“Chasing Ice” Catches Up to Earth’s Changing Climate

By Elisabeth A. Cohen, MPA candidate 2012

It’s probably hard to imagine all of Manhattan tumbling into the Hudson River and washing away in less than five minutes, but that’s the equivalent of what you’ll see in the film “Chasing Ice,” as a city’s worth of towering icebergs collapse violently into the ocean — and that’s just one of countless spectacular images that flash across the screen in this astonishing documentary by director and cinematographer Jeff Orlowski, which premiered at Sundance in January and is opening at SXSW this week. 

The film is a documentary about a documentarian — a scientist-turned photographer named James Balog, whose obsession with images of ice has gotten him into the pages of The New Yorker and National Geographic. Despite his training as a geographer and geomorphologist, Balog was stunned to see how fast some of the glaciers that he shot were receding in the face of global warming. So he decided to create a long-term photography project he called the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), which he hoped would merge art and science into a compelling story in pictures about what humans are doing to the climate.

A layer of cryoconite, dust which absorbs solar radiation, melting the snow, at the bottom of a Greenland Ice Sheet channel, July 2009. Credit: James Balog/Extreme Ice Survey. 

Originally, Balog planned to set up two time-lapse cameras to photograph glaciers, but within a few weeks his ambition had grown: he bought 23 more cameras, then assembled a team of 30 scientific experts, engineers, and photographers to help him carry out his vision.  Balog also asked Orlowski to film the project. “I wanted to work with James in some capacity,” said Orlowski, and the collaboration turned into “Chasing Ice.”

The movie is nothing short of spectacular. As you watch, you can see how Balog and his team set up all of those cameras on three continents, in places including Alaska, the Rockies, Greenland, Iceland, and Mt. Everest.  The team worked in below-freezing temperatures and high winds, rigged cameras to the sides of cliffs, and programmed them to take automatic photos every half-hour, powered by solar panels.  In total, they captured more than a million glacier portraits over five years.  “Without a doubt,” Orloski said, “this has been the most challenging project in my life.”

The same is clearly true for Balog and the rest of the team, but the photos they brought back are incredibly valuable. It’s one thing to see an image of a single retreating glacier, but Balog’s cameras recorded dramatic changes in glaciers around the world.  The Columbia glacier in Alaska is just one striking example. Since 1984, the Columbia has deflated by a thickness equivalent to height of the Empire State Building. Over the life of the project, it retreated so quickly that to keep the edge of the glacier in the frame, the team had to keep returning to adjust the camera’s angle. “We never expected to see the glaciers change as much as we’ve seen,” Orlowski said. “That was the most shocking part for us.”

On one trip to Alaska, Orlowski recalled, “there are entire areas where we spent days and days climbing on ice, using our ice tools, and going up and down parts of the glacier. When we revisited them, all that ice was gone. The landscape looks so different that you almost don’t recognize it . . . that giant playground, that world of ice we were pretty much living on for a week, is completely gone.”

For the director, the experience was eye-opening.  “We think of glaciers as being part of geologic time,” he said, “something that happens over centuries and thousands of years.” What Balog has shown so vividly, he said, is that in a warming world, this conception is completely out of date.

On the other side of North America, in Greenland, Orlowski and project engineer Adam LeWinter stood watch in frigid conditions waiting for the end of a massive tidewater glacier to break off into the sea — a calving event, a glaciologist would call it. Finally, on the 17^th day, it happened. With nine cameras rolling, they recorded a chunk of ice some 400 feet deep and three miles wide calve off of the Ilulissat Glacier — and in a little more than an hour, the glacier continued disintegrating until it had retreated a total of about 1 mile. The block of ice that retreated and broke off into the ocean could have fit about 3,000 U.S. Capital buildings in it. Orlowski and his team condensed this event into a 3-minute clip that was, to put it simply, awesome.  For Orlowski, watching this live “was a life-changing event. Adam [the engineer] and I were the only two there and we felt we were watching history unfolding in front of us.”

James Balog hangs off a cliff near Columbia Glacier, Alaska to install a time-lapse camera. Credit: Tad Pfeffer/Extreme Ice Survey. 

“Chasing Ice” has lots of this natural drama, but there’s plenty of human drama as well. A couple of years into the project, for example, Balog had surgery on his knee. He opted for a procedure that had a quicker recovery time, so he could get back into the field faster, but it wasn’t as effective in the long run. His doctor ordered him to quit ice climbing — an order he promptly ignored. One night Balog even walked out onto the ice on crutches to capture one of Orlowski’s favorite photos of the entire project.  There are also lots of action scenes, with members of the team rappelling into gaping crevasses, making the movie a cross between a frozen “Planet Earth” and an action film.  In fact, “Chasing Ice” won the best adventure film award at the Boulder International Film Festival.

What is perhaps most surprising about the film is that Balog used to be a climate skeptic. He explains how he once thought that climate change theory was based solely on computer models, where in fact it’s based on scientific measurements of both modern and ancient climates. Once Balog learned that tree rings, sea floor sediments, and ice core data were showing that the climate is warming on average, he changed his mind. Orlowski’s film about Balog could, in turn, change the mind of other climate skeptics. One thing that struck me, however, was that although the evidence of climate change is overwhelming in “Chasing Ice,” there’s very little about slowing or stopping the planet from warming. 

It is hard to decide whether the jaw-dropping imagery or the climate-change messages in this film were more compelling. But it’s  no surprise that the film received the “Excellence in Cinematography Award: U.S. Documentary” during the 2012 Sundance film festival. In at least one screening at the Sundance Film Festival, the audience leapt to its feet cheering.

To do this film justice, go see it on the big screen.  The next opportunity to see the film is at the South by Southwest (SXSW) arts and music festival in Austin, TX the second week of March. The TV rights to “Chasing Ice” have been acquired by the National Geographic Channel and its website says a theatrical partner will follow shortly. To find out more see  National Geographic Channel Takes 'Chasing Ice' and visit the movie’s website. For “Chasing Ice” movie show times at SXSW click here.

* This article is reposted, with permission, from Climate Central. 

Separating the Tree from the Forest: Tackling deforestation independently to make progress on climate change

Jessica Duncan, MPA


In early 2007, there was a palpable sense of a growing global consensus on the need for a multilateral climate change agreement. US presidential candidates were discussing their plans for domestic legislation, many European nations had already enacted ambitious policies, and the Chinese government had declared pollution – carbon emissions included – as a top priority. However, the 2008 financial crash and the resulting credit crunch, falling gas prices, and a return to protectionism quickly wiped out both capital and political will for the climate change agenda. At the time, commentators said it would take a year for the economy to bounce back and climate change would again return to the docket. President Obama and others spoke of the opportunity presented by clean energy industries to foster, rather than limit, American economic growth.

Four years since that cautiously optimistic time, and few of the predictions have come true. Indeed, climate change has all has absolutely disappeared from Washington. While American politics on energy have often been fickle, European’s sudden silence on climate change is more surprising. Across the globe, it appears that multilateral environmental agreements couldn’t be further from political leaders’ priorities.

In this political and economic context, what is the most productive next step to foster international climate change consensus? If we assume that something should be done on climate change but realize carbon pricing simply will not be implemented in the current economic climate, what do we do?

Way Ahead: Divide and Conquer
The most influential forum for climate policy, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), should take areas of growing consensus and separate negotiations and policies on these issues from the broader UN international climate change process, e.g. deforestation and technology transfer policies. (This article will focus on the former.) While far from ideal, this pragmatic division of labor will enable the US and other major emitters to invest in components of the climate policy that do not threaten their domestic economies in such a rough economic time. They can work aggressively on these areas until their domestic politics and economies better align to allow stronger mitigation policies in the future.

With regard to deforestation policy, in recent rounds of UN climate talks there has been remarkable convergence of international opinion on its importance, including the launch of the United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) program to better coordinate UN efforts to combat climate change by providing incentives to decrease deforestation. However, these promising developments have been overshadowed by the lack of movement in other areas of climate change policy and by the ongoing turbulence of the global economy. Overall, leaders have been prevented from doing all they can in this area because of a larger stalemate around carbon pricing and binding emissions cuts. A division of the international negotiation process that tackles deforestation policy separately will capitalize on positive developments even when countries remain at different ends of the table on other issues.

What can be done on deforestation alone?
Deforestation accounts for an estimated 20% of global carbon emissions each year. Slowing emissions from the destruction of forests will help keep global emissions at sustainable levels even if there is delayed action on more contentious areas of mitigation. While it may take decades to stop reliance on fossil fuel, it is possible to slow or halt deforestation far sooner. Reforestation also presents a very cost-effective opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with far greater returns on each dollar invested than most other mitigation options. In addition, deforestation should be separated from the broader climate agenda because it has potential to alter regional and international economic and political landscapes by giving developing countries, from Indonesia to Congo to Brazil, massive value in their forests. If these new carbon assets are managed correctly, so that current incentives are reversed and forests are more valuable left standing than cut down, carbon sinks – reservoirs that store carbon, removing it from the atmosphere – could become a tremendous resource for the populations of these developing nations. However, if they are poorly regulated, carbon sinks could feed corruption, giving governments leverage which could disrupt geopolitical relations and even potentially drive conflict. It is vital for the international community to establish sound deforestation policies now since it will be far harder to reform them down the line.

Summary
The UNFCCC should separate deforestation policy from a broader post-Kyoto agreement for the following reasons:

• Effective international regulation in these areas is essential to cut global greenhouse emissions at the scale and with the urgency dictated by science – it’s more important than ever to protect carbon sinks since we have been unable to cut carbon emissions.
• Regulation of these areas will provide opportunities for developing nations to profit from the climate agenda rather than be burdened by it.
• As deforestation policy helps emerging economies become more invested in the international climate agenda, these nations may become more willing and able to take on binding emissions reductions targets.

Success on reforestation will not only cut global emissions in the near-term, but it will also – perhaps even more importantly – feed back into, strengthen, and drive progress on a more comprehensive global environmental negotiation in the future.

Chugga Chugga Moo Moo: Developing Cow Power

Carol Lu, MPA


While solar and wind power have become synonymous with renewable energy, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made it a priority to support the commercialization of a much less glamorous source of energy – dairy biogas from digester systems. Biogas (bio-gas) is gas produced by the biological breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen, and digester systems are industrial structures designed to capture that material. Located on the dairy farms themselves, digesters capture biogas from manure, transforming waste to energy. These systems benefit the environment by reducing water pollution from nutrient run-off. And, they represent a potential business opportunity. Even in this win-win situation, the current nascent digester industry is not economically sustainable: electricity sales to the wholesale market don’t justify capital costs. Entrepreneurs may make inroads to costs through “learning” on operations, but more is needed to push the industry toward profitability.

As a key environmental player with strong connections to local regulatory agencies and regulated entities, the EPA can help to increase digester project revenues in two ways:

• Reduce barriers to co-digestion. Because restaurant grease has high energy potential, co-digestion of these wastes with manure would allow projects to generate double or triple the electricity at nearly the same costs. In addition, digester developers could charge restaurants a tipping fee to dispose of their grease. These additional revenue streams could make a project profitable. Unfortunately, co-digestion in areas like California is nearly impossible because of strict environmental permitting standards. The EPA should work with local agencies to develop a fast-tracked permitting exception for diary digester projects in states where co-digestion is not permitted.

• Facilitate direct partnerships between large electricity end-users and digester projects. By directly providing electricity to an end-user rather than selling electricity to the wholesale market, a project developer is able to obtain a higher price for its renewable energy. Higher prices mean higher revenues. As an agency that regulates both large industrial electricity users and small dairies, the EPA is in a unique position to match these parties together. Thus, the EPA should develop an internal process in which those that work with large electricity users in the air permitting office collaborate with those that work with dairies in the water and agriculture offices. With sufficient support from the top, this intra-agency working group has the potential to bridge this critical gap.

With California’s cap-and-trade program rolling out in 2013, dairy digester projects across the United States may be able to supplement electricity revenues with compliance-offset revenues. Eight percent of emissions reductions by entities regulated under the cap may come from offsets, and livestock manure projects are one of the four approved offset project types. While there are many other factors to ensuring sustained deployment of dairy digester technology, increasing revenue potential is a vital first step.

African Energy Access: Is China a game-changer?

Phillip M. Hannam, PhD candidate


This summer in Nairobi, Kenya, I would often go vegetable shopping at a local open-air market. To my surprise, many of the vendors – native Kenyans – spoke Mandarin with the Chinese clientele, who had a distinct presence throughout the market. Nearby, massive concrete pillars and cantilevered steel beams rising above the city – the first elevated highway system in Kenya, courtesy of China – are a visible manifestation of growing development cooperation between China and Africa. Many Chinese and African scholars regard these investments as “win-win” partnerships, though Chinese state-owned institutions have also garnered criticism over resource interests and the disregard of humanitarian and environmental concerns in project planning.[1]

Beyond highways, hospitals, municipal water and waste systems, stadiums, and government buildings, China is also heavily invested in Africa’s electricity generation infrastructure. The scale of China’s involvement could provide electricity to millions in Africa who need it. And the energy could be renewable. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Seychelles, Jean-Paul Adam, recently expressed his optimism to the UN General Assembly:

“China and Africa have an ideal opportunity to work together to set an example for the world on best practices [in] eco-friendly technology transfer, to enhance the development of renewable energy.”[2]

Approximately 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity globally, and one billion more have unreliable electricity access.[3] Lack of modern energy services impairs attainment of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The World Bank predicts that an underperforming energy system results in a loss of 1-2% of annual economic growth potential.[4] Yet of the US$35-40 billion needed annually from now until 2030 to achieve universal energy access, only about 5% of this amount is expected through traditional development institutions. At this rate, the proportion of people with energy access is unlikely to improve significantly by 2030, the year the UN has called for universal access to modern energy services. Thus, China’s energy investments around the world – though hardly altruistic – could still help bring this goal into reach.

It is too early to tell if China’s investments in Africa will significantly change the outlook for the people of this resource-rich, but chronically energy-poor, continent. Nonetheless, I posit a few initial observations, expanded below:

1. China is a new major player in Africa’s electricity sector: China’s presence in a range of renewable energies across the continent is welcome from the standpoint of increasing energy access and helping to achieve the UN MDGs. Unfortunately, the vast majority is in hydropower, which carries its own deleterious baggage.
2. China views Africa as a growth market: Chinese companies see Africa as a new frontier for renewable energy – using China’s domestically-honed comparative advantages in solar, wind, and hydropower technology to employ Chinese firms, open market opportunities, and base manufacturing capacity within Africa. Western companies reticent to invest in Africa may miss emerging opportunities for renewable energy across the continent.
3. The World Bank is shifting away from coal. China’s focus is likewise migrating to renewables: Chinese energy investments closely parallel those at the World Bank, where the focus is (slowly) shifting away from coal. While this unfortunately means a lot of new hydropower, it could also mean a lower coal and carbon trajectory for African development.

1. China is a new major player for African energy access: According to a study by the World Bank, 34% of Chinese investments in African infrastructure are in electricity.[5] Of this, the vast majority is hydropower. A watchdog group, International Rivers, reports that Chinese financial institutions are building over 250 hydropower projects across the developing world, mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia. Large hydropower projects, on the scale that China builds them, are highly controversial. Chinese dams in Ethiopia, Sudan, Ghana, and elsewhere face intense opposition because of ecosystem damage and displacement of indigenous groups. Chinese developers remain unapologetic, and most African policymakers support the projects. The Gibe III project on the Omo River in Ethiopia, as one example, will provide 1,800MW of electricity – effectively doubling Ethiopia’s generating capacity.[6] The energy access provided by the project is weighted against the dam’s impact on hundreds of thousands of people who rely on the Omo River and its ecosystems for their livelihoods.[7]

Better governance of international development cooperation could make such projects more tolerable. The World Commission on Dams delineates how large hydropower may be sustainable in an environmental, social, and economic context, though the recommendations have largely been dismissed by Chinese developers (and the World Bank, for that matter).

Fortunately, China is investing beyond hydropower. China Longyuan Power Group is investing in several wind power projects in South Africa, on the scale of 100MW.[8] Hydrochina International Engineering Company is building wind farms at two sites in Ethiopia. Another Chinese state-owned company, Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., is supplying the wind turbines for the project.[9] A subsidiary of Chinese oil giant Sinopec has invested US$18.7 million to develop geothermal power potential across Kenya and the Rift Valley. China is also emerging in Africa’s nuclear power sector, exporting its domestic nuclear technology. China National Nuclear Corporation is considering developing a new nuclear power station in collaboration with South Africa. A Chinese-built nuclear power station is also under discussion for east Africa.[10]

2. China views Africa as a growth market: Beyond building new power stations, Chinese firms are investing in renewable energy manufacturing across Africa. Western solar power companies were active in the Kenyan market in the 1990s, but most pulled out due to high costs and low sales.[11] Today, the African renewables market is changing. Policies to incentivize grid-connected solar power are being considered in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. For now, all solar panels demanded in Africa must be shipped from outside the continent – a financial and logistical problem that stifles growth of the industry.

China’s Tianpu Xianxing Enterprises, a prominent Chinese integrated solar manufacturer with exports around the world, is negotiating a major manufacturing hub in Nairobi. By creating a production base within Africa, shipping costs would be reduced and sale prices for panels may drop from US$310 to US$77 for a typical home system.[12]

In 2010, Suntech, China’s largest solar panel manufacturer, began investing several hundred million US dollars in a manufacturing base in South Africa capable of producing 100MW of capacity annually. The plant is expected to supply the growing South African solar market, which some analysts predict could reach US$1 billion annually. The creation of a manufacturing base within Africa increases the potential for skilled-job creation and technology transfer – desperately needed for the development of Africa’s fledgling electricity sector. It could also keep educated Africans from fleeing to jobs outside the region, as manufacturers within Africa put a premium on local skilled labor and technical skills.

3. Trends in Chinese investments following the World Bank: The World Bank has come under intense scrutiny in recent years regarding its role in financing large carbon intensive projects in energy and extractive industries. Coal is oftentimes the cheapest option when the price of carbon isn’t internalized. As a concession to international pressure, in 2011 the World Bank strictly limited future lending for coal power to the very poorest (non-IDA countries) countries. The World Bank’s energy strategy supports hydropower explicitly, calling it low-carbon electricity (though much evidence contests this) and noting that 90% of the hydropower resource in sub-Saharan Africa remains undeveloped.

Given China’s experience with coal domestically (which supplies 80% of Chinese electricity), Chinese investment in coal projects globally could fill the void left by the Bank’s exit from coal power in some countries. While no complete database exists of Chinese international projects, my own research indicates that Chinese firms have been involved in roughly 4GW of fossil power in Africa since 2000. China has several coal projects in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Senegal, and Botswana, as well as natural gas projects in Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana.[13]

Encouragingly, none of these projects were announced in the past two years, while most of the non-hydro renewable energy projects mentioned above were initiated during that time. It remains to be seen how China’s investment portfolio will change as a result of World Bank policy, but for now I am optimistic that China is investigating opportunities beyond hydropower and coal for its African energy investments.

Conclusion
Renewable energy is playing a growing role in Africa. China is a champion of this trend, particularly as it explores investing in renewable energy manufacturing capacity in southern and eastern Africa. Western firms remain largely absent in this market. Indeed, it appears that in the arena of development aid and development finance – once dominated by western powers – China is increasingly emerging as a leading player.

While huge investments in hydropower are disastrous for biodiversity and have significant human impacts, the electricity generated bodes well for energy access goals. Moreover, while China frequently comes under direct criticism for its development projects, China’s energy investment portfolio seems to be consistent with that of the World Bank. Stronger institutions are needed to ensure that large scale projects, whether invested by China or Western institutions, maximize benefits while eliminating humanitarian and environmental costs to the extent possible.


---------------------
References:

[1] Deborah Brautigam at American University is particularly fair and thorough in her treatment of China’s engagements in Africa. Visit her blog here.
[2] UN 65th Session. Quote from AE-Africa (27 September 2010). Link.
[3] International Energy Agency (2010). “World Energy Outlook”. Executive Summary. Link
[4] World Bank (2009). “Africa’s infrastructure, a time for transformation.” World Bank Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic.
[5] Foster, V., Butterfield, W., Chen, C. and Pushak, N. (2009). “Building Bridges: China’s Growing Role as Infrastructure Financer for Sub-Saharan Africa”. Trends and Policy Options, No.5. Link
[6] BBC, 26 March 2009: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7959444.stm
[7] Last month’s decision by the Burmese Government to shelve the $3.6 billion Myitsone hydropower project being developed by a Chinese parastatal company was celebrated as a victory for local and international activists. Yet by most guesses, Chinese hydropower investment will continue unabated.
[8] Wee, S. and Walet, L. (26 August 2010). “UPDATE 1-Suntech signs MOU to build S.Africa solar plants.” Reuters. Link.
[9] iStockAnalyst (10 January 2011). “Goldwind signs wind poer equipment contract with HydroChina in Ethiopia.” Link.
[10] Reuters (25 May 2011). “China interested in building nuclear power plant in E.Africa, IBI Corp says” Alertnet. Link.
[11] Japan is an exception to recent Western neglect of the African solar market. Japan donated US$7.4 million to Morocco to build a 1MW PV installation, another US$13.7 million for a 1MW station in Botswana, and a grant to Malawi for construction of a solar array on the Kamuzu International airport (AE-Africa 2010b).
[12] Disenyana, T. (February 2009). “China in the African Solar Energy Sector: Kenya Case Study.” South African Institute of International Affairs: Occassional Paper No.25 – China in Africa Project. Link.
[13] Foster, V., Butterfield, W., Chen, C. and Pushak, N. (2009). “Building Bridges: China’s Growing Role as Infrastructure Financer for Sub-Saharan Africa.” Trends and Policy Options, No.5. Link.; Macauhub (13 June 2006). "China’s CITIC to finance Brazilian thermoelectric power plant in Rio Grande do Sul." Link.

Africa for Africans? State-sanctioned foreign “land grabs” in Ethiopia

Feker Tadesse, MPA


Coming back to Princeton from JFK airport, an Indian gentleman struck up a conversation with me, inquiring where I was from. When I told him I was from Ethiopia, he proceeded to talk positively about the recent developments in the country, particularly leasing of land to foreign investors. Relieved as I was that the mention of “Ethiopia” didn’t automatically prompt him to lament about droughts and famine, nevertheless I was hard pressed to share his optimism for what’s been dubbed “The Land Grab of Africa.”

The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, recently expounded on what leasing land to foreign investors would mean to the country’s economy. His argument was simple enough: there was plenty of idle land in the countryside that communities had neither agricultural nor settlement use for. Hence, foreign investors would transfer technology, create jobs for the locales, and increase government revenue. Thus far, some regions such as Benishangul Gumuz have leased around 2 million hectares to Saudi investors.

Critics are quick to point out the irony of a country that is dependent on food aid leasing out masses of fertile land so that countries like Saudi Arabia can ensure national food security. Moreover, the premise that the land being leased is idle land is under strong scrutiny. Stories regarding displacement of local populations have been circulating in the media. Secondly, environmental degradation is a real concern, particularly with the introduction of intensive agricultural ventures like horticulture that leave the land no longer viable for agricultural purposes. Finally, the prime minister’s argument that the agricultural sector in Ethiopia will not grow unless large scale mechanized farms come to its rescue is far from convincing. There are countless studies that claim quite the opposite: increasing the productivity of smallholder farmers is by far a better strategy to tackle rural poverty.

Given that the “land grab” issue is fairly recent, there is a lack of clear information on what exactly is taking place on the ground. While the PM’s arguments make sense theoretically, if recent allegations, particularly those on displacement of the local population hold true, this can hardly be praised as a government’s initiative towards foreign direct investment.

Disaster risk reduction: Africa’s development challenge

Carolyn Edelstein, MPA


Natural disasters happen. When, where, and how disasters strike is hard to forecast, but they occur often, and increasingly so. Usually, we try to mitigate disasters by shoring up our defenses, mostly through large-scale engineering feats. We apply similar strategies everywhere in the world, regardless of local conditions.

Problematically, this concept of disaster management leaves little room for human agency, and tends to over-rely on skills and resources unavailable in many parts of the developing world. But there is a new conception of disaster management, and the change highlights the need for professionals in developing countries—Africa especially—to generate their own solutions.

The last two decades have witnessed an emerging paradigm of “disaster risk reduction.” It contends that disasters are not just events to which we should respond, but rather the result of human vulnerabilities to environmental hazards in local contexts. The roots of vulnerability may be a matter of an individual’s characteristics, like old age or a disability, or may have structural causes: a lack of affordable housing, poor government service provision, and high crime rates; at a macro level, the legacies of colonialism, the global economic system, and so on. The explanations for vulnerability—and people’s strategies for overcoming vulnerability—quickly grow complex.

As such, disaster risk reduction demands a highly contextualized response. Researchers partner with residents of localities to identify hazards, vulnerabilities, and sources of resilience. Data-gathering and fine-resolution mapping inform local risk management practices. Disaster risk reduction heavily emphasizes preparation and adaptation, not just post-disaster relief. Such efforts are most successful when they incorporate an understanding of existing practices and perceptions. Who better to conduct the work than resident scholars and practitioners?

There is a blanket need for more research, especially in Africa. Existing work has focused on Asia and Latin America, though the need to understand the African context is clear. In spite of rising disaster incidence, deaths from natural disasters have been decreasing everywhere but in Africa. Elsewhere, sudden-onset crises prevail. Africa, by contrast, experiences “creeping emergencies,” when slow-onset hazards like droughts become unmanageable, or when underlying challenges like HIV/AIDS and malnutrition turn a relatively small event catastrophic. In this context, the typical emergency relief-based response to disasters proves less effective than preventative disaster risk reduction approaches.

Not only are relief efforts less helpful, but development suffers when plans ignore local risks. Mozambique offers an illustrative example of this inefficiency. There, the World Bank financed the construction of 487 schools over twenty years, but just one disaster, the floods of 2000, damaged or destroyed roughly 500 primary schools alone. The World Bank, Red Cross, and others have shown that every dollar invested in preventative risk reduction measures saves between $2 and $10 in disaster losses.

To encourage uptake of disaster reduction in development, the UN declared the 1990s the “International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.” In 2005, 164 member nations signed the Hyogo Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, pledging to build a risk reduction approach into disaster management and development.

And yet, myopia persists amongst development agencies. The World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group found that disasters are “still sometimes treated as an interruption in development rather than as a risk to development.” Forty-four percent of current World Bank-supported country assistance strategies make no mention of disasters. More broadly, 96% of disaster-related assistance from the industrialized world still comes solely as emergency relief.

Better information may improve vulnerability reduction efforts, with added developmental benefits if Africans drive the effort themselves. Despite potential advantages of an African-led research initiative, the continent’s scholars produced only two of the African disaster risk-related research papers published in 2008. There were also few African programs for educating and training disaster management practitioners.

Early signs exist of a growing Africa-based field of study. A network of ten universities across the continent has started graduate-level programs in disaster risk science. Called Peri-Peri U, they model themselves after a research center based at the University of Cape Town, which primarily uses community-level risk assessments and spatial data mapping to analyze the vulnerability. The unit has the ear of government officials, community organizers, and a growing number of Southern African graduate students.

In 2011, the Peri-Peri network will seek renewed funding from the US Agency for International Development. Program reviews have consistently demonstrated positive yields of the new research centers for disaster management, and certainly for the emergence of a new generation of African-trained researchers, planners, and practitioners. With increased support, the local scholarship program can be scaled up and better tackle the urgent need to increase African preparedness to disaster risks.

Rot in my backyard: The importance of engaging with communities hosting nuclear power plants

Sophia Peters, MPA


More than a month after the devastating earthquake and near meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, on April 22nd the Japanese government finally imposed a mandatory evacuation zone of 12 miles surrounding the plant. Those who lived near the damaged plant flocked to the area before the midnight deadline, collecting whatever they could to bring into their new lives.[1] Some remain, refusing to change the way they have lived for decades.

As the cleanup begins, now is a good time to reflect on the relationship between communities and the nuclear power plants they host.

It was only on April 12th that Japanese officials raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant to the highest level possible on the international nuclear disaster scale – on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. An official from Tokyo Electric Power Company stated that “the amount of leakage could eventually reach that of Chernobyl or exceed it.”[2] This reality check reinforced the sense that this nuclear emergency will persist longer and cause more problems than first predicted by the government, which had consistently downplayed long-term safety concerns. The Japanese government’s hesitation to be clear about their level of knowledge of what was occurring at the Fukushima plant has troubling implications for the area’s residents and sets a dangerous precedent for how nuclear energy agencies engage with host communities.

The Japanese government owes the local community a rational and reasoned assessment of the impacts of the destabilized reactors and spent fuel storage containers. Yet while the US and Australian governments advised their citizens to remain 50 miles away from the plant and the IAEA issued repeated warnings to expand the evacuation zone, Japan had had consistently refused to do so.[3] Furthermore, officials refuse to admit their confusion as to how much nuclear fuel was released in the initial hydrogen explosions and whether radioactive fuel is leaking into the containment structures.[4] When government officials do engage with the community to share facts about the situation at the plant, they do so by presenting raw data without any explanation of its practical relevance.[5] This has serious and dangerous consequences for the community surrounding the plant.

This behavior is consistent with a larger pattern on the part of the international nuclear industry and its supporters to shield the full truth from communities that host nuclear power plants and a refusal to talk candidly about the risks, costs, and implications of living near a nuclear facility. This originates from the belief of nuclear engineers and utility managers that the less the community knows, the more likely it is to accept the siting of a nuclear facility. Unfortunately, this could not be farther from the truth. From Yucca Mountain in Nevada to Anmyeon Island in South Korea, history has shown repeatedly that this is not the case.

But it does not have to be this way. In fact, recent events show that engaging with the community facilitates the construction of the nuclear power plant or the spent fuel repository. In South Korea, the government was able to site a low and intermediate nuclear waste repository in Wolsong province with a near-90% local approval rate.[6] In Finland, the government entered into an extended dialogue and candid negotiation with several communities in order to find a host for its spent fuel final repository. It was eventually sited in Eurajoki, where it was met with widespread community support and a 20-7 vote in favor of its construction by the local council. Together with Sweden, these two Nordic countries are the only ones that have been able to site final waste repositories.

Barring any major breakthroughs, we will have to heavily utilize nuclear power if we want to avert the unjust and unequal consequences of global climate change. There is no other energy technology that can compete economically with coal as a base load power substitute. But in the world of nuclear physicists and mechanical engineers, conversations about Fukushima still center on the location of the liquid storage pool and the technical specifications of the reactor casing. We need to remember that the reason we care about these important scientific details is because of the impact that they have on the community that houses the nuclear power plant and the people throughout the country that depend on nuclear energy as a source of power. Helping ensure that these communities benefit from hosting power plants, mitigating the risks they could potentially suffer from being close to radioactive waste, and prioritizing their needs in the rare case of a terrible accident should be the focus of policymakers hoping to expand nuclear power in the future.


Editor’s Note: You can read more about this subject in “A Proposal for Spent-fuel Management Policy in East Asia,” a WWS graduate policy workshop final report on current and future spent-fuel management policy in China, Japan, and South Korea. Unfortunately, this work has become more relevant today than when the project began. Available here.

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References:
[1] Andrew Pollack, “Japanese Visit the Nuclear Zone While They Can,” New York Times, April 21, 2011.
[2] Chico Harlan, “Japan Rates Nuclear Crisis at Highest Severity Level,” Washington Post, April 12, 2011.
[3] Hiroko Tabuchi and Keith Bradsher, “Japan Put on Par with Chernobyl,” New York Times, April 12, 2011.
[4] Hiroko Tabuchi and Keith Bradsher, “Lack of Data Heightens Japan’s Nuclear Crisis,” New York Times, April 8, 2011.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Nuclear Power in South Korea,” World Nuclear Association, March 2011.

Confronting climate change: Not just carbon dioxide

Matt Frades, MPA


When you think about avoiding dangerous climate change, what comes to mind? Thanks to a decade of climate education efforts, much of the public is now aware of the scientific consensus on the need for reductions in global emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2). Awareness of carbon dioxide’s role in the climate is a crucial step towards building support for policies that address climate change. However, while carbon dioxide is the most important climate warmer, it is not the only player that demands attention.

The full story of how humans affect Earth’s climate is complicated, multi-faceted, and involves some uncertainty (just like everything else in life). The most popular climate change messaging is simple and short enough to tweet: “We need to reduce emissions of CO2, a greenhouse gas, in order to avoid dangerous climate change.” While this message goes a long way, a slightly more nuanced and accurate view is apropos: “We need to address a variety of human activities, including the emission of various greenhouse substances to the atmosphere—the most prominent of which is CO2—in order to avoid dangerous climate change.” At 200 characters, this revised message may be over the sacred Twitter limit, but the extra words are worth it. Here’s why:

• climate warmers other than CO2 are responsible for between 30 and 60 percent of human-caused warming (depending on how you choose to account for future warming), and
• addressing climate warmers other than CO2 presents opportunities to meaningfully address climate change right away, despite the present political and fiscal constraints.

The human-caused climate warmers are diverse, including methane from agriculture and landfills, black carbon particles emitted from vehicles, gases used to make foams and semiconductors, gases contained in air-conditioners and refrigerators, the lightness or darkness of manmade surfaces like rooftops, and others. Acknowledging the true diversity of mankind’s impacts on the climate compels us to address a broad set of human activities that significantly warm the planet but propitiously it also provides policymakers with a more diverse set of politically-feasible policy opportunities to address climate change in the short term.


Editor’s Note: You can read more about this subject in “Complements to Carbon: Opportunities for Near-Term Action on Non-CO2 Climate Forcers,” a WWS graduate policy workshop final report presented to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, identifying domestic and international fast-action strategies that are available under current agency authority to address non-CO2 climate warmers. Available here.

Tirade for a smoggy day: The hidden costs of endless consumption

Katherine Manchester MPA


The psychoanalytic term “cathexis” refers to a process of attachment where we come to think of material goods as extensions of ourselves. Today’s American consumer culture – where even national parks are commodities for those vacationers who can afford them – might be described in this way. Starting in the 1950s, when wartime efficiency in manufacturing turned from supplying military needs to supplying civilian wants, government policies have intervened to make sure that demand keeps up with supply. Financial incentives subsidize the cost of housing, cars, and household appliances, recasting consumption as patriotic and necessary for economic growth, while allowing industrialists to engineer built-in obsolescence into their products.

With increased consumption and disposability comes increased pollution: the average American is now responsible for 20 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, five times the emissions of the average person on the planet. The impact of American consumption habits on the world is two-fold: (1) affecting the global environment through disproportionately heavy resource use, of which most of the resulting pollutants are externalized; and (2) modeling an affluent lifestyle that we admit is unsustainable on a global scale, yet while refusing to alter our own behavior.

On one hand, the nature of American production systems makes it all too easy for decision makers to ignore many of their environmentally harmful impacts.* On the domestic level, having power plants physically removed from urban areas, combined with utility subsidies and electricity’s “clean” appearance at the point of consumption, propagate misconceptions about the abundance and low price of using fossil fuels. On the international level, increasingly globalized production chains disguise the real costs of manufacturing these products.

On the other hand, even when we are aware of industry’s impacts, we are more than willing to defray those costs to the developing world. In a leaked memo in 1991, the ever-quotable Larry Summers, then chief economist for the World Bank, mused over the “impeccable economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country.” Why, he questioned, should toxic chemical waste not be disposed of in “under-polluted” regions such as Africa? Couldn’t that serve as their comparative advantage in global trade? Attitudes of this sort within the leadership hamper the realization that the United States exists within a closed system of finite resources, and that significant changes are needed to maintain a comfortable standard of living in the long term.    

Inspired by our terrible example, many in the developing world are striving to reach such a quality of life. Over one billion people from developing countries, 41% of them in China and India, have recently joined the ranks of established OECD consumers. These new consumers own virtually all of their respective countries’ cars and are adopting resource-intensive preferences such as a meat-heavy diet and increased use of electricity. These preferences have already had global impacts, such as the recent increase in the price of grain due to pressure on international markets.

Granted, a major difference between consumption in the 1950s and today is the contribution of technological innovation for increased production efficiency. But even as energy intensity has fallen, consumption in absolute terms has soared, with worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide growing at an average of 3% annually since 2000. Yes, technological efficiency must continue to play a vital role in cutting down the rate of dangerous emissions, but a simultaneous, absolute reduction in resource consumption seems unavoidable. Agriculture land already takes up 40% of the earth’s ice-free lands; urban areas, roads, and airports take up another 2% of land area; forest coverage has decreased by 50 million square kilometers and deserts have expanded by almost 10 million square kilometers.

To achieve lower consumption patterns, the United States will have to invest in expensive structural and institutional changes, including revamping public transport systems and providing economic incentives for retrofitting housing, offices, and factories. Greater investment is needed for research into renewable energies, and for helping farmers convert to environmentally responsible crops. These are politically unpopular proposals to be sure, but the wave of consumerism that began in the 1950s – created by government policies, corporations, and individuals - could be similarly reversed if these same actors put their minds to it.


*This is not so true for low-income and minority communities which, despite great progress made by advocates for environmental justice, are disproportionately burdened with the likes of garbage incinerators, landfills, and power plants.


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Sources:
1. “Furor on Memo at World Bank,” The New York Times, February 7, 1992.
2. Ramachandra Guha, “How much should a person consume?” in How Much Should a Person Consume? Berkley: University of California Press, 2006.
3. John Holdren, “Science and Technology for Sustainable Well Being,” Science 319:5862, January 2008.
4. Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent, “New consumers: The influence of affluence on the environment,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100:8, 2003.
5. Heather Rogers, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, New York: New Press, 2005.