An information session will be held on Friday 27 November 2009 at 3.30 pm for the ANU delegates attending the UNFCCC CoP 15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.  The event will be held at Room 102 Forestry Building (48), Fenner School of Environment and Society, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment.

Presenters

Prof Will Steffen, ANU Climate Change Institute;

Prof Brendan Mackey, Fenner School of Environment and Society, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment;

Ms Elizabeth Peak, Australian Government Department of Climate Change;

Dr Janette Lindesay, Fenner School of Environment and Society, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment.

Light refreshments will be held after the briefing.

Note: This is an internal ANU event which is not open to the public.

Photo: City streets - Copenhagen March 2009

The Government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has met with bitter resistance from the Opposition and recently been the subject of intense negotiations. Overshadowing the Government’s scheme are lingering questions of what Australia will bring to the table at December’s UN Climate Change Conference and the prospect of a double dissolution.

With the ETS to be debated in the Senate make sure you are fully informed of the economic, political, environmental, legal and scientific issues by talking to the following ANU academics. They are available for expert comment and analysis as the debate unfolds.

Download here: ANU ETS Expert List

 

Follow the links to access Professor Will Steffen’s latest climate change reports.

Climate Change 2009. Faster Change and More Serious Risks by Professor Will  Steffen

Synthesis Report - Climate Change Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, Copenhagen 2009 10-12 March Conference.

Nature article: Planetary Boundaries The Human Race Should Not Transgress

Individuals and communities wishing to access climate change information should see Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences - A Guide for Individuals and Communities, prepared by the USA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation. Download the report here: Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences - A Guide for Individuals and Communities

Photo: Solar Station by ANU Student Xin Qiao Dong

Some international commentators have expressed dismay that Australia is still debating climate change while other developed and developing economies have moved on and are already making positive steps towards climate change strategies. Is Australia out of step with the rest of the world? Who’s telling fibs and who’s providing facts about climate change in Australia? Have the Australian people switched off?

On 25 November 2009 at 12.30 pm the ANU Climate Change Institute will host the event Too Hot To Talk About: Why is Australia Still Debating Climate Change?  The event will be a Q & A style event zeroing in on how climate change is communicated to Australians - the spin, the noise, the clutter as well as the facts.

Participating in the event will be Crikey’s Canberra Correspondent Bernard Keane,  Dr Will Grant - Lecturer from the ANU Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Simon Grose – Canberra Press Gallery correspondent for Science Media, Dr onacloV - Artist and Lecturer from the Design Lab at University of Sydney and  award-winning author Tony Kevin.  Prof Will Steffen, Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute, will moderate the event.

The event will be live streamed on the Internet. Follow the link from the ANU homepage next week (www.anu.edu.au). You can interact with comments and questions on the Livestream page or through Twitter with the tag #climatedebate

The event is free and open to the public, but seating at the event is strictly limited. To reserve your seat contact ANU Climate Change Institute on 02 6125 56599 / http:www.anu.edu.au/climatechange

Venue Information
Videoconference Centre on the ground floor of the Peter Baume Building.  See map link for location:Building location 42a.

Active and serving members of Australia’s emergency services will run to the Big Solar Dish on Monday 16 November 2009 as it is Day 15 of the Run for a Safe Climate campaign. Firefighters, paramedics, police, military and emergency services workers will run in relay over 6,000 kilometres linking Australia’s natural icons.  The runners will also visit some of the climate change solutions including the Big Solar Dish at ANU. The purpose of the run is to communicate to the Australian community the urgent need to take strong action to address the risk of global warming.

Follow link to Run for Safe Climate Route and information: http://www.runforasafeclimate.org/

Come to the Big Solar Dish ANU to cheer for runners. See here for details:  http://billboard.anu.edu.au/event_view.asp?id=52623

In international negotiations domestic politics and international relations are often entangled. The concept of a ‘two-level game’ can be used to understand when and how domestic politics and international relations interact. It is generally assumed to be a static state of interaction. While this may be a suitable assumption in one-off negotiations, it is unlikely to be so for prolonged negotiations which stretch across decades. In such cases the level of interaction may be greater in one round of negotiations than it is in another. In this seminar, Christian Downie will look at the role of the US and the EU over the last two decades of the international climate negotiations. In doing so, he will consider how the dynamic interactions between domestic politics and international relations might be conceived. A better understanding of these dynamics could help to explain why some international negotiations end in deadlock and others in agreement.

Christian Downie researches at the ANU Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) which is situated in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.

Photo by ANU student Harriet Riley. This photo was entered in the 2009 CCI CAPTURE: Climate Change Impacts Photographic Competition.

Photo description by Harriet Riley

This image depicts delegates at the June 2009’s UNFCCC summit in Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. I attempted to capture the intensity, complexity and frustration inherent in negotiating an international climate treaty. The 3000 participants worked from five in the morning through to midnight. The head of the Belarusian delegation, a grey-heard diplomat of great gravitas, died from a heart attack halfway through a major plenary. In Negotiation1 magazines like ‘Planet’ and ‘Eco’, put out daily by participating NGOs, litter the tables between cups of coffee. Ironically, there were no recycling facilities available.

Climate change is a long-term, complex problem involving fundamental uncertainties. Evaluating climate change policies thus depends critically on links among time preference, risk aversion, and the perceived rights of future generations. Economic models assume high time preference rates and low risk aversion, and support only modest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This presentation, in contrast, argues that aggressive climate stabilisation policies are justified on two grounds. First, people reveal high rates of risk aversion in real-world market decisions, so reducing climate risks provides highly valuable economic benefits. Second, not stabilising climate would impose large, uncompensated costs on future generations, which violates the moral premise that future generations are entitled to protection against uncompensated, potentially catastrophic harms.

Rich Howarth joined Dartmouth College’s Environmental Studies Program in 1998 and is Editor-in-Chief of Ecological Economics. His work emphasises the interface between economic theory and the ecological, moral, and social dimensions of environmental issues, with focuses on energy use, climate change, and ecological conservation.

Drinks and nibbles will be served after the seminar till 6.45. Please RSVP for catering purposes to meredith.bacon@anu.edu.au, T. 6125 0556.

This seminar is sponsored by the Environmental Economics Research Hub at the Crawford School, ANU

Climate change raises a number of challenges to human wellbeing, among these is the threat to our health. In combination with climate change, large-scale global environmental changes such as loss of biodiversity, changes in fresh water supplies and stresses on food production systems, have the potential to cause systemic adverse alterations in patterns of health and disease.

These can combine with many other specific challenges, including the emergence of new infectious diseases and the re-emergence and re-distribution of old infectious foes (such as tuberculosis and malaria). While, early on, the effects of these health changes are likely to be most severe in the developing world, they pose health threats to all of us. This lecture will
evaluate the impact, and significance, of these health threats and the strategies being adopted to avert and contain them.

Professor McMichael is a National Health and Medical Research Council Australia Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health. He has been an advisor and consultant on environmental health and climate change issues to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the UN Environment Program, the World Bank and other international bodies. His pioneering research and writing on the health risks of climate change, in the 1990s, was combined with his central role in health risk assessment for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The research program on climate change health that he heads is now one of the largest and most internationally active in the world.

Professor John Mackenzie is a scientist with an outstanding international reputation in the field of
microbiology and its impacts on public health. He was awarded an Order of Australia in 2002 for service to microbiology research, as a leading contributor to the understanding of the genetics, pathogenesis and public health implications of viruses, and to education. He led the WHO mission into China seeking information on SARS in 2003 and was involved in the global response to Avian Flu in 2004.

This week the ANU Climate Change Institute (CCI) hosted a closed workshop focusing on the implementation of adaptive response strategies to strengthen against climate change impacts in developed and developing economies in the APEC Region.

Sponsors of the workshop were AusAID, the ANU Climate Change Institute, the ANU Exchange and the ANU Korea Institute.  The workshop was co-hosted by the APEC Virtual Centre for Enviromental Technology Exchange (Australia). Representatives from Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Australia attended the two day workshop held at the Australian National University.

The first session of the workshop was co-chaired by Ms Octavia Borthwick, Assistant Director General of the Asia Regional Branch at AusAID, and Professor Will Steffen, Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute.

Keynote speakers for the event were:

Ms Octavia Borthwick, AusAID

Dr Heesu Park, Policy Advisor, Republic of Korea International Cooperation Agency

Dr Carmel Gacho, Senior Science Research Specialist, Industrial Technology Development Institute, Dept Science and Technology, Philippines

Dr Nguyen Dai Khanh, Director Technology and International Cooperation, National Hydro-Meteorological Service, Ministry of Natural Resources, Vietnam

Mr Hong-Seok Kim, Researcher, Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute, Republic of Korea

Mr Tom Worthington, Green Technology Strategies,  ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science, Australia

Dr Phong Ngo, Nong Lam University Water Management Department, Agronomy Faculty Vietnam

Mr Tetsuro Fujitsuka, Director Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) via video-link from Kobe, Japan.

 Other presenters included:

Professor Tony Jakeman, ICAM Director, Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, Australia

Dr Christopher Silverio, Chief Science Research Specialist, Department of Science and Technology, the Philippines

Dr Michael Djordjevic, Research School of Biological Science, ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, Australia

Dr Keith Lovegrove, Solar Thermal Group, ANU College of Engineering and Computer Sciences

Dr Igor Skryabin, Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, ANU College of Engineering and Computer Sciences, Australia

An expected outcome of the Workshop will be the production of a report which will be presented to the respective Government aid agencies, in Japan, Republic of Korea and Australia.

Photo (top): APEC VC Climate Change Workshop video-conference with APN Director Mr Tetsuro Fujitsuka and APN Secretariat, Kobe, Japan.

Photo (bottom): APEC VC delegates and Workshop participants.

Voluntary access to family planning should be made more easily available to poor communities in least developed countries to assist their ability to adapt to the harmful effects of a changing climate according to a researcher from The Australian National University.

Associate Professor Colin Butler from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at ANU has co-authored a report calling for increases in voluntary, rights-based family planning to complement other climate change adaptation programs in developing countries.

The findings have been published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The paper analyses climate change action programs from 40 developing countries. Nearly all of the programs studied identified at least one way that population growth increases the harmful effects of climate change.

“Whether it is faster degradation of natural resources, increased demand for resources, or heightened human vulnerability to extreme weather events, the fact that most countries indicated that at least one of these areas is of concern suggests that something needs to be done,” Associate Professor Butler said.

“We argue that voluntary access to family planning services, including those integrated with HIV/AID services, should be made more available to poor communities, especially in the least developed countries and form part of their climate change adaption strategy.”

Associate Professor Butler emphasises that there is a distinction between their approach, which prioritises the welfare of poor communities affected by climate change, and the other argument occasionally made, that calls for population growth to be slowed in low-income countries to limit increases in global carbon emissions.

“Our report reveals that governments in least developed countries are highly concerned about the impact of population growth upon their capacity to adapt to climate change and are demanding better access to family planning services.

“Rwanda’s population is expected to double by 2050 and Uganda’s is expected to triple. These countries and others are leading the call for greater access to family planning so they can tackle ongoing problems associated with climate change, like food insecurity, resource depletion, fresh water shortages and the spread of disease.”

Associate Professor Butler has called for national and international commitment to address the issue.

“At the national level, we need to see the integration of family planning programs shared by departments of health as well as ministries. At the international level we need to rectify the chronic underfunding for family planning assistance across the board.”

Contact: Associate Professor Colin Butler 02 6125 7175 colin.butler@anu.edu.au