Reluctance of nations around the world to implement mechanisms that recognise the cost of greenhouse gas emissions will increase the effort required to manage and adapt to the impacts of climate change, according to the country’s top independent science advisor.

“Delays in the reduction of emissions mean that the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere will continue to increase and continue to compound the greenhouse effect,” Professor Sackett said.

“If no action is taken, this will eventually lead us to dangerous climate change.”

Professor Sackett warned that additional delay meant more stringent emission reduction would be required in future if Australia still planned to meet its portion of the worldwide carbon budget aimed at limiting temperature increases to 2 degrees. A 2 degree change is considered to be the guardrail value that if surpassed, would result in dangerous conditions.

“It is clear that now is the time for action on climate change, and yet we are not acting with sufficient speed to reduce the large degree of risk that climate change poses to our health, our environment and our livelihoods,” she said.

According to the Chief Scientist, not all required action will be taken through national government policy, but nations should show leadership to safeguard a sustainable and economic future for their citizens.

“Combating climate change is not just a matter of policy and government, it’s an issue that affects our society at every level, right down to the individual, and requires systematic change at all levels and in all sectors, not just at policy level,” Professor Sackett said.

“In the face of slow changes at national levels, it is all the more important that forwarding-looking industries, states, individual cities and towns, community groups and family groups continue to network together to reduce their carbon footprints and assess the impact of climate change on their activities”, she said.

“We all recognise that this is a global problem that is not just confined to Australia, but we have an opportunity to do more than our fair share and be international leaders in tackling climate change at national, sectoral, community and individual levels. We must not let that opportunity to make a positive difference pass.”

For more information on Australia’s Chief Scientist, visit http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/

Click here to download media release

Media Contact: Alexis Cooper, Office of the Chief Scientist, Mobile: 0410 029 407

Professor Sackett speaks with Minister Carr and U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich

Also speaking at the event were:

• Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
• U.S. Ambassador to Australia Mr Jeffrey Bleich
• Mr. William H. Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for Space Operations, NASA
• Dr. Charles Elachi, Director, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Dr Megan Clark, Chief Executive, CSIRO
• Mr Mark Paterson AO, Secretary, DIISR

Click here to download speech

L to R: Professor Penny Sackett, Dr Megan Clark, Minister Carr, U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich, William Gerstenmaier, Dr. Charles Elachi

Climate change is a global problem, and yes we need to find a global solution, but we also need to start doing something here in Australia to turn our greenhouse gas emissions around. 

Taking meaningful action here in Australia, where we have the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita of any major country (in 2005, we were edged out only by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Luxembourng), would be a powerful example to the rest of the world about what can be achieved.  I recently explored this thought further in an opinion piece that I wrote for ABC Science and in a speech I gave in Melbourne last week (3 December).

The first step you can make to take action on climate change is to arm yourself with information and ask the questions you need to make sure you understand the issue.  A starting place is a report titled: Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, from an international science meeting that I attended in March in Copenhagen.  Just last week, the Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report was released with the latest findings on climate change science.  Another great place to start is the UK Met Centre.

Other news

Since I’ve last updated this blog, I delivered two invited presentations at the World Science Forum to the world’s top scientists and scientific policy makers.  The forum is held once every two years in Budapest, and is sponsored by UNESCO and the International Council for Science.  The first presentation was on Women in Science and was based on a recent report on the status of Australian Women in Science.  Briefly put, women in Australia are entering most, but not all, areas of science in increasing numbers, but they are under-represented at the top levels of science.  I also reported in Budapest Australia’s foresight activities to help prepare Australia for the future using science.  Follow the links to these presentations to see the slides I showed at the World Science Forum.

On 26 November, I was involved in a discussion about food security and the role of science and research in the agricultural sector at the National Press Club.  Joining me at the roundtable, titled Rural R&D Challenges 2030:Confronting Climate, Food, Water and Productivity were:

• Reverend Tim Costello, AO, Chief Executive, World Vision Australia;
• Dr Brian Fisher, AO, Economist and former head of ABARE;
• Mr Enzo Allara, Chair, Council of Rural Research and Development Corporations Chair; and  
• Ms Barb Madden, Queensland Farmer.

The lively discussion was facilitated by Tony Jones from ABC’s Lateline and you can check out the footage here.

Last Thursday l travelled to Melbourne to present a keynote address on climate change sponsored by Australian Davos Connection, The Victorian Employer’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) and L.E.K. Consulting.  My speech titled Changing the World: Science and leadership before and after Copenhagen is now up on my website for you to read.  You can also view the slides that accompanied my address.

Later this week, I’ll be attending an Advisory Board meeting for the Defence Science and Technology Organisation as well as attending a graduation ceremony for Australians receiving doctorates in science.

Quite a bit is happening over the next few weeks, so don’t forget to check in from time to time.   

The world is at a crossroads.

We must contain and then reduce our greenhouse gas emissions so that our farmers, graziers and fishermen have the best chance to feed the world, and our industries have the best opportunities for sustainable growth and new green markets.

So that we – along with the rest of Earth’s inhabitants – are best able to flourish in good health, and the world’s poorest have the best opportunity for hope.

The leading climate scientists from the world over warn that we have about five years to avoid the dangerous climate change that would be generated if average global temperatures increase by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Australia will be one of the most affected regions in the world if we exceed this ‘guardrail’ temperature.

For example, regional climate change projections indicate that we are likely to see an increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires (predominately in south-eastern Australia), an increase in the severity of cyclones, decreased rainfall (except in the far north), increased incidence of drought, and an increase in extreme temperatures. 

To avoid hitting the guardrail, annual global emissions must reverse from increasing every year, as they do now, to decreasing every year.

The globe has warmed by nearly 0.8°C over pre-industrial levels. Global temperatures will increase by another 0.5°C as the Earth continues to react to the emissions that we have already emitted in the atmosphere, much of which lingers there for a century or more.

Taken together, this means that climate change corresponding to a 1.3°C temperature rise is now ‘locked in’. Our previous actions have already placed us more than half way to the 2°C guardrail, and yet rather than putting our foot on the brake, we have it on the accelerator.

The greenhouse effect

The sun continuously bathes the Earth with energy in the form of sunlight. Much of this energy is absorbed by the Earth, and then emitted as infrared radiation, or heat. Greenhouse gases prevent the Earth from discarding as much of this heat as it otherwise would back into space.

Without naturally occurring greenhouse gases, the Earth would be a much colder place, inhospitable to modern human existence. But by the same token, the additional greenhouse gases added to this store by humans is slowly increasing the average temperature of the Earth system.

Due to the quantity in which it is emitted by humans, its longevity in the atmosphere, and its effects in trapping heat, carbon dioxide is the most important of the greenhouse gases currently causing changes in the Earth’s climate.

While the growth of human carbon dioxide emissions slowed in 2008, a slight reprieve attributed to the global financial crisis, they are still tracking above the worst-case scenario considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their 2007 report.

In fact, atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are higher now than at any time since modern humans have evolved.

Too much energy

This growing store of greenhouse gases, is leading to extremes in our weather and changing the long-term climate. Summers are becoming hotter, and droughts are longer and drier. The oceans are becoming more acidic. Sea levels are rising as glaciers melt and the warmer water expands.

If we do not act now, the newest and best science indicates that the average global sea level in 2100 will be 75 to 190 centimetres above 1990 levels, and continue to rise thereafter.

In Australia, extreme fire danger days are already becoming more numerous in many parts of the country, and floods and cyclones more intense.

Research by the CSIRO indicates that the frequency of days with very high and extreme Forest Fire Danger Index ratings is likely to increase by 15 to 70 per cent by 2050 in southeast Australia.

With much of Earth’s biosphere already ‘feeling the heat’, the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem is in grave danger both due to increased water temperatures, and increased acidification as the ocean absorbs some of the additional carbon we have placed in the atmosphere.

Changes have been observed in the breeding and migratory patterns of birds, fish and animals; and plant species have spread into latitudes that were previously too cold for them.

Reaching a limit

Why is limiting the average global temperature rise to 2°C so important?

The primary answer is it will be very difficult to adapt to and thrive in temperatures any higher.

As a single example, an increase of surface wind speed of 5 metres per second, made possible with a 1°C rise in ocean temperature, would double the frequency of Category 5 tropical cyclones.

In 2006 Cyclone Larry, a marginal Category 5 cyclone, devastated approximately 12,500 square kilometres around the far north Queensland town of Innisfail and destroyed the region’s banana industry.

Exceeding the 2°C guardrail will also reduce Earth’s limited ability to counteract some of the effects of climate change. If the temperature rise is 2.5°C or more, land ecosystems may emit carbon rather than absorb it, contributing to rather than acting as a buffer against climate change.

Already, the fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide that is absorbed by the ocean ’sink’ (a form of ‘free’ climate change mitigation) has decreased in last 50 years, for reasons that scientists are still studying.

Time is short

And why must we act quickly?

Calculations catalogued by the 2007 IPCC report tell us that if global temperature rise is to be kept between 2.0 and 2.4°C, then the ‘CO2 equivalent’ concentration, which is used as a combined measure of all Kyoto greenhouse gases, must not be allowed to exceed the range between 445 and 490 parts per million (ppm).

Current CO2 equivalent emissions are 455 ppm and rising.

To meet the 2°C guardrail target, we must halt increases in global CO2 equivalent emissions by about 2015, and then decrease them dramatically and steadily thereafter. 

Around the world, individuals, communities and nations are implementing effective strategies to do their part to effect this change. Australians have a leading part to play in demonstrating how this can be done even in a society known for having the highest carbon emissions per capita. But we need more shoulders at the wheel, because time is short and the clock is ticking – loudly.

This article can be found on the ABC Science website.

In Copenhagen on March 10-12 2009, the International Alliance of Research Universities came together to discuss the latest international scientific consensus on climate change. The result was this report featuring six key messages and conclusions which detail how we must continue to address the increasing challenges posed by climate change into 2010 and beyond.

Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions

For further information, please visit: www.climatecongress.ku.dk

Professor Sackett was appointed in November 2008 to be Australia’s full time Chief Scientist, with an expanded role centred on the provision of independent science advice to the Government.

“I am encouraged by this announcement as it is a strong signal that the EU acknowledges the vital role science should play in informing policy,” Professor Sackett said.

“Australia is not alone in facing complex or so called ‘wicked’ problems, such as sustainable development in the face of climate change or the health and well being of its citizens with a growing, but ageing population.  Such problems require a comprehensive and integrated effort to address.

“Science will play an essential role in providing the evidence necessary to inform robust policy decisions in addressing these problems.

“The global nature of these challenges means that we need to coordinate our actions with other countries, and the establishment of an EU Chief Scientist will facilitate this process.  I look forward to engaging with the new EU Chief Scientist upon her or his appointment,” Professor Sackett said.

Click here to download media release

Media Contact: Rebecca Richter, Office of the Chief Scientist
Mobile: 0410 029 407