Radio Four. He said it had become clear the Danish presidency was undemocratically advancing the interests of developed countries at the expense of the obligations it had to developing countries. "The mistake they are doing now has reached levels that cannot be acceptable from a president who is supposed to be acting and shepherding the process on behalf of all parties,” he said.

The Western media were becoming furious at the way the conference was being “hijacked” by an uppity nobody from the Third World. The Australian dismissed him as "hyperbole prone". Toronto’s The Globe and Mail went further and called him “an ill chosen voice from Khartoum”. The headline was meant to damn him by association with long term Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir. But this comparison is false. Di-Aping does not represent Sudan at the conference. He represents 130 nations who are not creating climate change, but who will suffer the most from it. Lumumba Di-Aping is a hero and one who should shame the West into hearing the truth of climate change as seen from the perspective of the poor.

Death in Manaquiri: A time bomb in the Amazon

While the world’s leaders haggle and prevaricate in Copenhagen, real and devastating climate change is happening in many countries across the world. The third world is bearing the brunt of the problem and the story of Manaquiri, in Brazil’s Amazon Basin is a microcosm of a much larger problem. Producing one fifth of the world’s oxygen, a quarter of the world's fresh water and home to the world’s largest rainforest, the Basin is often described as “The Lungs of the World”. But these lungs are now struggling to breathe as the region is crippled with the worst drought since records began. (photo: Reuters)

Manaquiri is a small sleepy town in the Brazilian State of Amazonas. It is not on the highway, but the state capital Manaus is a short trip three hours downstream where the Parana de Manaquiri River eventually flows into the mighty Amazon. The river that shares the name of the town is the area’s lifeblood. 800 of the town’s population of almost 20,000 are fishermen. And 14,000 people rely on the river as an economic lifeline. All are suffering as the river loses its grip on life.

Manaquiri is the centre of a drought that has last a month. It has not rained in 25 days which does not sound like much but it rarely happened before recent times in this lush rainforest region. The length of time without rain is enough to have a devastating effect on the local river. All the tributaries that supply water to the Manaquiri have choked up and have deprived the water of oxygen. As a result, the drought is killing tonnes of fish. Their rotting bodies are polluting the water and leaving thousands of people with no clean water.

Al Jazeera quoted a local scientist who says the problem is directly attributable to climate change. Philip Fearnside is a research professor in the Department of Ecology at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA) in Manaus. Fearnside has lived in the Amazon for 33 years and he says the drying up of the Manaquiri may signal similar droughts occurring with higher frequency as the climate continues to change. "[Climate change] is something we have experience with and know from the data, it's not something that depends on the outcome of a computer simulation," he said.

A photo essay on the petroleum.berkeley.edu site shows the extent of the devastation in Manaquiri. Boats are stranded in dry lakes and whole lagoons have evaporated. The parched conditions have triggered forest fires killing off fish and crops. As the waters receded, many people were trapped in their home without access to food or medical treatment.

The current drought is happening just four years after Manaquiri suffered “its worst drought in 40 years”. The 2005 drought lasted for over two months and local officials were forced to close 40 schools and cancel the school year because of a lack of food, transport and potable water. Cases of diarrhoea rose in the region as wells became poisoned and stagnant water caused a rise in malaria. One local, 39 year old Manuel Tavares Silva was quoted at the time saying "I've never seen anything like this."

But now Silva is seeing it again. Manaquiri is a microcosm of a wider problem. The New York Times noted that in mid-October, the governor of Amazonas State, Eduardo Braga, decreed a "state of public calamity” which remains in effect two months later. Many boats cannot reach Manaus as the river level in Amazonian tributaries drop to near zero. The drought also affects neighbouring states and other Amazonian Basin countries such as Peru, Bolivia and Colombia.

Many scientists say the drought is most likely a result of the same rise in water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean that caused Hurricane Katrina. If global warming is involved as they suspect, it is likely to mean more severe and frequent droughts in the region. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace are less circumspect and say the problems in Manaquiri and in the Amazon region are a direct result of deforestation and global warming. "If you compare the rainfall averages over the last five years, you see that there have been growing rain deficits each year," said Manaus-based Greenpeace activist Carlos Rittl about the 2005 drought. "It will be extremely worrying if this becomes a tendency." Whether those meeting in Copenhagen like it or not, that tendency has now arrived.

Regional survey exposes three myths in Australian climate change debate

A new report from international law firm Allens Arthur Robinson surveying climate change strategies across the Asia Pacific region has found the debate in Australia has been too narrowly focused on an ETS. The report entitled One Hat Doesn’t Fit All was an overview of climate change measures in 14 countries: Australia, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. Report co-author Grant Anderson said that while the debate in Australia and NZ has focused on a domestic ETS, the survey has revealed the wider region is looking at a variety of other measures to promote the green economy, all of which were necessary to combat climate change. (photo of Copenhagen bike commuter by David Dennis)

The report identified "three myths" about emissions reduction. The first myth identified by the report is that Australia can afford to wait until after Copenhagen to see what the rest of the world is doing on climate change. While it is possible (though unlikely) that negotiations may see the agreement of more ambitious proposals, many countries in the region including China, South Korea, Singapore and New Zealand have all announced unilateral measures that will position them to prosper in the green economy. Australia should be looking at targets and national feed-in tariffs to support renewables as well as providing tax incentives, fuel price reforms and energy efficiency programs.

The second myth is that China is doing nothing to constrain its greenhouse gas emissions. While it is true that its emissions are growing rapidly as the economy expands, China is investing heavily in renewable energy and becoming more energy efficient while increasing taxes on higher polluting products and industries. In advance of Copenhagen, the Chinese government has announced it would curb emissions per unit of gross domestic product by between 40 and 45 percent from the 2005 levels by 2020.The Chinese are also increasing consumption taxes on transport fuel, and have introduced stringent fuel efficiency regulations for vehicles.

The third myth is that there is a “silver bullet” that will solve climate change. The countries in the Asia Pacific region are taking a wide variety of approaches suitable to local economic and geographic conditions. While Japan and Singapore concentrate on energy efficiency, poorer countries such as Indonesia and PNG are working to avoid deforestation. The Philippines is the world’s second-largest producer of geothermal energy, and is now expanding into wind, solar, mini-hydro and biofuels initiatives with the aim of being 60 per cent energy self-sufficient in 2010. The report says that a wide variety of emission reduction measures will be needed to solve the problem of climate change.

Australia is particularly exposed with its reliance on vast, cheap reserves of coal, an energy-intensive export industry, and a sparsely located population wedded to private car usage. As a lucid Malcolm Turnbull noted this week, there is no costless way of moving to a lower emission economy. The country has been absorbed by the fight over the Government’s version of the ETS, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme which remains mired in the Senate after this week’s defeat despite it being riddled with compromises that severely limit its effectiveness. Meanwhile there is a vast untapped resource of renewable energy (currently supplying less than five percent of the base load) and the Government steadfastly refuses to examine the nuclear option.

Because of these factors, Australia faces relatively high economic costs of abatement compared with other developed countries. A key element in Australia’s negotiating position at Copenhagen is the idea of “comparable effort”. The concept requires that Australia would be prepared to adopt a national allocation budget between 2013 and 2020 that is comparable in its economic impact to that shouldered by other advanced countries. Economic modeling by Access Economics has shown a comprehensive climate change global agreement is more cost and environmentally effective from Australia’s point of view that a partial agreement.

But the AAR report warns that it could take many years to nut out a comprehensive post-Copenhagen agreement. The 180-page treaty draft is currently riddled with 2,000 square brackets each of which indicates a point of difference between participants. It notes that although it took two years to agree the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, much of the nitty-gritty was not agreed until the 2001 Marrakesh Accords and even then it did not come into force until Russia signed up in 2005. In the meantime, Australia should be widening its net far beyond its flawed ETS.

The Copenhagen Diagnosis

While the media gorges itself on the blood sport of the Australian federal coalition leadership challenge, an important new document outlining the seriousness of climate change has been almost completely ignored. The Copenhagen Diagnosis is a summary of the global warming peer reviewed science of the last few years. Produced by a team of 26 scientists led by the University of NSW Climate Research Centre, the Diagnosis shows that the effects of global warming have gotten worse in the last three years. It is a timely update to UN’s Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change 2007 Fourth Assessment document (IPCC AR4) ahead of the Copenhagen conference. (photo credit: m.o.o.f)

While denialists will ignore this as they have all other science gone before it, the diagnosis report (pdf) is sobering reading for anyone concerned about the planet. Researchers found greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures, ice-cap melting and rising sea levels have all increased since IPCC AR4. Global carbon dioxide emissions have risen by 40 percent in two decades. The global temperature has increased half a degree in the last 25 years. The Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are disappearing faster than ever and the sea level has risen 50 millimeters in the last 15 years.

The document unambiguously sheets home the blame on the century long temperature increase on human factors and says the turning point “must come soon”. If we are to limit warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial values, global emissions must peak by 2020 at the latest and then decline rapidly. The scientists warned that waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognised. By 2050 we will effectively need to be in a post-carbon economy if we are to avoid unlivable temperatures.

The document puts the lie to the constant refrain of denialists is that temperatures have gone down since 1998. The reality is that the last ten years have been warmer than the previous ten and the long-term trend is unambiguously upward. In 2008 there were two temporary cooling influences, a La Nina (ENSO) and low solar output (the lowest level of the last 50 years). The Copenhagen Diagnosis says these two factors should have resulted in the 2008 temperature being among the coolest in the instrumental era, whereas it turned out to be the ninth warmest on record.

Ten year variations such as sunspots and ENSO are the reason why the IPCC choose 25 year cycles to show trend lines. Nevertheless most NASA measures of the 1990s have shown a warming between 0.17 and 0.34 °C and with an increase of 0.19 °C between 1998 and 2008. The British Hadley Centre’s most recent data had smaller warming trend of 0.11 °C for 1999-2008 but this excluded the Arctic, which has warmed particularly strongly in recent years. The Northwest and Northeast Passages were simultaneously ice-free in 2008 for the first time in living memory and the feat was repeated in the 2009 Northern summer.

The document says climate change will almost certainly cause more extreme weather events. This means more frequent hot days, hot nights and heat waves, fewer cold days and cold nights, more frequent heavy rain, more intense and longer droughts over wider areas, and an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic. There is also evidence of more drought, typhoons and bushfires all linked to anthropogenic climate change.

The document is timely as the Australian parliament debates the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Whatever the merits of the scheme, its opponents should remember just one in four Australians think climate change fears are exaggerated. The other 75 percent may not agree on what to do but accept their scientists are telling them there is a problem. They look to lawmakers to chart out a future to best ride out the unpleasant shocks to come not to pretend the shocks do not exist.

This is why Copenhagen is happening in a week's time. None of the 198 governments want to be there and none will win from climate change. But all recognise it exists and needs to be dealt at the global level. Other than the powerless Pacific island nations, no country is yet obviously threatened enough to make it a success. The vested interest of each government will ensure less action will occur than is needed. Copenhagen will result in pious platitudes and not much concrete action.

Australia has a small but significant role to play to ensure there isn’t a tragedy of the commons. It consumes less than 2 percent of the world’s resources but that is a significant amount for a country with just 0.003 percent of the world’s people. Labor’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is unlikely to reduce carbon usage by much if at all. Yet its potency as a symbol is undeniable. The CPRS is a referendum on climate change. This is something the Nationals and right-wing Liberals intuitively understand and the Greens do not. The Greens have missed a golden opportunity to be on the side of the symbol (and they can fix it when they gain the balance of power after the next election). In a rare moment of sense among the Liberal horserace shenanigans, Malcolm Turnbull expressed it best yesterday. No political party with any pretensions to govern responsibly can afford to turn their back on climate change.

The exact future of climate may be unknowable but the study of our past is providing overwhelming evidence of trends that simply cannot be ignored. Scepticism is justified only when the facts are unclear or ambiguous and the Copenhagen diagnosis is neither. A simple fact needs to be stated and there is no polite way to say it. Those people who say anthropogenic global warming is a myth are either liars protecting vested interests or mental incompetents. Either way, the only proper course is to ignore them. The stakes are too high.