Author Archives: Simon Donner

Can Canada live up to the promise of the Paris Climate Agreement?

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My new article in Policy Options explores whether Canada can reconcile its climate policy targets with the temperature limits in the Paris Climate Agreement. The article is based on an analysis I conducted with Kirsten Zickfeld of Simon Fraser University – the report is available here.

The answer depends on how the world divides up the carbon that could be burned while keeping the planet within the temperature limits. From the report:

If you divide the pie based on each country’s present-day emissions, wealthy high-emitting Canada gets a generous helping for a country of its size (1.6-1.8% of the remaining carbon budget). If you divide the pie based on population, Canada gets a more equitable but much smaller slice (0.5% of the remaining budget).

With a generous helping of carbon pie, future emissions pathways for Canada that are consistent with the temperature limits would look like the figure at left. The 1.5°C limit is “at best unrealistic, at worst politically impossible.” The current Canadian target of reducing emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 could be consistent with the 2°C limit, provided emissions continue to rapidly decline after 2030.

Other countries, however, may not like Canada taking such a generous helping:

Allocating the remaining carbon budget based on present-day emissions places an unfair burden on developing and rapidly industrializing countries that historically have had low per-capita emissions. Despite being far less responsible for climate change to date, and currently having low per-capita emissions, countries like India would essentially be asked to bear an equal part of future mitigation efforts.

Equity, granted, is also an issue within Canada. I’ve been asked about emissions trajectories for individual provinces (that are consistent with the Paris temperature limits). Those trajectories would depend on assumptions about how Canada’s carbon budget “should” be allocated between different parts of the country. The answer for Canada as a whole is already dependent on assumptions about our slice of the global carbon pie; advancing this analysis to the provincial level would introduce even greater uncertainty, not to mention greater room for argument.

A simple approach would be to simply “scale” the emissions trajectories depicted above to the provincial emissions. Following that logic, the percent reduction targets, and the percent change in emissions by year, would be the same across all the provinces. That method, however, ignores the wide differences in mitigation potential and historic emissions burden. Perhaps the only thing that is clear from this analysis is that there’s no easy solution for Canada.

 

 

Canada’s contribution to meeting the Paris temperature targets

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PM Trudeau in Paris (CBC)

PM Trudeau in Paris (CBC)

At this week’s First Ministers’ Meeting here in Vancouver, the federal government begins the politically difficult task of establishing a national climate policy. The first step is coordinating the existing patchwork of provincial policies and carbon pricing systems.

Underlying this conversation is a question that has remained unanswered since Canada’s much-celebrated turn at the 2015 United Nations climate summit in Paris:

Are the existing or proposed national emissions targets consistent with the global promises made in Paris?

Together with Kirsten Zickfeld of Simon Fraser University, I completed a report on future CO2 emissions trajectories for Canada that are consistent with avoiding the global temperature limits in the Paris Climate Agreement.

The analysis in our report suggests that the current Canadian target of a 30% reduction below 2005 levels by 2030 could be consistent with maintaining a likely chance (66%) of limiting warming to less than 2°C globally, but only if Canada is given a generous allocation of the world’s “remaining” future carbon budget (based on the present fraction of the world’s emissions). A target consistent with a likely (66%) chance of avoiding 1.5°C of warming globally is extremely limited regardless of the method of allocation. Even under a generous allocation to Canada, national net CO2 emissions would need to decline 90-99% below 2005 levels by 2030.

For more, see the full report available here. I’ll also write more on this subject in the coming weeks.

 

 

 

Oscars so white, planet not so white

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In drawing attention to the urgency of addressing global warming during his acceptance speech, Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio drew many cheers. He also drew a few rolled eyes in western Canada.

The film shoot for The Revenant did, as DiCaprio implied in his speech, actually relocate from Alberta due to a rapid change in weather and a lack of snow. The weather, though, was not much of a surprise to Albertans, or to any people who live on the leeward, inland side of a large mountain range.

It was an old-fashioned chinook caused by the difference in the rates that wet and dry air change temperature when forced to rise or fall over a mountain range. The same phenomenon is called a Wuhan in China, a Foehn in parts of Europe, and a Lyvas in Greece.

Naturally, DiCaprio’s speech pushed some buttons.

In scrutinizing DiCaprio’s claim, let’s not forget to see the forest – the climate – for the trees – the weather.

Whistler BC, March 2015

Last year absolutely whupped temperature records both globally, and in much of western Canada.  That was not your grandparents’ chinook: Calgary hit over 17°C, 4°C more than the previous record.  Temperature records were set that month on both sides of the Rockies. Snow depths hit record lows in parts of British Columbia. Ski areas struggled to stay open, or to keep enough snow to get to the bottom, as in this photo from Whistler, BC in early March.

DiCaprio’s speech about scouring the planet to find snow was broadly correct. Winters are getting shorter. It is getting hardeFig12-32r to find snow, particularly in late winter and spring. Since the late 1960s, Northern hemisphere snow cover has decreased 1.6% per decade in March and April and 12% (!) per decade (!) in June, according to the last IPCC report.

Snow cover is expected to continue to decline for decades into the future, especially if we continue doing business as usual. The graph shows the projected decline in March and April snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere under a variety of different climate scenarios, from the last IPCC report (the red scenario is roughly “business is usual”).

Leonardo DiCaprio’s example may not have been ideal. He may need to read up on adiabatic warming and cooling. Nevertheless, the planet is and has been getting less white.

Resettlement due to climate change, past and future

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The Gilbert Islands [Kiribati] are, what you call, now, dangerous, high tides and flood. It’s alright in the Solomon Islands, there are mountains.

As the sea-level rises, the fate of people in low-lying Pacific island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands is uncertain. The growing cost and challenge of adaptation could eventually drive large-scale resettlement to countries safer from the rising sea like New Zealand and Australia.

How will people be received? What challenges will they face adjusting to a new environment? Will they be able to maintain their culture? There are no easy answers to these questions, but the past may be a guide.

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Ghizo Town, Solomon Islands

The above quote is from an elderly man who was part of a mid-20th century British colonial program that relocated roughly 2,300 people from the Gilbert and Phoenix Islands to hilly Ghizo in the distant Solomon Islands because of fears of resource constraints and overcrowding. I interviewed him in 2011 during a visit to Ghizo. I wanted to learn about the Gilbertese* resettlement experience and see if there were any lessons for future climate change-driven resettlement of people from Kiribati and nearby atoll nations.

It was a fascinating and moving experience. Just a few years before, a tsunami had struck tiny Ghizo, taking a large physical and emotional toll on the small Gilbertese community. Another elder described the events to me:

When it [the lagoon] was drying up, they were surprised, they went to go see the sea, rather than running up the hill for their lives. They kept being surprised, then it was too late.

Of the fifty people killed, thirty were Gilbertese, including many children. Despite three generations in the earthquake- and tsunami-prone Solomon Islands, many people in the community did not know the signs of an impending tsunami (see the terrific 2009 paper by Brian McAdoo and colleagues). This gap in cultural knowledge and the challenges of rebuilding after the tsunami revealed some of the many unforeseen long-term consequences of resettling in a new environment and society.

The history of the Gilbertese resettlement and the lessons from my interviews are described in a new paper in the journal Natural Resources Forum. The paper reveals how uncertainty about land rights still persists, 60 years after the original resettlement, and is linked to a number of other present-day challenges the community faces.

The findings may help inform thinking about resettlement due to climate change – including the importance of establishing and funding permanent mechanisms for dealing with land and resource disputes. I also hope that describing the Gilbertese experience can, in general, help disavow the mistaken popular idea that there is “empty” land in other countries where the people of Kiribati and other low-lying islands can easily resettle.

A personal note: This research was made possible by many people who were willing to share often difficult thoughts and memories, but who must remain nameless due to research ethics. No thank you can be adequate. All I can say is that, for a decade now, I have traveled to the Pacific Islands and back to learn about climate change and people’s capacity to adapt. Each trip, I come home changed by the incredible generosity, openness, and overall decency of the people I meet.

Sources:

Donner, S.D., 2015. The legacy of migration in response to climate stress: Learning from the Gilbertese resettlement in the Solomon Islands. Natural Resources Forum, 39: 191-201.

McAdoo, B.G., Moore, A., Baumwoll, J., 2009. Indigenous knowledge and the near field population response during the 2007 Solomon Islands tsunami. Natural Hazards 48: 73-82.

* The colonial term “Gilbertese” is used because the Solomon Islands community, established before Kiribati’s independence, self-refer as Gilbertese rather than as i-Kiribati. The word Kiribati itself is derived from the pronunciation of Gilberts (kee-ree-bas) in the local language.

Yangdidi highlights experiences of Super Typhoon Maysak survivors

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by Sara Cannon

In June 2015, I visited the Ulithi Atoll in the outer islands of Yap, Micronesia for the third time while working with One People One Reef. Just a few months before, on March 31, 2015, the communities had survived Super Typhoon Maysak which slammed the islands with 265 km/hour winds. I remember the way my heart sank as the familiar sight of Falalop, the largest island in the atoll, became visible in the window of the small twin-engine airplane (a sight that would have otherwise filled my heart with joy). The typhoon’s damage was obvious even from a distance.

Outer Islands High School, Falalop, Ulithi (April 2015). Photo via Brad Holland

Outer Islands High School, Falalop, Ulithi (April 2015). Photo via Brad Holland

The impacts of Maysak were devastating. Most of the trees were gone, and in the lack of shade, the sun was relentless. The majority of the islanders’ homes were destroyed, along with much of their infrastructure. Only homes made of concrete were still standing. Ulithi’s high school, one of only two high schools in all of Yap’s outer islands, was virtually flattened. In normal years, students from an approximately 250 km radius come to Ulithi for high school; the only other high school in the outer islands is located in Woleai, over 550 km away. There was no running water and a recently completed multi-million dollar solar panel project on Falalop was ruined. Water filters were provided by the International Organization for Migration and electricity was being provided sporadically via a diesel-power generator.

During my visit, people were still reeling from the damage, but were eager for the opportunity to talk about what they had been through. Because Ulithi has no phone or internet, it’s a challenge for community members to share their experiences with the outside world. With the blessing of Ulithi’s communities, we created Yangdidi, a website that highlights the stories of Super Typhoon Maysak survivors. I worked closely with Kelsey Doyle, a graduate student in Journalism at New York University, and John Rulmal, Jr., a community leader and organizer from the island of Falalop, to compile a series of audio, visual, and written interviews from a wide breadth of community members from all over Ulithi.

To the Ulithian people, yangdidi (or “wind force”) describes what has happened to their islands. The force of Maysak’s winds has drastically shaped the future of this remote atoll. With sea levels rising, and scientists predicting that cyclone intensities will continue to increase due to climate change (2015 set a new annual record for category 4 and 5 hurricanes and typhoons), wind and flood damage from storms may become all too common in the low-lying island nations in the Pacific.