Planetary Boundaries: A resilience approach global ... · Planetary Boundaries: A resilience...
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Planetary Boundaries: A resilience
approach to global sustainability
Världens Eko 1st September
Professor Johan Rockström
Executive Director Stockholm Environment
Institute& Stockholm Resilience
Centre
A biosphere shaped by humanity
Human growth20/80 dilemma
Ecosystems60 % loss dilemma
Climate550/450/350
dilemma
Surprise99/1 dilemma”Nature Shocks
Normality”
”The QuadrupleSqueeze”
At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day
Ecosystem services –The benefits people obtain from ecosystems
Vi behöver naturen
Humanity deteriorated 60 % of key ecosystem services over the past 50 years
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
“The worst case IPCC scenarios or even worse are being realized….not possible anymore to exclude acceleration of climate change beyond these trends due to crossing of tipping points”
Climate Change Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009
Gather 2400 global environmental change scientists
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Growing Certainty of certain uncertainty
The risk for catastrophic regime shifts must be made part of the official future
Crossing unexpected abrupt tipping pointsA. Sorteberg, University of Bergen, Norway", data from Snow & Ice Data Center, Boulder CO, USA
Rahmstorf 2007 Science 315: 368 - 370
Sea-Level rise faster than we expected
TAR 20-70 cm (9-88 cm) ”high uncertainty”AR4 18-59 cm (18-79 cm) ”larger cannot be excluded”
”Our understanding of these processes is limited. As a result, they are not included in current ice sheet models and there is no consensus as to how quickly they could cause sea level to rise. Note that these uncertainties are essentially one sided. That is, they could lead to substantially more rapid rate of sea-level rise but they could not lead to a significantly slower rate.....”
Church et al., 2008. Sea-level rise A post IPCC
Thermal ExpansionGreenlandArticAntarctica
SOURCES ESTIMATES SOURCE ASSUMPTIONSThermal Expansion
0.4-0.9 in 300 yrs IPCC TAR (2X ppm))
Weakening of thermohaline circulation
Mountain Glaciers 0.4 m (80 % loss) 0.5 m sea level rise held (IPCC TAR)
Greenland 0.9 m – 1.8 m in 300 yrs
IPCC TAR 0.9 m (local warming 5.5 C)
Rapid melting not included in IPCC estimate
Antarctica WAIS 1-2 m (estimate including disintegration)
Stable ice sheet models inadquate
EAIS stable
Total 2.7 – 5.1 m 2300 1-1.7 m/century Now 3 cm/decade for 0.6 C warming. 3 C warming = 1.4 m/centuryS. Rahmstorf and C. Jäger, 2007
‐120‐110‐100‐90‐80‐70‐60‐50‐40‐30‐20‐10010
‐125000 ‐19000 0 2003
SEA LEVEL
+4‐6C warming1‐2 m/century ~0,15 m
1. Greenland and Antarctica now contribute to sea-level rise (< 20 %) but dynamic response (accelerated sliding of ice sheets and outlet glaciers on bedrock) can change this number
2. Total melting of Greenland ~7 m
3. Total melting of Antarctica~60 m, WAIS ~6 m
4. Greenland and WAIS most vulnerable to dynamic ice loss
What’s at stake – Ice Melting
Last Interglacial. Conditions ~as today, recent geological data indicates average sea level rise was 1,6 m/century
Global Mean Temperature Trend
Ocean Acidification
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Uncertain uncertainty
ref: Baer and Mastrandrea (2006)
(Hansen et al. 2008)Fast feedbacks Climate forcing 3 C for doubling of CO2Slow feedbacks Climate forcing 6 C for doubling of CO2
¾ °C per W/m2
1.5 °C per W/m2
The Baltic Sea
Österblom et al. in review
Terrestrial and Marine Carbon sinks
Adapted from Cana
012345678910
Gt C
arbon
/yr
land
ocean
atmosphere
Agriculture ~35 % of the planets terrestrial land area
Agriculture ~ 30 % of global GHG emissions
The Himalayas have the largest concentration of glaciers outside the polar caps,
and feed seven of Asia’s great rivers: the Ganga, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Huang Ho.
“…most of the glaciers in the Himalayan region will vanish within 40 years as a result of global warming” Professor Hasnian, Chair ICSI WG on Himalayan Glaciology, 1999
The Water Towers of the Planet
GHG complexity: Net warming and cooling
Already Committed Global Warming
1. Situation dangerous even if we turn off the Planet today
2. Nature going from Friend to Foe?
3. We must keep cities dirty4. We must keep people poor
The cynical reality of what science tells us....
The risk of Catastrophic
Tipping
Points
Permafrost MethaneOutburst
Collapse of Amazonian
Forest
Instability of Greenland Ice Sheet
Coral reefs and bleaching
Steffen et al. 2004. Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure.
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2
overfishing, coastaleutrophication
phosphorous
accum-ulation
in soil
and mud
fire
prevention
3
state shift
disease,hurricane
flooding, warming,overexploitationof predators
good rains, continu-ous
heavy
grazing
coral dominance
clear
water
grassland
4
algal dominance
turbid
water
shrub-bushland
Ecological Regime Shifts Erosion of ecosystem resilience
Valuable Ecosystem Services Loss of ecosystem servicesDesirable Undesirable
Three features of resilience1. PERSISTENCE in the face of
change, buffer capacity, withstand shocks
2. ADAPTABILITY the capacity of people in a social-ecological system to manage resilience e.g. through collective action
3. TRANSFORMABILITY the capacity of people in a social- ecological system to create a new system when ecological, political, social or economic conditions make the existing system untenable
”We are experiencing a very chaotic time, where humanity determines the outcome for the Planet – sustainability or collapse…?”Professor Will Steffen
The Resilience
of the Earth System
Humanity’s period of grace – the last 10000 years
Aboriginesarrive inAustralia
Beginningof agriculture
Great Europeancivilisations:Greek, Roman
Source: GRIP ice core data (Greenland) and S. Oppenheimer, ”Out of Eden”, 2004
First migration of fully modern humans
out of Africa
Migrations offully modern humans
from South Asiato Europe
(Hansen et al. 2008)Fast feedbacks Climate forcing 3 C for doubling of CO2Slow feedbacks Climate forcing 6 C for doubling of CO2
¾ °C per W/m2
1.5 °C per W/m2
Our
precarious
predicament
Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity in the Anthropocene
(submitted)
Control Variable, e.g., Temperature or ppm CO2
Response Variable, e.g., Extent
of sea
ice
Zone
of Uncertainty
Safe operating
space
ThresholdPlanetary
Boundary
From ”Limits to growth””Carrying capacity””Guardrails”, Tipping Elements””Planetary Boundaries”
We sought them here, we sought them there...we sought them everywhere.....
PlanetaryBoundaries
Climate Change
Stratospheric Ozone
Atmospheric Aerosol Loading
Ocean Acidification
Freshwater use
N and P cycles
Biodiversity Loss
Land use change
PlanetaryBoundaries
Planetary Inter-connections
Peter Snyder et al.
Nitr
ogen
flo
w
Agriculturalland use
Ocean
acidity
Fres
hwat
er
cons
umpt
ion
Phos
phor
usflo
w
Climate
Change
Atmospheric
aerosol load
Chemical
pollution
Ozonedepletion
Biodiversity
loss ?
?
50-60
70-80
Latestdata
90-00
Pre-Ind.
?
??
?
Global 2ºC pathways and their risks
2008 20502015
GtC/yr
10
8
1
?
?
The regime
shift
that has to occurGlobal transformation towards
a low-carbon
world
450 ppm
350 ppm CO2 eq
CH4, N2O, Land Degradation
Brown Carbon
Aerosols
Implications for SwedenBusiness as usual
GDR allocation
Reductions in imported C-emissions
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Implications for European Union
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Domestic reductions (~40% below 1990 by 2020) are only part of total EU obligation. The rest would have to be met internationally.
Implications for European Union
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4
6
8
10
Blue w ater Green and blue w ater
Wat
er s
tres
sed
popu
latio
n(b
illio
n pe
ople
)
2050
2000
Changing the Face of Water Scarcity
The institutional capacities to manage the earth’s ecosystems are evolving more slowly than man’s overuse of the same systems.
Earth System Science(ICSU, IGBP, ESSP, IPCC, MEA....)
Economics, Wellbeing, Equity and development from unlimited to limited Planet(Kenneth Boulding Spaceship Earth, Herman Daly, Club of Rom, Ecological Footprint....)
Shocks and Abrupt change in Social-Ecological systems from local to global scales(Resilience, sustainability, GAIA, tipping elements, guardrails....)
EU Research StrategyTrans-disciplinary Science on cross- scale governance of global change and transformations to Sustainable Development