This is the 6th lesson of the course - Climate Change & Global Environment taught at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

1. Climate Change & Global
Environment
Department of Environmental Management
Rajarata University of Sri Lanka
BA (Special) in Environmental Management
EMGT 4234
Lesson 6 - Human Responses to Climate Change
P.B. Dharmasena
0777 613234, 0717 613234
dharmasenapb@ymail.com , dharmasenapb@gmail.com
https://independent.academia.edu/PunchiBandageDharmasena
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Punchi_Bandage_Dharmasena/contributions
http://www.slideshare.net/DharmasenaPb

2. Human Response to Climate Change
• Human factor in climate change
• Proximate causes
• Impact of climate change on
human health
• Mitigation – direct and indirect
interventions
• United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC)

5. The Human Activities that cause Climate Change

6. Categories of Proximate Causes
• Proximate (immediate) causes
are the human activities that
directly cause climate change.
• There are two predominant
categories of proximate causes:
land transformation and
industrial processes.
• People transform the land
surface in many ways, with
some important types being
deforestation, agriculture,
urbanization, and transportation
network building.

7. Categories of Proximate Causes
• Industrial processes include energy
production, transportation,
manufacturing, waste disposal, and
many other activities.
• Note that land transformation and
industrial processes are not always
distinct. For example, building a road
transforms the land but requires
powerful industrial equipment, mined
materials, and processed chemicals.
Once the road is built, vehicles
traveling on it are manufactured using
energy, petrochemicals, and mined
materials, and are run by burning
mined and processed petroleum
products.

8. The Underlying Human Factors driving the Proximate Causes
The driving forces of climate change embody a complex, interactive set of actions and
rationales that give rise to the proximate causes.
In other words, driving forces are the underlying reasons why people engage in various
activities.
Understanding the driving forces helps to answer questions such as, why do people
drive cars to work (a proximate cause of climate change) when they could walk, ride a
bike, or take a bus?
There are five driving forces:
– population growth,
– technological development,
– economic growth,
– institutions, and
– attitudes and beliefs.

13. Water Disasters and Health
• Direct injury and loss of life
• Reduced nutritional status
• Increased respiratory infection
• Increased intestinal infection
• Exposure to dangerous
chemicals
• Contamination of water
supplies
• Population displacement

14. Climate Change and Human Health
Extreme heat events can cause:
– Heat tetany (hyperventilation)
– Heat rash
– Heat cramps
– Heat exhaustion
– Heat edema (swelling)
– Heat syncope (fainting)
– Heat/sun stroke
– Death
14

15. Deaths from EHE
• From 1979 to 2003, more people in
America died from extreme heat than
from floods, hurricanes, lightning,
tornadoes, and earthquakes combined
• The 1995 Chicago heat wave caused
more than 600 heat- related deaths over
5 days
• France, summer of 2003: 14,802
excess deaths The 2010 Moscow heat
wave caused more than 11,000 excess
deaths
15

16. Populations At Risk to EHE
• Everyone
• Elderly persons 65 years and older
– Especially who live alone
• Children
• Persons with pre-existing
disease conditions
• Persons taking certain
medications that hinder thermo-
regulation or cause dehydration
16

17. EHE Deaths by Age Group
17

18. Risk Factors
18
– Lack of air conditioners in homes
– Low socioeconomic status
– Living in urban areas: urban heat island effect
– Living in topmost floor
– Living in nursing homes /
being bedridden (living on bed)
– Living alone / Lack of social
or family ties
– Prolonged exposure to sun
– Drinking alcohol

19. Mitigation
• Mitigation involves any action that
prevents, limits, delays, or slows
the rate of climate change.
Mitigation may involve one of
three types of action:
– direct interventions in the natural
environment;
– direct interventions in the proximate
causes; and
– indirect interventions through the
driving forces.

21. Mitigation - Direct intervention
in the natural environment
• Direct interventions in the natural environment involve
sequestration (permanent storage of GHGs so they do not
contribute to the greenhouse effect).
• Some sequestration techniques are more “natural,” while others
take a high-tech geoengineering approach.
• Terrestrial sequestration occurs in forests, crops, and soils,
which naturally store carbon but release it again as CO2 when
people cut down forests, harvest crops, and disturb soils.

22. Mitigation Direct intervention
in the natural environment
• Refraining from deforesting, planting carbon-fixing crops and
not harvesting them, and promoting soil conservation
maintains existing carbon stocks and grows those stocks in
the future.
• Geoengineering approaches to sequestration, which presently
are only experimental and not operational, include such
massive undertakings as capturing CO2 and pumping it into
the solid Earth or ocean sediments.

24. Mitigation - Direct intervention
in the proximity causes
• Realizing direct interventions in the proximate causes means getting
people to change their activities so they either do not generate GHGs
or produce lower emissions.
• Examples of direct interventions embrace ideas like using less
electricity by turning off lights when not in the room or buying
energy-efficient light bulbs.
• Other examples could involve individuals taking mass transit instead
of driving to work, communities capturing and burning CH4 from
their landfills instead of letting it escape to the atmosphere, or
countries passing laws to eliminate the manufacture and use of CFCs
(which actually did occur with the Montreal Protocol).

25. Mitigation - Direct intervention
in the proximity causes

26. Mitigation - Indirect interventions
through the driving forces.
Indirect interventions that redirect the forces driving GHG emissions
require making fundamental shifts in the way society operates.
Examples include:
• Population: reaching zero population growth by harnessing one of the
other drivers (e.g., through a cultural change making large families
undesirable)
• Technology: investing in energy-smart technologies
• Economy: charging consumers for GHG emissions
• Institutions: adopting laws promoting dense development and mass
transit
• Culture and behaviour: changing energy-consumptive lifestyles

27. UN Climate Change Organizations and Programs
• IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
• UNEP = United Nations Environment
Programme
• WMO = World Meteorological Organization
• UNFCCC = United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change
• UNDP = United Nations Development Program

28. IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading
international body for the assessment of climate change. It was
established by the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988
to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of
knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-
economic impacts. In the same year, the UN General Assembly
endorsed the action by WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the
IPCC.
• The IPCC reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and
socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the
understanding of climate change. It does not conduct any research nor
does it monitor climate related data or parameters.

29. IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
• As an intergovernmental body, membership of the IPCC is open to all member
countries of the United Nations (UN) and WMO. Currently 195 countries are Members
of the IPCC. Governments participate in the review process and the plenary Sessions,
where main decisions about the IPCC work programme are taken and reports are
accepted, adopted and approved. The IPCC Bureau Members, including the Chair, are
also elected during the plenary Sessions.
• Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC.
Review is an essential part of the IPCC process, to ensure an objective and complete
assessment of current information. IPCC aims to reflect a range of views and expertise.
The Secretariat coordinates all the IPCC work and liaises with Governments. It is
established by WMO and UNEP and located at WMO headquarters in Geneva. The
IPCC is administered in accordance to WMO and UN rules and procedures, including
codes of conduct and ethical principles (as outlined in UN Ethics, WMO Ethicks
Function, Staff regulations and 2012/07- Regulation).

30. UNEP = United Nations Environment
Programme
• The United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) is the
leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental
agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental
dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system, and
serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.
• The mission is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for
the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to
improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.
• seven broad thematic areas: climate change, disaster and conflicts, ecosystem
management, environmental governance, chemicals and waste, resource
efficiency and environment under review. In all these works UN
Environment maintains its overarching commitment to sustainability. y.

31. WMO = World Meteorological
Organization
• The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is an intergovernmental organization
with a membership of 191 Member States and Territories. It originated from the
International Meteorological Organization (IMO), which was founded in 1873.
Established by the ratification of the WMO Convention on 23 March 1950, WMO
became the specialised agency of the United Nations for meteorology (weather and
climate), operational hydrology and related geophysical sciences a year later. The
Secretariat, headquartered in Geneva, is headed by the Secretary-General. Its supreme
body is the World meteorological Congress.
• WMO provides world leadership and expertise in international cooperation in the
delivery and use of high-quality, authoritative weather, climate, hydrological and
related environmental services by its Members, for the improvement of the well-being
of societies of all nations.

32. The United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC)
 The First World Climate Conference recognized climate
change as a serious problem in 1979
 A number of intergovernmental conferences focusing on
climate change were held in the late 1980s and early 1990s
 In 1990 IPCC (Panel of 2,500 scientists) released its first
assessment report concluding that
Climate change is real and human activities are
contributing

33. • The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a foundation
of global efforts to combat global warming.
• The UNFCCC Objective is “Stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the
atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic human-induced
interference with climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame
sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food
production is not threatened and to enable economic development proceed in a sustainable
manner”.
• The Convention sets out some guiding principles:
– Precautionary principle;
– Principle “Common but differentiated responsibilities”;
– Needs of developing countries for sustainable development.
The United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC)

34. • The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
was signed by 154 countries (plus the EC) in 1992 at Rio de
Janeiro. To date, 186 countries have ratified the Convention
• The Convention entered into force on 21 March 1994
• The Conference of the Parties (CoP) held its first session in Berlin
( Germany) in 1995
• The Parties meet every year (CoP), this year will be in Italy
• The CoP-3 in Kyoto (Japan) in 1997 established the Kyoto
Protocol
The United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC)

35. • Both developed and developing countries accepted a number of general commitments:
– National communications containing inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and
sinks
– Climate change mitigation national programs
– Strategies for adapting to climate change
– Promote technology transfer and the sustainable management, conservation, and
enhancement of sinks
– Take climate change into account in their relevant policies
– Cooperate in scientific, technical and education matters
– Promote education, public awareness, and exchange of information related to climate
change.
The United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC)

36.  Industrialized countries
undertake several other
specific commitments
 The richest countries
shall provide “new and
additional resources”
and facilitate technology
transfer
 A financial mechanism
provides funds on a
grant basis
The United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC)

37. UNDP = United Nations Development
Program
• UNDP works in nearly 170 countries and territories, helping to
achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of
inequalities and exclusion. It helps countries to develop policies,
leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and
build resilience in order to sustain development results.
• On the ground in about 170 countries and territories, UNDP
works to eradicate poverty while protecting the planet. We help
countries develop strong policies, skills, partnerships and
institutions so they can sustain their progress.

38. • UNDP focuses on helping countries build and share solutions
in three main areas:
UNDP = United Nations Development
Program