1. GREENHOUSE 2015
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE CLIMATE
CHANGE CONFERENCE,
HOBART 2015
SUMMARY AND EXTRACTION OF POLICY & COMMUNICATIONS THEMES
Veryan Hann BSc(Hons), PGDipEnergy &Env, DipMgmt, MPP.

2. “Is 2C too much?
We are 65% the way
there. “
Nathan Bindoff, IPCC
AR5, WG1

3. Conference focus
• Air, land and sea observations: the latest
research
• Science informing impacts and adaptation
• Climate modelling and projections
• Climate variability and extreme events
• Communication, policy and economics.
Key supporters: Australian & Tasmanian
governments, CSIRO & BoM.
This presentation extracts the
policy and communication
themes.

4. At the Science – Policy Interface
Prof Andrew Holmes – the President of the Australian Academy of
Science [partial role to advise governance in climate change]
Communication & engagement problem – science no longer high-level
Academy president and Prime Minister have in times past been in
direct contact. Not anymore. [conduct science/ quality control/engage
w public/help make decisions.
The goal of the academy is to promote: rational decisions, sustainable,
longer term, in a politicised environment.

5. Chloe Lucas
Science – social ID/ world views/ politics
Assess risk based on the above.
This study assess risk based on 30% of disengaged ppl. => increased partisanship.
Social experience – look at the espistomological foundations of our beliefs.
Openness to change <-> self transcendence
Values, conservation and self enhancement.
Climate concern by value. Openness to change and self T -> + CC view
Self enhancement and conservation -> - CC view
Self T = high level of concern
- Women, high lvl of education, high lvl of efficacy, involved in govt/community of pushed
- Low lvl trust in govt.
Conservatives (low lvl of concern)
- Old, low lvl education, high media consumption, feel less safe, high lvl concern about refugees,
more trust in govt, don’t feel like they have any effect wrt participating in govt, trust in top down,
security more important, safety, fear.
Self-enhancing ambivalent to CC
- Young men, 0 children, low lvl concern about immigrations, high use of media, high value of
hedonism.
Openness to change - -slightly more concerned about CC
- Male, uni educated , 50-64 yrs, powerful, well networked, very high consumption of all types of
media.
Opinion of soln: Reduce partisan pressures in debate through strengthening deliberative democracy
Conference Stats reflect commitment in Australia:
1/3 size of Adelaide 2013 , and 1/6 size of Perth 2009. Mainly
CSIRO/BOM= aim to provide highest quality science guidance –
where comment on policy = trouble. NRM projections.
However, part of role is communicating into government.
An example of other Science based issues:
Eric Oliver – IMAS UTAS
Marine CC – warming at unprecedented rate with uneven
distribution. Tasman sea is a hot spot. Impact on fisheries.
Issues with data, issues with understanding , issues with
communications, issue with trust because scientists should not
be seen to direct policy making.
Impacts: Dairy feels impacts of CC significantly already –rye
grass has a threshold of 27C but it is prime feed for milk. If
above that threshold, other methods, milk of poorer quality, or
migrate.

6. Impacts of Climate Change being experienced by Pacific Islands already.
Presentation by Bipen Prakash Fiji Meteorological service. Senior scientific officer
(climate)
 Pacific most vulnerable to SLR and CC. cyclone Ivan and floods from 2012,
worst in Fiji’s history.
 Climate Change relocation project after 2012. From coast to highlands. In
second largest Is.
2 communities relocated since then.
 Republic of Fiji now has National Climate Change strategy.
 Downscaling asked for because adaptation is more local in scale
[modelling/RCMs/forecasting ability]
 Adaptation required even if 2C met.
 For Tasmania: Application of hazard maps through social networking
Photo taken at Midway Point Tasmania 4th Nov 2015

7. Climate Policy problems [adapted from Helen Cleugh, CSIRO]
Unprecedented global effort with IPCC the role of GHG on climate.
Problem: Time scales – decisions devalued at long time scales. Need
decadal prediction for infrastructure planning. ENZO intensity/
climate processes.
Objective: Need to create a value proposition – keys are quality,
societally relevant, trust.
Alignment: Economic/ business perspective: Current level of
investment climate change adaption is a risk.

8. Financial risks to climate change
Dr Nick Wood – disconnect between climate risks to knowledge
on company boards.
Risk – can lead to negligence. Insurance = risk sharing
mechanism. Insurance -> governance can not deal with
diversification of risk severity and frequency.
2011 worldwide - US$370B loss –insurance picked up 1/3 . In
Australia 2011 - =$36 B (Qld floods) insurance picked up half
($15B). In Australia, 1998 –couldn’t get flood insurance.
The solution is to approach at high level and get business to
understand that climate change risk can lead to negligent.

9. Barriers to policy implementation
 Decision timeframe: A focus on short term incrementalism rather than sector specific longer term solutions.
 Uncertainty and the unknown in decision making: from science point of view – a need for more data, and $ is an
issue [observations vs proxy data]. There is a conflict here between a need for data and making decisions under
uncertainty. However; other areas already do this: eg. Insurance industry, agriculture.
Example of knowledge uncertainty: Dr Margaret Wienecke. Sea Birds, Antarctic mega fauna are highly
vulnerable to climate change.
Estimates are vague – remoteness, estimates. Level of resilience unknown. What are the important
variables? Unprecedented change. Unexplored – effect of micro plastics. Unexplored effects.
 Public good problem: Governments are not incentivised ‘at scale’ to invest in climate change. Public good – and
diffuse public benefit are hard to harness, with low trust. Small countries = small internalised benefit on CC
investment compared to large countries. Scale is an issue – Big guys lead.
 Trust: One practical solution comes from ‘trust’ = a sense of ownership through engagement at the data
formulation stage with BoM et al.

10. Presentation by Greg Hunt MP
Australian model of ems reduction taken up by the UN and world bank.
Reverse auction- targeting.
Encourages long term contracts – competitive environment- climate mitigation market.
380MtCO2 mitigation in next 10 yrs.
RET (10yrs ahead)- 23.5% RE. 50Mt double amount of large scale RE
(do in 5yrs what has been done in 15).
Vehicle ems STDs/codes to improve.
Combining AER/ARENA/CEFC- coordinating effect.
and new climate office federally.

11. Overall conference learnings: “Communication is as important as the science”
During the conference time the $250M ice breaker was announced,
A new national science online education program NOVA and ‘science by doing’
Way ahead:
- Enhancing collaboration
- Education / awareness raising
- Scientists to keep out of policy making and keep to their own work –
trust is at stake – impartiality is important
- Bottom up governance and network governance is becoming increasingly important
- Lack of scientific understanding leads to mistrust – ie the definition of uncertainty –
it does not mean untrustworthy data - it is a statistical way to categorise data
The misunderstanding of ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ – weather may have 20C change in a day
This is taken into account in 30year average which is the climate-
here a 1.5C deviation from the mean is very significant.
Push back from Industry is expected. The top 100 companies world wide have a number of resource
and energy companies. Business can adapt. We will always need metallurgical coal (reductant for metals)
but burning coal for heat and electricity is archaic.
That it is contentious means it is relevant to society, and important.