Who's afraid of atmospheric stabilisation?

Making the link between energy resources and climate change The distribution of fossil fuel reserves and resources between different regions and deposits has strong implications for climate change economics and policy. The task of stabilising the atmosphere is intimately linked to the question of long-term energy supplies as conventional petroleum reserves deplete, notwithstanding debates about the scope for reserve extension through continued exploration and development. It suggests a supply-side component to complement the consumption orientation of existing climate policies: the task is to ensure that investment and innovation moves towards the low carbon frontier instead of the high carbon frontier. This also implies that the OPEC countries have little to fear about the longrun impact of climate change policy. The priority is to deter development of more carbon-intensive unconventional petroleum deposits and technologies, and to ensure that the existing trends to diversify power generation sources continue and extend more widely over time. Supply-side constraints will not solve the climate problem in themselves but they make the task a lot easier, if the opportunities are taken.

Soil Carbon Sequestration Impacts on Global Climate Change and Food Security
The carbon sink capacity of the world's agricultural and degraded soils is 50 to 66% of the historic carbon loss of 42 to 78 gigatons of carbon. The rate of soil organic carbon sequestration with adoption of recommended technologies depends on soil texture and structure, rainfall, temperature, farming system, and soil management. Strategies to increase the soil carbon pool include soil restoration and woodland regeneration, no-till farming, cover crops, nutrient management, manuring and sludge application, improved grazing, water conservation and harvesting, efficient irrigation, agroforestry practices, and growing energy crops on spare lands. An increase of 1 ton of soil carbon pool of degraded cropland soils may increase crop yield by 20 to 40 kilograms per hectare (kg/ha) for wheat, 10 to 20 kg/ha for maize, and 0.5 to 1 kg/ha for cowpeas. As well as enhancing food security, carbon sequestration has the potential to offset fossilfuel emissions by 0.4 to 1.2 gigatons of carbon per year, or 5 to 15% of the global fossil-fuel emissions. Climate change and forest fires This paper addresses the impacts of climate change on forest fires and describes how this, in turn, will impact on the forests of the United States. In addition to reviewing existing studies on climate change and forest fires we have used two transient general circulation models (GCMs), namely the Hadley Centre and the Canadian GCMs, to estimate fire season severity in the middle of the next century. Ratios of 2CO2 seasonal severity rating (SSR) over present day SSR were calculated for the means and maximums for North America. The results suggest that the SSR will increase by 1050% over most of North America; although, there are regions of little change or where the SSR may decrease by the middle of the next century. Increased SSRs should translate into increased forest fire activity. Thus, forest fires could be viewed as an agent of change for US forests as the fire regime will respond rapidly to climate warming. This change in the fire regime has the potential to overshadow the direct effects of climate change on species distribution and migration.

Rising Temperatures, Rising Tensions: Climate change and the risk of violent conflict in the Middle East Oli Brown, Alec Crawford, IISD, 2009.

In a region already considered the world's most water scarce and where, in many places, demand for water already outstrips supply, climate models are predicting a hotter, drier and less predictable climate in the Middle East. Climate change threatens to reduce the availability of scarce water resources, increase food insecurity, hinder economic growth and lead to large scale population movements. This could hold serious implications for peace in the region. This report examines whether the legacy of conflict in the Levant undermines the ability of the region to adapt to climate change, outlines the threats that climate change could pose to regional security, and suggests strategies that can be pursued for peace and sustainable development despite a changing climate.