climate change

THE AGE OF RESILIENCE

As we enter an era of environmental atonement, climate expert David Viner says we must prepare to adapt, do so quickly and build resilience

hat used to be seen as alarmist predictions by world leaders, campaigners and scientists, are now being witnessed routinely across the globe. This increasing tally of recent extreme weather and climate events and our apparent unpreparedness to deal with them does little to dispel the pessimistic forecast. Europe sustained an unprecedented heat wave in 2003, followed by another in 2010; Pakistan was deluged by floods in 2010; the US has suffered multiple billion dollar disasters and Australia endured an Angry Summer of extreme weather in 2012/13. Progress in climate change science has shed light on how and why these disasters are happening. Engineers are able to create built environments that are resilient to floods, heat waves, earthquakes and fires. Yet, despite all this human endeavour and the knowledge and skills attained, climate change is still taking humanity by surprise and claiming its early victims. Can we really be entering the Age of Catastrophe, powerless in the face of climate disaster? Or is the sum of what we have learned and achieved so far enough to let us steer the course of history onto a different path, which presents us with opportunities to develop a more sustainable future? The answer to this, as to some other pressing global challenges, lies in achieving understanding and active cooperation between scientists, engineers, politicians and civil society. It is a tall order but there might be little choice if we want to preserve the planet for ourselves and for the future of humankind.
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An age of investigation Climate change is not as modern a concept as might be suspected. The science has its origins back in the 1820s when French physicist Joseph Fourier took the first theoretical steps towards understanding the greenhouse effect. Subsequently, Swedish geographer Svante Arrhenius conceptualised the role of industrialisation in the greenhouse effect in the 1890s. Without the aid of todays sophisticated data sets, Arrhenius calculated that a halving of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would lead to an ice age, while a doubling would cause the Earths temperature to rise by five to six degrees Celsius not a bad estimate when compared to our current scientific projections. Over the following century scientific advances continued and a range of hypotheses were postulated concerning how the Earths climate had changed. As computing technology became more advanced and research facilities such as the Hadley Centre were established, climate research increased. A consensus developed around the anthropogenic nature of climate change, and by the 1980s the international community was seeking robust scientific evidence for the human fingerprint on climate change. The formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provided a focal point for the scientific community. The publication of the IPCCs First Assessment Report in 1990 was followed by a Second Assessment Report in 1995, which made the crucial statement that there was a discernible human influence on global climate. The current body of scientific work on climate change is extensive, with

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SHUTTERSTOCK

climate change
Happisburgh North Norfolk

The doomsday scenario is no longer on the far horizon: we are not talking about a future that is beyond our lifetime. When we talk about catastrophe we mean the recent past, we mean the present, we mean the next few years

causes and effects of environmental changes well-described and accepted. The consensus of the international scientific community provides a powerful foundation for taking the necessary catastrophe-averting actions. But success will require high-profile backing and there is still some number crunching to be done. An age of data Data are everything. When it comes to a phenomenon as serious and as allencompassing as global climate change, theory can only go so far. Hard data are what is needed to achieve scientific consensus, to move politicians into action and stimulate societal acceptance. Data were scant in the infancy of climate change science, but moved forward at a pace from the 20th Century onward. American scientist Charles Keeling was the first to establish a data component on climate change. From 1958 onwards he commenced a reliable and consistent time-dependent measure of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. The resulting Keeling Curve graph showed that carbon dioxide concentrations were rising indisputably. In 1967 Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald, Japanese and American respectively, developed the first computer models of the climate. As computing technology continued to advance, increasing numbers of climate model simulations followed. In the early 1980s another data breakthrough resulted in a graph that demonstrated the rise in global mean temperatures. Scientists in the UK led by Tom Wigley and Phil Jones at the University of East Anglias Climatic Research Unit were able to produce the global mean temperature curve for the first time by gridding the observational temperature series.

Today, we have the data and modelling technology to make accurate predictions about the effects of climate change. We have compounding evidence of a more extreme and less predictable climate, resulting in more volatile weather patterns in different parts of the world. The engineering community has the knowledge and experience to create more resilient and sustainable infrastructure. But has enough now been done to motivate political action and unlock the funding required to make the built environment more resilient to extremes of weather? An age of international cooperation By the 1990s the international community was informed and enthused enough to lay the foundations for climate change progress on an international scale. Momentum began to gather apace. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, followed by the seminal Kyoto Treaty, which was signed in 1997. As the turn of the Millennium approached and receded, notable climate change events gave impetus to this political will. The extreme European summer of 2003 resulted in over 25,000 more fatalities across the continent and in 2005 the most active Atlantic hurricane season ever recorded wrought widespread destruction, culminating with the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The extent of Arctic summer sea-ices continued to decrease rapidly. Momentum in the early 2000s was
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geared towards the perceived ultimate goal of creating a low carbon society. Global, national and local efforts emerged to reduce carbon emissions by encouraging the uptake of renewable energy, primarily solar and wind. Global and local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) campaigned to engage society to act on climate change. Some, such as the British Councils Climate Change Programme, reached hundreds of millions of people worldwide and was acclaimed widely. In 2008 the UK took a landmark legislative stand by passing the Climate Change Act with unanimous cross-party support. The Act committed the country to legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050. The seeds of international cooperation had been sown. Global governments and NGOs proved their commitment to fighting climate change and set the diplomatic stage for action by establishing the UNFCC Conference of Parties (COP) and committing to annual meetings. This period in recent history shows that with enough will, the mechanisms and opportunities to enact global change are in place and that when the international community pulls in the same direction, concrete steps can be taken. The precedent for cooperative action on climate change has been set. An age of incoherence The 2009 COP meeting in Copenhagen saw global optimism running high. A legally binding successor to the Kyoto

Treaty was expected to be signed, with national governments and leaders including President Obama expressing readiness to take firm action. In the face of these lofty ambitions, the event turned out to be a monumental failure. The positive intentions of individuals and countries were undermined by the weaknesses of the collective whole. Indecisive governments were unconvinced by confusing narratives from civil society organisations. Poor event management and a Danish winter all contributed to the lack of a significant outcome. Four years, tens of natural disasters, thousands of human lives lost and billions of pounds worth of destruction later, little progress has been made. The climate change movement has suffered from a lack of coherence despite the wealth of international activity, there was not one single message to unify the movement, and no convening leadership. The success of NGOs has been hindered by their disjointed approach, which has left them competing with each other instead of cooperating. As the global economic downturn intensified, climate change and the environment were relegated on the global agenda and now seem to play second fiddle to the rebuilding of economies. The position today remains difficult and uncertain. On one hand, science and evolving public attitudes have placed us on an active, optimistic path; on the other, the indecision and incoherence of recent years has brought the movement to an effective halt.

Increasingly frequent and unpredictable natural disasters cause huge damage to societies and the environment worldwide. The doomsday scenario is no longer on the far horizon: we are not talking about a future that is beyond our lifetime. When we talk about catastrophe we mean the recent past, we mean the present, we mean the next few years. The destruction caused by extreme weather events forces the world into action. It no longer matters hugely why and whodunnit - all that matters is how we adapt and build a more sustainable future in the face of changing reality. The next age: building resilience The prognosis is not so gloomy after all. The staggering progress made in climate change science, the evolution of public perceptions and ongoing international negotiations, all add up to a sufficient force to propel us into the Age of Resilience. It is now time to recognise that we are struggling to deliver a low carbon society and concentrate our efforts on adapting to the inevitable. We need to design and construct our buildings, infrastructure and communities in ways that allow life to be preserved and protected when climate change takes hold, with no lasting damage borne when extreme events happen. An integrated landscape-scale approach to climate change resilience is key. All relevant stakeholders must be engaged to ensure that any decisions made take into account their possible impacts upon other
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sectors, and that every opportunity to increase resilience is taken. For example, road and rail construction projects can incorporate elements to improve resilience across other sectors - land management, flood management and biodiversity, to name but a few. Interest in making this resilient world into a reality is growing: while previously the prevailing attitude in the climate change movement prioritised mitigation and regarded adaptation as being somewhat defeatist, adaptation is now a core theme and resilience is coming to the fore of climate change discussions and projects. It is now the norm for governments and organisations to account for climate change impacts and take actions to remain on the front foot and build a more robust future. The catalogue of climate science research is being compounded by new resilience-based areas of research, such as the catalogue of adaptation and resilience case studies being prepared by Mott MacDonald for the Environment Agency. With this new momentum toward resilience in place, we can leverage the scientific endeavour, international enthusiasm and diplomatic mechanisms that have been established since the early 19th Century to ensure that the coming era is not the Age of Catastrophe but the Age of Resilience. Future generations are depending on us. David Viner, policy, sustainability and climate change portfolio, Mott MacDonald

David Viner