Research Theme I: The low carbon emissions economy
World’s largest natural capital risks identified
April 17, 2013. The world’s largest natural capital risks for business and their investors have been identified in a report sponsored
by the United Nations Environmental Program. The study makes a business case for natural capital accounting by putting a price tag on environmental externalities from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water, air and land pollution, and land-use conversion across business sectors and at a regional level. It calculates that the 100 biggest risks cost the global economy roughly $4.7 trillion per year in terms of the environmental and social impact of lost ecosystem services and pollution. The report shows that the profits of high impact business sectors, such as coal mining and deforestation from cattle ranching, would be obliterated if the costs of environmental damage
were included. The recommendations for companies include implementing processes to measure and manage the natural capital used and strengthening business models to mitigate exposure to global risks such as water scarcity and the threats posed by rising GHG emissions.
In Canada, legislative responsibility for nature protection and conservation is shared under the Constitution by the federal and provincial governments. For better or worse, the BC government has not been afraid of trying innovative ideas. The implementation of a carbon tax, provincial grants given to encourage the development of clean technologies, and fisheries restoration plans are all examples of progressive policy solutions to environmental issues. With less than a month until British Columbians go to the polls, both the BC Liberal leader Christy Clark
and the BC NDP leader Adrian Dix have made the environment part of their individual platforms. While the two candidates have not yet expressed major differences on environmental policy, decisions pending on natural gas fracking, LNG plant development and pipeline construction made by BC’s next premier will affect British Columbia and its natural capital for decades to come.
Research Theme II: Sustainable communities
Strategies to increase electric vehicle sales
April 17, 2013. A recent report
from the Electric Vehicle Initiative (EVI) of the International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that global electric vehicle (EV) sales more than doubled from 2011 to 2012. Composed of 15 member governments, the EVI facilitates communication between public and private stakeholders to address electric vehicle challenges. The report gathered data on global EV sales and assessed EV policies of EVI member countries. Infrastructure goals, policies, investment in research, and demonstration projects of governments all have a significant impact on the uptake of the technology. It was found that 90% of all EVs in the world at the end of 2012 were in EVI member countries. Recommendations for increasing the EV stock included developing national development goals, sharing best practices between cites, and engaging with the private sector. At the same time challenges of cost, real and perceived range
limitations, and lack of consumer education persist.
Despite their addressing two out of three actions recommended in the BC Climate Action Plan for reducing transportation sector GHGs, electric vehicles are having a tough time getting traction in BC and in Canada as a whole. In 2012 just 1800 plug-in hybrid or 100% electric cars
were sold in all of Canada. A survey conducted for the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) found that challenges similar to those identified by the IEA were inhibiting broader uptake of EVs into the national vehicle stock. However, a number of programs have emerged that are targeting these issues. The CAA launched a website to help people better understand EVs, LiveSmart BC instigated an EV rebate that was recently extended to March 31, 2014, and the Green Highways initiative is implementing charging stations along major highways in the British Columbia region.
Research Theme III: Resilient ecosystems
Considering all aspects of diversity in clams and salmon
April 18, 2013. New research on a long-lived, bottom-dwelling (benthic) coldwater marine species, the Antarctic clam, points to the importance of understanding the responses of various age classes
to changing environmental conditions. Oxygen is less soluble in warm waters, and as global warming slowly heats up the seas, subsurface waters that may already be oxygen depleted can be pushed toward hypoxia, a low-oxygen condition in which marine organisms have difficulty respiring. Researchers found that older clams were more susceptible to tissue damage under hypoxic conditions, and they were less able to repair tissues after damage had occurred. Such impacts are especially important in long-lived species because it is the large, mature older individuals that contribute disproportionately to future generations. Thus, an anticipated future increase of hypoxia in the seas may have marked effects on the ability of benthic organisms to persist.
Factors such as age structures in species are not always considered in management or conservation practices. In particular, fisheries can be vulnerable
to the over-simplification of ‘stock complexes’, where fisheries management treats a conglomerate of distinct fish populations and reproductive age classes as one. Maintaining a diversity of age cohorts within a species contributes to its resilience, an observation that has important implications for fisheries policy, particularly in the face of changing environmental conditions in the seas. Oxygen concentrations in North Pacific waters off BC are declining below the well-mixed oxygenated (thus, “oxic”) surface layer. This trend has been attributed
to progressive multi-decadal warming of the upper ocean and the oxic/hypoxic boundary in some years rising to within 250 metres of the surface, within the depth range inhabited by numerous commercially valuable fish species. Along BC’s coastline, benthic habitat is being, or will be, lost where offshore hypoxic waters intersect with the continental margin. In the relatively near future––many scientists are suggesting within one or two decades––this could force some organisms to find shallower, better-oxygenated habitat or perish.
Research Theme IV: Social mobilization
Report on extreme weather re-ignites climate change conversation in Australia
April 18, 2013. Australia’s Climate Commission has recently released a report examining
the effect of climate-related extreme weather events on the country, including heat, bushfire, drought, rainfall and sea level rise. According to Phys.org, a science and news research website, a primary output of this work has been the re-focusing of media attention on the topic of climate change, as well as “excellent examples of science and journalists working together to talk about climate change and extreme weather”. As the
organization has reported, within Australia, scientists are often reluctant to discuss their climate change findings, and mainstream media is wary of linking extreme weather events to climatic change. However it is hoped that this report’s clear scientific information on the linkages between this continent’s increasing number of extreme weather events and climate change will give the media a new frame from which to report these events.
British Columbia faces a similar media landscape to Australia, where mainstream media outlets are often unsure of how to communicate the issue of climate change. For example, while the government has linked the mountain pine beetle epidemic to climate change in its communications, the media does not have an independent, investigatory scientific body, such as the climate commission in Australia, from which to draw in its reporting on the topic. However there are examples of sound reporting on climate change to be found within BC media outlets. In January 2013, The Tyee, an independent online newsmagazine, published an
eight-part series on climate change, which covered topics ranging from the scientific evidence underpinning the conclusions of climate scientists, to the magnitude of the risk being faced. Also, PICS regularly releases its own independent solutions-oriented research, including a leading educational series of interactive videos on why climate change is occurring and what can be done about it.
Research Theme V: Carbon management in BC forests
Charcoal found to flow from the forest to the ocean
April 18, 2013. Until recently, the common wisdom was that charcoal remaining from forest fires was incorporated into soil, storing all of its embedded carbon. But new research
has turned this thinking on its head. Scientists from Florida and Germany began studying the lifecycle of organic carbon, and made a surprising discovery. Instead of charcoal - or black carbon - remaining in the soil, a fraction of the material slowly dissolves and the solubilized carbon slowly makes its way to the ocean. This new research indicates that about one-tenth of the dissolved organic carbon being transported to the sea by rivers is derived from charcoal in soils. This result is important in that it significantly improves our understanding of the global carbon cycle and closes a major gap in the global charcoal budget, a budget that previously did not add up.
In BC, forest fires are an episodic and relatively extensive occurrence and charcoal accumulation contributes to the soil carbon content. Carbon accounting is growing in importance globally, and determining the stock of carbon in soils is one key variable in producing comprehensive assessments. Such assessments are particularly important in a large province like British Columbia, which spans 11 degrees of latitude and climatic regimes that range from temperate coastal to harsh continental interior and incorporates even desert settings. Wide ranges of soil and forest types occur across such a varied landscape; assigning quantitative carbon stocks to these, in terms of both above-ground biomass and below-ground carbon, remains a outstanding scientific challenge that a fire-prone region like BC needs to take into account along with new findings like the partial dissolution of charcoal in
post-forest-fire soils.
Also in the news
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Could cheap natural gas undermine a carbon price?
Clean energy progress too slow to limit global warming, warns IEA
Walmart targets 600 per cent increase in renewable energy use by 2020
Desertification crisis affecting 168 countries worldwide, study shows
Nitrogen has key role in estimating carbon dioxide emissions from land use change
'Unburnable' fossil fuels set to leave investors stranded
When pollution gets a whiff of trees: City and tree emissions mix it up causing poor air quality
Study finds that residential lawns efflux more carbon dioxide than corn fields
