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Climate change: be alarmed

22 October 2008

Professor Amanda Lynch

An increase in weather-related natural disasters was now inevitable due to existing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, even if drastic measures to reduce emissions were taken now according to Monash climate change scientist Professor Amanda Lynch.

Professor Lynch said climate change was confounding existing democratic processes for dealing with change and called for new ways of thinking and responding.

"From a common interest point of view it is not reasonable, in view of disappointing outcomes, to defend business as usual in the climate change regime," she told a recent lunchtime forum at the Caulfield campus organised by the Climate Change and Sustainable Business Project, Faculty of Business and Economics.

Professor Lynch called for new ways of framing the climate change goals, because a focus on achieving an international agreement had narrowed debate and resulted in a policy paralysis.

"I'm interested in outcomes rather than the means to an end," Professor Lynch said.

"What has happened is that big ideas like setting and agreeing to global emission reduction targets are floundering because they have become an end in themselves."

"We keep on looking for a big one-off solution when I think we need to expand our thinking to include more modest policy initiatives: we should be allowing ourselves to fail many times while we harvest what works. While we don't allow ourselves, and our politicians, to fail, we are robbing ourselves of potential opportunities," Professor Lynch said.

"We need to open the frame to many ideas. Most likely it will be bottom up stuff that will work. I think there's room for many solutions, but at government level it's a narrow focus around big projects -- it's a global treaty or carbon capture and storage -- and nothing else matters. I'm arguing against the single means of getting an outcome, the silver bullet if you like, not against the need for an outcome."

Professor Lynch said examples of modest policy initiatives were distributed renewable energy generation; supporting efficiency measures in old building stock; improving the cost-effectiveness of generating biofuels from waste; planning cities around public transport, cycling and walking; creating more green space in urban areas, and carbon capture and storage.

Professor Lynch said regardless of efforts to mitigate emissions, damaging and catastrophic events of Hurricane Katrina magnitude were now locked in because of existing concentrations of CO2 and the fact that the climate system has a large degree of 'inertia'.

"The consequence of this inertia is that we are already committed to a certain degree of climate change beyond that already observed, even if atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations were stabilised today," she said.

Professor Lynch's sobering assessment is that the world needs to assess what it really values and take action to reduce the vulnerability of those plants, animals and communities.

"Stabilisation of (greenhouse) concentrations is one, but only one, means for reducing vulnerability. Making adaption to inevitable climate change is another and it will be a different problem and solution for each community, ecosystem, sector and nation. We can, and must, do both." .