Moving beyond climate change

Environment

Volumn 52, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 15-19

  Hulme, Mike ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77952605595     PISSN: 00139157     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00139151003761611     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. This phrase was used by UK Prime Minster Gordon Brown in a speech in London to the Major Economies Forum, 19 October 2009. His remarks were: "If we do not reach a deal this time, let us be in no doubt; once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late." Available at http://www. number10.gov.uk/Page21033.
2. Numerous books about climate change are framed using the idea of "crisis": D. Archer and S. Rahmstorf, The Climate Crisis: An Introductory Guide to Climate Change (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, (2010), 272 pp.;
3. A. Gore Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis (London UK: Bloomsbury Publishing 2009), 416 pp.;
4. A. Gore Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis (London UK: Bloomsbury Publishing 2009), 416 pp.;
5. M. Robinson, America Debates Global Warming: Crisis or Myth? (New York: Rosen Central, 2007), 64 pp.;
6. R. Gelbspan, Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Have Fuelled the Climate Crisis-and What We Can Do to Avert Disaster (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 254 pp.
7. For example see the G8+5 Academies' joint statement released in July 2009: "Climate Change and the Transformation of Energy Technologies for a Low Carbon Future"; and "The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science," a statement written by 26 leading scientific experts, November 2009. Available at http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu. au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen-Diagnosis-LOW.pdf.
8. This phrase is taken from comments made by President Obama at Copenhagen, 18 December 2009: "We know [to-be-set emission targets] will not be by themselves sufficient to get to where we need to be. Science dictates even more needs to be done ... Ultimately this issue is going to be dictated by the science. The science indicates we are going to have to take more aggressive steps in future." Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/ remarkspresident-during-press-availability-copenhagen.
9. The full three-page Copenhagen Accord can be found here: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf.
10. UNFCCC (2009) Copenhagen Accord p.1
11. Frank Biermann wrote a paper in 2007, "'Earth system governance' a cross-cutting theme of global change research," Global Environmental Change 17, no.3-4 (2007): 326-337, in which he called for earth system governance as a political program of action. He outlined some of the characteristics of such a governance system.
12. In shaping the argument of this section, I am indebted to the ideas of Scott Barratt, Ted Nordhaus, Elinor Orstom, Roger Pielke Jr., Gwyn Prins and Michael Shellenberger.
13. See A. P. Grieshop, C. C. O. Reynolds, M. Kandlikar, and H. Dowlatabadi "A Black-Carbon Mitigation Wedge," Nature Geosciences 2 (2010): 533-534, for a discussion of why and how this can be achieved.
14. See papers by O. Venter, W. F. Laurance, T. Iawamura, K. A. Wilson, R. A. Fuller, and H. P. Possingham "Harnessing Carbon Payments to Protect Biodiversity," Science 326 (2009): 1368;
15. and U. M. Persson and C. Azar, "Preserving the World's Tropical Forests-a Price on Carbon May Not Do," Environmental Science & Technology 44 (2010): 210-215, for discussion of moving beyond the REDD mechanism.
16. See the papers by G. J. M. Velders, S. O. Anderson, J. S. Daniel, D. W. Fahey, and M. McFarland, "The Importance of the Montreal Protocol in Protecting Climate," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no.12 (2007): 4814-4819;
17. and J. Cohen, A. Rau, and K. Bruning, "Bridging the Montreal-Kyoto Gap," Science 326 (2009): 940-941.
18. See I. Galiana and C. Green, "Let the Global Technology Race Begin," Nature 462 (2009): 570-571, for a discussion about why this is necessary and how it may be facilitated.
19. These are ideas that I explore in some detail in my book Why We Disagree About Climate Change, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 393 pp.
20. S. Jasanoff "Technologies of Humility," Nature 450 (2007): 33.