Andy Morse Professor of Climate Impacts

Department of Geography and Planning School of Environmental Sciences

University of Liverpool Liverpool

(A.P.Morse@liv.ac.uk) @AndyMorse

@livuniwx (weather related) Founding member of Health Earth (H-Earth)

Merseyside Environmental Trust - 31st Annual General Meeting

5th December 2015

Smog in the City – Scientists and Artists Go Hand in Hand In

Liverpool

Running Order

• Clean Air Liverpool

• Air pollution – brief background

• Climate Change

• Conference of Parties & COP 21 Paris

• Health Earth (H-Earth)

• Summary

Clean Air Liverpool

Science meets the Arts – in Liverpool

Five artists to create new Cultural Products and Public Art in Liverpool

Engage with the public about air quality

Student engagement Citizen Science

Social Media – guest bloggers

https://www.facebook.com/liverpoolair Twitter @LiverpoolAir http://liverpoolair.tumblr.com/

• The Liverpool Air Project engage public about air quality in Liverpool.

• Not-for-profit initiative, hosted by Engage Liverpool CIC.

• There are two strands: Citizen Science, and Artist-Scientist Collaboration.

• Five artists create new Cultural Products or Public Art in Liverpool engage public about air quality.

Our Artists are:

Julieann O'Malley: Performance Artist and Filmmaker. Tristan Brady-Jacobs: Street Artist and Festival Organiser. Pamela Sullivan: Educator and Street Artist. Tomo (James Thompson): Street & Graffiti Artist. Charlotte Backhouse: Illustrator and Designer. Anyone interested should contact Project Manager, Matthew Fox, on matt@engageliverpool.com https://www.engageliverpool.com/projects/air-quality/

Clean Air Act 1956 – London smog Dec. 1952 4000 immediate deaths 8000 further deaths

Visible pollution – smogs ‘pea soupers’ 1950s

EU limits: ozone 120 μg/m3 max 8 hour mean, NO2 200 μg/m3 1 hour, 40 μg/m3 annual mean, PM 2.5 25 μg/m3 annual mean.

Invisible pollution – oxides of sulphur, nitrogen leads to ozone, haze, particulates

Islington, Liverpool – air pollution monitoring opp. Stafford Street

ozone

PM10

NOx

Google – Street View

EU limits: ozone 120 μg/m3 max 8 hour mean, NO2 200 μg/m3 1 hour, 40 μg/m3 annual mean,

PM 2.5 25 μg/m3 annual mean.

Clean Air Liverpool - events

Julieann O’Malley, plans do her performance art piece at Mann Island on Saturday 20th February, plus a science partner talk (tbc). Charlotte Weatherstone, building "green/moss wall”, the Baltic Triangle around that time as well.

Noon on Sunday [29-Nov-15], US

Embassy Beijing PM 2.5 reached more

than 400 micrograms per cubic metre.

The World Health Organization considers

25 micrograms per cubic metre to be a

safe level.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-

china-34957373

http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/aqirecent3.html

Meanwhile in Beijing

http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/aqirecent3.html

Meanwhile in Beijing

Global Temperature Change

Figure SPM.1 (a) Observed global mean combined land and ocean surface temperature anomalies, from 1850 to 2012 from three data sets. Top panel: annual mean values. Bottom panel: decadal mean values including the estimate of uncertainty for one dataset (black). Anomalies are relative to the mean of 1961−1990. (b) Map of the observed surface temperature change from 1901 to 2012 derived from temperature trends

IPCC AR5 WG1 SPM

http://www.ipcc.ch

Changes in atmospheric concentrations

398.55 ppm is the 2014 average from Mauna Loa c/w estimated global 280 ppm pre-industrial. Mauna Loa - September 2015 average 397.64 ppm,

October 2015 398.29ppm http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Changes in atmospheric concentrations

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Changes in atmospheric concentrations

AR5 SPM 2.1, Total annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (gigatonne of CO2-equivalent per year, GtCO2-eq/yr) for the period 1970 to 2010 by gases: CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes; CO2 from Forestry and Other Land Use (FOLU); methane (CH4); nitrous oxide (N2O); fluorinated gases (F-gases)

Figure SPM.7 | Change in average surface temperature (a) and change in average precipitation (b) based on multi-model mean projections for 2081–2100 relative to 1986–2005 under the RCP2.6 (left) and RCP8.5 (right) scenarios.

Climate Change

http://www.ipcc.ch IPCC AR5

IPCC WG1AR5 Table 8.2 2011 total forcing 2.83 ± 0.029 Wm-2

Is there a safe emissions target? Are we too late?

• Stabilising greenhouse concentrations 450 ppm equivalent (<400ppm CO2) gives 50% likelihood of limiting global warming to 2 °C.

• Need to achieve stabilization below 400 ppm equivalent to give a relatively high certainty of not exceeding 2 °C.

• At 550 ppm CO2 equivalent (approx 450 ppm CO2),unlikely global mean temperature increase stay below 2 °C.

• Limiting climate change 2 ° C (above pre-industrial) implies limiting the atmospheric concentration of all greenhouse gases

2005 "Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change: A Scientific Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gases” http://stabilisation.metoffice.com/Steering_Commitee_Report.pdf http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934.toc https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/tssts-ts-3-2-stabilization-scenarios.html

COP - What’s it all about? • The international political response to climate change began at the Rio

Earth Summit in 1992, where the ‘Rio Convention’ included the adoption of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

• Framework for action aimed at stabilising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

• The UNFCCC which entered into force on 21 March 1994, now has a near-universal membership of 195 parties.

Conference of Parties (COP)

COP - What’s it all about? The Kyoto Protocol (1997) legally binds developed countries to emission reduction targets. The Protocol’s first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. The second commitment period began on 1 January 2013 and will end in 2020. http://unfccc.int/essential_background/items/6031.php Bali – COP 13 - December 2007 Paris – COP 21 - December 2015 COP21, also known as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, will, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C. http://www.cop21paris.org/about/cop21 Paris deal that locks in current national greenhouse gas-reducing commitments and then ratchets them up every five years. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/cop-21-un-climate-change-conference-paris

Conference of Parties (COP)

Kyoto Phase 1

• The average target was a cut of around

5% relative to 1990 levels by 2012 (or

more accurately 2008–12).

• The gap between each nation's

percentage target & its actual

percentage change between 1990 and

2010 – no land use emissions or sinks

included.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/nov/26/kyoto-protocol-carbon-emissions

David Cameron:

What will we tell our

grandchildren?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science-environment-34922775

Global warming is 'all about capitalism’

Bolivia's president Evo Morales lambasted

the free market as the inherent cause of

climate change.

Mother Earth is getting close to the end

and the capitalist system is partly

responsible for that. Capitalism has

fostered and introduced and driven forward

over the past 200 years the most savage

and destructive formula against our

species.

Modi: Energy is 'basic human

need'

India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi,

remained forthright about his

country's need to develop:

Democratic India must grow rapidly,

to meet the aspirations of 1.25 billion

people - 300 million of whom are

without access to energy. We are

determined to do so.

COP21 Opening Political Statements

'If we save Tuvalu, we will surely save the world'

Enele Sopoaga, the prime minister of

Tuvalu, spoke with passion from his

perspective as the leader of a small Pacific

island state.

Like other nations in the Pacific, our

survival depends on the decisions we take

here in Paris. We stand on a cliff edge.

Either we stand united and agree to

combat climate change, or we all stumble

and fall. Juncker calls for binding deal

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the

European Commission, joined those calling

for a climate agreement with some legal

teeth.

Promises will no longer be enough; we

need a binding, robust and lasting

agreement

Jean-Claude JunckerPresident, European

Commission

President Xi Jinping emphasises

'fairness and justice’

Addressing delegates and fellow world

leaders, Chinese President Xi Jinping

called on "on all countries, the developed

countries in particular, to share more

responsibility for win-win outcomes".

COP21 is not a finish line, but a new

starting point.

Xi Jinping President of China

Obama: 'We have broken the old

arguments for inaction’

"We are the first generation to feel climate

change and the last that can do something

about it”

Barack Obama President of the US

Health Earth (H-Earth)

• Founding Member • International & interdisciplinary network of institutions and individuals

• Aims to build knowledge about global change and health

• Develop capacity for effective responses by policymakers, practitioners and

communities thereby ensuring long-term population health.

• Identifying risks brought by global ecological and social change

• H-earth has five major research themes: Poverty, Climate Change, Infectious Disease, Ecosystem disruptions, Security, Transformation

Health Earth - http://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research- centres/ceraph/health-earth

Summary

Clean Air Liverpool – ongoing – blending arts for awareness of air pollution in Liverpool. Mann Island 20th February

Contact - Matthew Fox, on matt@engageliverpool.com

https://www.facebook.com/liverpoolair Twitter @LiverpoolAir http://liverpoolair.tumblr.com/

Climate Change & COP21 – are we too late? – intergenerational – developing world & poorest hit hardest Health Earth - http://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research-centres/ceraph/health-earth