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Climate Change:Impacts and Responses
Topic 1:Introduction
Topic outline
1. About the course
2. Climate change basics
3. The IPCC
4. Drivers of global change
Image: UN Photo, Mark Garten
Learning outcomes for this topic
Understand the contents of the course and what you will gain by studying it
Describe the basic facts about climate change and why it is a challenge
Learn about the structure and operations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Be familiar with a range of human drivers of global change
Section 1:About the course
The purpose of the course
Course learning outcomes
The syllabus
References for key readings
About the course
Introduce the topics of climate variability and climate change
Deliver understanding about how earth’s climate system works, and natural and human-induced drivers of the climate system
Explore the impacts of climate change on human and natural environments
Analyse impacts and evaluate climate change adaptation and mitigation options
Learn about the policies, regulatory mechanisms and international climate agreements associated with climate change
Course purpose
Explain how the climate system works and the physical basis of climate change
Describe how human activities are influencing greenhouse gas emissions
Investigate projections about possible future climate change on Earth
Assess the impacts of climate variability and climate change on agriculture and food systems, water, health, ecosystems, industry, settlement and society
Identify and evaluate responses to climate change under mitigation and adaptation
Evaluate global climate change policy and its implementation options for mitigation and adaptation.
Course learning outcomes
Topics:
1. Introduction
2. The Earth’s climate system
3. Climate change in the distant past
4. Climate change in the recent past
5. Projections of future climate
6. Impacts of climate change
7. Climate change adaptation
8. Climate change mitigation
9. Climate change policy and regulation
The syllabus
Textbooks Pittock A.B. (2009) Climate Change: the science, impacts and solutions.
Earthscan. Henderson-Sellers, A. & K. McGuffie (2012). The future of the world’s climate.
Elsevier
IPCC Reports IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4) available at
www.ipcc.ch IPCC Fifth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2014 (AR5) available at
www.ipcc.ch Other relevant IPCC reports available at www.ipcc.ch
Course JournalsSome of the key journals for scientific papers on climate change are: Journal of Geophysical Research Nature Climate Change Climatic Change Global Environmental Change Climate Dynamics International Journal of Climatology
Key readings
Section 2: Climate change basics
Isn’t the climate naturally changeable? Hasn’t Earth’s climate changed in the past? How do we know humans are responsible for current changes? Why should we worry about climate change? What can we do about climate change?
Outline: Climate change basics
Isn’t the climate always changing?
Climate and weather are not the same!
Climate is the average state of the weather measured over a period of thirty years or more.
“Climate change” refers to a shift in the state of the climate over at least several decades.
Climate variability is a natural feature of earth’s climate system, but human influences on the climate can contribute to greater levels of variability than we would otherwise expect to see.
Image:UN Photo/Logan Abassi
Hasn’t Earth’s climate changed in the past?
Image: IPCC WGI, AR5 2013, FigSPM-01
How do we know humans are responsible?
IPCC 2007 AR4 WG1
Why should we worry about current climate change?
Major negative impacts associated with even small temperature increases
Climate change will bring temperature increases, sea level rise, erratic weather and increased extreme events, all with far-reaching implications for ecosystems, human livelihoods and national economies
Unfair global distribution of negative impacts
Limited adaptive capacity of vulnerable populations in many areas
Image: UN Photo, Logan Abassi
What can we do about it?
Mitigation – e.g. change reliance on energy sources from fossil fuels to renewables like solar power
Image: UN Photo, Gonzaelz Farran
Image: UN Photo, Pasquale Gorriz
Image: UN photo, Paolo Filgueiras
Adaptation – e.g. diversify farming systems to include more drought tolerant crops like millet and cassava
Global policy – financing, co-ordinating and regulating the global climate change response
Section 3: The IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The structure of the IPCC IPCC materials and recent reports
Outline: The IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The IPCC is a scientific body. It reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of climate change.
Does not conduct scientific research or monitor climate data
Aims to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge on climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts
“Policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive”
Established in 1988 by the United Nations
Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization
Structure of the IPCC
www.ipcc.ch
IPCC materials
Assessment Reports
Special Reports
Methodology Reports
www.ipcc.ch
Section 4: Global change
Outline: Global change
What is global change?
What drives global change?
Natural drivers of global change
Human drivers of global change
What is global change?
Planetary scale change affecting systems on Earth, such as the climate system, ecosystems or social-ecological systems.
Image: NASA Earth Observatory
Plate tectonics, earthquakes,
volcanoes
Natural drivers of global change
Image: NASA
Image: NASAImage: NASA
Solar variation and Milankovitch cycles
Meteorite impacts
Human drivers of global change
Population growth
Image: UN Photo, A. Duclos
Image: UN Photo, Rick Bajornas
Economic development
Human needs – drivers of change
Image: UN photo, Guthrie
Image: UN photo, Ky Chung
Image: UN Photo, Evan Schneider
UN Photo/Kibae ParkUN Photo/John Isaac
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
UN Photo/John Isaac
Image: UN Photo, Mark Garten
End of Topic 1:Introduction
Next Topic: The Earth’s Climate
System
