Blog by Victor Galaz; Associate Professor, Stockholm Resilience Centre (Stockholm University)
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The previous Lancet Commission of 2009 made the point completely clear, still the message tends to get lost in the climate debate. Climate change is fundamentally a challenge for human health. The message is worth reiterating. Policy-makers, non-governmental actors, business and civil society are in desperate need of trustworthy assessments of innovative policies, institutions and proposals which could help us stay ahead of human health challenges posed by climate change.

Working group 2 of the Lancet Commission is entitled “Resilience and Adaptation Responses”, and consists of an international interdisciplinary group of prominent scholars working at the interface of health, global change, and resilience (see membership). Our ambition is to bring together and feature promising adaptation approaches; discuss their costs and scalability; and identify possible win-win trajectories. This is far from a simple task for several reasons.

First, climate adaptation often entails a combination of several types of interventions. That is, they often include changes in economic incentives, the placement of new technologies, modifications in natural systems such as ecosystems, institutional reforms, and new forms of decision-making and funding arrangements. In addition, these interventions differ considerably across sectors (e.g. agriculture vs. energy production), and the scale of interest (e.g. local, national and regional).

Second, while some of the human health impacts of climate change can be partly predictable, gradual and even reversible, other might emerge as surprises. That is, events that fundamentally differ from expectations and with the potential to trigger health crises – events that require prompt interventions despite large uncertainties and limited time to act. Hence adaptation policies and institutions not only need to match known threats, but also need to be robust to surprising changes created by human, environmental and technological uncertainty.

Third, there are likely to be limits to adaptation. Bluntly put: how far we push Earth’s climate and ecosystems before the human health repercussions are of such scale, speed and intensity that human societies will systematically fail to adapt? And if that is the case, when are policies, which support transformation, rather than adaptation, needed?

These are three major issues that this working group will try to address. There are no easy answers, nor magic “silver bullet” solutions. But as we intend to elaborate, innovative policies, institutions and proposals on possible means to adapt to future human health challenges do exist. And some of these are possibly scalable, effective and entail a potential to create multiple “win-wins” afar from improving human health. Our hope is that our work will contribute to a much-needed focus on health solutions, and not just health problems created by climate change.

Commissioners of WG2 of the Lancet Commission 

• Prof. Yin Yongyuan, Tsinghua University (China), co-lead
• Ass. Prof. Victor Galaz, Stockholm Resilience Centre (Sweden), co-lead
• Prof Geogina Mace, UCL and Royal Society (UK)
• Professor Bing Xu, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University
• Dr. Li Moxuan, Center for Earth System Science, Tsinghua University
• Dr. Koko Warner, United Nations University
• Prof. Thomas Elmqvist, Stockholm Resilience Centre (Sweden)
• Prof. Delia Grace, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya
• Dr. Sukaina Bharwani, Stockholm Environment Institute-Oxford and weAdapt

Blog by Tia Kansara, UCL-Energy PhD student

Decarbonised local communities

Can people be the solution to the decarbonisation challenge in UK communities? With present reduction targets of CO2 emissions, it is only a matter of time before there is a clear and defined role for residents to play in the bigger picture of low-carbon living.  Through intelligent, integrated strategies, community architecture methods of active learning and skill-deployment may provide a process for decarbonisation.

Sustainable communities living within a cradle-to-cradle environment, promoting transition town-mentality and growing local resources may have more to teach us. As with community architecture, could there be a resource architect in your local neighbourhood who could pool the resources?
 
People are the power: The community architecture way

Over many years of slum experience, Kansara Hackney Ltd. have highlighted, internationally, the long-term energy saving potential of tapping human resources within slums and communities. Rod Hackney (co-director) completed schemes, and those where others have followed, have had an impact on politicians, to such an extent that the mass demolition movement has been replaced with an openness to harness the latent energy of slum dwellers.

Poverty Reduction

The community architecture methodology has benefited sustainable urban development and influenced many countries around the world. In 1971, 37% of the world’s population of 3.7 billion lived in urban areas. In 2003 UN Habitat reported a sixth of humanity lived in urban slums. In 2013, of the world’s 7.1 billion human beings, 862.5 million live in urban slums. This figure would have been 200 million higher without the UN Habitat’s highlighting slum improvement methodologies and the vital latent human energy that is waiting to be encouraged within the World’s slums. The community architecture methods have shown, since 1971 that there is an alternative to the bulldozers. Further, after winning the trust of officials, banks and the wider community around the slum can help deliver sustainable and long-term solutions to resident’s former housing problems. These schemes are recognised as pioneering examples of how ordinary people can thrive if encouraged to do so.

If sustained, the community architecture approach augurs well for world peace and stability, and UN Habitat’s mission of reducing the anticipated 1.4 billion estimated slum dwellers by 2020. Something can be done to reduce this figure. Slum dwellers should be encouraged to accelerate their interest in, and adopt wholesale the community architecture approach. It can be applied to each and every slum in the world.

Social Inclusion and Reskilling

The growing international prevalence of slum communities and the huge human potential they offer the sustainability debate, is perhaps the 21st Century’s greatest challenge. In slums, no rubbish or sunlight is wasted. Bio fuel from human waste, self-help solar collectors, re-cycling of scrap materials (leather, tin, electrics, plastic), regular maintenance of buildings, all work towards healthy and profitable entrepreneurial environmentalism contributing a major part in the green revolution of saving the planet.

Blog by Mitakshi Sirsi, MSc Environmental Design and Engineering at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies

Urbanization has spread rapidly in the past decades and Humanity has chosen it as the path it intends to take in the coming future. Cities are undoubtedly going to be a defining factor in the way we progress into a new era. Hopefully,  In a utopian world – aan era of climate-change mitigation and adaptation and clean energy.; A more sensitive, equitable, rational and well, nicer era!

The first impression one might have when considering cities, developing countries and climate change is, “it’s complicated!” It might just be! I had a similar reaction when I asked myself that very question as a rookie architect trying to build “green buildings” in a developing country. I hardly imagined that the question would throw up so many aspects to explore, so much hope and so much despair all at the same time; because the climate-change story is not just a story of numbers and statistics or problems and solutions – it is a story of people and the planet, of humanity, and that is probably the most complicated bit of it all.

Through this short article I hope to outline some of the major ideas I have come across with respect to climate change, cities and the promising, developing, global south to give the reader a brief glimpse into the current complex situation the way I see it.

Why do we need to talk about cities in the developing world?

Urban areas currently host more than half the world’s population,population; cities allegedly use up 67% of the world’s resources, produce 75% of the world’s carbon emissions but only take up about 3% of the world’s land mass. The UN estimates that people living in cities will go up from 3.2 billion to about 5 billion by 2030 and up to 7 billion in 2050. This roughly translates to about 7 out of every 10 people on the planet living in an urban area by 2050. Currently, most of this growth is in the developing world (so around 5 of these 7 people are going to be in a developing country), three-fourths 3/4th of the largest cities in the world are now in the global south and the between 2000-10 the developing world accounted for more than 90% of the growth in cities in the past two decades!

Data varies , so does its interpretation, but whatever these varying numbers are, they indicate a clear trend-shift which requires a good bit of attention. It is important to understand that some of the challenges that these cities and countries face are likely to be very different from the post-industrial revolution cities. Needless to say, developed countries currently face their own set of problems; there may be a lot to learn from their experience and by not repeating past mistakes.

Adverse impacts of climate change are already being recorded in different parts of the world – in the past decade, floods and sea level rise have affected up to 40% landmass of cities like Dhaka, these extreme events not only have direct immediate impacts like loss of life, and property, livelihoods but also indirect, long- term impacts requiring us to focus on making cities more resilient to uncertainties like loss of fertile land and impact on food security.

Climate-change may be taking over the conversation space on your lunch break, but isn’t it scary to imagine that it is taking over homes, agricultural lands and lives in some other parts of the world? (In the past few months, it has been doing that just a few kilometres south of London too!)

What does our future look like?

We don’t really know.

Not that I’m speaking from any personal experience of crystal gazing, but ‘uncertain’ is the term everyone is using. What climate scientists say they know for sure is that global mean temperatures will increase, more ice will melt, sea levels will rise, oceans will acidify more and that reaching a 2 degree C shift may push us to a tipping point – but what that means in exact terms is variable.  and may be different across the planet. Developing countries will face more water stress, rain-fed agriculture will suffer, floods and droughts might increase, and monsoons might fail or get more intense. The IPCC (2007) notes that “Taken as a whole, the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time.”

However, even these extreme predictions have been criticised by many as conservative. Al while some argue that an alarmist view might accelerate necessary measures to mitigate. Societies and ecosystems are likely to be impacted in different ways depending on where you are on the planet. though iImpact on societies and ecosystems may be different depending on your location, developing countries may face more water stress, rain-fed agriculture will suffer, floods and droughts might increase, and monsoons might fail or get more intense. GgGlobally. It means an it means an increase in the likelihood of impacts on food security and health, possible conflict, more migration from stressed areas, intensification if the energy crisis and more extreme weather events.

The general consensus is that (poor) people in cities of poor countries will face the brunt of anthropogenic emissions related climate- change  (incidentally, developed countries are largely responsible for GHG emissions till nowhistorical data proves that these emissions are by the developed countries), and the global inequity related to energy use and energy poverty gets highlighted in this context. Some of these complicated and difficult issues are what global alliances and meets like the COP 19 and previous UNFCCC protocols are currently trying to address.

What are the core issues developing cities face?

Environment related challenges: Rapid growth increases stress on the physical structures of our cities – polluted air and water, degradation of ecosystems, overcrowding leading to health problems and such. It also puts more stress on surrounding natural systems as cities become more resource intensive when they grow. Current urban economic systems tend to be unsustainable and in the race for quick economic development, holistic sustainability goals get left behind. Some of these are evident in recent air quality reports in megacities like Delhi “Children in Delhi have lungs of chain-smokers!”

Economic and Social inequity, Governance and management: Urbanization has always brought with it a range of possibilities – cities are thriving, resilient places with ample opportunity, jobs, education, education for women, social upliftment and escape from degraded agricultural land and rural unemployment. They have been centres of migration for these very reasons but these opportunities and upliftment also brings with it them poverty, hunger and disease. Large populations in developing megacities live and work informally, about 40% of the population of cities like Bangkok and Manila live in slums. These places may be centres of economic and social activities despite the poverty, but basic infrastructure suffers, leaving them more vulnerable to extreme events. Governance and planning also play a very important role.Governance is difficult and civil systems in developing countries are not yet equipped to manage these issues.

Energy, Emissions, buildings and urban climate issues: Cities require lots of energy in different forms. Most cities still use fossil based energy and this can increase emissions greatly,. it also highlights direct impacts on energy security. The building sector is linked mainly to energy use, carbon emissions and waste, (global: 40% of energy consumption, 12% fresh water & 40% waste volume) and these numbers sometimes make us forget that buildings essentially support city activities, they are the metaphorical “core organs” of cities and are fundamental to the functioning of any city. Housing deficits, construction technology knowledge, infrastructure and “prosperity” are all a part of this equation.

The IEA estimates that Asia’s share of global energy consumption is expected to increase three times by 2030. These increases may be largely attributed to cities, and a big large chunk of that to buildings. Urban climate issues like overheating (due to the heat Island effect) can have adverse impacts on energy use,use; especially in the tropics where cooling needs are already high (anthropogenic heat added to this equation in buildings just makes it worse). Density in cities may not allow the full use of renewables and reliance on fossil fuels may be inevitable.

Water and Waste: Access to clean water, sanitation facilities and sustainable physical infrastructure for these systems is one of the biggest challenges cities face. The already overloaded and sometimes crude existing systems are not equipped to serve such rapid growth and may often fail, resulting in health outbursts and other social and economic problems.

Who is dealing with the problems and how?

Despite all these problems cities are growing and are very important and thriving economic, cultural and social centres. With climate-change and energy security bagging important places in the list of current global challenges, many steps are being taken to manage these complicated issues. Agencies such as The World Bank, ADB ACCCRN and UN have several programs that address these problemsissues, research bodies and universities (like our very own UCL!) are creating knowledge in the field and industry pioneers are testing solutions. Although investment in climate proofing and resilience building is currently low, the sector is growing, partly for the sake of the environment and largely because it is starting to make economic sense. Policy is changing too, local groups are starting to address problems from grassroots and governments through top-down approaches. This is especially important because both problems and solutions are contextual, but also need to be brought together as a whole.

Having said this, the situation is far from ideal. As a community of people addressing this large scale global challenge, we seem stuck between a future we cannot predict and a past we seem to keep ignoring while we jump from managing one crisis to the next, reacting and not necessarily pro-acting.  Knowledge in the field is vast and we come up with new, innovative ideas often. Experts and groups from multidisciplinary backgrounds are not coming together to look for more answers.  So iIt seems that the time has come for us to put more effort into applying this knowledge to the real issues through more policy, governance and management. Do we have an answer? Are we doing what we can? I don’t know. But then again, I don’t, but mmaybe it is not just about doing what we can, but about soldiering on and doing what we must.

Notes and Further reading:

The terms Global South and developing countries and developing world have been used interchangeably; population and other data are from UN and WHO sources.

This article is a short collection of what I have learnt in my exploration of this complex topic, I would be very happy to learn more, please email me at mitakshi.sirsi.13@ucl.ac.uk with any comments or observations you may have. Conversation is always welcome!
•    A Guide to Climate Change Adaptation in Cities: Web toolkit, World Bank http://www-esd.worldbank.org/citiesccadaptation/index.html
•    Climate Change Resilience, Rockefeller Foundation http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/our-work/current-work/climate-change-resilience/asian-cities-climate-change-resilience
•    “Children in Delhi have lungs of chain-smokers!” http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pollution-in-delhi-cng-children-in-delhi/1/344904.html
•    UCL and Future Proofing Cities http://www.futureproofingcities.com/
•    Some interesting scenarios people have come up with – Future Timelines – http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2050-2059.htm

Blog by Professor Georgina Mace, Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research (CBER)

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The past few months have highlighted the impacts that extreme events can have on people’s lives and livelihoods. Ranging from floods in England, storms in Wales, hurricane Haiyan’s devastating effects in the Philippines to extreme heat in Australia, we have seen striking examples of cases where large numbers of people are exposed to natural hazards with which they are poorly equipped to deal. Whether or not these events can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change, they highlight a few points about how vulnerable people are to natural events when those events occur on a scale and at a level of intensity that current systems cannot cope with. It is striking to observe how when infrastructure such as roads and electricity fail, people everywhere suffer a great deal, and the very young, the weak, the elderly and the chronically ill, suffer more than the rest.

The work for the Lancet Commission report, CLIMATE CRISIS: EMERGENCY ACTIONS TO PROTECT HUMAN HEALTH’ will focus on the potential health impacts of climate change on people. These may have often been eclipsed in many discussions by current concerns about economic growth and failing infrastructures. But health and wellbeing is our primary concern. We will review and highlight some immediate costs to people’s wellbeing that will be a consequence of climate change. We are concerned with people’s mental and physical health, their quality of life, and sense of place and security.

My own interest in this area has come about from studying the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and wild species. As for people, the same amount of climate change has very different outcomes for different ecosystems and species, and is generally related to their history (what they have experienced in the past), their biology (their life history and habits) and their geography. Certain kinds of species which have very low tolerances for environmental variability, poor dispersal capability or adaptive potential will be much more vulnerable to even modest changes to climate variables than those that are less sensitive and more resilient. We have mapped out areas of the world where the most vulnerable species are expected to be exposed to the most extreme changes (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0065427). I think this work has relevance to people in a couple of different ways. First, it is likely that the areas where there are sensitive ecosystems and species will also be areas where people may be most at risk because the world’s ecosystems are central to supporting people’s basic needs for a good life; for example, food, freshwater, protection from hazards and diseases. Secondly, a recent history of coping with extreme events prepares both ecosystems and people better, and geography is an important determinant of both environmental extremes and basic resources.

Considering extreme events and their impacts on people, it is very difficult to develop resilience to events when they occur at low frequency and when there is little personal experience or community history of dealing with them. By definition, extreme events are rare; perhaps one in a hundred years or more is what is expected on average. But given the local variability of weather and storm patterns, and the fact that we measure many different events, something unusual will be happening somewhere most of the time. In addition to that, recent increases in population numbers, in wealth and mobility means that people are moving to new areas more often, and they often choose to live near water or on coasts and near the sea. These are areas most exposed to many extreme events and are already home to most of the world’s people. Space is limited and so increasingly people are building homes and living in more vulnerable areas such as river flood plains and coastal zones. Recent increases in the impacts of extreme events are mostly attributable to an increased exposure of people to hazards such as earthquakes, floods and storms, rather than to an increased frequency of such events. So, in thinking about climate change and the impacts on people it is important to separate the intensity and frequency of the events themselves from the impacts that they may have on people.

Recent storm and flooding events have mostly been abrupt and violent. Such events are predicted to increase in frequency under climate change, so whatever the cause, they can show us clearly the kinds of problems that future generations will have to face. But of course, not all such events are so dramatic; there are also slow onset events that will ultimately be devastating for some people too, for example sea level rise causing coastal flooding and inundation, oceans acidulation affecting marine systems, heavier precipitation due to the greater amounts of water held by a warmer atmosphere and severe heat and periods of drought affecting food and water supplies.  All of these will have direct and indirect impacts on people’s lives and affect health and wellbeing in many ways.

Understanding how the climate will change, and how this will influence the frequency and severity of slow onset and extreme events is very important. We need this information to plan and prepare for what may come. But on its own this information is not enough. We also need to look at where the risks are greatest because there are large numbers people who will be exposed to the hazards, and maybe where these populations include people who are especially at risk.

Among the people exposed to extreme events, some are much more vulnerable than others. In the UK we might be concerned especially for the elderly and people with chronic illnesses or disabilities. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans it became clear that for some people affected by the event, their social and financial wealth made it easier for them to pick up a new life elsewhere; not often an option for the poor. The same comparisons are useful globally. We can ask where the most vulnerable people are, and which of these are most likely to face climate change related hazards that they will have difficulty dealing with. This was an approach taken in a recent report from the ODI, UK Met Office and Risk Management Solutions which examined the relationship between disasters and poverty, and concluded that:

– extreme weather linked to climate change is increasing and will likely cause more disasters.

– such disasters, especially those linked to drought, can be the most important cause of impoverishment, cancelling progress on poverty reduction.

– Up to 325 million extremely poor people will be living in the 49 most hazard-prone countries in 2030, the majority in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The ODI report highlights overlaps in geographical areas where poverty, climate-change related hazards and weak governance are likely to overlap, and hence areas of highest priority to consider to alleviate future suffering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are developing this approach for the Lancet report to consider the evidence that climate change will increase extreme events, what and where these may be, who they will affect most severely, and what the options are that people will have to avoid the worst impacts.

The work being undertaken here will also link to a report on Resilience to climate change related extreme event being prepared as a science-policy output from the Royal Society

Blog by Phoebe Lewis, UCL-Energy MSc student
Join in the conversation – Follow Phoebe on Twitter

 

 

 

 

Weather-related events, including heat waves, storms and floods, killed more than 70,000 people in 2010.  These events and their impact are projected to increase in frequency and intensity as human-driven climate change makes its presence more obvious.  Among other repercussions, this will have major implications for human health and, in a number of cases, raise mortality rates.

 

 

 

 

Heat waves

The rising global surface temperatures associated with climate change make weather patterns less predictable.  This leads to an increased frequency of extreme weather conditions: both heat waves and freezes are seen more often.  While freezes do cause deaths in communities that are not accustomed to such low temperatures, mortality rates are higher in heat waves.  In fact, the heat wave in 2003 that saw high temperatures and aridity in many parts of the world led to around 35,000 deaths in Europe.

While these temperatures were indeed high, the main problem was not that they were outside the range in which humans can theoretically survive.  The problem was that the temperatures were outside the range expected. This trigger temperature varies between regions.  For instance, heat related deaths occur when the temperature exceeds 22.3°C in London while 25.7°C is the threshold in Athens.  Europeans were simply unprepared for such abnormal weather.  They therefore did not have the appropriate housing and ventilation to be able to accommodate such high temperature.

 

 

 

 

 

Air pollution

Such heat waves can in turn lead to increased problems of air pollution.  In rural areas, the aridity that accompanies these high temperatures can lead to forest fires.  The carbon released from these is not only damaging to human respiratory health, but can destroy the agriculture that locals depend on as well as causing deaths.  In urban areas, these higher temperatures can lead to the formation of volatile organic compounds and ozone, which are highly damaging to human respiratory systems.

 

 

 

 

Storms and flooding

On the other end of the weather event spectrum, storms and floods will also increase in frequency.  Excesses of water can lead to cross-contamination and therefore the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery.  Cholera is particularly related to wet weather.  Standing water creates breeding grounds for disease-carrying organisms including mosquitoes that will spread malaria and yellow fever.   Finally, sediment moved with the floodwater may carry soil-borne diseases with it, like anthrax.  Sediment can also transport toxic contaminants such as organic chemicals and heavy metals, which can be poisonous.  Southeast Asia will be hit particularly badly by these repercussions of climate change.  The number of cases in the region of malaria, diarrhoea and malnutrition is expected to rise by 220 million people.  Africa follows closely behind with an increase of 190 million cases.

 

 

 

 

Malnutrition

Malnutrition will be exacerbated by the droughts and disasters associated with the weather variability that characterises human-driven climate change.  The unpredictability of rainfall will undermine the agriculture that we all, and especially the poorest of our global community, depend on for sustenance.  Furthermore, food production, accessibility and affordability are increasingly compromised as oil prices, meat consumption and biofuel demand all rise.  The rising price of the oil that is used to produce and transport food supplies is leading to higher food prices.  As our economies develop and more people seek a Western-based diet of meat consumption, the demand for grains rises and increases competition for this resource and its price.  For instance, cows need eight kilograms of grain for every kilo of meat that they produce.  Finally, and most controversially, is the surge in the popularity of biofuels as a mechanism for slowing climate change.  Biofuel use has, however, increased food prices by 35%.  Malnutrition significantly reduces a person’s ability to recover from infectious diseases and respond positively to medical treatments, including that for HIV/AIDS. Increased malnutrition as a result of human-driven climate change will therefore have indirect impacts on health as well.

 

 

 

 

What do we need to do now?

The key is of course to address human driven climate change and not focus on treating it impacts alone.  How to mitigate and adapt to this climate change is a complex process.  However, it certainly requires governments to override their individualistic approaches and instead work towards accountable global strategies.  Nevertheless, specific to health alone, governments and organisations need to build networks that deploy medical care to both prevent and treat the impacts of climate change on human health.

References

Dow, K. and T. Downing (2011) The Atlas of Climate Change – mapping the world’s greatest challenge (3^rd ed.), Brighton: Earthscan.

Maslin, M. (2009) A Very Short Introduction to Global Warming, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Photograph Credits

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/06/10/world/10iht-drought/10iht-drought-articleLarge.jpg

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/binary/9a44/1375980109-forest-fire.jpg

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48644000/jpg/_48644916_009933072-1.jpg

http://www.survivopedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/biofuels.jpg

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2012/03/windfarm_1661728c.jpg

http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/earthmap.jpg

 

Blog by Nick Watts, Head of Project, UCL-Lancet Commission
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“Above all, be visionary – this Commission is designing integrated solutions to what has been described as the biggest global health threat of the 21^st century”. These were the parting words of Richard Horton – the editor of The Lancet – to the Commissioners at a recent London meeting.

The 2014 UCL-Lancet Commission on Climate Change and Health is an ambitious initiative bringing together senior international climate scientists, economists, energy experts, and health professionals to present mitigation and adaptation policies necessary to protect human health from climate change, and promote sustainable development. The Commission is truly interdisciplinary and international, consisting a tripartite collaboration between University College London, Tsinghua University, and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Within UCL, the Commission is working across the Institute of Global Health, the Energy Institute, the Institute for Sustainable Resources, the Geography Department, and the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy. Presenting its work in February 2015, the commission will ultimately aim to be policy-relevant, taking an academic ‘honest broker’ approach where experts in areas relating to climate change use their knowledge to integrate scientific knowledge more cohesively with policy.

Published in the Lancet – arguably the most influential medical journal in the world – the Commission understands climate change as a ‘health emergency’. Its work is divided in to five working groups, each tackling a particular part of the policy response to this crisis, and tasked with producing a chapter for the final report. Over the next week, a post from each of the working groups should give you a better idea of what they’ve got planned. But in the meantime, here’s a brief summary of what they’re looking at:

1)     WG1 will set the stage by laying out the latest evidence in climate science and the impacts these global environmental changes are having on human wellbeing. The group will attempt to employ innovative methods to demonstrate how global patterns of vulnerability shift with environmental and demographic changes;

2)     In light of the scientific update above, section 2 will examine the most effective solutions to improve resilience in the most vulnerable communities. One area of particular interest being explored is with regards to identifying the limits to adaptation;

3)     Experts in energy and climate change mitigation will explore the emergency technical solutions available, prioritising them according to their cost-effectiveness, time to implementation, and feasibility. In particular, Commissioners in WG3 will explore the ‘epidemiology of energy policy’, looking at what happens when large-scale policy changes are implemented in practice.

4)     The fourth component of the report will discuss a broad range of alternatives to financing the defined technical solutions. They’re looking at a broad range of responses, including international trade, taxation (regressive and progressive), capital and bond markets, and investment incentives and penalties.

5)     The final section will bring together the above policy options, providing insight in to the political mechanisms necessary to trigger a cascade of technical and financial action.

The task ahead of the UCL-Lancet Commission is indeed ambitious, with more than 60 academics and experts from around the world working on it right up until early 2015. The key findings of our work will take some time to come to light, but if the last 12 months are anything to go by, the results of the Commission will most certainly “be visionary”.

Let’s face it, we don’t know, do we? In my office, I shove most of my recycling in here (see below), occasionally wondering why it’s necessary to clean food containers, but on the whole glad someone else takes care of my waste:

The story about to be told is a mixed one. Although recycling capacity has dramatically improved over the last decade, I’ll try to demonstrate how the UK’s drive for quantity at the expense of quality has ended up with much of our waste going across the world for reprocessing. I’ll argue that one way to keep it in the UK is for us to put some effort into finding out what we can recycle and taking the advice of that sign in my office –  clean our items.

(more…)

During Climate Week 2013 (4-10 March) staff and students of the UCL Energy Institute and UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources and their affiliates within UCL will be blogging here on a range of topics, including: the rebound effect, Ecobuild, solar and wind energy diffusion and collecting data.

To join in or to find out more contact energy@ucl.ac.uk, www.ucl.ac.uk/energy or send us a Tweet @ucl_energy