The link between fish and climate change

HSBC released a report on climate change. I quote the summary

This past week, two publications highlighted the effect of carbon dioxide (CO2) and climate change on oceans and marine life. We believe the related consequences for Asian economies will serve to increase pressure on governments to reduce emissions.
CSIRO published its 2012 report card on Marine Climate Change in Australia and Nature Climate Change a paper which called on adaptation strategies for ocean conservation. Oceans absorb around one-quarter of all the CO2 that we emit resulting in rising surface acidity levels, which in turn affect marine life. Moreover, the consequences of CO2 also include warmer water (oxygen depletion) for certain fish, as well as changing currents, which drive fish towards cooler waters. We think the pressure on governments to curb emissions will only rise as the impact of CO2 on oceans becomes more recognised.
Globally, the production and consumption of fish and aquaculture have been rising (Chart 1) and this sector sustains the livelihoods of around 10% of the global population. Ocean acidification coupled with warming water - both consequences of CO2 emissions -disrupt marine life, impacting livelihoods and economies. Asian economies are most exposed to the fisheries and aquaculture sector, as Asia accounts for the top six producers of aquaculture (Chart 2) and 87% of all persons employed in the sector globally.
Fish provide 15-20% of animal protein for around half of the world's population. As marine life is disrupted by, amongst many factors, CO2 emissions, diets may turn to more meat for appropriate protein intake. Recent data from Japan shows that the consumption of meat and fish has been converging (Chart 3), suggesting that less fish means more meat. This switch has the potential to further exacerbate existing water scarcity problems in many Asian countries since meat requires more water to produce. In our view, the pressure on Asian governments to reduce emissions is only going to grow.

I guess the countries who have a well organised aqua culture and export industry will do something about it, but for countries where there is no organisation such as India, it wouldn't matter. Unlike pretty much most countries who have recognised the issue of climate change, need for sustainability and carbon capture, India is blissfully proceeding down the track of severe environmental degradation. And the fault directly lies with the citizenry second and the government first.

A debate over climate change

We had a presentation on climate change in the office and I just want to pick up on one part of it. Here is the particular slide.

Let me explain the slide first. The X axis shows GDP growth while the Y axis shows the Emissions CO2 per capita. So you end up with (a) Lesser Developed, (b) Industrialising, © Industrialised, and (d) Low Carbon Economy. The last fourth quadrant being the nirvana land, yes?

So what’s the trajectory like? If we do nothing, then the red line is operational and we will keep on going up the increased wealth with increased emissions route. The parallel bottom descending lines from the red line to the dark blue line are due to green new deals, a climate change deal if you will. The top light blue line relates to a catastrophic climate event which will pull the entire world or the country back into lesser developed status while the yellow line exhibits what will happen if we have a technological breakthrough via carbon sequestration or some other fancy technology.

This is just an illustrative slide to show what potential trajectories there can be, but I have 3 issues

1. cost: This slide does not talk about what will be the impact of adopting the green deals or the geo engineering technical solutions. If you factor that in, then the optimistic blue line at the bottom will be pulled up sharply increasing the trend line. In other words, if a country like India has to actually pay for carbon storage or other carbon emission technologies, it can very well decrease its growth rate.

2. combination: There is a strong possibility that all four elements are simultaneously applied, we can have growth, we can have new green deals, we can have geo engineering and we can end up with a catastrophic climate event such as typhoons or cyclones or something like that. Then where do we go? In other words, the choice is frankly now out of our hands.

3. Other factors such as water shortage: What happens if we have a catastrophic non climate event such as volcanic eruptions? Or severe drought? or water shortage? What then?

I further pointed out that the cost of getting people to work on this via the private sector seems to be a bit wonky, the PE ratio’s of green tech companies are hovering around the 60-100 mark. That’s ridiculous. What on earth are those valuations telling me? That’s a clear and present danger of a huge bubble.

So I am going to sit this one out I am afraid, not very clear and until and unless there is more clarity, not going to invest in this sector. This doesnt mean that I am going to stop my attempts to reduce pollution and the like, that’s on the supply side but on the demand and fixing side? Jury is still out.

An understatement by 850 times is not an anomaly, its stupidity

This is what puzzles me, apparently the UK branch of this charity says that it had an income of £6.8 million submitted accounts to the Charity Commission saying that it had an income of £8,000. And they say this is an anomaly.

This is not an anomaly, this is stupidity and crass incompetence. How can you make a mistake in filing accounts of this magnitude? This is ridiculous. But I am also concerned that my tax dollars are being used to fund this kind of opaque institution. This is right after I read this story and I quote:

Glaciologists are this week arguing over how a highly contentious claim about the speed at which glaciers are melting came to be included in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In 1999 New Scientist reported a comment by the leading Indian glaciologist Syed Hasnain, who said in an email interview with this author that all the glaciers in the central and eastern Himalayas could disappear by 2035.

Hasnain, of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, who was then chairman of the International Commission on Snow and Ice's working group on Himalayan glaciology, has never repeated the prediction in a peer-reviewed journal. He now says the comment was "speculative".

Despite the 10-year-old New Scientist report being the only source, the claim found its way into the IPCC fourth assessment report published in 2007. Moreover the claim was extrapolated to include all glaciers in the Himalayas.

And I end with the statement from the fellow concerned.

"It is not proper for IPCC to include references from popular magazines or newspapers," Hasnain adds.

So what happens in India?

The inclusion of this statement has angered many glaciologists, who regard it as unjustified. Vijay Raina, a leading Indian glaciologist, wrote in a discussion paper published by the Indian government in November that there is no sign of "abnormal" retreat in Himalayan glaciers. India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, accused the IPCC of being "alarmist".

The IPCC's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, has hit back, denouncing the Indian government report as "voodoo science" lacking peer review. He adds that "we have a very clear idea of what is happening" in the Himalayas.

IPCC seems to be continuously doing this kind of rather vague statements all over the place. Lets head over to the Antarctica.

Doesnt really look like the entire ice cap is heading into the ocean, does it? I quote:

Translation: In contrast to model forecasts, Antarctic ice shelf collapse still appears to be isolated to a very tiny area in the western region of a continent otherwise experiencing continued glacial and ice shelf advancement.

And that fact certainly casts further serious doubt on the U.N.'s most recent century-end SLR predictions. Last year, the 18- to 59-centimeter estimate that appeared in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) was increased to a full two meters, based entirely on fears of accelerated glacial melting in Greenland and Antarctica. Keep in mind that since the prolonged cold snap of the Little Ice Age ended in 1850, the global rate of SLR has remained essentially steady at approximately seven inches per century, due largely to thermal expansion.

Reality check time: Does anything in this chart suggest to you that SLR might increase over tenfold -- as the IPCC now predicts -- this century?

And another doozy:

In fact, despite the IPCC insistence that global warming will be most prevalent at the poles, southern-hemisphere sea ice area has remained virtually unchanged since satellite sensors and analytical programs were first capable of measuring it in 1979.

So perhaps when the green-gospel-pronouncing IPCC releases its Fifth Assessment Report, tentatively due for 2014, contributors and lead authors alike might carefully consider the NPI findings, the steady rate of SLR over the past 150 years, and the overall resilience of Antarctic ice before formulating their next soggy doom-and-gloom prophecy. (And don't forget this undeniable fact: Across the continent, the 2008-2009 southern hemisphere summer hosted the lowest Antarctic ice melt in thirty years.)

 

And I am funding this voodoo science business ??? There is something in climate change and global warming, but I am not sure that the science behind it is that stable and good. There can be pressures on climate, definitely. There is definitely population and resource pressures, agreed. But lets do proper analysis, and btw, lets fix that funding issue, shall we?

Also check out this rather interesting report.

You couldn't make this up..Climate Change money lost

This is unbelievable.

Vast sums promised by rich nations including the UK to help developing countries tackle climate change cannot be accounted for, according to a study.

A total of 20 nations pledged up to 410 million dollars (£247 million) a year in 2001, resulting in a pot that should be worth well over 1.6 billion dollars (£963 million).

But only 260 million dollars (£157 million) has been paid into two United Nations funds earmarked for the purpose according to the latest figures, the BBC World Service investigation said.

The EU said the money was collected in "bilateral and multilateral deals", but was unable to provide data to back up the claim.

The sums were pledged in the 2001 Bonn Declaration, which was signed by the 15 countries that then made up the European Union, plus Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

As of the end of September this year, the two UN funds - called the Least Developed Countries and Climate Change Funds - contained 155.4 million dollars (£93.4 million) and 104.1 million dollars (£62.5 million) respectively, the BBC said.

Boni Biagini, who runs the funds, told the broadcaster: "These numbers don't match the 410 million per year. Otherwise, we'd be handling billions of dollars by now."

Artur Runge-Metzger, the senior climate change negotiator for the European Union, said the EU had done what it promised to do.

"We can say we met the promise - climate finance has really been stepped up," he told the BBC. But he admitted the EU was unable to provide data to show it did pay the money. "It's sometimes very hard to say what is the climate bit of this financing," Mr Runge-Metzger added.

Finance for developing countries to tackle global warming will be one of the issues discussed at next month's Copenhagen climate change summit.

China and India resist emissions cap calls

And so they should, the literally breathtaking effontry of saying that "we mucked up the planet in our rise to development, but since we have done so, we will stay at our level of development, but we will tell you chinese and indians to stay at your level of development as well". Yes? no, that's hypocrisy and would not fly.

Read and be offended!

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Paint buildings white to save global warming!

Very interesting argument: I just quote one bit:

Consider Los Angeles. Reroofing most of the city's five million homes in lighter colours, painting a quarter of the roads and planting 11m trees would have a one-time cost of about $1bn. Each year after that, this would lower air conditioning costs by about $170m and provide $360m in smog-reduction benefits. And it would lower LA temperatures by about 3C - or about the temperature increase envisioned for the rest of this century. Compare that to the $180bn cost of implementing the Kyoto Protocol, which will have virtually no effect.

Well, there is much to this argument, but would you want LA

to look like this (Mykonos, Greece)?

 

Technorati Tags: Urbanisation , Climate Change

FutureGen project being set up to generate power and hydrogen from clean coal technologies and sequestration of carbon dioxide in danger

Surely something good and new that comes out of this project that is so crucial to mankind relating to climate change should be in public domain rather than belong to just one country? no wonder this is causing problems in India, China and South Korea.