The Global Environment

Field Chapter 18
Lecture 13-14
Instructor: Tural Gojayev

Azerbaijan University 2022

 Content

• Global Climate Change – “The Physical

Problem”;
• Human and Ecosystem Impacts;
• Scientific Uncertainties and Human Choice;
• Technical Responses to the Greenhouse
Effect;
• Reducing Domestic GHG Emissions
• Incentive-Based Approaches for Reducing
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
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Content (cntd)

 International Efforts in Global Warming

 - The Kyoto Protocol
 A New Global Greenhouse Climate
Agreement
 Estimating the Social Cost of Carbon
 Biological Diversity
 Summary

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Global Climate Change

 Clearly the most important global problem

facing us today is the possibility that,
because of our current behaviour, we are
rendering the planet substantially less
habitable for humans as well as other
members of the biosphere.
 This sometimes goes under the name of
“climate change,” or the global
“greenhouse” effect.

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Greenhouse effect

 The principle of a greenhouse is that the

enclosing glass or plastic allows the passage
of incoming sunlight, but traps a portion of the
reflected infrared radiation, which warms the
interior of the greenhouse above the outside
temperature.

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6
“Greenhouse Effect”

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Table 18.1 Major Greenhouse Gases

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Global Warming

 Global warming is expected to bring about a

general rise in sea level because of the
expansion of sea water, the melting of
glaciers, and perhaps eventually the breaking
up of polar ice sheets.
 Although this will be a general rise, it will
have different local impacts on tidal and
current patterns.

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Human and Ecosystem Impacts

 Although this is a problem of the global

environment, its impacts on humans and the
ecosystem will vary greatly from one country
and region to another.
 A sea-level rise would have devastating
impacts in certain societies, such as those of
the Pacific islands or those concentrated in
low river deltas.

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Human and Ecosystem Impacts
(cntd)
 The drowning of coastal wetlands throughout
the world could have important impacts on
fisheries, and thus on societies that rely
heavily on marine resources.
 Another potential impact of great importance
is the increased acidification of the oceans
caused by higher levels of atmospheric CO2,
which reacts with water to create carbonic
acid.

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Human and Ecosystem Impacts
(cntd)
 Some of the biggest impacts on humans will
be through the effects of changed climate
patterns on agriculture and forestry.
 It is generally thought that the agricultural
impacts of atmospheric warming will hit
developing nations harder than developed
countries.

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Scientific Uncertainties and Human
Choice

 Scientists of the IPCC have settled on

consensus views about future climate
consequences, in particular, on probabilities
of future global surface mean temperatures.
 One such conclusion, for example, is that the
probability that the temperature increase will
exceed 4.5°C lies between 5 and 17 percent.

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Technical Responses to the
Greenhouse Effect
 There are many things that could be done to
mitigate CO2 emissions, and that these come
at different costs.
 The primary means of reducing the warming
lies in reducing the output of GHG and/or
augmenting the GHG-absorbing capacity of
the natural world. Because CO2 is the main
GHG, we focus on the issue of reducing
global CO2 emissions.

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4 factors of CO2 emissions

 The quantity of CO2 emissions depends on

the interaction of four factors:
 1) Population.
 2) GDP per capita
 3) Energy efficiency
 4) CO2 produced per unit of energy used

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Reducing Domestic GHG Emissions

 Effective global action to combat global

warming will require individual countries to
undertake steps to reduce their GHG
emissions. The question is: How should this
be undertaken?
 From a policy perspective, perhaps the first
thing to note is that there is no single source
we could call on to get drastic reductions in
GHG production.

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Reducing Domestic GHG Emissions

 The big question is, how much is it going to

cost to reduce GHG emissions significantly?
 And the answer to this is: It depends on how
it is done.
 Given the long histories of command-and-
control policies in the United States and other
countries, many are likely to be attracted to
technology or emission standards.

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Incentive-Based Approaches for
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
 When there are substantial differences
among sources and technologies in terms of
the costs of reducing GHG emissions, the
use of incentive-based policies can be
substantially valuable than traditional
command and control policies.

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Incentive-Based Approaches for
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
 Two major type of incentive-based
approaches:
 1) cap-and-trade plans and
 2) emission taxes or charges.

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Two major type of incentive-based
approaches:
 Cap-and-trade is a quantity-based plan, in
which a quantitative limit is placed on
emissions and prices are established on
emission permit markets.
 The use of emission taxes is a price-based
policy, where a monetary fee on emissions is
set and the quantity of emissions is adjusted
as polluters react to that fee.

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Conslusion for first part of lecture

 We are rendering the planet substantially less

habitable for humans as well as other
members of the biosphere.
 Impacts of global warming (CO2) on humans
and the ecosystem will vary greatly from one
country and region to another.
 Atmospheric warming will hit developing
nations harder than developed countries.

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Conslusion for first part of lecture
(cntd)
 The primary means of reducing the warming
lies in reducing the output of GHG and/or
increasing the GHG-absorbing capacity of the
natural world.
 Given the long histories of command-and-
control policies in different countries, many
are likely to be attracted to technology or
emission standards.

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International Efforts in Global
Warming.

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The Kyoto Protocol

 The focal point for international reductions in

GHG emissions has been the Kyoto
Protocol, an agreement negotiated under the
auspices of the “United Nations” in 1997.
 It covered GHGs emission reduction targets
that countries were obligated to reach by the
years 2008 to 2012.

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“The Kyoto Protocol” ratification

 The Kyoto Protocol came into force on

February 16, 2005, after being ratified by the
requisite number of countries.
 The agreement required relatively large
cutbacks of GHGs by countries of the
developed world, but none by developing
countries, such as India and China.

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The Kyoto Protocol

 The agreement included flexibility

mechanisms that would presumably help
countries meet their cutback targets with a
lower overall cost.
 Flexibility approaches include the following:
 (next slide)

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The Kyoto Protocol (Annex 1)
“Emission permit”
 1) International emission trading: Annex B
countries could alter their GHG cutback
responsibilities by buying or selling emission
quantities among themselves.
 Thus, one country could cut emissions by
more than that is required, and sell the
excess to another country, which may then
cut back by a smaller amount.

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The Kyoto Protocol (Annex 1)

 2) Joint implementation: Annex B countries

could undertake joint projects (e.g., a
reforestation project in the United States
partly funded by another country) and
transfer emission allowances on the basis of
the projects.

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The Kyoto Protocol (Annex 1)

 3) Clean development mechanism: Annex B

countries could finance emission reductions
in non–Annex B countries and gain credits
toward their GHG cutback responsibilities.

 The Kyoto Protocol was the first effort

internationally to address GHG control.

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A New Global Greenhouse Climate
Agreement
 One idea could be to first develop a series of
regional CAP programs, as in the ETS and
the Regional Greenhouse Gas Market of the
north-eastern United States.
 Once these markets are functioning smoothly
they could be tied together by allowing inter-
program trading.

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Monitoring and Enforcing
 In international agreements, real questions
come up about monitoring and enforcing.
 Self-monitoring - by the individual countries
is likely to be the only practical solution to this
issue because it is unlikely that countries
would willingly permit international monitoring
efforts.
 The “United Nations” lacks executive power
to enforce international environmental
agreements.
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Estimating the Social Cost of Carbon
 Social cost of carbon (SCC) is a marginal
value: a monetary estimate of the global
external costs of one CO2- equivalent ton of
future GHGs.
 Estimating the SCC involves dealing with all
the uncertainties of climate change, both the
uncertainties of scientists who are trying to
understand the physical effects and natural
and social scientists trying to predict impacts
on humans and other elements of the
biosphere.
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TABLE 18.4 Social Cost of CO2,
2015–2050*

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Biological Diversity

 Another problem that we have begun to

appreciate in recent years is the worldwide
reduction in diversity among the elements of
the biological system.
 This can be discussed at several levels:
diversity in the stock of genetic material,
species diversity, or diversity among
ecosystems.

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Maintenance of Habitats

 The effective maintenance of biodiversity

depends on the maintenance of habitats.

 This involves first identifying valuable

habitats and then protecting them from
development pressures that are incompatible
with preserving the resident species.

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System of Property Rights
 The suggestion is to clarify property rights
in wild species and let countries themselves
exercise these property rights in world
markets for genetic information.
 By allowing them to sell the rights to parts of
the genetic stock, countries would have a
way of realizing the values inherent in these
stocks and would therefore be motivated to
devote more effort and resources to their
protection.
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Ecoturism
 In some places of the world, a market has
developed for the services of endangered
species in the form of ecotourism.
 Conservation by landowners and others
creates value in the sense that people are
willing to pay the landowner for opportunities
to observe or photograph species in their
preserved natural habitat.

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Summary

 The greatest problem facing the global

community is climate change, stemming
from atmospheric build-up of CO2 and other
“greenhouse gases” that are affecting the
earth’s radiation balance and leading to an
increase in mean global temperatures.
 Substantial impacts are expected on weather
patterns around the globe. These are
expected to disrupt agricultural operations
in significant ways.
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