"The time has come to act," says researcher who is part of the IPCC

José Marengo, the only Brazilian author of the Summary for Policymakers portion of the panel report on climate change impacts, says that countries are out of time and need to adapt to climate change now.

By Elton Alisson, in Rio de Janeiro

Agência FAPESP – Countries all over the world are already facing climate crises but have not yet managed to adapt to the changing climate in a way to protect their populations. However, they need to act quickly.

These conclusions are from the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) portion of the Report about Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and presented on March 30, 2014, in Yokohama, Japan, and on April 1, 2014, at the Brazilian Academy of (ABC) in Rio de Janeiro.

The 44-page document is a summary of the nearly 1,000-page report on the impacts of, adaptation to and vulnerability to climate change prepared by the IPCC.

The only Brazilian representative involved in drafting the document’s conclusion and one of the 309 scientists from 70 countries who served as coordinators, authors, editors and reviewers of the report, with the help of 436 contributing authors and a total of 1,729 expert and government reviewers, was climatologist José Marengo, a researcher at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). In an interview with Agência FAPESP, Marengo explained what is new about the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) compared to the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), released in 2007.

Marengo, who spoke at the Rio de Janeiro SPM event, also provided details about why countries have had trouble defining and implementing policies and measures to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Agência FAPESP – What are the main differences in the report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability that distinguish the AR5 from the AR4?
José Marengo – We now have better and more extensive knowledge about more geographic areas and sectors that could be affected by climate changes compared to the AR4. We also have new information extracted from new studies, and we have identified clear examples of adaptation to climate changes in countries such as Brazil. Additionally, the literature reviewed and utilized in the report was not only in English. We reviewed articles published after the AR4 in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese and several other languages. Obviously, these are studies about different topics related to climate change published in highly regarded international scientific journals. The AR5 also contains many more regional details than the previous study. In the AR4, [the effects in] some areas were not very clear in terms of studies, such as Central America or parts of Africa and Southeast Asia. Now, these gaps have been filled with a larger number of published studies.

Agência FAPESP – What are the primary projections about climate change the report makes for Central and South America?
Marengo – The issues that were identified as most important for South America were water, food production and health. Water is really of significant importance to the region, and the increase in intense rainfalls in some regions and droughts in others has generated major problems for developing countries. There are already signs of significant trends in precipitation and temperature in Central and South America, and, in some cases, extreme climate events have also affected the two regions.

Agência FAPESP – Why are countries having trouble implementing policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change?
Marengo – Mitigation often runs counter to development. In general, when countries begin to grow, they start to consume a lot of fossil fuels and emit more greenhouse gases. Adaptation, however, is an expensive undertaking. The IPCC provides the scientific basis for countries to make the necessary adaptations, but the negotiations about who will pay the bill and whether there needs to be an international adaptation fund are things that belong in the realm of policy and in discussions between the parties. This is not something the IPCC defines. The IPCC only provides the scientific basis and establishes the need for adaptation. How this adaptation will be performed or implemented are issues that need to be handled by the governments involved.

Agência FAPESP – Does the report’s emphasis on adaptation diminish the weight and importance of mitigation?
Marengo – Mitigation and adaptation run parallel to each other. Mitigation is the final solution for reducing warming. The report projects a warming of 2ºC to 4ºC by 2100. The thing is, to reach a warming of 2ºC, we would have to have an entire system of mitigation and basically zero greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2040. In that case, there could be warming of less than 2ºC; the impacts, vulnerability and risks would be fewer, and adaptation would be possible. However, without mitigation, there could be warming of up to 4ºC or more by 2100. In that case, no amount of adaptation could reverse the risks. In other words, mitigation is the starting point, and without it, no adaptation is possible. Without mitigation, warming will be so strong and its impacts so severe that the changes will become irreversible.

Agência FAPESP – Are countries in Central and South America further behind than the more developed nations in defining and implementing policies and measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change?
Marengo – In terms of mitigation, Brazil has assumed leadership for some time now. The issue of carbon credits and clean development, for example, basically began here. However, the other countries of Central and South America have not worked much on this. Nonetheless, adaptation has only recently begun in Brazil, whereas Argentina already has a certain amount of experience in adaptation because of the rising sea levels in the province of Buenos Aires. Brazil, for its part, is beginning to draft the National Adaptation Plan through the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) and the Ministry of the Environment (MMA). Our country is establishing its needs because adaptation depends on the place and the context in which it will be implemented and therefore is specific to each country and sector. The adaptation strategies for agriculture in Brazil will certainly be different than those adopted for a country like India, and Brazil has already begun to implement them through the development of improved plant varieties that are more resistant to droughts and floods. However, there really is a certain difference in the development of adaptation and mitigation in different countries.

Agência FAPESP – Are poverty and social inequality among the countries of Central and South America, added to the projected impacts of climate change for the two regions, a disastrous combination?
Marengo – Yes, but they can be attenuated with planning because climate risks have two components, only one of which is environmental. In the case of health, for example, climate change could exacerbate the spread of diseases such as dengue and malaria that are transmitted by insect vectors. However, if the countries have appropriate systems in place for vaccination, control and disease monitoring, perhaps this potential impact of climate change can be attenuated. Although natural disasters have a climatic trigger, they are also related to issues that have no relation to climate whatsoever. Mudslides, for example, are caused by intense rainfall, but if people are not living in risk areas, they will not be affected; what determines this is not climate.

Agência FAPESP – Are countries more sensitive to and conscious of the impacts they could suffer from climate change?
Marengo – I would say so. In the meeting in Yokohama, there were scientists, report authors and delegates representing countries all over the world. They continue to express their concerns about rising sea levels in the Philippines and on small Pacific islands, the more frequent occurrence of tornadoes in Costa Rica and the melting of glaciers in the Andes of Bolivia, for example. From what I gather, the climate factor has become very important. Judging from the comments and statements I heard in Yokohama, I believe climate change has at least been put on the environmental agendas of the countries. We must think that extreme climate events will become more frequent, and perhaps the way government, not only in Brazil but governments all over the world, faces the problem needs to be rethought because these are problems that can last 20 or 30 years. I would say that the experience is revealing that adaptation is something that must be viewed over the long term, in terms of decades, not just from one year to the next.

Agência FAPESP – What message is the Summary for Policymakers sending to the policymakers?
Marengo – The key message is that the time has come to act – we cannot wait any longer. If nothing is done over the next two decades, adaptation may not be possible. The risks of the impacts of climate change are like a disease, which if diagnosed and treated early, can in some cases be cured. However, when diagnosed and treated in the final stages, even with all available resources, if it is already out of control, there is no way to treat and cure it.