Nov 14, 2013 | Environment, Science and Policy
By Aline Mosnier, IIASA Research Scholar
Aline Mosnier
Deforestation and forest degradation contribute substantially to greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in developing countries. The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus forest conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) Initiative, launched in 2008 by the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aims to help developing countries prevent such deforestation and degradation. It creates a mechanism that would provide financial compensation to developing countries that make efforts to address these problems. Some funding has started to flow to build REDD+ readiness plans and forest monitoring capacity. However, many methodological issues stand in the way of reaching agreements and attracting enough funding for the initiative to succeed.
One of the core ideas of REDD+ is that payments should be based on results. But particularly in Congo Basin countries, where I recently spent three weeks meeting with stakeholders and policymakers on REDD+ plans and goals, determining results is not an easy task.
How do we measure performance? First, we must agree on a benchmark to which the future efforts can be compared. The simplest benchmark is perhaps just to compare current efforts to the past: using past data has the advantage of being based on facts and consequently less prone to inflation. But for this to work, one has to believe that the past is the best predictor of the future.
The Congo Basin countries have a problem: they have high forest cover and low historical deforestation rates… but fast-growing needs.
Yaounde, Cameron. Photo credit: Aline Mosnier.
The low historical deforestation rates in the Congo Basin countries result from several factors. Some argue that conflicts, unfavorable investment climate, lack of infrastructure, and low levels of economic development have led to a “passive protection” of the forests. But the context is changing. Presidents of the Congo Basin countries have big plans–they want to become emerging countries within the next two decades–and they are looking for new opportunities. Foreign investment projects in mining, oil, agro-industrial plantations, and large-scale agriculture are now flourishing in the Congo Basin, and protected areas are under threat. Local communities could be threatened by expropriation and pollution from large scale projects, but at the same time these communities are also eager to see new employment opportunities.
What does this situation tell us about REDD for the Congo Basin? First, payments for living forests are necessary to avoid deforestation because this is the only way to convince developing countries that forests are valuable. These payments have to benefit both local communities who are living next to the forest, and governments who are making the decisions about large-scale conversion of forests.
Second, if payments are conditional to reduction compared to past deforestation, we can’t expect much from REDD in the Congo Basin countries. If payments are delivered based on lower future deforestation rates and are not underestimated compared to what could be foreseen according to countries development needs, the international community has a chance to make a change.
But this needs trust. Trying to quantify future emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is challenging and undoubtedly involves large uncertainties. However, by engaging with stakeholders to understand the local context while having independent funding, by building the models under the necessary scrutiny and scientific rigor, and by clearly communicating the results to the international community, scientists could play an important role in finding a fair deal to fight against future deforestation.
At IIASA, we are contributing to this objective under our REDD-PAC project by combining land use and systems analysis tools from IIASA, regional expertise of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil and the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) in the Congo Basin, and the experience of UNEP-WCMC on the multiple benefits of REDD+.
Aline Mosnier contributed to work that will be presented at a special session organized by UNEP-WCMC and IIASA at the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) at the COP 19th in Warsaw, highlighting the role of land use change models in supporting landscape-scale planning. She recently returned from travels through the Congo Basin, where she met with stakeholders and policymakers.
Nov 7, 2013 | Energy & Climate, Science and Policy
Peter Lemke, head of the Climate Sciences Research Division at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, is an expert on sea ice, a polar explorer, and the Chair of the IIASA Council. In this interview Lemke explains how climate change is affecting the Earth’s polar regions, and talks about a recent winter expedition to Antarctica.
On Monday, 11 November Lemke will give a public lecture on the topic at IIASA in Laxenburg.
Peter Lemke – Credit: Stephanie von Neuhoff (AWI)
How did you get interested in the cryosphere? What drew you to the poles?
When I was a young scientist, I was involved in climate modeling and especially the role of polar regions. For my PhD thesis I worked on sea ice extent data, trying to understand why we see changes.
That was in the late seventies, so it was not really climate change which was driving us, we just wanted to understand the climate system. Polar regions are an important part of the climate system. We tried to understand how they impact the other regions on the globe such as mid-latitudes and even the tropics.
When did you realize that climate change was affecting the polar regions?
Well the globe was already warming when I was starting my research in the mid-1970s. Sea ice was decreasing in extent, and ice was melting on the continents. Year by year, this trend became more significant. By the 1990s it was quite clear that there was a trend which was not just natural variation. The third IPCC report in 2001 just made it clear that man had an impact on the warming; at least a substantial part of it was due to increased greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
A helicopter that was used to measure sea ice during Lemke’s 2013 Antarctic expedition. Credit: Peter Lemke (AWI)
What is happening now?
The changes we see now are even more dramatic than before, especially considering the Arctic sea ice. It hit a record low minimum in 2007 and we thought that this was the ultimate—as low as it would go. But then ice extent went even lower in 2012. While the ice extent this last summer was not quite so low, there is a strong trend in summer extent of sea ice. Our data indicate that it’s not just the extent but the thickness that’s changing. Measurements of sea ice thickness which our institute has performed over the last decade or so show a sharp thinning of the sea ice in the interior of the Arctic: The sea ice has thinned from an average of 2.5 to about 1 meter in only 10 years.
The other thing that is interesting is that the sea ice extent in the Antarctic is not decreasing at the same rate. On the contrary, it’s increasing in extent slightly. The question is of course is the ice mass also increasing, or is it just spreading out and thinning—like a dough that you roll out, getting wider but thinner?
How do you explain the growth in Antarctic sea ice, while Arctic sea ice is declining?
One explanation is that in the Southern Hemisphere the westerly winds are increasing, and through friction this drives the ice towards lower latitudes and the extent is getting a bit bigger. When the ice expands there is open water between ice floes, and it’s still cold enough in winter that ice freezes in the open patches.
There are other physical processes that may be involved, such as the heavy snow cover that blankets the Antarctic sea ice. Sometimes the heavy snow load submerges the ice floe underwater so that the interface of ice and snow is actually below sea level, and seawater drains into the snow and freezes. That may be one process, but there are others that are not really resolved yet.
We don’t yet have the answers to these questions, because there are very few measurements and you cannot deduce snow from satellite remote sensing data, yet. To find out, you have to go there and make measurements yourself. But winter expeditions are very rare. There are very few icebreakers that can actually go into the Antarctic winter into the sea ice. I have participated in four expeditions over the last 25 years: in 1989, 1992, 2006, and now 2013.
Working site during the 2013 Antarctic expedition. The wind chill was often between -50 and -60°C. Credit: Peter Lemke (AWI)
What did you find on your latest expedition?
Most of the data have yet to be analyzed. But from our early results, it looks like that the sea ice mass around Antarctica has increased slightly. Our measurements showed that the sea ice was more extensive, thicker and more densely packed as compared to our 1992 expedition, which was on the same track during the same season.
We have also observed a continuous warming in the deep ocean, which indicates that the warming trend that we see over the last couple decades is continuing. This indicates that the ocean has taken up a large fraction of the heat due to the increased greenhouse effect.
Why should people care what happens in the Arctic or in Antarctica?
Both polar regions are pristine regions not affected by humans as much as lower latitudes. Still you see the effects of mankind there. Once the sea ice is gone in the Arctic, we have lost an entire ecosystem which is adapted to the sea ice. Sea ice is a porous medium, and in the small cavities, there is rich life—tiny algae, crabs, krill—and this ecosystem supports an entire food chain up to the polar bear, whales, penguins that you find depending on which pole you are looking at.
Do you think that IIASA has a role to play in polar research?
IIASA is currently considering a new Arctic initiative, which could involve not just the climate system and the ecosystem but also the human system. Changes in the Arctic are already affecting people living at the coastlines. This coastline is made up of sand and ice, which is thawing. And as the sea ice is retreating, the coastline is now exposed to the increasing waves in the open ocean. Already now villages are already eaten up by the sea. At the same time, hunting grounds are changing for Inuit and other indigenous people who rely on sea ice for hunting. I think that’s something that IIASA can actually look at from a holistic view: human system, ecosystem, climate system.
What is one thing you want people to know?
Well often the poles, especially the Arctic, seem so far away that people don’t think that it is important for their lives. But if you have a polar storm coming from Svalbard, within two days it reaches the German coast, and within 10 days the entire Northern Hemisphere may be affected. The Arctic is only a few days away from us, and conditions that are changing in the Arctic will affect the climate conditions also in our region.
Emperor penguins spotted during Lemke’s 2013 Antarctic expedition. Credit: Peter Lemke (AWI)
Oct 29, 2013 | Energy & Climate, Science and Policy
This post was originally published on the recharge.green blog. IIASA is a partner in the new project, which focuses on the potential for renewable energy in the Alps.
When I think of an alpine forest, I think of the towering cedar trees that blanket the Cascade mountains near my native Seattle, with trunks so broad you can’t reach your arms around them. I think of the shadowy quiet that envelops me as I wander through a mountain forest in my new home in Austria. I think of the scent of pine needles and the bounce of my feet on a trail softened by forest litter. The value of a mature forest to people like me who love the outdoors—its recreational value—is impossible to put into numbers.
We can, however, calculate the effects of different styles of forest management on more quantifiable criteria. We can determine how much carbon dioxide is taken up from the atmosphere and stored by long-growing forests. And we can estimate how much bioenergy we can sustainably produce by managing forests for biomass harvesting.
This is exactly what IIASA scientists have done for their first efforts in the recharge.green project. IIASA’s role in the project is to use our modeling expertise to explore the various possibilities for renewable energy expansion in the Alps. We are also looking at the tradeoffs and benefits of the different possible scenarios and ecosystem services (ESS). As a first step, researchers Florian Kraxner, Sylvain Leduc , Sabine Fuss (now with MCC Berlin), Nicklas Forsell, and Georg Kindermann used the IIASA BeWhere and Global Forest (G4M) models look at the tradeoffs between bioenergy production or carbon storage in alpine forests.
These graphs show the first results for recharge.green from IIASA’s BeWhere and G4M models, optimizing the location of bioenergy plants to maximize either carbon sequestration (top) or bioenergy production (bottom). The gradiant of green colors shows the amount of carbon storage over the landscape, while the red boxes (and according gradient in red) show the harvesting intensity in different harvesting areas.
“Managing forests optimally for bioenergy requires more intensive management,” says Kraxner. That means shorter rotations where trees are cut more often. Such a forest is made up of smaller trees that may look more like “close-to-nature plantations” than an old-growth forest. In contrast, managing forests for carbon storage means letting the trees grow older, also good for biodiversity and environmental preservation.
In their analysis, Kraxner and the team compared two management strategies: restricting bioenergy production to a small land area, and managing it intensively, or spreading bioenergy over a large land area but managing less intensively over the whole area. They found that the same amount of bioenergy could be produced by managing a small amount of land area intensively for bioenergy production. This more intensive management on a small area of land would free up a larger land area for preservation and protection or other special dedication to ecosystem services.
“Both methods are sustainable,” says Kraxner, “but the optics are different. Intensification can be a good solution to provide renewable energy and at the same time preserve biodiversity and the more intangible values of mature forests.”
What do you think? What should our priorities be in managing Alpine forests?
Oct 1, 2013 | Alumni, Poverty & Equity, Young Scientists
Pheakkdey Nguon, participant in IIASA’s 2012 Young Scientists Summer Program, and IIASA Annual Fund recipient, has won an IPCC reserach fellowship to fund his research on REDD+ in Cambodia. In this interview he discusses his research plans, the award, and his experience at IIASA.
Pheakkdey Nguon at the awards ceremony for the IPCC research fellowship on 30 September, 2013.
Nexus: Please tell us about the research that you will be working on under this grant: What is the major question that you’re studying?
Pheakkdey Nguon: The main objective of my dissertation research is to better understand how governance systems organize and distribute knowledge on the UN’s REDD+ Program (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) across different groups of stakeholders with conflicting interests, and the resulting impacts of such systems on forests and people in Cambodia. I am basically asking to what extent the different groups of stakeholders in Cambodia have considered REDD+ as salient, credible and/or legitimate for addressing deforestation, forest degradation and sustainable livelihood development.
How will you address this question?
Theoretically, I am drawing from sustainability science and political economy of institutions and decisions literature to reveal ways in which perceptions, institutional locations, and contextual differences affect patterns of stakeholders’ engagement in REDD+, a complex environmental governance project that spans multiple levels of implementation and involve various groups of stakeholders. Methodologically, I am using qualitative methods such as key informant interviews (up to 150 interviews), observations of REDD+ policy processes (up to 70 observations), and extended archival research (e.g. government reports, newspapers, policy briefs, feasibility studies) to answer my question.
The interviews offer a first-hand account of the criteria that different group of stakeholders use and their justifications for using those criteria to assess REDD+ projects within their project areas and in Cambodia. Observations of REDD+ policy processes (e.g. meetings, workshops, consultations) provide information on the participation and engagement of different groups of stakeholders in the production, examination and dissemination of knowledge on REDD+ within the three project sites and in Cambodia. Finally, archival research is conducted for two main reasons: (1) to validate, compare, and contextualize information gathered through interviews and policy observations; and (2) to add to the study information that would not be appropriate or feasible to collect through interviews or observations, either because of the political sensitivities of the topics or time constraints.
Why are you interested in this area?
Academic and policy-oriented literature on REDD+ has been prolific within the last decade. Its central focus has been on addressing the technical issues – defined largely by the scientific and policy communities – that will improve the design and implementation of REDD+ so that its outcomes achieve the goals of effectiveness, efficiency and equity (the so-called “3Es” criteria). Whether these “3Es” criteria – or the underlying logic of REDD+ in general – are as relevant for the different groups of stakeholders in developing countries as they are for the international policy community has, however, been insufficiently substantiated in the literature. Therefore, my justification for exploring the abovementioned question departs from my assumption that the preferences and perceptions of stakeholders cannot be presumed to coincide with aspirations of scientists and/ or policy-makers who have been working on REDD+. Understanding how stakeholders interpret, experience and assess REDD+ is central to understanding the appropriateness of REDD+ as an initiative aiming at addressing deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries.
How does it relate to the work you did at IIASA?
I classify myself as a sustainability science geographer, and so I came to IIASA already very inspired because people who have had tremendous intellectual influence on me have at certain points been affiliated with IIASA, for example Robert Kates and William Clark. The main activity that I was doing during my YSSP participation was trying to translate literature from these intellectuals into testable hypotheses that will help me understand the question(s) I am asking in my dissertation research. This was not an easy process. It involved a lot of conversations between me, my advisor at Clark (Dr. Anthony Bebbington) and my advisor at IIASA (Dr. Hannes Böttcher). I would also like to acknowledge the very engaging and informative conversations that I had with Dr. Anthony Patt, Dr. Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer, Dr. Michael Thompson, and fellow YSSPers on this matter. They were very generous with their time.
How did the YSSP help you to get this grant?
I came to the YSSP with the main intention of finalizing the questions that I will pursue for my dissertation research. My goal was to have a defensible dissertation research proposal by the time I return to my PhD program at Clark University. I was also hoping that I would be able to build on this proposal to apply for research grants to pursue my empirical fieldwork in Cambodia. During the YSSP, I was very fortunate to be able to work very closely with Dr. Hannes Böttcher, from the Ecosystem Services and Management Program. Similar to other PhD students, I had so many questions that were floating in my head, some of which did not make any sense now that I am reflecting on them. Therefore, I very much admired Dr. Böttcher for his patience, supports and willingness to engage with all the ideas that I was coming up with. Through these many conversations, I did finish my dissertation research proposal that I defended at Clark. And this is the very same proposal that helped me get the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) research award. Additionally, I was also able to get one of my dissertation papers accepted for publication at Environmental Science and Policy (DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2013.04.011) during my time at IIASA.
Why is this research important?
I hope that my research will have some impact in the academy and in the realm of forest governance and climate change debates based in a developing country context. In academe, my research engages with politically broader discussions on the science-policy interface, market-based approaches to forest governance in developing countries, stakeholders’ assessments of policies on climate change, and national sovereignty issues. Beyond the academy, this research is relevant to the ongoing debate on how scientific knowledge is being received, perceived and reconfigured in environmental governance policy that spans multiple scales of implementation and involves various groups of stakeholders. Finally, significant for the national and international policy negotiations on REDD+, this study should contribute to the debate on why certain groups of stakeholders have been supportive, while others have been critical, of the implementation of REDD+ projects in developing countries.
Note: This article gives the views of the interviewee, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Sep 30, 2013 | Systems Analysis
By Jennifer Chan, participant in the IIASA co-led IFA Summer School
From 9 to 13 September in Laxenburg, Austria a group of researchers and practitioners gathered for the International Foresight Academy Summer School program organized by the Austrian Institute of Technology and IIASA’s Advanced Systems Analysis program. It was 5 days of converging minds, cultures and comfort zones. We were a group of strong perspectives, to say the least, and so you can imagine how some of the conversations transpired. In a small town outside of Vienna, we had the luxury of being away from our day-to-day to learn about foresight and engagement in stakeholder consultation. The two instructors, Felicity Edwards and Ruben Nelson, from Canmore, Alberta, are both seasoned veterans and brought a wealth of information and experience to the week.
Foresight refers to looking forward to anticipate the future landscape and design scenarios to test and evaluate where solutions will demonstrate the greatest impact.
I was drawn to travel across the world to be connected to a spectrum of diverse perspectives and gain insight to how researchers and practitioners are approaching foresight and engagement. It was a pleasure to see how people from around the world approach the complex problems of the world and spend the time to improve their craft. As a Master of Design Student, Strategic Foresight and Innovation at the Ontario College of Art and Design, I was specifically excited to be working and learning from professional foresighters and consultants working at the intersection of foresight and engagement. While my work is more in engagement, I am always looking for more tools to diversify my approaches to research and to designing community consultation.
Ideas from an exercise during the IFA summer school.
Together, we discussed and worked through complex topics of language, terminology and diverse cultures from a spectrum of working styles and comfort levels with foresight and engagement. I strongly think that the most powerful take away from the IFA is that we are all working on the wicked problems of the world in different ways and if we can simple push each other a little bit than we have done more than we could have on our own.
Participants in the 2013 IFA Summer School
I left the International Foresight Academy with a thirst to learn more about how foresight can impact my work – I am the Founder of Exhibit Change, a design driven community engagement organization with a focus on the intersection of wicked problems and citizen designers. We work with community and stakeholders to identify pain points and work together to co-design the spaces that support systemic change and shifts in behavior. Working in teams, with the guidance of Felicity and Ruben made it clear that engagement and foresight are closely aligned and that the spectrum of tools is expanding and influencing each discipline. I learned a lot from the content, the facilitation methods and time to reflect on my own practices.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Biography:
Jennifer Chan is a design strategist and social entrepreneur. Her interests are city building, education, design thinking, participatory leadership, and social impact. Jennifer has a Bachelors of Architectural Science and is currently a candidate for the Masters of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation. Jennifer’s work and research has her looking at educational design, spatial pedagogy experiential design, game theory, civic engagement; generally creating spaces for individuals to co-design experiences for public good. Jennifer is the Founder of Exhibit Change, a design-driven community engagement organization exploring the intersections of wicked problems and citizen designers. Jennifer is constantly asking “How Might We…”
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