Climate change, Sea Level Rise and Humans Responses

Nguyen Hoang Nam PhD candidate Faculty of Law and Management hn9nguyen@students.latrobe.edu.au

Climate change

Source: IPCC Assessment Report, 2007

Boiling frog effect

Al Gore - 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001

Lifespan of a frog & the time for boiling water Lifespan of human & the time for climate change
If the time for boiling water is 6 or 7 years, should the same frog care about being boiled or starving to death in the pot? => Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA)

Basic greenhouse effect (pp. 259 to 260)

Bjorn Lomborg, (2001) The Skeptical environmentalist

Bjorn Lomborg, (2001) The Skeptical environmentalist How much does CO2 affect the temperature?
(pp.265 to 266)

How much does CO2 affect the temperature? - Particles - Water vapour

Bjorn Lomborg, (2001) The Skeptical environmentalist Consequences: sea level rise(pp. 289 to 291)
- Land ice melts contributes of SLR - Thermal expansion of water within the oceans contributes of SLR

The number of people at risk is unreasonable: IPCC neglected the improvement in sea protection and so the number of people in risk areas increases with the total population. The IPCC assumption evolving protection only includes measures that would be implemented without sea level rise is not reasonable

Debates
The IPCC Debate on Sea Level Rise: Critical Stakes for Poor Countries (David Wheeler, Feb 2, 2007), Page 1:

The experts continued arguing about the Greenland and West Antarctica. 80% of 300 million people live less than 5 meters above sea level are in developing countries. The high-risk red zone such as Egypt and Vietnam and low-lying island nations and coastal areas of other countries. In Vietnam, 38% of the countrys population, 36% of its GDP, and 87% of its wetlands located at less than 5 meters above sea level.

GPS Aids in Sea Level Rise Debate, World Climate Report February 9, 2010
IPCC with Glacial-Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) corrected: Over the 1961 to 2003 period, the average rate of global mean sea level rise is estimated from tide gauge data to be 1.8 0.5 mm yr1. Wppelmann with GPS corrected: Sea level rise of 1.61 0.19 mm/yr over the past century Measuring sea level changes is more difficult than one might think, and uncertainties abound The origin of the differences lies in the methods used to correct the tide gauge records for vertical displacements of the land upon which they are located.

Decadal rate of sea level rise from satellites (red curve) appended to the decadal rate of global sea level rise as determined from a 9-station tide gauge network for the period 1904-2003 (blue curve) and from a 177station tide gauge network for the period 1948-2002 (adapted from Holgate, 2007).

The change in the net relative sea level trend in mm/year between June 2008 and June 2009 (National Tidal Centre, Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Government, 2009)

Response to climate change and SLR

Source: Copenhagen Consensus

Case study: Mekong Delta in Vietnam Adaptation to Sea Level Rise

Six Climate Threats Top 12 Countries Most at Risk

Drought Malawi Ethiopia Zimbabwe India Mozambique Niger Mauritania Eritrea Sudan Chad Kenya Iran Flood Bangladesh China India Cambodia Mozambique Laos Pakistan Sri Lanka Thailand Vietnam Benin Rwanda Storm Philippines Bangladesh Madagascar Vietnam Moldova Mongolia Haiti Samoa Tonga China Honduras Fiji Coastal 1m All low-lying Island states Vietnam Egypt Tunisia Indonesia Mauritania China Mexico Myanmar Bangladesh Senegal Libya Agriculture Sudan Senegal Zimbabwe Mali Zambia Morocco Niger India Malawi Algeria Ethiopia Pakistan Source: World Bank, 2008

Sea level rise scenarios in Mekong Delta

Sea Level Rise Scenario 1 65 cm Scenario 2 75 cm Scenario 3 100 cm Inundated areas 5,133 km2 (12.8%) 5,780 km2 (19%) 15,116 km2 (37.8%)

Source: Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Vietnam, 2009

Adaptation to Sea Level Rise

Governments responses: - Policies: Law, strategy, legal document - Living with flood policy

- Dyke systems - Technology and knowledge support for weather forecast, new seeds, climate change scenarios.

Adaptation to Sea Level Rise

Farmers responses:
- Shifting from Agriculture to Aquaculture

- Bamboo stilts and mangrove planting

Flood-Escaping Communities or People Clusters

The story of a monkey