Ecological Economics and Climate Change

Abstract

Evidence provided in this chapter suggests that human-induced climate change is a reality and that the global warming observed over the past century is essentially the product of humankind’s addiction to GDP growth. In order to prevent the onset of catastrophic climate change, a number of things are required. Firstly, there must be a global commitment to stabilise the concentration of carbon dioxide-equivalent gases in the Earth’s atmosphere at no more than 450 parts-per-million (i.e., 450 ppm of CO₂-e). Secondly, because anthropogenic global warming is one of many global issues requiring urgent attention, climate change must be resolved in conjunction with other sustainable development concerns. In particular, all nations must eventually make the transition to a qualitatively-improving steady-state economy. Efforts to prevent the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases stabilising above 450 ppm of CO₂-e depend heavily on the establishment of an effective emissions-trading system encompassing all the world’s nations. However, for a global emissions-trading system to be successful, it must be built on the principles of ecological sustainability, distributional equity, and allocative efficiency. At the same time, the system needs to be accompanied by urgently required policies at the national level, albeit the nature, timing, and stringency of the policies would vary from country to country. Whilst high-GDP countries need to implement policies to immediately begin the transition to a qualitatively-improving steady-state economy, low-GDP nations require policies to enable them to experience a short phase of growth that is as efficient and equitable as possible. Recognition of the need for low-GDP countries to enjoy a period of welfare-increasing growth should produce a new global protocol that allows the world’s poorest nations to generate most of any future permissible global emissions.

Appendices

Annex 1A

1.1 Is the Earth Still Warming?—Yes It Is!⁴⁷

A lot of attention has recently been given to the notion that the Earth has stopped warming. One prominent IPCC member—Professor Mojib Latif—has gone so far as to suggest that average surface-air temperatures might fall over the next 10–20 years.⁴⁸ Given that average temperatures have not exceeded the peak year of 1998, a number of climate change sceptics believe this admission proves that anthropogenic global warming is not occurring. Such a claim by the climate change sceptics is totally misguided.

The basis for Latif’s position is that a crucial heat transfer mechanism—the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)—has entered a negative phase. Heat transfer mechanisms regulate the storage of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases in the world’s oceans, atmosphere, and various land surfaces.⁴⁹ It is generally believed that the PDO affects surface-air temperatures over much of the globe as well as other ocean oscillations that influence air temperatures elsewhere on the planet (Hansen et al. 2013; Kosaka and Xie 2013; Meehl et al. 2013). Although not conclusively proven, there is growing evidence to suggest that, during a positive PDO phase, a smaller than normal proportion of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the world’s oceans. This implies that a larger than normal proportion of the trapped heat ends up in the Earth’s atmosphere (IPCC 2007b). Consequently, there is a tendency for average surface-air temperatures to be higher during a positive PDO phase than under prevailing circumstances. The opposite occurs during a negative PDO phase. Each phase lasts for thirty to forty years.

There have been three PDO phases over the past century. During the 1905–1945 positive phase, average surface-air temperatures rose by 0.4 °C; during the 1946–1976 negative phase, temperatures fell by 0.2 °C; and over the 1977–2007 positive phase, temperatures rose by 0.55 °C (equivalent to a 0.75 °C rise over the past century). It therefore seems reasonable to assume that the latest negative PDO phase will suppress any increase in average surface-air temperatures. However, many climatologists believe that the warming effect of rising greenhouse gases will overwhelm the cooling impact of the current negative PDO phase. They consequently believe that average surface-air temperatures will continue to rise over the next two to three decades.

There is considerable empirical evidence to support this warming position. Despite a clear upward trend in average surface-air temperatures during the previous two positive PDO phases, the entire 0.2 °C decline over the 1946–1976 negative phase can be attributed to temperature falls in the first two years of the period. That is, if 1946 and 1947 are omitted, the Earth’s average surface-air temperature effectively plateaued, albeit annual temperatures continued to fluctuate. Moreover, the 1946–1976 negative PDO phase roughly coincided with the most prolific period of anthropogenic aerosol generation.⁵⁰ As explained in this chapter, aerosols have a cooling effect. For this reason, average surface-air temperatures should have fallen more dramatically during this period than they spectacularly rose during the previous two positive PDO phases. That they did not indicates that the warming effect of rising greenhouse gas concentrations was already sufficient to offset the cooling influence of the negative PDO phase.

Of greater significance is evidence produced by Murphy et al. (2009) showing that the Earth is rapidly warming. Although it is common to use trend changes in average surface-air temperatures as an indicator of climate change, it is more appropriate to examine variations in the Earth’s energy imbalance. By energy imbalance, climatologists mean the difference between the heat emitted by the Earth back to space (heat lost) and the combined heat accumulated in the Earth’s oceans, atmosphere, land, and ice.⁵¹ Climatologists often use average surface-air temperatures as an indicator of climate change because, over a prolonged period, surface-air temperatures ultimately trend upwards in line with the accumulation of heat on Earth. The accumulated heat content of the Earth for the period 1950–2003 is revealed in Fig. 1.12.⁵²

Fig. 1.12

Total heat content of the Earth, 1950–2003. Source www.skpeticalscience.com/global-cooling.htm (adapted from Murphy et al. 2009, Fig. 6b)

Figure 1.12 indicates that the Earth’s accumulated heat content continued to increase beyond the peak year of 1998. The reason for the recent disparity in the trend changes in average surface-air temperatures and the Earth’s accumulated heat content is that the heat storing capacities of land and the atmosphere are small compared to the heat storing capacity of the world’s oceans.⁵³ Consequently, relatively small exchanges of heat between the atmosphere and the oceans can significantly alter average surface-air temperatures. This is no better exemplified than by the peak in average temperatures in 1998 that was caused by a massive El Niño-related transfer of heat from the Pacific Ocean to the atmosphere. Conversely, the failure in recent years for average surface-air temperatures to increase above the 1998 level has been the result of La Niña conditions combined with an alteration in the PDO cycle. Not only does Fig. 1.12 reveal the rise in the Earth’s accumulated heat content, it exposes the extraordinary amount of warming that the Earth has recently experienced. Between 1970 and 2003, the Earth’s accumulated heat content increased at an average rate of 6 × 10²¹ Joules or 190,000 Gigawatts per year.

As for the period since 2003, there is no equivalent time series of the Earth’s accumulated heat content. Having said this, the next best thing exists in the form of a recent analysis of the ocean heat content down to a depth of 2,000 metres (von Schuckmann et al. 2009). Figure 1.13 reveals that the Earth’s oceans continued to accumulate heat between 2003 and 2008. What’s more, at 0.77 ± 0.11 Watts per square metre (Wm⁻²), the heat absorbed during this period was by no means trivial.

Fig. 1.13

Time series of global mean ocean heat storage (to a depth of 2,000 metres) measured in 10⁸ Joules per square metre (Jm⁻²). Source von Schuckmann et al. (2009)

There are, it would seem, three clear messages that emerge from the empirical evidence presented above and in this chapter. Firstly, given that average surface-air temperatures are an inherently noisy signal, we must avoid making climate change conclusions on the basis of short-term fluctuations of heat transfer mechanisms, such as the PDO and the El Niño/La Niña cycle. Secondly, even if Mojib Latif is correct and average temperatures fall slightly over the next decade or so, surface-air temperatures are likely to rise significantly in the future—particularly once the PDO cycle enters the next positive phase. An understanding of this second point is vital given that any short-term decline in average surface-air temperatures will almost certainly be used by climate change sceptics and opportunistic politicians to delay cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Thirdly, global warming is undeniably with us and the rate of warming is likely to accelerate if no action is taken to limit the rise in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.

Notes

• 1. For the purposes of this book, a high-GDP nation will imply a nation with a per capita GDP that is large by international standards. Conversely, a low-GDP nation will imply a nation with a low per capita GDP. The reason for using these terms instead of high-income and low-income nations is that GDP is a poor indicator of national income. I’ll have more to say about this in Chap. 3.

• 2. Other positive feedback mechanisms include water vapour feedbacks (Soden and Held 2005); arctic methane releases (e.g., releases of methane from thawing permafrost) (Zimov et al. 2006); and reduced CO₂ absorption by the oceans (Buesseler et al. 2007).

• 3. Milankovitch cycles involve the regular and periodic changes in the parameters of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. These cycles, which have little effect on global annual mean radiation, modify the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of the incoming solar radiation at the uppermost part of the Earth’s atmosphere (IPCC 2007b; Berger 1977, 1978). There are three elements of the Milankovitch cycles: (i) changes in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit due to variations in the minor axis of the ellipse; (ii) changes in the tilt or obliquity of the Earth’s axis; and (iii) changes in the direction of the axis tilt at a given point of the Earth’s orbit—referred to as climate precession (see IPCC 2007b, FAQ 6.1., Fig. 1, p. 449).

  Milankovitch cycles aside, the raw solar output of the Sun has gradually increased during the industrial era. This has resulted in a small positive radiative forcing since 1750 of around 0.25 Watts per square metre (IPCC 2007b, p. 136). On top of this, there is also a cyclical change in solar radiation of ±0.1 % that follows an 11-year cycle.

• 4. The El Niño oceanic event involves the fluctuation of a global-scale tropical and subtropical surface pressure pattern called the Southern Oscillation. The combined atmosphere-ocean phenomenon is known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). It is measured by way of a surface pressure anomaly between Darwin (Australia) and Tahiti plus prevailing sea temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. The ESNO has a significant impact on the wind, sea surface temperature, and precipitation patterns in the tropical Pacific. It not only influences the climate of the Pacific region, but other parts of the world through ‘global interconnections’ (IPCC 2007b).

  The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is another important heat transfer mechanism with the potential to cause short to medium-term fluctuations in average global temperatures (see Annex 1A).

• 5. Palaeoclimatology involves the study of ice sheets, tree rings, sediments, and rocks to determine the past state and fluctuations in the Earth’s climate and its probable causes.

• 6. Figure 1.1 includes the time since the Precambrian super-eon.

• 7. Sources for the individual sections of Fig. 1.1 are:

  • 542–65 million years ago: Royer et al. (2004)

  • 65–5.5 million years ago: Zachos et al. (2001)

  • 5.5 million-420,000 years ago: Lisiecki and Raymo (2005)

  • 420,000–12,000 years ago: Petit et al. (1999)

  • 12,000–2,000 years ago: Image: Holocene Temperature Variations.png (various)

  • 2,000–150 years ago: Image: 2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png (various)

  • 150 years ago to present: Image: 2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png (various)

• 8. CO₂ levels peaked during the Cretaceous period around 100 million years ago.

• 9. Climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium change in the mean global surface temperature following a doubling of the concentration of CO₂-equivalent gases in the atmosphere.

• 10. This possibility is based on the unusually low levels of CO₂ at the time of the glacial-interglacial cycles between 600,000 and 800,000 years ago (see Fig. 1.2).

• 11. The eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit has two quasi-periodicities—one of 413,000 years and another of around 100,000 years (IPCC 2007b). The second is often regarded as the major factor behind the current 100,000 year greenhouse gas-temperature cycle.

• 12. Under the auspices of the International Partners in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS), efforts are currently underway to establish an unbroken 1.5 million year climate record to answer these and many other climate-related questions.

• 13. The change in levels, particularly over the past 800,000 years, can be attributed to a combination of processes in the atmosphere, oceans, in marine sediments, on land, as well as the dynamics of sea ice and ice sheets (Webb et al. 1997; Broeker and Henderson 1998; Archer et al. 2000; Sigman and Boyle 2000; Kohfeld et al. 2005). However, the quantitative and mechanistic explanation of CO₂ variations remains one of the major unsolved questions of climate change research.

• 14. The last glacial maximum peaked around 21,000 years ago (IPCC 2007b).

• 15. A stadial is a sub-division of a glacial stage. The Younger Dryas derives its name from the Arctic plant, the dryas, which is an early coloniser of Northern Hemisphere land following ice sheet recession.

• 16. The North Atlantic Oscillation consists of opposing variations in barometric pressure near Iceland and the Azores. It therefore corresponds to fluctuations in the strength of the main westerly winds across the Atlantic into Europe, and thus to fluctuations in the embedded cyclones with their associated frontal systems (IPCC 2007b).

• 17. More recent records indicate that average global temperatures had risen by 0.75 °C over the past century and that thirteen of the past sixteen years (1998–2013 inclusive) were the warmest since 1850.

• 18. The R-squared values for the trend-lines are 0.55 for 1856–2005; 0.73 for 1906–2005; 0.75 for 1956–2005; and 0.66 for 1981–2005.

• 19. By normal state, one is referring to the state of the Earth’s radiative balance at a particular reference point—in this case, 1750 AD.

• 20. The global warming potential of each greenhouse gas depends on the intrinsic capability of a molecule in each gas type to absorb heat and the lifetime of each gas in the atmosphere.

• 21. Using the IPCC formula for radiative forcing, 454.85 = 278 × exp(2.634/5.35), where 278 represents the pre-industrial concentration of CO₂ in parts-per-million; 2.634 was the total radiative forcing of all long-life greenhouse gases in 2005; and 5.35 is a constant.

• 22. In effect, this means that if carbon dioxide was the only greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, it would have required a carbon dioxide concentration of 454.85 ppm in 2005 to have had the same warming potential as all greenhouse gases combined.

• 23. The value of 374.91 = 278 × exp(1.6/5.35), where 1.6 was the total radiative forcing of all anthropogenic agents in 2005.

• 24. In recent decades, the atmospheric concentration of aerosols has fallen in Europe, but has increased in Asia.

• 25. 428.68 = 278 × exp(2.317/5.35), where 2.317 was the total radiative forcing of the six Kyoto gases in 2005.

• 26. The 2012 Doha amendment to the Kyoto Protocol (COP-18) required a seventh greenhouse gas—Nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃)—to be included in greenhouse gas accounts for the purposes of setting greenhouse targets and assessing the performance of nations.

• 27. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC is a scientific, intergovernmental body that was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). One of the main tasks of the IPCC is to publish special reports on topic areas relevant to the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The IPCC itself does not conduct climate change research. It relies upon a broad spectrum of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature to make its assessments and to compile its special reports. Material published by the IPCC is widely considered to be authoritative.

• 28. Economic systems are usually divided into three sectors: (i) the primary sector, which includes agriculture and the resource-extractive industries; (ii) the secondary sector, which includes the manufacturing industries; and (iii) the tertiary sector, which includes service industries such as the health, education, recreation, hospitality, and life-style industries.

• 29. In the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC 2007b), ‘likely’ is defined as something that has at least a 66 per cent chance of occurring.

• 30. The estimates for each family group are based on one chosen emissions scenario from each group. These emissions scenarios are referred to by the IPCC as ‘illustrative’ scenarios (IPCC 2000).

• 31. The term ‘very likely’ refers to a probability of more than 90 per cent.

• 32. The meridional overturning circulation (MOC) in the ocean is quantified by zonal sums of mass transports in depth or density layers. In the North Atlantic, away from sub-polar regions, the MOC is often identified with the thermohaline circulation. However, the MOC can also include shallower, wind-driven cells, such as those that occur in the upper ocean in the tropics and sub-tropics where warm waters moving poleward are transformed to slightly denser waters and subducted equatorward at deeper levels (IPCC 2007c).

• 33. The source figure is based on temperature variations from the 1980–1999 average. The temperature values in Fig. 1.10 have been adjusted so they are expressed in terms of variations from their pre-industrial (1750) values. As a means of illustration, a 2 °C increase above pre-industrial levels corresponds to a 1.4 °C increase above 1990–2000 levels or a 1.5 °C increase above the 1980–1999 average (IPCC 2007c, Box 19.2).

• 34. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty that was adopted on 9 May 1992 and later signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro by more than 150 countries and the European Community. First entering into force on 21 March 1994, the UNFCCC contained non-binding, initial limits on greenhouse gases and provisions for subsequent updates, or protocols, to serve as mandatory emission targets. The first of these mandatory targets was the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

• 35. Whilst the paper referring to this prediction was published in English in 1901 (Eckholm 1901), it first appeared in Swedish in 1899.

• 36. Although Keeling’s observations were the first accurate measures of atmospheric CO₂, measurements had been conducted, albeit with varying degrees of accuracy, since the beginning of the nineteenth century (Fleming 1998).

• 37. Hansen’s statement appeared in ‘Global warming has begun, expert tells Senate’, New York Times, June 24, 1988, p. 1.

• 38. Annex I countries are high-GDP, industrialised nations as defined under the UNFCCC. Most Annex I nations were required to reduce emissions by between five and eight per cent; the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and New Zealand were required to maintain emissions at 1990 levels; and Norway, Australia, and Iceland were permitted to increase emissions above 1990 levels by one, eight, and ten per cent respectively.

• 39. Russia’s ratification operationalised the Kyoto Protocol because of Article 25 which stipulates that the Protocol enters into force “on the ninetieth day after the date on which not less than 55 Parties to the Convention, incorporating Parties included in Annex I which accounted in total for at least 55 per cent of the total carbon dioxide emissions for 1990 of the Parties included in Annex I, have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession.” Although the ‘55 Parties’ clause was satisfied on 23 May 2002 upon ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by Iceland, it took ratification by the Russian Federation to satisfy the ‘55 %’ clause.

• 40. In actual fact, the 400 ppm level was first recorded in May 2012 at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) observatory in Barrow, Alaska. However, measurements taken at Mauna Loa, Hawaii are considered the ‘benchmark’ given that the station has, going back to 1958, the world’s longest continuous record of atmospheric CO₂.

• 41. Annex I nations have promised to provide US$100 billion per year to the Green Climate Fund through to 2020.

• 42. Formally, ecological economics began as a distinct sub-discipline of economics following the creation of the International Society for Ecological Economics and the publication of the Society’s journal, Ecological Economics, in 1989. For more on ecological economics, see Martinez-Alier (1987), Costanza et al. (1991), Daly and Farley (2004), Common and Stagl (2005), Lawn (2007), and Martinez-Alier and Røpke (2008).

• 43. By use value, I mean the service-yielding qualities of physical goods. This differs to the exchange value of a good, which is what a person must forego to obtain the good (its price). The aim of allocative efficiency is to maximise the use value generated from a given quantity of available resources.

  Technical efficiency (E) is a measure of the ratio of matter-energy embodied in the physical goods produced (Q) to the matter-energy embodied in the resources used to produced them (R). Hence, E = Q/R. Because of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, E must be less than a value of one. As will become clear in Chaps. 2 and 4, increases in technical efficiency enable a larger quantity of goods to be produced from a given resource flow. Technical efficiency can be regarded as one of a subset of factors that contribute to allocative efficiency. Ceteris paribus, an increase in the technical efficiency of production augments the use value generated from the allocation of a given resource flow. It therefore leads to greater allocative efficiency. However, a preoccupation with technical efficiency can impact negatively on other allocative factors (e.g., the choice of goods produced) and can thus lead to a reduction in allocative efficiency.

• 44. To understand what is meant by low-entropy and high-entropy matter-energy, one must know a little bit about the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics is the law of conservation of energy and matter. It declares that energy and matter can never be created or destroyed. The second law is the Entropy Law. It declares that whenever energy is used in physical transformation processes, the amount of usable or ‘available’ energy always declines. Although the first law ensures the maintenance of a given quantity of energy and matter, the Entropy Law determines what proportion of it is usable. The Entropy Law is critical since, from a physical viewpoint, it is not the total quantity of matter-energy that is of primary concern, but the amount that exists in a readily available form.

  The best way to illustrate the relevance of these two laws is to provide a simple example. Consider a piece of coal. When it is burned, the matter-energy embodied within the coal is transformed into heat and ash. Whilst the first law ensures the total amount of matter-energy in the heat and ashes equals that previously embodied in the piece of coal, the second law ensures that the usable quantity of matter-energy does not. In other words, the dispersed heat and ashes can no longer be used in a way similar to the original piece of coal. To make matters worse, any attempt to reconcentrate the dispersed matter-energy, which requires the input of additional energy, results in more usable energy being expended than that reconcentrated. Hence, all physical transformation processes involve an irrevocable loss of available energy or what is sometimes referred to as a ‘net entropy deficit’. This enables one to understand the term low entropy and to distinguish it from high entropy. Low entropy refers to a highly ordered physical structure embodying energy and matter in a readily available form. Conversely, high entropy refers to a highly disordered and degraded physical structure embodying energy and matter that is, by itself, in an unusable or unavailable form. In all, the matter-energy used in economic processes can be considered a low-entropy resource whereas unusable by-products can be considered high-entropy wastes.

• 45. I am referring here to human-made capital in the Irving Fisher (1906) sense of all producer and consumer goods. Also included in this definition of human-made capital is the stock of public infrastructural assets.

• 46. There will naturally be some minor fluctuations either side of the steady physical quantity of goods, but the average quantity will effectively remained unchanged.

• 47. The central thesis of this annex is drawn from www.skpeticalscience.com/global-cooling.htm.

• 48. I should point out that Professor Latif, one of the world’s leading climate modellers, is a strong believer in humankind’s warming influence on the Earth’s climate. Latif also believes that any decline in average surface-air temperatures will be temporary and that temperatures will again rise abruptly.

• 49. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is also an important heat transfer mechanism. However, its influence on global air temperatures appears to be much less significant than the PDO. Another heat transfer mechanism that receives a lot of publicity is the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Whilst the ENSO is very influential, its impact is felt in terms of annual temperature variations. The El Niño phase of the ENSO tends to increase air temperatures, whilst a La Niña event has a cooling effect.

• 50. The anthropogenic generation of aerosols was at its greatest between 1950 and 1985.

• 51. The accumulated heat content of the Earth does not include the heat contained within the Earth itself.

• 52. In order to make their calculations of the Earth’s total heat content, Murphy et al. firstly used data of the heat content of the upper 700 metres of ocean depth (Domingues et al. 2008; Ishii and Kimoto 2009; Levitus et al. 2009). They then added the heat content data of deeper ocean waters down to a depth of 3,000 metres (Levitus et al. 2000; Köhl et al. 2007; Köhl and Stammer 2008). To compute the heat content of the atmosphere, Murphy et al. used the surface temperature record plus the heat capacity of the troposphere. Finally, the authors added the heat content of land and ice (IPCC 2007b).

• 53. ‘Land + atmosphere’ in Fig. 1.12 also includes the heat absorbed by ice.