Andy Morse Professor of Climate Impacts
Department of Geography and Planning School of Environmental Sciences
University of Liverpool Liverpool
([email protected]) @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 [email protected] 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
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
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 [email protected]
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