An Introduction to Sustainable Development Goal 13: Climate Action

0:06 my name is maria camilamus 0:08 and i'm a professor at the school for 0:10 environment and sustainability 0:12 at the university of michigan in the 0:13 united states 0:15 i'm from brazil and i do research and 0:18 teach 0:18 about climate adaptation especially in 0:21 lower income countries 0:23 in this segment we're going to talk 0:24 about sustainable 0:26 development goal number 13 climate 0:28 action 0:29 as you can see in this slide the goals 0:31 for sd 0:32 13 are very ambitious and they include 0:35 strengthening resilience 0:36 and adaptive capacity to climate related 0:39 hazards 0:39 and integrating climate change measures 0:42 into natural policies 0:44 however progress has been 0:47 not as fast as we would have 0:50 desired as of 2018 the formal parts 0:54 of the targets especially in the 0:56 adherence of parties 0:58 to the formal paris agreement have been 1:01 developing 1:02 but other parts of the goals is lower to 1:05 develop 1:06 especially the idea that we have to 1:09 fastly 1:10 increase adaptive capacity we know that 1:12 climate change 1:14 is a global problem that can bring 1:16 danger 1:17 to many of the things that we care about 1:19 including 1:20 livelihoods ecosystems and the built 1:23 environment 1:24 in this slide there are some numbers 1:27 that 1:27 tell us about the depth and the breadth 1:31 of climate change as a problem and i 1:33 encourage you to look 1:34 at some of the consequences that are 1:37 projected 1:38 and what climate change is already 1:40 costing to many low-income communities 1:42 around the world 1:43 how do we know that the climate is 1:45 changing by living in these words we can 1:48 notice for instance that we are 1:49 experiencing more flooding 1:51 more droughts that the weather is 1:53 getting crazier 1:55 by the minute and that the effects of 1:58 those things are becoming 1:59 more costly both in terms of lives as 2:02 well as in terms of 2:03 money the impacts of climate change 2:07 are varied and they will affect 2:10 different systems differently as well 2:12 but the most expected changes that are 2:15 projected for our future 2:17 are in terms of changes in precipitation 2:20 or the amount that is raining 2:21 and changes in temperature those changes 2:24 will likely 2:26 increase impacts on ecosystems on people 2:30 and on the build environment in the form 2:33 of drought 2:34 of flooding storms as well as 2:38 sea level rise the way that those 2:40 impacts are distributed in the world 2:43 vary uh considerably and if you guys are 2:46 interested in the science of climate 2:48 change 2:49 and how it actually those projections 2:51 are made 2:52 there is a link for a video that we are 2:55 going to watch 2:56 talking about climate modeling and how 2:59 impacts 3:00 are being projected from the science of 3:03 climate change 3:04 as we have learned from the video there 3:07 is a lot of things that are still 3:09 uh to be learned about how those impacts 3:12 are gonna 3:13 affect the things that we care about 3:17 overall there are three kinds of 3:19 responses that you can have to climate 3:21 change 3:22 you can mitigate it which means that you 3:24 will work 3:25 very hard to decrease the emissions that 3:27 are causing global warming 3:30 and causing the problem of climate 3:31 change and its impact 3:33 or we can adapt when things have changed 3:37 already to a level 3:38 that we cannot do the same things that 3:40 we do today 3:41 to respond to those negative impacts 3:46 the third thing that we can do is not do 3:49 anything an inaction in itself is a 3:52 response 3:52 that might exacerbate a lot of the 3:55 problems that we are having right now 3:57 so examples of mitigation are for 4:00 example 4:01 relying on the cleaner energy matrix 4:04 using more renewables such as wind 4:06 energy or solar energy 4:09 driving more economic cars or 4:12 using less electricity or doing anything 4:15 that we can 4:16 to decrease the level of emissions of 4:20 greenhouse gases and especially 4:22 carbon dioxide things that we do to 4:25 adapt 4:26 can be making strides in understanding 4:30 where the risks of climate change are 4:32 and for instance building barriers for 4:36 water rice or flooding or we can 4:39 actually increase the level of 4:40 irrigation that we use in agriculture 4:43 or we can be very proactive 4:47 on enacting policies and interventions 4:50 to make people safer 4:52 from extreme events such as storms are 4:55 flooding 4:56 but there is a series of actions that 4:58 are good for both 5:00 we call those actions co-benefits 5:02 because they are good both for 5:04 adaptation and mitigation 5:06 examples of co-benefits 5:09 are for instance education building 5:12 green infra 5:12 infrastructure urban forest conserving 5:15 water 5:16 uh eating more local food all of those 5:19 things are both good for mitigation 5:21 because they decrease the level of 5:23 emissions but they're also good for 5:25 adaptation 5:26 because they allow us to build a more 5:29 sustainable world where 5:30 those impacts will be slowed down or 5:33 even 5:34 overcome with new policies and new 5:37 interventions 5:40 so here are some examples of what we 5:43 were talking about 5:44 so we see all the time around us how 5:47 those things are becoming more and more 5:49 common 5:49 and how it's they are also becoming more 5:52 difficult to deal with to respond but 5:55 especially to recover from 5:58 so examples of extreme events include 6:00 for instance flooding 6:01 we hear about flooding all the time and 6:04 how the long-term 6:05 impacts of flooding are becoming 6:07 recurrent on some 6:08 areas where the number of events has 6:11 increased significantly 6:13 and the time between each event is 6:15 becoming shorter 6:16 and harder to recover from and this is 6:20 especially the case uh in delta 6:22 countries such as bangladesh 6:24 and large coastal cities in lower income 6:27 countries 6:27 such as lagos and nigeria other kinds of 6:30 events are also becoming more frequent 6:33 another example is for instance drought 6:35 who actually kills 6:37 the most people of all extreme events 6:39 but because it happens 6:41 very slowly and mostly through famine 6:43 people pay 6:44 less attention than they would for what 6:46 we call 6:47 rapid onset events like hurricanes 6:50 or very extreme storms but drought has 6:54 been plaguing some regions of the world 6:56 for generations 6:57 and the projections of climate modeling 7:01 is that they are going to become more 7:02 severe 7:03 and maybe last longer 7:06 examples of very long-lasting droughts 7:09 are the 1983 el nino related drought 7:12 in sub-saharan africa which lasted for 7:15 over 20 years 7:16 and some people estimate actually killed 7:19 more than 20 million people in 7:21 sub-saharan africa 7:22 other events are becoming are newer in 7:25 the sense that we haven't experienced 7:27 them before 7:29 such as sea level rise so coastal areas 7:32 coastal cities but especially 7:34 in small island states many of them 7:36 low-income countries 7:38 are going to be very exposed and very 7:42 impacted by sea level rise the pictures 7:44 here 7:45 are actually um 7:48 are actually an attempt of the 7:50 government of the maldives 7:52 to call attention to the plight of small 7:54 island states 7:55 so in 2009 the whole cabinet of the 7:58 maldives actually met 8:00 on the water to call the world's 8:02 attention 8:03 to how urgent and how severe sea level 8:06 rise may be for the island 8:09 they also commissioned a study for 8:12 a potential futuristic 8:15 incarnation of what islands will become 8:17 a floating island 8:19 but all of those things are complicated 8:22 by the issue that the resources 8:24 are not being made available for any 8:27 uh of the responses that those small 8:30 island states need to be preparing for 8:33 what can we do 8:35 so there are many things that we can do 8:36 as individuals there are many things 8:38 that we can do as communities 8:40 but climate change is a global problem 8:42 mitigating climate change 8:44 will have to be done at the global level 8:48 climate change is an equal opportunity 8:50 problem because 8:53 co2 and other greenhouse gases they mix 8:56 equally in the atmosphere so everybody 8:58 is going to be 8:59 affected by climate change however 9:02 people are going to be affected by it 9:04 very differently 9:05 because one of the biggest determinants 9:07 of how you're going to be affected by 9:09 climate change 9:10 is what assets and what resources you 9:13 have 9:13 both to respond to adapt and to recover 9:16 from climate change 9:17 on the ground so while climate change 9:20 and mitigation is a global 9:22 problem adaptation is a local problem 9:25 what can we do well one of the things 9:28 that distinguished climate change from 9:29 other environmental problems 9:31 is that developing countries or lower 9:34 income countries are already being 9:36 disproportionately affected 9:38 by climate change so this is a huge 9:40 justice 9:41 and fairness problem an example here is 9:44 that the share of people affected by 9:46 climate change 9:48 driven by disasters is increasing and is 9:50 this is increasing 9:52 very disproportionately across the level 9:54 of income of different countries 9:57 while low income countries are affected 10:00 much more severely in terms of laws of 10:03 life for instance 10:04 high income countries are affected but 10:07 many fewer people die on those countries 10:09 although they are much more expensive 10:11 financially because of the laws of 10:13 infrastructure 10:14 and how much it costs for you to rebuild 10:17 what 10:18 was already there 10:21 this suggests that you know there is an 10:23 intrinsic unfairness about the 10:25 distribution 10:26 of cause and effect of climate change 10:29 so if we look at the contribution of 10:31 different countries to climate change 10:33 what we find 10:34 is that high income countries have 10:37 contributed historically much more to 10:40 climate change 10:41 while low to middle income income 10:44 countries and low 10:45 income countries have contribute much 10:48 less to climate change 10:49 both per capita and many times as well 10:52 uh in absolute numbers in order to 10:55 rebalance the equation between who's 10:58 causing climate change and who is going 11:00 to be affected by climate change 11:02 all countries need to work together act 11:04 together 11:05 to a system that will be more fair and 11:08 actually more effective 11:09 in terms of recovering and adapting to 11:12 climate change 11:14 so some of the things that countries can 11:15 do is that they 11:17 for instance develop countries who have 11:19 already contributed 11:21 massively to global warming 11:24 can adopt technologies and 11:28 incentivize technology or create demand 11:30 for low-carbon technologies 11:33 that will free some space in the 11:35 atmospheric commons 11:36 because lower income countries and mid 11:40 middle to low-income countries will need 11:42 that space 11:43 if they want to increase the consumption 11:46 of energy by their citizens by their 11:50 countries in general 11:52 so if it's a zero-sum game somebody will 11:55 have to clean up 11:56 so that other people can actually uh 11:59 benefit 11:59 uh from this newer technology but also 12:03 to provide access to energy 12:06 for large swathes of their population 12:08 that don't have it right now 12:11 if we notice the comparison on these 12:13 charts about current 12:15 and future consumption of energy we 12:18 notice 12:18 that while at this point the per capita 12:21 consumption 12:22 of lower and middle income countries 12:25 is much lower than high income countries 12:29 this is likely to change in the future 12:31 as more and more people have access to 12:33 energy 12:34 so we have to think very carefully about 12:38 how to make future policies cleaner 12:41 but also more fair in terms of access 12:45 to energy and the possibility 12:48 of improve your livelihood as a function 12:52 of this access although we have to act 12:54 together we have to act 12:56 differently as we discussed and one way 12:59 in which we have to act as 13:01 act differently is that high income 13:03 countries should be 13:04 invested much more aggressively in 13:06 energy research and development 13:09 but what we see in this graph is 13:11 actually there has been 13:13 a big drop in overall investment 13:16 although 13:16 in more recent years the investment in 13:19 areas that 13:20 are very desirable for instance such as 13:22 renewables 13:23 have increasing relatively uh to the 13:25 past 13:26 but in order to be able to afford 13:29 this transformation this access to 13:32 energy and access 13:34 to electricity transformation to happen 13:37 we have to be much more aggressive on 13:39 the way that we invest in new 13:40 technologies and create 13:42 demand for low carbon technologies 13:45 we also have to act differently and 13:47 understanding where 13:48 the impact of climate change is going to 13:51 be 13:52 most severe and what are the means that 13:55 we have to combat that 13:57 another example where there is a big 13:59 level of inequality 14:01 globally is the amount of climate 14:03 information 14:04 that we have in different areas of the 14:06 world 14:07 if you look at this map you see that 14:10 developed countries 14:11 high income countries are much more well 14:15 served by data collection 14:17 across the globe in terms of both 14:20 weather 14:20 and climate information and it is 14:22 necessary that 14:24 we improve data collection especially in 14:26 areas that are going to be particularly 14:29 affected by climate change impact 14:33 another way that we have to act 14:34 differently is understanding 14:36 how future production of food can become 14:39 more sustainable and better distributed 14:41 across the globe 14:42 many of the food producing areas in the 14:45 world today are going to become 14:47 more and more reliant on irrigation and 14:50 if projections of climate impact 14:52 are true and temperatures go up many of 14:55 those 14:56 areas will tend to increase 15:00 the need for irrigation while actually 15:02 the availability of water 15:04 may be decreasing so we need to figure 15:07 out a better way to produce food 15:09 sustainably 15:10 and and also to create 15:13 organizations and institutions that 15:15 allow for the distribution of this food 15:17 where it's most needed around the globe 15:20 one way that we can do that 15:22 is to think very hard which are pathways 15:25 that would lead us to this world that is 15:27 more resilient 15:28 there is a more fair word in terms of 15:30 the distributions of 15:31 impacts and benefits as well as 15:35 responses and adaptations to climate 15:37 change 15:38 an idea that has emerged strongly for 15:41 the past 10 years 15:42 is this concept of climate-resilient 15:44 pathways 15:45 so climate-resilient pathways they 15:47 combine 15:49 the two actions that we talked about 15:51 mitigation and adaptation but they think 15:54 of those two actions in the context of 15:56 sustainable development 15:58 so on top of everything that we have to 16:01 do 16:02 in order to develop sustainability we 16:05 should think 16:05 of every action that we take how they 16:08 are going to 16:09 be impacted or impact mitigation and 16:12 adaptation 16:13 and vice versa every time we mitigate 16:15 every time we adapt or we put 16:18 in place the interventions to mitigate 16:21 and to adapt 16:22 we have to think about how they're going 16:23 to affect our ability to develop 16:25 sustainability 16:26 so we talked a little bit about that 16:28 before when we were discussing the 16:30 energy transformation and how you know 16:33 as more people have access to clean 16:36 energy 16:37 how this transformation could bypass 16:39 many of the bad things that we have done 16:41 in the past that have 16:42 led to the problem of global warming so 16:45 climate resilient pathways have to think 16:47 about those three things in the same 16:50 breath they have to think of these three 16:52 things 16:53 as aspirations we have to mitigate we 16:55 have to adapt 16:56 and we have to develop sustainability 16:59 and 17:00 this picture suggests that some of the 17:02 ways that we do 17:03 that or if we consider for instance the 17:05 sdgs how we can 17:07 take into account in each one of those 17:09 sdgs what could be potential impacts of 17:12 climate change 17:13 and work either to mitigate or to adapt 17:15 to them in a sustainability way 17:18 that we would go a long way to think 17:20 about a future 17:21 that can be possible even if we are 17:24 under the threat 17:25 of very um severe change and a lot of it 17:28 negative negative to livelihoods and 17:32 ecosystems 17:33 recently the intergovernmental panel on 17:35 climate change the ipcc 17:37 released a report that makes a very 17:39 strong argument 17:41 that a safe space for humanity is to 17:43 stay 17:44 within 1.5 degrees celsius warming 17:48 but climate resilient pathways are a 17:50 process and in that process 17:51 as we talked before we have to act 17:53 together we have to 17:55 act now and we have to act differently 17:59 so as many things that we have done 18:01 before and will have to do in the future 18:04 a lot of the ideas that we have on how 18:07 to build those climate resilient 18:08 pathways 18:09 may seem at this point a little bit 18:12 aspirational given 18:13 the little progress that we have done so 18:15 far to actually mitigate climate change 18:18 okay however we need also to take these 18:21 aspirations 18:22 seriously especially if we want to keep 18:26 thinking of a future that is possible 18:28 and is actually 18:35 better