Adaption and Mitigation to Climate Change

The UK has many different plans for adapting to climate change that are already in place, and many more they are hoping to enact in the future. Some of the climate change adaptations include, water conservation, flood management, planning and construction, biodiversity and conservation, agriculture, forestry and transportation.

The UK is likely to experience hotter drier summers, and wetter milder winters. One of the plans for the UK is called "Future Water". This plan requires water companies to prepare for extreme drought by 2030. Even though the UK is vulnerable for drought, they are also at risk for extreme flooding. The Thames Estuary 2100 Project is a program meant to help manage tidal flood risks in the area. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, "the final plan for the Thames Estuary 2100 Project will be flexible enough to ensure that it can be adapted if sea level rises faster or storm surges become more intense than anticipated".

Picture from : http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/measurementslarge500.jpg 

A few of the plans for planning and construction interested me as well. They are planning on building more eco-towns that will be more adaptable to climate change. They will introduce higher standards for buildings and install more permeable surfaces that will absorb storm water.  Builders will also have to take into account changes in temperature making houses more efficient.

One of the most interesting things in the IPCC reports adaptation section was the heat wave of 2003. During the summer months (June through August) of 2003 most of Europe experienced an extreme heat wave. Temperatures were on average 3-5 degrees Celsius warmer than normal. During June temperatures were 6 degrees Celsius warmer and 7 degrees Celsius warmer during August. July was only 1-3 degrees Celsius warmer. This extreme change in temperature greatly impacted much of Europe's agriculture. An estimated 13 billion dollars worth of damage was reported, and over 35,000 lives were lost due to the heat. Since this devastating event, many places in Europe have put in place and early heat wave warning system. A few of the countries participating in this are France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the UK and Hungary. In the occurrence of another extreme heat wave, hopefully this system can warn people and prevent as many lives from being lost.

The UK is part of the Kyoto protocol. The UK is part of the European Union, a union with 15 members who have committed to reducing emissions by 8% as a whole.  The UK has specifically committed to reduce emissions by 12.5% relative to a base year. According to UNFCC the UK reduced its emissions by 15.1% from the Kyoto base year until 2004.

The UK is very committed to reducing emissions and is starting to think about many more renewable energy sources. From Q2 of 2012 to Q2 of 2013 the UK increased renewable electricity energy from 9.4% to 15.5%. The UK is using onshore and offshore wind, Solar PV, hydro, and bioenergy to help increase efficiency and reduce emissions. The following graph is from:   
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/255182/UK_Renewable_Energy_Roadmap_-_5_November_-_FINAL_DOCUMENT_FOR_PUBLICATIO___.pdf

 

The UK has many incentives for mitigating climate change depending on what avenue you want to look at. They have incentives for creating more renewable energy sources by creating thousands of jobs. Based on a public opinion poll 76% of people in the survey supported using more renewable resources to help power electricity, fuel and heat, and only 4% completely opposed it. The agricultural industries as well as the forestry industries have incentives for mitigating climate change as well.

Personally I think the UK needs to both start adapting to the climate change, and continue mitigating. The UK does not play anywhere near the role in emitting greenhouse gasses as say the U.S. or China, but they do still play a role. Choosing to invest in clean energy is a great way to help reduce their emissions and ultimately save money. No matter how much mitigation the UK decides to do their emissions are small compared to the rest of the world as combined, and  they are so vulnerable to climate change to begin with they need to have adaptation policies in place as well just incase the rest of the world doesn't reduce their emissions and climate change continues to increase drastically.  I think the reason they need to do both is because every little bit that each country does to reduce emissions helps, but you need to be able to protect your own country as well and expect the worst.

Climate Change Impacts

  According to the 2007 IPCC report, the average yearly temperature for Europe is expected to rise more than the average global temperature. The expected range of temperature rise in Northern Europe (including the United Kingdom) from now until 2099 is 2-5 degrees Celsius.

Graph taken from 2007 IPCC report.

 The average yearly amount of precipitation in Northern Europe is also expected to increase, while the length and strength of the snow season is likely to decrease.

  Based on previous data, we are able to see many impacts from global warming. Most of these impacts are negatively affecting Europe, and will continue to have negative impacts across the continent. With an increase in the magnitude of precipitation, flash flooding is likely to increase all over Europe. Due to sea level rise coastal regions are also likely to experience flooding. The warming is expected to bring longer growing seasons and increased crop production, which are both positive impacts from global warming, however the warming will also cause glaciers to melt and reduce snow cover in the European mountains. 

   Due to an increase in flooding and sea level rise an estimated 1.6 million people will be affected annually. Warming is expected to be greater in the winter for the northern part of Europe and warming is expected to be greater in the summer for the central and southern portions of Europe. Due to the increase in temperature and longer growing season, the productivity of crops is expected to increase in northern Europe but decrease in central and southern Europe. Because of sea level rise, many species will be forced to move further inland, or be lost completely. The warming is expected to diminish most small glaciers and arctic permafrost areas and significantly decrease large glaciers. Most of the continent has switched from disaster relief programs and are now trying to implement proactive programs to deal with climate change.

 The plant and animal life are likely to be affected by climate change. Up to 1,350 plant species could be endangered or extinct by 2080. Based on the A1 scenario 22% of species could be endangered and 2% could become extinct as well.   This would be very detrimental to the ecosystems. The prolonged warmer temperatures are also not good for certain ecosystems.


 

United Kingdom's Contrubution to Climate Change

Data Source: ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt

 The UK has been emitting significant amounts of carbon dioxide since the early 1800's. Since the 1950's the amount of Solid Carbon Dioxide emissions in the United Kingdom have been slowly declining. In 1950 the UK was releasing 136 million metric tons of solid carbon, and in 2010 they had reduced their solid carbon emissions to 32 million metric tons of solid carbon. While the amount of solid carbon emissions have gone down since the 1950's gas and liquid emissions have each gone up by about 50 million metric tons. The total carbon emissions are slowly going down, and I believe this is due to the Climate Change Act of 2008. This act requires the UK to start lowering their carbon dioxide emission levels by 80% of the level it was at in 1990.

 Per capita the UK emits less carbon dioxide than the U.S. The U.S. emits 4.7 metric tons per person while the UK only emits 2.16 metric tons per person. This means the UK only emits 46% of the amount of carbon as the U.S.  I think one of the reasons the UK doesn't emit as much as the U.S. is because they are so much smaller in area. If the UK was the size of the United States and produced the same amount of carbon dioxide per square mile as they are now, they would be emitting more carbon dioxide than the U.S. The United States is currently ranked 12th in the world for CO2 emissions per capita, and the UK is ranked 47th. I am very surprised about the United States rank as well as the UK's rank. I would have thought that both countries would be higher up on the list. I was surprised to see what countries were in the top 10.

Data Source: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/CO2_Emission/timeseries/national

Compared to China, the United States, and even India, the UK has had a fairly steady rate of CO2 emission. Just looking at the amounts of CO2 emissions from the UK the numbers seem outrageous, however when you compare the United Kingdom to the U.S. and China their emission levels seem small. From the graph it looks like the Unites States was the biggest emitter of CO2 up until around 2000 when China surpassed the United States. If you look at emissions on a per capita basis an American Citizen would be more at fault for emitting CO2. We are emitting 4.7 metric tons per person, and China is about 1.68 metric tons per person.

If we take a look at the total amount of carbon emitted per country over time we get these numbers:
United States: 94,225,770 (Thousand Metric Tons)
Kenya: 86,840 (Thousand Metric Tons)
Italy: 5,579,562 (Thousand Metric Tons)
India:10,229,326 (Thousand Metric Tons)
China: 36,152,061 (Thousand Metric Tons)

According to these results the United States is responsible for the most amount of carbon emission, however with the rate that China is now emitting, I don't think it will be long until they pass the United States in total emissions.

Over all China has emitted only 39% the amount of CO2 that the US has, and India has only emitted 11% the amount of CO2 that the US has. Even adding all of China's CO2 and India's CO2 emission levels together they are only half the amount of the United States.

The Keeling Curve graph and the Total Fossil Fuel Emissions graph are similar in the sense that they are both increasing. The Keeling curve graph is the CO2 concentration parts per million while the Fossil Fuel graph is in thousands of metric tons. Since they are measuring different things and the unites are different, I think it is difficult to compare the two. Other than the fact that they are both increasing and that is not a good thing.