Class notes BA Geography (L700) Paper 11: Life within limits - science for a climate and ecological future
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Course
BA Geography (L700)
Institution
Cambridge University (CAM)
This paper examines the science-based understanding of ecosystem services and climate change scenarios crucial for life on Earth. Our intention is to provide students with a deeper understanding of the ways in which science is integrated into policy making and underscores the synthesis reports made...
Paper 11: Life within Limits: Science for climate and ecological futures
Overview
This paper examines the science-based understanding of ecosystem services and climate change
scenarios crucial for life on Earth. Our intention is to provide students with a deeper understanding
of the ways in which science is integrated into policy making and underscores the synthesis reports
made by organisations such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - both of
which aim to summarise scientific results of policy makers. Discusses interactions between science
and policy, and a large-scale framework that has been proposed to encapsulate the planetary
changes that we face. Then will examine ways in which science leads of the conservation of
biodiversity, and the coursework will explore and evaluate IPCC model outputs.
There will be a round-table discussion of the issues raised in this paper with leading practitioners
from the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. It is also hoped that there will be a fieldtrip at the
beginning of the Easter Term to examine some of these themes further.
Learning a science-based understanding for the evidence behind global crisis,
Lecture 1: Introduction to the course
“It is indisputable that human activities are causing climate change, making extreme climate events,
including heat waves, heavy rainfall, and drought, more frequent and severe” (IPCC, 2021)
Are natural hazards directing attributable to climate change?
Overview:
● Science-based understanding of ecosystem services and climate change scenarios
● Deeper understanding of integration of science with policy making
● How science underscores IPCC [Climate Change and Biodiversity — IPCC] and IPBES [Global
Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services | IPBES secretariat]
● Science-led conservation of biodiversity
o Invasive species
o Islands
o Protected areas
o Ecosystem restoration and rewilding
● Science-led understanding of future climates
● Scales of focus: global – regional – local
Themes
• Science and Society
, o Interglacial-glacial
o Planetary Boundaries (Rockström, J. (2009))
▪ Tipping points/ Thresholds (Steffen, W. et al. (2018; 2015; 2020)) including
uncertainties and defining
o Hothouse Earth Theory (Steffen, W. et al. (2018))
o Definitional errors or incoherences (Montoyo, J.M. et al. (2018))
o Translating science into policy (risk knowledge, EWS, communication, resilience)
o Accounting for uncertainty
o Role of experts/expertise knowledge, and the significance of positionality (Shapin, S.
(1998); Adams and Sandbrook (2021))
o Value judgements, and trade-offs (subjective stakeholder viewpoints) (Pickering, J.
and Persson, Åsa (2020); Costanza et al., (2014))
• Biodiversity within Limits
o Tools used to manage and assess biodiversity – ecosystem services, natures
contribution to people conceptual framework
o Invasive species
o Hotspots and Island biogeography – as ‘nature within limits’ – question values
o Migration (science behind understanding trends, timings, patterns…)
• Climate within/beyond Limits
o How do we know where the limits are and that we have in fact exceed them (even in
circumstances where its effects have not materialised)
o Role of climate models and how they influence socio-economic policy (McSweeney,
R. (2018); Flato et al., (2013))
▪ In turn influencing adaptation and mitigation strategies
, o
• Fieldtrip (Millennium Seed Bank, Wakehurst Place, Kew Gardens) [09/03/23]
Questions
Ở Is it possible for us (humanity) to live within limits given current rates of climate change and
ecological disruptions?
Ở Are there any good examples of science-led practices/policies which we can learn from?
Ở What are the most significant challenges for societies in using science-led underpinning of
planning for future climate ecologies?
Ở Are there any particular websites, podcasts, videos, etc. to enhance our understanding,
interest, enthusiasm?
Science and society
Lecture 2: Planetary limits
Overview
● Brief history of ideas about limits to humanity’s use of resources (limits to growth)
● Planetary boundaries
● Tipping points
● Critiques and alternatives
● What to look at next? A few ideas
● Limits to Growth (1972); early computational
model for projecting the following centuries
resources industrial output, population, food and
pollution – finding that pollution and resource
scarcity will start to impact industrial production
then food in decades between 2010-2030.
● 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment
(Stockholm Conference)
, ● 1987 Our Common Future (Brundtland Report)
● 1992 UN Conference of Environment and Development (Rio Earth Summit)
● Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
o Narratives from the IPCC shifted from “a discernible human influence on global
climate (1996) to it being “unequivocal” (2021)
Limits
Kyoto Protocol (1997); aim to reduce GHG concentrations to “a level that would prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system”
Paris Agreement (2015); solidified Kyoto protocol into policy by aim to keep the increase in global
average temperature to below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to meet 1.5oC
IPCC Special Reports (2021)
Observed warming deviation in 2010-2019 met 1.09 degrees Celsius relative to 1950-1900 mean
averages
Rates of warming have been unprecedented in more than 2000 years, the warmest multi-century
period in more than 100,000 years (climate tipping point)
Not all countries have agreed or signed up to temperature commitments
Main drivers of warming: CO2 and Methane
Narratives shifted from “a discernible human influence on global climate (1996) to it being
“unequivocal” (2021) driven by emissions from human activities, with GH gas warming partly
masked by aerosol cooling
COP26 Glasgow 2021
Two goals
• Review the implementation of the UNFCC, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement
• Adopt decisions to further develop and implement the 3 instruments
What was agreed?
• Signing of the Glasgow Climate Pact – sets out what needs to be done BUT does not stipulate
what each country must do nor is it legally binding
• Agreeing the Paris Rulebook – guidance on how the Paris Agreement is reached
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
o CBD’s Global Framework for Managing Nature through 2030
• 2010-20 UN Decade on Biodiversity
• 2011 CBD, “a hard instrument goes soft” (Harrop & Pritchard, 2011); Importance of CBD
with the paper examining its current global biodiversity targets to extend understanding of
its trajectory, and its evolving nature as an instrument of global governance – argues that
the lack of obligations backing its approaches have been ‘soft’ as a de facto policy rather
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