The Biodiversity Crisis and Adaptation to Climate Change: A Case Study from Australia's Forests

If current trends continue, human activities will drastically alter most of the planet's remaining natural ecosystems and their composite biota within a few decades. Compounding the impacts on biodiversity from deleterious management practices is climate variability and change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently concluded that there is ample evidence to suggest climate change is likely to result in significant impacts on biological diversity. These impacts are likely to be exacerbated by the secondary effects of climate change such as changes in the occurrence of wildfire, insect outbreaks and similar disturbances. Current changes in climate are very different from those of the past due to their rate and magnitude, the direct effects of increased atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and because highly modified landscapes and an array of threatening processes limit the ability of terrestrial ecosystems and species to respond to changed conditions. One of the primary human adaptation option for conserving biodiversity is considered to be changes in management. The complex and overarching nature of climate change issues emphasises the need for greatly enhanced cooperation between scientists, policy makers, industry and the community to better understand key interactions and identify options for adaptation. A key challenge is to identify opportunities that facilitate sustainable development by making use of existing technologies and developing policies that enhance the resilience of climate-sensitive sectors. Measures to enhance the resilience of biodiversity must be considered in all of these activities if many ecosystem services essential to humanity are to be sustained. New institutional arrangements appear necessary at the regional and national level to ensure that policy initiatives and research directed at assessing and mitigating the vulnerability of biodiversity to climate change are complementary and undertaken strategically and cost-effectively. Policy implementation at the national level to meet responsibilities arising from the UNFCCC (e.g., the Kyoto Protocol) and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity require greater coordination and integration between economic sectors, since many primary drivers of biodiversity loss and vulnerability are influenced at this level. A case study from the Australian continent is used to illustrate several key issues and discuss a basis for reform, including recommendations for facilitating adaptation to climate variability and change.     

Assessment of Climate Change Effects on Canada's National Park System

To estimate the magnitude of climate change anticipated forCanada's 38 National Parks (NPs) and Park Reserves, seasonaltemperature and precipitation scenarios were constructed for 2050and 2090 using the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling andAnalysis (CCCma) coupled model (CGCM1). For each park, we assessed impacts on physical systems, species, ecosystems andpeople. Important, widespread changes relate to marine andfreshwater hydrology, glacial balance, waning permafrost, increased natural disturbance, shorter ice season, northern andupward altitudinal species and biome shifts, and changed visitation patterns. Other changes are regional (e.g., combinedEast coast subsidence and sea level rise increase coastal erosionand deposition, whereas, on the Pacific coast, tectonic upliftnegates sea level rise). Further predictions concern individualparks (e.g., Unique fens of Bruce Peninsular NP will migratelakewards with lowered water levels, but structural regulation of Lake Huron for navigation and power generation would destroythe fens). Knowledge gaps are the most important findings. Forexample: we could not form conclusions about glacial massbalance, or its effects on rivers and fjords. Likewise, for theEast Coast Labrador Current we could neither estimate temperature and salinity effects of extra iceberg formation, nor the further effects on marine food chains, and breeding park seabirds. We recommend 1) Research on specific large knowledge gaps; 2) Climate change information exchange with protected area agencies in other northern countries; and 3) incorporating climate uncertainty into park plans and management. We discuss options for a new park management philosophy in the face of massive change and uncertainty.     

The Costa Rican Experience with Market Instruments to Mitigate Climate Change and Conserve Biodiversity

Two decades of developing relevant legal and institutional regimes for the sustainable and nondestructive use of natural resources have framed Costa Rica's pioneer approach to mitigate climate change and conserve its rich biological diversity. This policy framework provides an appropriate context for the actual and proposed development of market instruments designed to attract capital investments for carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation, and allows the establishment of mechanisms to use those funds to compensate owners for the environmental services provided by their land. As a developing economy. Costa Rica is striving to internalize the benefits from the environmental services it offers, as a cornerstone of its sustainable development strategy.     

Monitoring the Hydrology of Canadian Prairie Wetlands to Detect the Effects of Climate Change and Land Use Changes

There are millions of small isolatedwetlands in the semi-arid Canadian prairies. These`sloughs' are refuges for wildlife in an area that isotherwise intensively used for agriculture. They areparticularly important as waterfowl habitat, with morethan half of all North American ducks nesting inprairie sloughs. The water levels and ecology of thewetlands are sensitive to atmospheric change and tochanges of agricultural practices in the surroundingfields. Monitoring of the hydrological conditions ofthe wetlands across the region is vital for detectinglong-term trends and for studying the processes thatcontrol the water balance of the wetlands. Suchmonitoring therefore requires extensive regional-scaledata complemented by intensive measurements at a fewlocations. At present, wetlands are being enumeratedacross the region once each year and year-roundmonitoring is being carried out at a few locations. Theregional-scale data can be statistically related toregional climate data, but such analyses cast littlelight on the hydrological processes and have limitedpredictive value when climate and land use arechanging. The intensive monitoring network has providedimportant insights but it now needs to be expanded andrevised to meet new questions concerning the effects ofclimate change and land use.     

Climate Change and Climate Variability: Adaptations to Reduce Adverse Health Impacts

Global climate change is likely to have a range of consequences for human health as a result of disturbance or weakening of the biosphere's natural or human-managed life support systems. The full range of potential human health impacts of global climate change is diverse and would be distributed differentially spatially and over time. Changes in the mortality toll of heatwaves and changes in the distribution of vector-borne infectious diseases may occur early. The public health consequences of sea level rise and of regional changes in agricultural productivity may not occur (or become apparent) for several decades. Vulnerability is a measure of both sensitivity to climate change and the ability to adapt in anticipation of, or in response to, its impacts. The basic modes of adaptation to climate-induced health hazards are biological, behavioural and social. Adaptation can be undertaken at the individual, community and whole-population levels. Adaptive strategies should not introduce new health hazards. Enhancement of the acknowledged public health infrastructure and intervention programmes is essential to reduce vulnerability to the health impacts of climate change. In the longer-term, fundamental improvements in the social and material conditions of life and in the reduction of inequalities within and between populations are required for sustained reduction in vulnerability to environmental health hazards.     

Reconciling National and Global Priorities in Adaptation to Climate Change: With an Illustration from Uganda

Many developing countries, especially in Africa, contribute only very small amounts to the world total of greenhouse gas emissions. For them, the reduction of such emissions is not a priority, and the more important issue is to find ways to reduce their vulnerability to the projected climate change which is being imposed upon them largely as a result of emissions from developed countries. This priority does not accord with the ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper reports upon studies in Uganda designed to help in the development of a national adaptation strategy, and addresses the need to reconcile such a strategy with the global priority accorded to mitigation and with national economic development priorities. Some features of a national climate change adaptation strategy are identified and questions are raised about the need for an international regime to facilitate and support adaptation.     

A MERGE Model with Endogenous Technological Progress

We have developed a new version of the MERGE model, called MERGE-ETL, to analyse the dynamics of endogenous technological learning (ETL) in the energy system. This paper describes the basic formulation of MERGE-ETL, the solving techniques used for this model and some first numerical results in the context of policies designed to mitigate global climate changes.     

Holling's Figure-Eight Model: A Technical Reevaluation in Relation to Climate Change and Biodiversity

Holling proposed a four-phase conceptual model of ecosystem dynamics that includes exploitation, conservation, and destructive and renewal components to explain the failure of many natural resource management schemes. The model is drawn as a sideways figure-eight i.e. . There are two dimensions in this model, connectivity (abscissa) and the amount of capital stored in the system (ordinate). This conceptual model has been suggested as a guide to thinking about the impact of climate change on biodiversity, but the two dimensions are insufficient and the alignment of the figure-eight model is problematic when compared with actual data. Kay has adjusted the dimensions of the figure-eight model and renamed the abscissa as exergy stored and the ordinate as exergy consumed. We realign the original figure-eight model, labeling the abscissa as carbon stored and the ordinate as nutrients, such that the relative values of both axes are in qualitative agreement with data from four different studies. This new alignment is then shown to fit relatively well with Holling's original labels. This revision of the figure-eight model brings Holling's model into agreement with observations and provides insight into the linkages between biodiversity and climate change.     

Using Temporal Coherence to Determine the Response to Climate Change in Boreal Shield Lakes

Climate change is expected to have important impacts on aquatic ecosystems. On the Boreal Shield, mean annual air temperatures are expected to increase 2 to 4°C over the next 50 years. An important challenge is to predict how changes in climate and climate variability will impact natural systems so that sustainable management policies can be implemented. To predict responses to complex ecosystem changes associated with climate change, we used long-term biotic databases to evaluate how important elements of the biota in Boreal Shield lakes have responded to past fluctuations in climate. Our long-term records span a two decade period where there have been unusually cold years and unusually warm years. We used coherence analyses to test for regionally operating controls on climate, water temperature, pH, and plankton richness and abundance in three regions across Ontario: the Experimental Lakes Area, Sudbury, and Dorset. Inter-annual variation in air temperature was similar among regions, but there was a weak relationship among regions for precipitation. While air temperature was closely related to lake surface temperatures in each of the regions, there were weak relationships between lake surface temperature and richness or abundance of the plankton. However, inter-annual changes in lake chemistry (i.e., pH) were correlated with some biotic variables. In some lakes in Sudbury and Dorset, pH was dependent on extreme events. For example, El Nino related droughts resulted in acidification pulses in some lakes that influenced phytoplankton and zooplankton richness. These results suggest that there can be strong heterogeneity in lake ecosystem responses within and across regions.     

A Flexible Global Warming Index for Use in an Integrated Approach to Climate Change Assessment

Global Warming Potential (GWP) is an index used to measure the cumulative radiative forcing of a tonne of greenhouse house gas (GHG) relative to that of a ‘reference’ gas (CO₂). Under the Kyoto Protocol, GWP can be used as a fixed index to govern the trade-off between different GHGs in a multi-gas approach to GHGs abatement. The use of fixed GWPs has been criticized for not being very cost effective compared to the use of some flexible indices. To gain wider acceptance, however, a flexible index must also prove to be easy to use, and the economic gains from its adoption must be significant. In this paper, we develop a flexible index based on the concept of marginal rather than cumulative or average global warming potentials. These marginal global warming potentials (MGWPs) can be endogenously determined within a climate model given a particular climate objective based on radiative forcing level. The MGPWs are then linked to the marginal abatement costs of the GHGs, which are also endogenously determined within an economic model. When the two concepts are linked in this way, the result is a cost-effective way of achieving a particular climate change objective with multigas abatement. We show that the savings in costs when using this flexible MGPWs can be significant, and more importantly, they are not uniformly distributed across different regions.