Our Common Future

Convened by M. Siegert (Imperial College London, Grantham Institute, London - UK)  

Copies of our new Grantham Briefing Note ‘Sea level change’ will be available at this session.

Session summary

The major contribution to future sea level change is likely to come from melting of the polar ice sheets. Considerable uncertainty exists as to how Antarctica and Greenland will change in the coming decades, however, limiting our ability to predict sea level rise with certainty. In this session established information and new knowledge of global sea-level, based on measurements of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and quantification of uncertainty, will be discussed to provide a state-of-art account of future sea level change, and the cryospheric response to climate and ocean warming.

Speakers include N. Arnell (Walker Institute)who will highlight findings from the AVOID 2 programme on avoided impacts

Session summary

 Despite increasing numbers of studies, knowledge about the impacts of climate change on natural and human systems as the world moves from 0.8°C of current warming towards a 2°C, 3 or 4°C world is fragmented. This pertains not only to the frequency and intensity of impacts but also to their interaction and the crossing of thresholds. Furthermore, cascades of impacts can be expected in which physical and biophysical changes trigger crucial impacts in human systems across different sectors that may turn out to be irreversible – at least on human timescales – and affect population groups in different ways. Moreover, the reality that yesterday's and the risks that today’s socio-technical-political decisions profoundly constrain possibilities of systems for coping with current and future impacts through mitigation or adaptation is eminent and provides grounds for structural alternative decisions.

Co-Convened by the Grantham Institute

 Speakers include Georgina Mace and Colin Prentice, who will address the topic ‘Biodiversity conservation under climate change: do we need a new approach?’

Copies of our new Grantham Briefing Papers ‘Climate change and challenges for conservation’ and 'Biosphere feedbacks and climate change' will be available at this session.

Session summary

The interaction of climate change with other drivers of global change amplifies existing risks to social-ecological systems, and creates new ones. The potential magnitude of these impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems and associated uncertainties call for a policy response, but this will require profound changes in approaches to decision making.

Adaptation to climate change should be adopted as a long-term component of economic, social, political and cultural transformations, rather than focusing on avoiding or accommodating change in the short term. Therefore new approaches to adaptation are urgently required.

This session will discuss what we currently know about ecosystem responses to climate change, the implications for conservation and ecosystem services management, and the tools, practices and processes that can help facilitate the changes required to help encourage appropriate forms of adaptation and transformation.

 Ralf Martin (Imperial College Business School) will present his research with Grantham Lecturer Mirabelle Muuls on the EU ETS

Abstract

The EU Emissions Trading System is the EUs flagship climate policy, establishing since 2005 a carbon market across Europe with more than 12,000 plants in 31 countries regulated at present. With industry responsible for a large share of global carbon emissions, carbon pricing is seen as a central policy instrument for industry’s transformation towards more energy and material efficiency and for unleashing innovation processes. We will discuss what effect the carbon price had to date on industry.

We discuss the results of a research paper that uses comprehensive firm and plant level data for more than 4,500 French manufacturing firms. It examines the economic and environmental impact of the EU ETS. Our results suggest that ETS regulated manufacturing plants in France reduced emissions by an average of 15-20%, a significant amount. The most marked reduction in emissions occurs following Phase II of the EU ETS in 2008, though there is some evidence of emissions