The lecture by Duncan Green highlights climate change as a critical development crisis impacting poverty, food security, and health. It emphasizes the urgency of immediate action to mitigate its effects, particularly in vulnerable regions, with key decisions required at the upcoming Copenhagen meeting regarding who will act, pay, and when. A comprehensive framework for adaptation and mitigation is outlined, demanding substantial financial commitments from developed nations to support developing countries in addressing climate change.

1. Climate Change
Lecture given by Duncan Green
Head of Research at Oxfam GB
Notre Dame University, September 2009
Part of a series of From Poverty to Power lectures.

2. Main messages
 Climate change is fundamentally a development crisis:
the central poverty issue of our time
 The scientific battle has been won – the debate now is
over what to do about it
 A global framework for responding has now been
agreed, but time is short to agree specifics
 The elements of this framework are Mitigation;
Adaptation; Finance and Technology
 Key decisions are who acts, who pays and when
 Copenhagen meeting in December is make or break
 Plan Bs look pretty unattractive!

3. Suffering the Science:
The human costs of climate change
 Climate change is affecting every
issue linked to poverty and
development today, from access to
food and water to health and
security.
 Without immediate action 50 years
of development gains in poor
countries will be permanently lost

4. Hunger, agricultural
productivity and water availability
 Rice and maize face significant drops
in yields
 Maize yields forecast to drop by 15%
or more by 2020 in most of sub-
Saharan Africa and India
 South African government scientists
predicting 50% drop in all cereal yields
by 2080
 Water supplies running out
 Several major cities (Kathmandu, La
Paz) which depend on glaciers may
soon be unable to function
 The Ganges basin alone is home to
500 million people

5. Disasters and displacement
 Climate-related disasters – storms,
floods, droughts and wildfires –
increasing in frequency
 375 million people at risk
each year by 2015 – a 50%
increase which could
overwhelm humanitarian
systems
 26 million people
already displaced
 1 million more people
displaced every year by
weather-related events

6. Health, labour productivity and trade
 Diseases like malaria and
dengue fever are creeping into
new areas
 Heat stress a massive risk to
farmers and outdoor workers
 Uneven impacts on agriculture
 US agricultural profits to rise by
$1.3bn per year
 Sub-Saharan Africa to lose $2bn
per year as viability of just one
crop - maize - declines

7. The Science
Atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases
and global average temperatures

8. The Urgency
Greenhouse gas
emissions are
rising faster than
even worst case
scenarios

9. So what do we do?
 Adaptation: helping people to build their resilience
to climate change
– Adaptation is good development
– Best way is to build human security
– Who pays? How much?
 Mitigation: cutting global emissions
– Who cuts? How fast?

10. Adaptation in practice: Sahena’s story

11. Mitigation:
If they lived like us…
…and we lived like them
Wouldn’t we expect them to cut their emissions faster?

12. Bali Action Plan
SHARED VISION
Global emissions reduction pathway and key
principles of future action to confront climate change
Mitigation Adaptation Finance Technology
Binding emission Globally increased Search for new Increased co-operation
reduction targets efforts to adapt the financial for the uptake and wide
world to climate resources to help diffusion of clean
for rich (Annex I) change, esp. in developing technologies
countries developing countries both to
countries mitigate and to
Actions by adapt
developing (Non-
Annex I) countries
supported by rich
countries

13. The crunch moment: Copenhagen
 COP-15: 15th meeting of the 192 countries that signed the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
 UNFCCC (drawn up at 1992 Rio Earth Summit):
– Aims to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at
levels that prevent dangerous climate change; effort to
be shared based on principle of “common but
differentiated responsibilities”
– Rich countries (Annex I) shall reduce their emissions
first and fastest, and support developing countries in
both mitigation and adaptation, by providing financial
support and technology transfer
– Developing countries‟ (Non-Annex I) actions to address
emissions contingent upon support from rich countries

14. Climate Change: make or break issues
 Financing offer from rich countries for mitigation and
adaptation in developing countries
 2020 mitigation targets for rich (Annex I) countries

15. What do we need at Copenhagen?
A SAFE and FAIR deal
SAFE:
 To reduce emissions sufficiently to avoid
catastrophic climate change
FAIR:
 So that rich countries finally take responsibility
for the crisis they have created, committing to:
- cut emissions first, furthest and fastest
- financing for mitigation and adaptation in
developing countries

16. SAFE: Keep global warming well below 2ºC
<2ºC target long-since
accepted by EU; G8 and
MEF agree in L‟Aquila,
July 2009
450ppm-eq gives 50/50
chance of 2.0-2.4ºC rise
Emissions must peak
within next 5-10 years and
decline steeply thereafter
to stay below 2ºC

17. Who Pays? Responsibility and capability
Top 20 world polluters: per capita pollution and income

18. A fair share of the global mitigation effort
Oxfam say:
Based on responsibility for historic emissions and
capability to pay, Annex I must:
– Reduce emissions by at least 40% by 2020
AND
– Provide financing for the additional costs of limiting
emissions growth in developing countries

19. How much cash are we talking about?
 Additional costs of mitigation in developing
countries:
$100 billion (c.€70 billion) per year by 2020
 Additional costs of adaptation:
$50 billion (c.€40 billion) per year from today
cf. global aid budget of about $100bn
(or one AIG per year)

20. How do we get emissions down?
 Standards (e.g. emissions standards)
 Subsidies
 Taxes
Examples of „market mechanisms‟
 Cap and Trade
(e.g. European Emissions Trading Scheme)
– Issues: government will; free auctions; carve-
outs; price volatility
 Offsetting
– Issues: credibility; monitoring; leakage

21. A FAIR and SAFE deal
Annex I countries have a DOUBLE DUTY:
- Reduce emissions by at least 40% by 2020
- Provide at least $150 billion (€110 billion) in
climate finance to developing countries to:
- Limit the emissions growth in
developing countries to the equivalent of
Annex I reductions by 2020
- Adapt to the impacts of climate change

22. Are there any Plan Bs?
 Maybe 1500+ scientists are all wrong
 Carbon apartheid and a New Dark Age
 Geo-engineering

23. The Urgency of Now

24. Further Reading from the Blog
 CC and Flooding in Bangladesh,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=676
 Organic farming and CC,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=395
 What has CC done to the seasons?,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=387
 CC and natural disasters,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=232
 Building a low carbon economy,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=187

25. Further Reading and Links
 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
http://www.ipcc.ch
 „What is the Economics of Climate Change?‟ Stern
Review, 2006
 Oxfam America climate change campaign,
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/issues/climate-
change