Decision making and climate
change: Introductory lecture
Patrick Driscoll, Aalborg University
4 October 2011
Objectives for the day
• Have fun
• Learn something, hopefully from each other
• Learn about how games can be used for
communication
Schedule for today
• 12.30-13.30 Dynamic polling and a short talk
on climate change
• 13.30-13.40 Break
• 13.40-14.10 Introduction to rules for Broken
Cities game
• 14.10-16.30 Game play
• 16.30-17.00 Evaluation and reflection
Overview of climate change dilemmas
1. What do we know for certain and what is still
unclear about climate change
2. Climate drivers, impacts, responses
3. Carbon cycle
4. Feed forward delays
5. Tipping points
6. Prisoners dilemma conditions
7. Mitigation is FUTURE adaptation
A short history of climate change
awareness/response
• Global warming is not a new concept-first posited in the
1890’s.
• Scientific consensus on global warming trends emerged by
1970’s
• First Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change formed
in 1988 (the Fifth IPPC report will be released in 2014)
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
established in 1992
• Kyoto Protocol, with binding emission targets, ratified in
1997, expires in 2012
• Conference of the Parties (COP) continue to attempt to find
a successor to Kyoto
1. What we do know (the usual bad
news)
• The earth is warming (very high confidence), average +1.6 W/m2
• The oceans are rising (virtually certain), from both thermal
expansion and melting sea ice
• The oceans are becoming more acidic, reducing their CO2 uptake
capacity (high degree of certainty)
• The polar ice is shrinking (virtually certain)
• Glaciation in Alpine elevations is receding (virtually certain)
• GHG concentrations are higher than anytime in the previous
650,000 years (high degree of certainty)
• Land use changes are reducing terrestrial CO2 uptake potential
(very high confidence)
• GHG emissions are rising in line with rising global population and
income levels, generating a possible 4 degree average rise in
atmospheric temperature by 2100. (likely)
And the one that few people like to
talk about
• In order to stabilize atmospheric
concentrations within a range considered to
be acceptable for human and non-human
adaptation, we should stop at least 80% of all
global GHG emission by 2015. Due to the
persistence of carbon, the projected climate
impacts (floods, storm activity, sea level rise,
droughts, wildfires, etc.) WILL STILL occur well
into the 22nd Century (IPCC, 2007).
1. What we don’t know
• That the observed warming is human induced;
the existing data is still inconclusive
• Where are the step changes and systemic
disjunctions within the climate cycle
• What types of impacts can occur, how severe
they will be and how frequent they will occur
• How much inertia is built into the
climate/ocean/terrestrial/carbon feedback
loops
2. Climate drivers, impacts and
responses
IPCC (2007),
4th
Assessment
Report,
Synthesis
Report
3. Carbon cycle
• Some GHGs are more persistent than others, with
different Global Warming Potentials (GWP), for
example sodium hexafluoride (used in solar cell
manufacture) has a GWP of 22,800 compared to
CO2 over a 100-year period.
• From emission to full effect takes between 75100 years. Observed warming is likely due to
emissions from around WWII. In the 1950’s and
1960’s, GHG emissions increased five-fold.
4. Feed forward delays
• In complex open systems, there are often
significant delays between action and
reaction.
• The more complex the system, the bigger the
delay.
• What this means for decision making is that
we cannot rely on decadal or even centennial
feedbacks. Empirical data is likely to be
insufficient to inform decisions.
5. Tipping points
• At least 10 key tipping points within the climate
have been identified, that may lead to large, but
unpredictable, impacts (for example, ocean
acidification, Southern Ocean/North Atlantic
circulation shifts, polar albedo effects, etc.)
• Socio-economic and demographic trends will
have large, but also unpredictable, impacts on
both future emission profiles and adaptation
capacity
6. Prisoners dilemma
• In game theory, two individuals have a common
interest in cooperating with each other, but
cannot be sure the other will do so.
• As a result, the usual outcome is that one player
has an incentive to cheat before the other one
cheats first.
• In climate policy, that means that unless all
nations are subjected to the same rules (i.e. a
carbon tax), there is a strong incentive to NOT
constrain GHG emissions individually.
7. Mitigation is FUTURE adaptation
• Because of the long time frame, even the most
effective mitigation strategy will still require an
adaptation strategy.
• At the municipal and regional policy level, mitigation is
a relatively poor use of resources. Adaptive measures
that build in lower emission profiles have a better
cost/benefit ratio for society.
• Giving mitigation measures a higher priority than
adaptation, in the absence of a global legal framework,
still leaves municipalities and regions vulnerable to
climate change impacts.
Questions/comments
• ????
• Remember to sign up for free trial of
1000Minds, a multi-criteria decision making
tool before tomorrow.
Broken Cities game
• Designed by Ben Norskov, Mohini Jutta, Janot
de Suarez and Pablo Suarez
• Distributed under Creative Commons copyleft,
in a partnership between the International
Red Cross/Red Crescent and Parson School of
Design in New York
• Will be posted, along with other games, at
http://petlab.parsons.edu/redCrossSite/about
.html